5 months old!!

My little precious boy turned five months old yesterday!  I can hardly believe it.  He had been changing so much lately and doing so many new things that it seems kind of like we have a new child every week, except he is still the same sweet, loving, good sleeper that he has always been!

This past weekend he had his first non-family babysitter, Annabelle, and he seemed to have a great time.  We went to some friends of ours wedding.  It was nice to be able to get dressed up and go out for a few hours with Clay and not have to worry about what time we need to be back for feeding or naps.  Sunday after church he got to meet his long lost Aunt A.M. who moved to Montana right before he was born.  He took to her like he had known her all his life, although he does seem to have a thing for the ladies.  I think it might be because he knows all he had to do is smile at them and they will do whatever he wants.

We are still on the same food schedule as last month: 7 oz bottles at 7am, 10am, 1pm, 4pm 8oz around 7pm.  He has 2 Tbls of cereal at 11 am and 6pm.  We haven't started him on the vegetables because the doctor wanted him to get over this cough/runny nose situation first.  Hopefully we will get the okay when we go back next week to try and get his 4 month shots again.  At his appt last week, they decided that his cough may be from him spitting up and then aspirating a little.  They put him on some Zantac but so far, it doesn't seem to be helping.  I wish we knew what to do!!  I am getting so frustrated!  Clay is looking into getting a Hepa air purifier for his room to see if that will help clear him up.  The good news is that it doesn't seem to be bothering Gavin at all.

Our little boy is quite the talker and comes up with new sounds all the time.  His latest one is screeching like what I imagine a Pterodactyl must have sounded like.  Sunday morning he woke up at 4 and screeched for 15 min, then fell back asleep, did the same thing at 5 and at 6.  He never cried, he just screeched to himself and then fell back asleep.  Crazy kid!!

Gavin is now sitting up on his own but still having to prop himself up with his hands.  He doesn't do it for very long before he rolls forward and lands on his face.  So we have to be careful of where we let him practice.

A couple of weeks ago my parents bought the Your Baby Can Read set for him.  I was so excited because Clay and I had been wanting to buy it but just hadn't had the extra cash.  It is a lot more work than I had anticipated but we are doing pretty well.  It comes with a video, book, and flash cards and you are supposed to do each of them several times a day.  Well he watches the video in the morning a couple of times and then I usually read him the book before supper.  Unfortunately by the time we get home at 6, he is pretty much exhausted and not in the mood for anything much other than being held, playing with Daddy and eating :-).

He is getting so strong!  He can pull himself upright with his arms and when he stands in our laps he can jump up and down.  He doesn't usually get his feet off the ground with out some help but he is definitely pushing all his weight up and down.  And that says a lot because at his dr. appt last week, he weighed 19 lbs!!!!  He does look smaller than his weight though and still wears clothes that are for children that weigh lots less than him.  I guess he gets that from my side of the family.  We all weigh way more than we appear to, which can be both good and bad.

Gavin has also gotten really good at picking things up and holding them.  Which is really good when it is his toys but dangerous when he gets his sights on glasses or plates or the salt shaker.  His favorite toys right now are Dairy Moo his cow that one of his old teachers at school gave him, and two teether toys and his most favorite toy is his Daddy.

Gavin with Clay's parents and his cousin Kaleigh


I thought he looked so cute in this outfit, such a big boy in jeans!

A cute video of him trying to scoot across the couch.  Just click on it and it will take you to Picasa to view

From 2010-10-06

One of the many crazy faces he makes for the camera.  You have to be super quick and lucky to catch him smiling because as soon as he sees the camera, crazy faces come out!

The family

I'll post pictures I took of him yesterday tomorrow.  I forgot to bring the camera to work :-)

More trips to the doctor!

After our 4 month wellness visit when they put Gavin on the antibiotics and breathing treatments, we expected a speedy recovery.  Well by Wednesday he started getting worse.  I couldn't remember what they had said to do or how long to wait before coming back in if he didn't improve and Clay didn't even remember that coming up in the conversation so I didn't call immediately hoping he would make a turn for the better since he didn't act like he felt bad and didn't have a fever. I had decided to take that Friday off so that I could go shopping and buy some clothes because nothing fits me, which is a huge blessing but also means I walk around looking very sloppy in pants that I keep having to pull up to keep them from falling off.  I never want to go shopping on the weekends because I don't want to miss any time that I get to spend with Clay and Gavin and no one would enjoy a group shopping excursion!  So that Friday I was all super pumped to go find some cheap clothes that I could wear during this transition period that hopefully lands me back into my Pre-preg clothes.  Well Gavin woke up worse than ever and by the time Clay took him to school, he had decided that it was time to call the doctor and see what the next step was. So I called and of course they told me to bring him on in to the walk-in clinic and since I was already off work, I got to take him.  So Gavin and I spent a couple of hours at the walk in clinic with lots of sickly other kids.  There was this one cute little girl who sat down right next to us, turned our way looked at Gavin and then hacked/coughed on us!!!  The PA takes him off the antibiotics, adds a steroid, ups the anti-histamine and gives us a more frequent schedule of breathing treatments.  And then tells me if this doesn't work they will probably need to do a chest X-ray.

