Snow Day, Smiles, and Reflux 2.0

Last week we had what is looking like may be our only real snowy day of the winter. Usually by the end of January I have had enough of snow. Snow is exciting in November and December. It adds to the anticipation of the holidays. I have no use for snow after Christmas. It's no longer festive. It just becomes a sad reminder of how much fun the holiday season was, and how far away spring is, and is no fun to drive in. But since we hadn't had a decent snowfall yet this winter, I was scouring the weather page every day to see if it would make it into the next week's forecast. I was hoping Ellie would get a chance to play in the snow now that she's old enough to enjoy it. And I wanted her to get the chance to try out the great snow pants I got her for only $2 that for some reason I didn't buy in a gender-neutral color so she could pass them on to Charlie. I'm learning.


Finally, we got snow. Real snow. I told Ellie the night before that it would be snowing when she woke up. She responded, "I want to go snowing!" And boy did we! We seized the opportunity and played pretty hard that morning. Ellie loved it. The snowman, the snowballs, the snow angels (which she got a little confused about--we told her to lay down in the snow and she started to go down face first).




The thing she talked the most about that night was eating the snow. "So yummy!"


I could post a ton more pictures, but I think the clips in this video best demonstrate her excitement. Pure joy.


Charlie has perked up a bit lately too. A few days ago, after finishing a particularly difficult feeding that lasted an hour and through which he screamed most of his way, I finally decided I'd had enough of watching him go through this. So I went ahead and started him on the Prevacid. I thought it might take a couple days to build up in his system, but the next feeding was already much better, only about 25 minutes and no resisting. He was like a different person. He still fusses like any 2-month-old would, he still struggles through some feedings, and he still has some pretty decent spit-up episodes now and then, but things are definitely better than they were a week ago. He isn't squirming and writhing like he used to, he doesn't wake me during the night squirming and fussing in his sleep, and he's content to be set down once in a while, which is way ahead of where Ellie was with reflux. We had really been hoping to not have to deal with the higher-maintenance lifestyle of reflux again, but this time around we feel like we are several steps ahead and can hopefully keep our heads above water this time (too many metaphors? sorry).

My favorite thing by far, though, is how much Charlie smiles now. He had started smiling a bit before, but after we got the medicine going he really turned on the charm. Maybe it was a coincidence, but I had no idea he could smile like this. It's like not having acid continually burning your esophagus would make you happy or something. His whole face lights up now with huge, open-mouth grins. It's still hard to catch a still shot of him doing it, so I took a little video for your enjoyment. He smiles at people quite frequently, but to be able to predict when he'd get a smile, I put him on the changing table under the mobile. That thing is like magic to him. Doesn't this just make your day?

Month 2

Charlie made it to his two-month mark on Sunday.


This kid is getting huge! He is the same size Ellie was at three months, only a bit longer. Ellie was in the 14th percentile for height when she was three months old. Her head was in the upper percentiles, but somehow she was just really short. (She's now 75th percentile for height, so quite proportional now, but for a while I thought she was going to grow up to be a bobblehead or a professional mascot or something.)


He is still one of Ellie's favorite playthings. She enjoys narrating to him what she is doing, or narrating to us what he is doing.


She always wants to hold his hand. The other day she crawled up on my lap while I was holding him and just sat there holding his hand. I wished I had a camera, if only for evidence about eight years from now how well they get along now.


I think sometimes Ellie gets along too well for Charlie's liking, but her intentions are good.


One of Charlie's latest developments is smiling, though never for the camera--believe me, I've tried. I do think red is his color, though.


He hates tummy time. Hates, hates, hates it. Sometimes I'll get Ellie to do it with him, but it usually doesn't help. She hated it when she was a baby too. I made all her stuffed animals do it with her, but that didn't help either.


He loves the mobile we hung over his changing table. This has revolutionized diaper changing for this kid. He coos and smiles and gets upset when we take him away from it.


His other new trick this month is learning to cram his entire fist in his mouth. It's pretty amazing. I couldn't do it, and I'd have a pretty tough time explaining it at the emergency room if I tried it and got stuck.


