Happy 4 months Keenan!

Keenan is 4 months old today. I can't believe how fast time is going. He's growing too fast. He's been such a happy boy. Switching him to formula has made him a whole new baby. He loves his food. He gets cereal in the morning and at night before bed. So far he's had rice, oatmeal, and barley. He also loves his baby food. He's had peas, sweet potatoes, squash, applesauce, pears, and peaches. He hasn't rolled yet again since the day he rolled twice but I'm not surprised. He is laughing a lot now and I just love it.

Toddlers are the best form of entertainment!

No need to watch comedys around here. With Cayden you have constant entertainment. I really enjoy this toddler age (remind me I said that when she's throwing a tantrum). Our rides to school in the morning are filled with traffic but it's not bad at all when you are driving with Cayden. Last week we were halfway to school when I yelled "Crap" and started mumbling.
Cayden: What Mommy?
Me: I forgot to get a coffee.
Cayden: Oh.........well you know what?
Me: What?
Cayden: (in perfect tune to the song) "You can't always get what you want".

I'll blame that on Eric. Lately when she throws a tantrum over something she wants and can't have he has been singing that song to her!! Then yesterday yet another funny conversation occurred on our drive.
Cayden: Hey Mommy?
Me: What?
Cayden: I really need to get my eyebrows waxed!

I'll take the blame. We were playing with her two weeks ago and I noticed how bushy her brows were. I told her "Girl, you need your eyebrows waxed!" Poor kid! Seriously though, she constantly keeps us amused!

Snow White

I was never really into the whole "Disney Princess" thing with little girls. In fact it use to drive me insane. Things change so much when you have your own kids. Cayden really loves to play dress up. She has only a few Disney movies yet she knows so many of the characters. She has a ton of dress up outfits and she will put them on and just go around talking nonstop and using her imagination. It's hilarious. We bought her a set of Disney princess wigs for her birthday. Even with all the costumes we do have we didn't have 3 out of the 4 that went with the wigs. Cayden was so thrilled when she opened her gifts from Aunt Stephanie and saw a Snow White and Sleeping beauty costume to go with her wigs. She's in heaven!

Doctor's appointments for Cayden & Keenan

Cayden had her 3 year old well visit today. She is doing great. She is 37 1/4 inches and 32 lbs. My big tall girl! She is right on track with everything and even ahead in some areas (potty trained over a year ago etc).

I had called a few days ago and asked if I could have Keenan seen during her appointment too. He has a million issues so we wanted to get some things checked out. He had a funky "ball" under his skin on the back of his head that was really freaking us out. He has also been spitting up way too much, has bad cradle cap that won't go away, and some super dry patches on his legs.

Turns out that the ball on the back of his head (it's the size of a pea - very small) is a swollen lymph node and in fact he had some on his neck too. That can sometimes happen when you are fighting an infection of sorts. Dr. said it was most likely due to the severe cradle cap. She told us to use Selsen blue to get rid of it instead of baby cradle cap shampoo. Dry patches on his legs were excema and we were told to use hydrocortozone cream for it.

The spitting up - not so good. He was 11lbs 4oz at his last dr's appt which was a fine weight. But one whole month later he is only 11lbs 8oz's and is dropping in percentile. Therefore the dr felt that the constant spit up was affecting his weight gain. Her recommendation - no more breastfeeding :( We are going to all soy formula. He is sensitive to dairy and can't tolerate it right now. She asked if we had started any solids and I told her that we give him rice cereal before bed and oatmeal cereal in the morning. She said she was glad and that although they normally recommend waiting until 4 months to start we could go ahead with jarred food as well because Keenan could stand to gain a bit more weight. We actually have given him bananas, applesauces, and peas so far (I didn't tell her that! LOL) so I guess my mommy instincts that he needed more food when I started 2 wks ago were right!

Oh and she said he is soooooooo crazy tall for his age and that is why he seems even skinnier than he really is. This crazy boy is 25 inches tall at 3 1/2 months! He is ready for 6-12mth clothes!

Happy 3rd Birthday Cayden!

Where did my baby girl go? Time goes too fast!

Welcome to our world

Exersaucer

Fun place to play?



Or great place to sleep?


Yesterday it dawned on me that even though exersacuers say 4 months and up we started a bit earlier than that with Cayden since she was so long. We use to put a book under her feet until she could touch the bottom. So yesterday afternoon I brought it up, cleaned it really good and plopped Keenan in. To my absolute surprise he could touch the bottom no problem!!! He absolutely loved it! Later that night after his bath he was fussy and I needed to fold some laundry. I plopped him in it with his paci and ran upstairs to fold the laundry. I came down 5 minutes later to get him out and I found him fast asleep in there!

A new regimen for Keenan

Keenan is back to his screaming self. We are puzzled and exasperated. He was doing good the past 2 weeks. He was happy, rarely crying, content. Now he is back to screaming and being inconsolable. We don't know what to do for him. His crying is awful because you can just tell he's in so much pain. He is also back to spitting up like crazy. Last time this happened they increased his reflux meds and that worked wonders. It's been 2 months since they increased it and although he was still spitting up some it wasn't a huge amount like it's been all week.

I thought about stopping breastfeeding and putting him on all soy formula. When I thought about it I decided against the drastic switch for now. If I did that and 2 weeks later he was still a mess I would be so upset that I gave up breastfeeding for nothing. I did a ton of online research and decided to try out a regimen I read about for colic/reflux recommended by different pediatricians. What we will be doing is giving Keenan 1/2 teaspoon of Mylanta. He can have it up to 4x's per day. Of course I don't really want to give it to him that much yet so we are going to do it on an as needed basis. He was screaming so bad all morning and went through 4 changes of clothes with his spit up. Part of the spit up too is that he's had a bad cold he can't kick and he is swallowing snot (gross but true because you see it in his spit up sometimes..nasty!). So I decided to give the Mylanta a whirl. I gave him 1/2 teaspoon, nursed him, burped him and he was HAPPY. He didn't even spit up. Weird. It's possible that it was a fluke but we'll see when he gets up from nap and the rest of the day what he's like. Wish us luck. It's heartbreaking watching your baby scream in pain and not being able to help him.

Cayden vs. Keenan

I cannot believe that these two children both came from Eric and me. Cayden and Keenan's personality are like night and day. From the time Cayden was born she was a laid back, easy going baby. She liked to sit in her bouncy or swing or lay on the floor and play. She didn't really like to be held, she'd rather do her own thing. When we did hold her, we always had to face her out so she could look around. She wasn't into snuggling. She was too busy exploring and watching everything. She rarely cried and constantly made noises, smiled/laughed, babbled.

Keenan is a whole different child. He's more high strung. He smiles often too but we work hard for those smiles most times (although that makes them more rewarding). He cries a lot. Just when he's been so good for a few days and we think he's done with the crying phase it starts all over again. He loves to be held and is happiest in our arms snuggled against us. The thing he likes best are these big black/white/red flower pictures we have in our t.v. room. He will stare at them and coo for so long. Apparently they are much more exciting than any baby toy he owns.

As far as whether or not they look alike changes all the time. When Keenan was born (in the hospital) he looked a lot like Cayden. It was like staring in the same face. Within a few days he started to look different, only similar to Cayden not identical. Now he looks like his own person. Sometimes he looks a bit like her pictures, sometimes nothing like them at all. When Cayden was a baby she looked so much like me. At least I thought so and that's what everyone always said. With Keenan I think he looks like Eric.

Here they both are at 3 months old :)