9 Months

Suffice it to say, I'm a little behind in my blogging. Backlog includes a birthday party, Halloween, and a baby now closer to ten months than nine.

The picture was taken closer to nine months though, so at least that's somewhat accurate.

Abram thinks he's a big dude now. As of the last few days, he's basically refusing purees or anything on a spoon. He wants to pick it up and feed himself big kid food. He actually gets angry if he's not eating what we're eating at mealtime. There's no sign of any teeth yet, so he's getting a little ahead of himself.

Unfortunately, this also seems to affect nursing. I finally got him taking some bottles regularly over the last couple of months and it has helped him sleep better at night. But now he prefers to get it fast and easy. I'm a little sad about it, but it's similar to the way (and age) Evie self-weaned, so I'm not surprised. And it is pretty cute how excited he gets about his "baba."

Abe is a happy guy and is usually smiling. Making him laugh is so easy that someone always seems to be getting a giggle out of him. His favorite word is "dada" and it seems to be the word for most things for him. No crawling yet, mostly because the second he's on his belly, he immediately rolls right back over, every time. He's scooting backwards on his back to get around, but I think he's finding that's not very efficient.  

He loves to dance and wiggles to anything that sounds remotely like music. He's a singer too and will pipe up anytime anyone else is singing. He sang and danced the whole way to Mimi's in the car with me last night. (Big Mumford fan!)

Can you tell I love the view from my bed?

He's started waving hi and bye and gives great big kisses. No more swaddles and he'll be outgrowing 12 month clothes soon. Somehow I can sense he's coming up on a lot more "growing up" in the near future. You can just see him picking up on things, his little mind trying to wrap around how to do and say all the cool stuff his big brother and sister are doing.

Now bring on the turkey dinner!

Well, DUH.

So you know how I just couldn't figure out what was wrong with Abram, and why he wasn't sleeping at night? Yeah, well...mystery solved. And I feel pretty stupid.

He had his GI scan and they said they didn't see any reflux. I figured they didn't look long enough or he didn't drink enough of the barium (both of which may still be true). But the more I tried to hash it all out in my head the next few days, the more I was struck by the thought: he just seems uncomfortable.

As it turns out, hunger is uncomfortable. The kid was just hungry. THAT'S IT.

The thought crossed my mind one very early morning after no sleep: What if he's just legitimately hungry all night? Then later that day my Aunt Kathy suggested I beef up his daytime meals a bit.

So Abe ate his regular couple of purees, but then I added in little bites of whatever I was eating, plus a few more hearty meals throughout the day. Then I pumped a bottle and he sucked down a good 5 ounces before bed. He only woke up once that night. Haaaaaallelujah!

My general feeling of denseness is overshadowed by my immense relief of getting to sleep at night again. You'd think by the third kid I'd know ya have to feed 'em.

It just seemed simpler to nurse him for the most part since it was easy on-the-go and required no work in the kitchen. One less meal to prepare, right?

Oh well, I can make light of it now since I'm not on the brink of psychosis from no sleep. Come to think of it, maybe that's why it took me so long to see the problem. My brain was definitely not firing on all cylinders for awhile there.

Not that I'm making any promises that it is now or anything, but at least I have one of my great loves back in my life...my beloved sleep.

8 Months

Oh, he's cute alright. But nighttime?

Nighttime is BRUTAL. Brutal, I tell you.

Abram slept through the night early on, but then he had all his ear troubles and nights were ruined for a couple months. Then hallelujah -- he got his tubes done and I looked forward to sleeping again. 

But it was not in the cards. Maybe he's still getting used to the feeling of the tubes, we thought. Give it a couple of weeks. 

Then he learned he could scream. Really, really loudly. So instead of waking up crying throughout the night, now he SHRIEKS. I'm not exaggerating here, I promise. It's ear piercing. One night, Mitch had to move from the couch into J's bed because Abe's screams were keeping him up. The living room and my bedroom are on opposite ends of the house, mind you. 

I've considered making a little video so you could really get the sense of it, but unless you turned your volume up to the top level and held the speaker next to your ear, you wouldn't get the full effect. And I wouldn't want to cheapen the experience like that.

At his 6 month appointment (when he was nearly 8 months), he was 27.8 inches and 58th percentile, and 17.5 lbs, only the 18th percentile.

Our latest guess is reflux. I guess I'm so used to my babies having it (both J and Evie did), I missed the symptoms from Abe. He's scheduled for an upper GI scan Monday so we can figure this thing out. 

I just want to sleep somewhat normally again. Please.