Gametes In Love

G had his 1yr old check-up today (18lb, 28.5″ tall, 18″ head circumf, btw). Trying to be “good patients” S and I prepped our question list before heading to the appointment. Amongst them was “How do we use this thermometer?”

Don’t laugh! We got this really cool, and generous gift for G’s baby shower last year: a themporal artery thermometer. Except that we couldn’t get it to read properly. I tried scanning left to right, up and down, slowly, quickly, with the button pressed before the scan, during the scan… you get the point. Each time, G’s temperature read something like 77.blah or 82.blah (at best). Either way,  something slightly over cryogenically chilled baby.

So I quit trying to use it. I had this fancy thermometer, and instead I was using an older digital thermometer and trying to keep my kid’s arm still for a minute while I shoved a thermometer under his armpit (I just won’t shove anything up his rear if I can help it — it’s a promise I made to myself). All in all, we had a wonderful electronic sculpture occupying the dresser drawer. Until today!

We took the thermometer in to the Dr’s office. Our pedi’s nurse took one look at it (from the door) and said “Oh, this is the same one we used to use!”

“Good! Can you show us how to work it?”

She had a perplexed look on her face, walked into the room, took off the cap (It had a cap?!?!?!), pressed the button, ran it over G’s head and got a reading. In the 90’s no less! Yeah, apparently step 1: take off cap. S and I looked at each other and he busted out laughing. I on the other hand felt apologetic “I swear we’re not mentally disabled, really”

In my defense the thermometer doesn’t even look like there’s a cap on it. And we did read the instruction manual, several times. It never said “take off cap”.

So we’re smart people… really! (Just take my word for it!)

While I gather up my thoughts of the whirlwind that’s been this past week-end, I thought I’d post something a little more slow-pace. This is a video of G waking up in the morning. I want to get it out for posterity because I find it hilarious.

First of all, G’s inherited S’ “wake-up” genes. In other words, IT.TAKES.FOREVER!!! Mornings are just a bear to get him going in the morning. I do my best not to startle him, and having learned from S go as slow as I can. However, we have a schedule to keep in order to get everyone out of the house (and to daycare/work) on time, so there’s only so much leisure we can get.

Pardon the period of sheer blackness here. I was stumbling for the light.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeYUI-bbB74]

Just think what I have to look forward to when 1st grade starts! Care to pity me?

The irony to all this, is that I wake HIM up between 6:20-6:30 on week-days. Doesn’t he look like he could sleep for another hour? However, sure enough, come week-ends he’s up and rocking the crib by 6:35. I think it’s called “Payback!”

(a post by S!)

One year ago at this hour (Aug 29th 3:45 am PT) G was finally born.  I’ve been thinking alot over the past few weeks leading up to his 1 year birthday. The 1 year celebration is more for us than for G – he doesn’t know anything that is going on. The pictures, the cake, the party…. it’s all for us. G does have fun with the grandparents though — so that’s his part of the celebration.

I’ve re-read our birth stories… both A’s timely post very soon after his birth and my post that took 7 weeks to write. It feels as if those posts are from a time so long ago. We’ve had tears, sleepless nights, concerns and we’ve also had tons of smiles, lots of kisses, laughter (lots of laughter with G), and periods of amazement. It’s been a fantastic year! And it’s been a year that we’ve experienced together more so than any other year we’ve been together.

G (when you read this sometime years from now) – I love you!! Happy Birthday!!

And now for my bright idea…. Today is now A’s Mother’s Day. That made up day in May means so little compared to G’s birthday.

So A — I love you!!! Happy Mother’s Day.

Our cutie patootie today is 1!

First taste of frosting

Loving the mess

Too much frosting apparently is NOT a good thing

… G decided he was done baking. Just when I was starting to wonder if I needed to have a discussion with my doc about inductions, he decided he’d outgrown his rental unit and needed to up-size.

It was almost to this exact moment, last year, that I was sitting in the OB’s office for my weekly checkup as she said “Do you know you’re having a contraction right now? I might be seeing you this week-end after all!” I went from feeling nothing, to definitely noticing contractions by the end of lunch. Little did I know that 4 hours later we’d be heading to the hospital. I remember that day so vividly, as though it was yesterday. Despite what I felt were the worst period cramps I’ve ever had, (aka labor), I want to re-live that day with every fiber of my being. I remember it fondly.

The year since has gone by almost in a blur. I can’t believe that 365 days have gone by. G is such an awesome, awesome kid. I’m sad that the baby in him is growing up and he’s now turning into a little boy. I’ve enjoyed the past year: the good parts as well as the hard parts. I look at him and have a hard time believing that the child I (today) swing by his ankles is the same boy that I gingerly picked up a year ago, in marvel of how fragile he was.

So here’s some retrospective of the past year.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1U7ZMQXWLs]

My wish for Year 2 is that it doesn’t go by as fast!

In anticipation of G’s bday, we’ve had a few big boxes arrive at our doorstep. I’ve been good and am patiently waiting for next week-end to open them up, but one of them we had to open up early per S’ request: a swing (from Aunt K, Uncle C, and cousins J and G).

G LOOOVES swings. We discovered this at the zoo and consequent park visits since. He’ll take any kind of swinging: in a swing… upside down by the ankles (did I say that out-loud?). So now we have a swing set-up. At first we set it up in the less windy portion of our house, the front-yard, until our first outing. As we walked past the swing, G got really agitated. He thought he was going out to play and when we walked right past it to the car, he was not pleased. So out of the car he got and into the swing. It was a good thing that we were only off to the store. Needless to say, the swing was consequently moved to our back-yard.