In other news, he's been terribly fussy in recent weeks. We've tried everything we could think of. Finally, the doctor said we needed to try some new things at his check up today. She thinks he could have trouble digesting lactose, so he's now on a soy-based formula to see if that helps him feel better. The doctor also brought up the dreaded "R" word and gave us a prescription for Prevacid in case it's reflux again. So we'll see how this week goes. At least this doctor took us seriously and cut to the chase, so no messing around if there is a problem and hopefully we'll get things figured out and settled down sooner with Charlie if it is reflux. But we're still crossing our fingers that the soy will help and that he will be fine without medicine.

Everything's Better in a Fort

This seems to be Ellie's latest life philosophy. I guess when you're a kid, life doesn't get much better than a good blanket fort. After Brady constructed Ellie's first blanket fort several months ago, she has regularly requested them. She also regularly turned everything into a fort. The fort was in the eye of the beholder. Anytime she could get her head covered with a blanket, she was in a fort. She often expected our company in these forts. For a time this past fall, it seemed that forts were the best way to calm Ellie down. Fussy on the changing table? Throw a blanket over her head and tell her she's in a fort and she would be fine for the duration. Not cooperating for bedtime? I remember more than one occasion huddling under a blanket with her while reading bedtime stories, brushing her teeth, and saying prayers together. And you know, I have to admit that sometimes things are better in a fort.

Here Ellie is in her fort at the dinner table. Not a regular occurrence, but for some reason this night we let it slide. She has affectionately dubbed the blanket she is sporting "Blanket-dear," and carries it with her everywhere around the house. A bit of a Linus syndrome going on here. The name comes from when Brady tucks her in at night. He will pull up the blanket and say, "Here, my dear, is you blanket, dear." So Ellie thinks the name of the blanket is Blanket-dear.


For Christmas her most exciting presents were a dollhouse that her "guys" can all fit in (plus some new guys) and an already built fort! Once we put the dollhouse in the little tent, we pretty much lost her for most of the day. She can spend hours entertaining herself with these two toys.


She was pretty excited about the bead necklaces she got for me. And that book she got for Charlie. We thought it would be a good idea for her to learn more about giving presents. So Brady took her to the dollar store and whatever two things she picked out were our presents from her. (I bought the present for Charlie ahead of time, though.) I got those lovely bead necklaces. Brady got a Toy Story puzzle.


Ellie's pretty into Toy Story.


And here are some pictures of Charlie in what Ellie calls "Charlie's fort," while we're on the subject. (She also thinks his car seat with a blanket draped over it is a fort and likes to poke her head in to join [read: wake] him).


Charlie has already gotten more use out of this playmat than Ellie ever did in her whole upright, refluxy infancy. He seems to enjoy it.

I wish I was better at catching my favorite moments of these two at play. Charlie is just starting to give us some fleeting smiles--way too brief for my camera to catch--and learning to play with his hands and kick. Ellie is nonstop with her toys. Sometimes she puts some of the guys in timeout for climbing on the table (even getting the mom doll to sit with them and count), but sometimes she lets them get away with it, telling them , "Bye-bye timeout," vicariously living out her consequence-free table-climbing fantasies. She has a running commentary among all these "guys" where they tell each other about everything they are doing, like climbing up the house, going outside, hiding, sleeping, etc. Some of them ring the doorbell and trick-or-treat to the current residents of the house. They tell each other to get their coats on, some of them are leaving, followed by long, drawn-out farewells: "bye, guys . . . see ya later, guys . . . bye . . . so much fun . . . 'kay, bye!" (This was also her loud refrain across the parking lot to anyone who would listen as we left church yesterday.) They return and announce their triumphant arrival: "I'm back, guys! I came back! We're home, guys . . ." It makes me wonder what we must sound like to her.

I have made vain attempts to capture these moments for posterity. Usually by the time I get my camera, Charlie is done with smiling and is on to fussing. Or Ellie has followed me out of the room. Or she has decided to suddenly become self-conscious. Or she wants to play with the camera.

So I've some up with a solution. I've decided that they should give parents the same kind of equipment they give to spies, or at least to spies in the movies. We should get pens that are really recording devices, and glasses that have a built-in high-definition camera. That way we can capture any moment in the moment without missing a beat, and the kids never even know it happened. Also, I want a shoe that secretly doubles as a phone.