Well thanks to the cute little girl, or at least that is who I am blaming since she obviously can't defend herself, I start sneezing late that afternoon and my throat gets really sore.  By the next morning I am completely miserable and seriously dreading the MEGA family reunion that we were attending later that evening.  Clay told me I could stay home but I didn't want to saddle him with taking Gavin down there by himself and plus I didn't want Clay's parents to think I was avoiding them since the last time they saw Gavin I stayed behind at home to take a nap/watch Tampa Bay football :-).  So I dope myself up on Day-Quil and stuff a bunch of cough drops in my pocket and we head on down to the largest family reunion on earth, seriously.  Gavin did really well and spent most of the time enjoying all the attention he got safely in his Nanny-Ma or Pa-Pa's arms.  I think you would have had to fight one of them to be able to hold Gavin, it is so sweet, I love it!  Well while we are there, Clay starts complaining of a sore throat.  Clay NEVER gets sick and if he does by chance come down with something it only lasts hours not days.  I had taken note that Gavin hadn't been eating well that day and was fussier than usual but really didn't make much of it.  Well when we get home and are getting him ready for bed, I pick him up off the changing table and he just projectile vomits down the front/inside of my shirt, down my pants and all over my feet.  My first official vomit shower!!  How lucky for me!!  And it is so hard to be mad because not only do you feel so sorry for him but after he gets finished he gives me the sweetest smile like "Oooh, I feel so much better".  However that did NOT make me feel any less gross!  So after throwing up what little he had eaten earlier we are of course up with him through the night because he is starving but then we don't want to feed him too much because we didn't want him to throw it up again.

It is so different being sick when you have a child!  Before Gavin, I would just lay in bed and sleep all day or lay on the couch and watch mindless TV.  Oh no, not anymore!  As happy as I was that Gavin didn't "feel" sick even though he was, it made it difficult because instead of him sleeping a lot he was in a great mood and just wanted to play and be entertained.  And with Clay being sick also that just made it even worse.  And it took forever to get over whatever it was we had.  We stayed home from church on Sunday, all three of us also stayed home on Monday, and I stayed home on Tuesday.  Monday we should have sent Gavin to school so we could get some much needed rest, since he felt fine and actually never got whatever we had.  But we both felt so terrible that neither of us was willing to leave the house :-).  Well Gavin talked to us seriously the entire day.  From 7 am when he got up to 8 pm when he went to bed!  The only times he wasn't talking and making various sounds was when he took a nap.  I have no idea what got into him, he talks a lot already but this was craziness!  We just laughed and laughed at him when we didn't feel like crying that is.

Poor Gavin still is battling this nasty cough and runny nose though.  The steroids didn't seem to do any good and we are all finished with his breathing treatments.  We go back to the doctor again tomorrow for his follow-up well visit where his shots will probably get pushed off another two weeks and hopefully we will find a cure for his ailment.  A teacher at his school suggested that we get the test for RSV so I guess we will ask for that if they don't mention it themselves.  I would appreciate some prayers for Gavin and his doctors.

I promise to post some pictures soon!

4 month checkup

Gavin had his four month well visit with the Dr. yesterday and it was not a good time for either of us.
His stats -
Weight - 18 lbs 4 oz - 90th percentile
Length - 25 3/4 inches - 90th percentile
Head - 17 1/4 inches - 75th percentile

After all that the "fun" began.  Gavin has had a cough and a yucky nose for the past month and a half and has been on some medicine for the past month.  So I mentioned it to them when I got there because even though he hasn't had a fever, I felt like we needed to take a different course of action.  So the nurses attempted to take his oxygen levels with that thing that fits over there toes or fingers.  He is a restless little thing so it took many attempts and he got pretty ill.  Not to mention his is just in his diaper and it is FREEZING in the office and Gavin does NOT like to be cold!  Also to his credit, he hadn't had his morning nap so he was understandably a tad bit grouchy :-).

Then came the poking and prodding in his ears, the cold stethoscope listening to his heartbeat and lungs, and then putting that wooden thing in his mouth so she could look at his throat.  So by this time he was screaming with displeasure.  Then she took off his diaper to check and make sure he didn't have any diaper rash and then she inspected his circumcision.  Well as she was talking to me all the sudden she just ripped the skin back.  I almost fainted and I can not even imagine how much it hurt poor little Gavin.  Apparently his skin had started to reattach itself so she quickly and without warning detached it.  Poor little guy was bleeding and screaming at the top of his lungs!  Thankfully Clay was sitting across the room and didn't get the full view or he probably would have died right there.