S and I have discovered a great way to coral (uhmn, I mean “entertain”) G in the morning while we get ready: a laundry basket. Yep! That thing you put your dirty clothes in (or in my case clean clothes that you don’t want to fold, so you just dig in for a daily shirt surprise).

Anyway, yesterday morning while S was enjoying a last few Z’s, and I needed some “me” hygene time, I loaded G into the laundry basket and pushed him on the floor to the bedroom. He laughed all the way. Then I put the laundry basket on the bed next to S. G went to town in what I image he thought was his ship, laughing and babbling the whole time. Of course, watching him enjoy himself this much only made me run for the camera (as opposed to the shower), but still… fun time was had by all.

Enjoy!

I realize I owe an update on the latest of G’s weight issues. (This is a long one too, so go grab some popcorn.)

So good news is that he’s eating well… again. And he’s gaining weight… again. However, I’m skeptical over getting excited here since his trend is to pig out for a week or two and then scale back on eating. He’s almost like a hibernating bear, without the hibernation part.

We met with a speech and occupational therapist this past Tuesday. The appointment went well. G slobbered all over their toys and then munched down on his breakfast and sucked down a bottle, while being observed. All like a champ (of course ‘cuz he’s being monitored). Good news is that he doesn’t have any issues swallowing, or concerns with food texture or taste. I could have assessed that myself, but since I don’t have “MD” on the back of my name it’s good to have the pros rule it out.

Since they couldn’t figure anything out, they recommended an appointment with a nutritionist who can make some suggestions to G’s diet (to fatten him up).

My luck with our health insurance company was short lived. Whereas the speech and occupational therapist evaluation was easy to make and is (supposedly) covered, it doesn’t appear that the nutritionist visit will be. This will be for 2 reasons: 1) Aetna covers dietitian evaluations only if you’re diabetic; 2) the practice we’re referred to is not in network. While they bill to a taxid that is in network, they themselves are not. Don’t ask my how one is, but the other isn’t — this makes no sense to me. We could also find a dietitian that is in network, except that then we run into exclusion #1. Lovely, right? 🙂

We would consider paying out of pocket if the cost is reasonable, and there aren’t multiple return visits. However, the specialist office didn’t call me back today, so there’s no way for me to get those details. So now we wait until they do.

One thing that did strike me though was hearing the occupational therapist mention that our pedi had written “Failure to thrive” in G’s referral to them. While I know this was done (mostly) for insurance purposes, it stung to hear. “Failure to thrive” in my mind is what happens to malnourished children. I’d like to think of G as far from malnourished. And it bugs me to hear it because I’m still responsible for 95% of his daily caloric intake. In that respect “failure to thrive” is a direct affront to me. [Insert neurotic mom platitude here]

I shall now proceed to bore you with charts and data. This is mostly for personal future reference, so feel free to tune out if you’d like. Below are two graphs, tracking G’s weight and his placement on the percentile curve for weight. He was born in the 10%, jumped up to 25% (a short-lived visit), then declined to the 5% where he hung out for a few months, then declined to the 3%, then fell off the curve, went back on, and has now fallen off again. It’s primarily the curve hopping that has me concerned. If he wants to be a 3rd percentile baby, that’s fine, I’m ok with that — just let’s have some consistency.

He’s had 4 periods of weight-loss, most of which he bounced back from pretty quickly, except for the last bit where he kept loosing weight over the span of a month. He’s gained it all back and is now on track, but “Way to keep mom on her toes, G!”

Now my hungry bear is chowing things down pretty well. He’s feeding himself a lot these days too.  He actually pulls food out of your hand if you hand it to him, so he can do it himself. I love his independence! He’s also very eager to try whatever we’re eating. In some cases he gets pissed if he doesn’t get to share your food. Luckily he’s liked most everything we’ve given him. Even Ms. F at daycare is impressed with his interest in food. All this stuff is really good! I can only hope we’ve turned a permanent corner here and we’re not about to plunge into another weight-gain valley.

This concludes my neurotic vent for the week. We’ll be back to happier topics soon.

G is getting to a point where he’s soon going to outgrow his little baby tub. Not by size, don’t get me wrong, but by splash ability. We can’t seem to be able to get through a bath these days without G covering the walls with water or one (or both of us) being drenched.

So before the little tub gets exiled to the garage, I took some photos of bath-time.

S and I still do bath-time together. Although, yes, one person can do the job just fine (this has been proven), it’s more fun for us to do G’s bath-time as a family. S starts things off by getting the bathroom ready. Meanwhile I get G down to his birthday suit, and we do our bath-time song. It goes something like this:

We are gonna take a bath
Ruba-duba-dub
Where your bootie we will scrub
Ruba-duba-dub
And you’ll pee-pee in the tub
Rub-duba-dub

Ruba-duba…
Ruba-scruba…
Ruba-duba-dub

(I never did get around to coming up with a second verse. Maybe one of these days…)

Fluffy towels are the best.

Yertle, the turtle (point for the person who gets the reference)

Bath time: high fun!

Where the wet stuff comes in

Like the “Do”?

Bath time buddy #2: Miss Blue

Splash-time action:

And just think — this was almost a year ago.

…We’ve come a long way, baby!

Visiting mommy’s parents: Aunt P and G

Yep, she’s a silly one!

Daddy giving G a ride around the living room. Amazing what a container lid will do, huh?

G’s new toy — a mobile phone of his very own

Check out that tongue action!