Updates on Charlie

Charlie is doing fabulously!  He is a "fluffy" little guy with juicy little legs and cheeks!  He laughed out loud for the first time a week before he hit his 3 month mark.  He did it for my mom while I was at work.  She called me and said, "You didn't tell me he laughs now!!!"  I said, "He hadn't."  :(  It's ok though, I know I won't be able to be around for all of his firsts, but I sure would like to be!  He laughed for us for the first time at home on his 3 month birthday.  I had been blowing raspberries on his belly with diaper changes for weeks trying to elicit a laugh, and I finally got quite a few that day.  He's not big on laughing and doesn't do it often, but he will make a little half chuckle from time to time when he thinks you're being funny. 

Charlie is also rolling over.  He had rolled from his belly to his back twice about a week apart immediately after I would put him down for tummy time.  Neither time could I get him to do it again, so I'm not sure if I was just laying him down and positioning him just right initially (without even trying), and he was able to do it or what.  But as of Mother's Day (this past Sunday, and for my records-6 days before his 4 month birthday) he can roll from back to belly!!  He will do this over and over again, and then he gets on his belly and gets mad because he can't quite get the coordination to flip himself back over. 

He saw the allergist a few weeks ago for skin testing.  If you remember, his RAST blood test came up negative to everything.  His skin testing came up positive for crab (his histamine wheel was 10mm, and so was his crab wheel), and dust mites.  I'd been eating crab at least every other week.  So now I've eliminated diary, soy and crab from my diet.  He continues with spitting up or vomiting, but it is definitely better than it had been.  Where he was a really irritable baby, he's now more pleasant, and instead of throwing up pretty large amounts every feed and in between, it seems that some days he is spitting just little bits here and there, where others, he'll throw up 5 times in 30 minutes.  There's no rhyme or reason to it.  He'd been on zantac, but he had to be off for 6 days prior to his skin testing for the allergist.  We didn't notice much of a difference in his temperment, the frequency or amount of the vomiting, so we didn't put him back on it after the testing. 

We saw the GI specialist last Friday.  I was telling her how he is so much more happy, and the spitting is definitely less than it had been, and it's pretty random now, etc.  She looked at his growth and go figure, according to their scale he dropped from 75th percentile in weight 6 weeks prior to between 25-50th now.  I had weighed him a week or two before with me at home and swear he was about 16.5 pounds, but at the doctors we weighed him another 3 times and we couldn't get anything but 14.5 pounds.  I tried to argue that in that 6 weeks, he'd gained almost an inch in length since the previous appointment.  She agreed that he didn't look malnourished at all, but that she couldn't ignore the weight.  So she wants me to now avoid egg for three weeks, and if the vomiting and runny stools don't improve, she wants to also eliminate nuts.  In the meantime, she gave us some "Simply Thick" to thicken any breastmilk bottles he gets.  The Simply Thick seems to be working-his stools aren't as liquidy, they are more soft, and the vomiting isn't as much in amount when he does do it.  The problem is that since we started using it over the weekend, he is much more fussy (crying like someone is hurting him and then sobbing), and his sleep is all messed up.  I can't help but notice that it started when we started thickening his feeds.  I'm going to call the GI doc in the morning and let her know that this has been a change, and let her know that I'm going to stop thickening the feeds just for a few days to see if his irritability and sleep habits change again.  I will reintroduce the thickener, and if it starts back up I'll know it's the thickener and not a growth spurt or something else more common and benign going on. 

Charlie has his 4 month pediatrician appointment next Wednesday and I'm very interested to see what his weight will be at their office.  If his growth curve has stayed the same then I will feel more comfortable, and I will assume the GI doc's scale needs to be recalibrated.  We shall see.

Jack and Charlie are like two peas in a pod.  We will pick Jack up from school and he will start talking to Charlie in baby talk in the back seat making a big fuss over him.  It's adorable.  And Charlie just LOVES Jack.  If Jack is in the area, he watches him so intently.  I can just see the gears turning, if only I knew what Charlie was thinking!

So, that's it in my neck of the woods.  Next week I'll post after his 4 month appointment, and I'll include some pictures of the cute monkey.