Well after all that they decided we needed to do breathing treatments and start him on some antibiotics to see if we could clear everything up.  They wanted to go ahead and do one breathing treatment in the office so we could see how it was done.  So just after Gavin had fallen asleep on Clay's chest, they bring in this machine that is not particularly quiet to blow this medicine fog into Gavin's face.  Well the first minute or two went ok because Gavin was still asleep.  Then he woke up and realized what was going on and started screaming again!  So we had to hold his head still and keep that mist in his face for the next five minutes.

Thankfully because he was a little sick they decided not to give him the shots he was scheduled for.  I think if they had, Gavin might never have forgiven us.  

Below is a picture of him after attempting to give him his pink antibiotic.  You can't get the full effect because while I was getting the camera, he wiped the majority of the pink stuff off of his face.  He must have realized what I was about to do :-).

The weekend

Gavin had a big time this past weekend.  He got to watch the Bulldogs suck it up on the big screen on Saturday and then attended his very first pool party on Sunday!

The whole family was decked out in red shirts for the game Saturday but of course the only pictures I have are of Clay and Gavin :-).  They looked so super cute though, like twins!  I though Gav looked so handsome in his little red polo shirt!!



I was a bit worried about the pool party.  Gavin had woken up early that morning and then hadn't had much of a nap that morning or afternoon.  So when he didn't scream and cry, I considered the whole thing a success.  As you will see, Gavin is not a fan of cold water but all in all he took it like a champ!









Look at that HUGE diaper!

4 months old

I know it has been a while since I have posted, work has been nuts and I never have time when I get home in the evenings.

Last Sunday my precious boy turned 4 months old!!  He is getting so big, I think he gains a pound every night and grows at least an inch or two.  He is getting such a personality and is so much fun, Clay and I are really enjoying this stage in his life.  He absolutely adores playing with Clay, Clay is such a good entertainer, I don't know what we would do with out him.  When Gavin gets fussy around our dinnertime and right before his, Clay is the only one that can bring out the smiles and giggles long enough for us to choke down our food.  Another funny thing I have noticed is that Gavin has really taken notice of the camera, he follows it everywhere with his eyes as soon as I turn it on.  Which makes it nice because he is always looking right at it however he has also stopped smiling pretty much as well anytime the camera comes out.  So that is why he isn't smiling in most of the pics, which stinks because he is always smiling right before!!!


 He talks a lot and once he starts he keeps going for quite a while.  He has also decided he likes the kitty and any time Josh is in his line of vision, Gavin starts grunting and talking to him.  My best interpretation of what he is saying is "Get over here kitty and let me pet you/pull your hair"  I have to monitor all interactions between the two, so far there hasn't been an incident, Josh has been very patient with all of Gavin's tugging.

I can also tell Gavin is getting tired of facing backwards in the seat.  He gets pretty restless anytime he spends more than a couple of minutes in his car seat.  I have learned that rolling down the back window and letting him see everything passing by outside is a good way to calm him down when he starts fussing.

Our little precious eats like a horse.  He has 5 bottles a day with 7 ounces of formula and has rice cereal twice a day.  Bottle at 7, 10, 1, 4, 7.  2 Tbs rice cereal at 11 and 6.  According to the dr. this is exactly where he should be right now.  We are going to start introducing veggies in the next week or so, as soon as he gets over this chest bug he has.

Below are some pictures I took on his monthly birthday?? not really sure what you call that

First Giggle

Not much to post just wanted to record that we heard Gavin's first giggle yesterday 9/1/10!  Before now he would smile and kind of grunt once, so you knew it was his way of laughing.  But these laughs were few and far between.  Last night when I was feeding him and telling him what a dirty messy boy he was, this huge grin came across his face and then he started to giggle, and did it four or five times.  It was the funniest and sweetest thing ever!

First Food

For the past week or two I have noticed Gavin staring intently at our plates when we eat and I knew that was one of the signs that he was ready for some real food.  Then last week he started a growth spurt and his appetite could not be satisfied so after discussing with his teacher at school we decided to give him some rice cereal Friday night.  I decided to feed him and told Clay to record the momentous occasion, needless to say we should have switched.  I could not keep that liquid cereal off of Gavin's face and bib and Clay kept forgetting to snap pictures or record a video.  We did get some really cute ones though eventually.  Remember to watch the video just click it and you will go to Picasa where it will play.

This first video is right at the beginning when we both were getting used to the new food and new way of eating.


This second video is five or ten minutes later after he decided he really liked this stuff.



Then this is just a funny picture during the process



Well we skipped Saturday due to various reasons and tried for the second time on Sunday after church.  This time with Clay feeding him and me taking the pictures.  Needless to say this went much cleaner and smoother :-)



So all in all it has been a success!