September 29, 2009: Cohen’s BIG Helper

To our surprise, from the get go Carter has taken to his Big Brother roll quite nicely. John and I were very nervous in February when we handed our then 15 month old son a “baby brother” doll and Carter kissed it on the head and proceeded to throw it across the room. However, once Carter got used to the Ronald McDonald house he hasn’t looked back in helping with the baby.

At RMH Carter would carry the bottles of pumped breast milk down to the freezer, and when Cohen came home Carter was our go to man for throwing away Cohen’s dirty diapers and fetching a binky. 5 months later, the helping has only increased: This week the boys and I dropped John off at his studio so he could finish some homework and Cohen was in his car seat fussing a little bit. All of a sudden I hear Carter saying “ENOUGH! Enough baby doe, enough! Enough, enough, enough!” I’m not even joking. It was so hilarious I called John and put him on speaker so he could hear what Carter was saying. We never say that to Cohen, so I’m not too sure where he picked it up from. Regardless, it was pretty funny.

Another way Carter likes to help with Cohen is at meal time. Cohen is now on solid food, so Carter likes to “help” me feed the baby:

September 26, 2009: Let's Eat!

Disregard my previous post about Cohen not liking rice cereal and going slow with introducing solids as Cohen has started solid food! After much deliberation and consult with the Spokane GI doctors, Cohen’s doctor and I decided we should go ahead and try to start him on solid food. As I’ve mentioned before, we are now dealing with the opposite extreme with Cohen’s BM’s….upwards of 11 poops a day! Diapers are expensive in generally, but when you’re going through almost 20 a day it is starting to get ridiculous. We are hoping the solid foods slow down his pooping frequency without backing him up completely. So far it is working, and Cohen LOVES food. In fact, he would rather eat baby food than take a bottle. His doctor is not afraid to discontinue solids all together if he decides he won't consume enough milk to supplement his food intake. He still gets his calories from milk, so in order to continue to gain weight he needs to continue having the majority of his caloric intake from milk.

This is personally my least favorite part about having a baby…mainly because it adds another notch on my bad mother belt as we buy our baby food and most of my friends who are fabulous mothers actually make their own. Sigh. I chalk it up to having two babies under 2 and both parents as full time graduate students. Maybe baby #3 will be afforded the luxury of homemade baby food…but considering SHE is a few years off, I guess I won’t worry about that now.

September 23, 2009: Music to Our Ears

As I’ve mentioned before, Cohen is a completely different baby than Carter. Though by the grace of God, they are both unbelievably perfect with no real behavioral issues or whatnot (my mom is still trying to figure out how we won the lotto twice!). Another big difference between the boys has to do with making noise. Carter was an incredibly silent baby. Even his crying was rather weak and not real loud. He never ever “cooed” or made baby sounds…he literally went from doing nothing, to signing to speaking. Cohen on the other hand is much much much more vocal. As soon as his adjusted age reached the developmental milestone where cooing should take place, Cohen fell right in line and started making noise. At first it was the sweet, ooohs and ahhhs, and some squeals when he was super happy. Then it progressed into quick , sharp screeches as if to say “Hey, you! Pay attention to me!” (Maybe it’s a second born thing??). And now he just "talks" (more like yells) at whoever will listen…or to no one at all. He is quite content just hearing himself.

While my mom, Cohen and I were in Seattle visiting Auntie Libby at college (tear, my baby sister is in college…with a ‘big sis’ in her sorority…) Cohen spent a good 45 minutes on the floor of our hotel room rolling around and yelling at us just like the video. It is so fun to listen to, well for about the first 10 minutes…

September 18, 2009: Caution:

Protect your nose when Cohen is hungry!

We're Still Here!

I apologize to our loyal blog readers for the absence of postings!! Life has been super busy with school back in session, but there is so much to report so I will try and have the blog updated this week! Cohen is growing bigger by the moment and I can't wait for you all to see recent pictures of him. Thank you for your patience :)

September 14, 2009: He Can Hear!

Carter had tubes put in his ears this morning. The surgery went very well. The nurse told us ahead of time to expect him to either be groggy and whiny, or having a fit immediately after coming out of anesthesia. The little boy who went ahead of him was just having a fit and was inconsolable. I was just about to tell John that he should go back to the wake up room and deal with a screaming Carter, when the nurse walked into the room with Carter in her arms and placed him in my lap. He was perfectly fine, and upon waking up he wanted to be “up” and his “tars”. A few sips of apple-water and some sesame street and he was fine. Not a whine or cry and he went to daycare an hour later. Though we learned later that he only had an hour nap (usual is 3). I really hope the tubes aren’t having an affect on his napping!!

September 10, 2009: 7 Months!

Cohen is 7 months old, and 4 months adjusted age. His last developmental assessment went well and he is hitting all 4 month milestones appropriately. He loves to explore his hands and is holding on to toys and getting them into his mouth. He is able to move a little bit in his exersaucer and is doing a great job holding his upper torso up. He scoots around the floor on his back and can officially roll from stomach to back. His shoulder is his only obstacle when trying to roll from back to tummy…he’ll get up onto his side but he can’t quite get over. I’m sure its only a matter of days. Cohen also likes to play with this feet. He’ll bring them up to his chest and hold onto his feet and rock back and forth like that. It is pretty funny. We are also starting him on rice cereal this month. He will eat a little bit but is not a huge fan of it yet. He is doing great.
Coey also had his late 6 month check up. He still has an ear infection, so his doctor started him on another antibiotic. She said we wouldn’t wait as long to put tubes in his ears as we did with Carter (his surgery is on Monday). An interesting note, Cohen’s BM issue seems to have taken an extreme turn. Instead of not pooping, he is now having any from 10 to 14 BM’s a day! It is clearly very watery, and though he is not upset over it, he is eating every hour and a half and that is making ME upset. It could be a bug, or his body is forcing BM’s this way in order to cope with his bowel issue. Even though he is “pooping”, we are still keeping his GI appointment because this is still not normal. Other than that he checked out fine. He won’t get his 6 month vaccines for another few weeks due to the delayed vaccination schedule he is on, but I am not looking forward to that appointment