Gametes In Love

… 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!

It’s 2 for the price of 1 day. Enjoy the G sale ;p

First up, is the “I eat all by myself” video. Last Wednesday G surprised S and I by reaching for a yogurt melt I had in my hand and putting it in his mouth… on his own. Then he did it again. Worried I wouldn’t see that moment again for weeks (he’s done that to us before) I ran to get the camera and G was nice enough to oblige with a few more shovels of melts.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zuZAKtij5I]
[PS. you really only have to watch the first 30 seconds here]

What’s cool is that now he REALLY wants to feed himself. He went from “Nah, I want to be serviced” to “No, I wanna do it!” in a matter of days. He’s also now an expert in shoveling stuff in his mouth (provided the food is not slippery and squishy… like peas). He also prefers whole food now over jars, which is a little sad for me given the fact I still have about 20 jars of food left. Last, he’s big into eating whatever I’m eating. This morning we had a small screamfest ensue because I took a bite out of a bagel while I was holding him in my lap. Apparently not sharing was a punishable offense. Bad mamma! I tore up some bagel into chunks and he was a happy boy. He even enjoyed a few bites with a wee-bit of cream cheese too.

Next up is G’s new-found way to get around. He really digs his walking toy, but hasn’t really gotten into walking yet. So now he pushes it doing the “knee walk”. It’s cute!

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

Today he also stood up holding onto a stair. He also managed to get into a downward dog pose from a crawl. We’re a few weeks away from him getting into a stand on his own… I think. With him I never know though. He seems to take forever to illustrate a skill. Yet at the same time he does within a day or two he’s a master at it. So slow on the uptake, but he hits the ground running (although I hope that isn’t literally what will happen on the walking phase). Meanwhile, I’m enjoying the knee walking 🙂