Month 7 Week 3

Last Friday Zach woke up feeling warm.  By Monday his fever had climbed to 103.4F and we took him to the pediatrician.  Near as they could tell, he had caught the same bug Alex had the previous week.  It was just hitting him a little harder.  Zach usually gets sicker and for longer than Alex, so we weren't surprised.  We just didn't like him having a fever for so long, and so high, without being sure.

On Wednesday we were back at the doctor's, this time for follow-up blood work.  Primarily we wanted a comparison of their reticulocyte count, to see if the iron supplements were working.  Reticulocytes are like baby red blood cells.  More iron should mean more are being produced.  Once they mature, then higher hemoglobin numbers should follow.  Alex's reticulocyte count went from 44 to 128 and the doctor was really glad to see that.

On the other hand, Zach's didn't change.  He was still at 44.  This is most likely due to his illness.  Your bone marrow makes a mix of white and red blood cells.  Since he has been sick pretty much the entire time they've been on iron supplements, his body has been using its resources to make the white variety.  There is also a visual analysis being done on their blood, and those results should rule out any blood abnormality.  We'll get those results either Friday or Monday.

Their next follow-up is in two weeks.  I'm not sure what we'll do without the twice-weekly visits to the doctor.  Maybe by then the boys will stop associating the nurses with something bad.  They've started crying when they see them enter the exam room.

In developmental news, Zach has figured out how to spit out his food.  And iron supplements.  And medicine.  Yay.  It's like he's blowing out some candles, but with his tongue sticking out, too.  Whatever is in his mouth gets sprayed all over the place, usually on my shirt or in my face.  The hardest part is making sure Jim doesn't laugh.  I don't want this to be something he starts doing to impress daddy.  It's already hard enough to get him to eat his dinner with his favorite person sitting next to him.

What brought this sudden expulsion of food?  Carrots.  If the boys had arch enemies of the vegetable world, carrots would be it.  (Peaches would be their fruit counterparts, FYI.)  Wow, do the boys hate carrots.  Alex, the boy would eats anything, turns into a steel lockbox at the first sign of anything orange on his spoon.  Zach uses them as instant high chair fodder.  I tasted them, and they taste like carrots.  I don't see what the issue is.  They've been eating peas and carrots for like two weeks with no problems.

In general, the boys aren't as thrilled with eating as they once were.  They'll get part way through a meal and just call it quits.  Half the time they won't even eat their fruit dessert.  We've been throwing a lot of food cubes away.  On a lark, I bought them some jarred baby food, to see if that would work.  It didn't.  They're going through some kind of phase (I hope).  All they want is avocado and mango.

Alex has started practicing his "B" sounds.  He also has started throwing all of his toys out of his car seat.  We were at Whole Foods today (buying more avocado and mango), and I had to strap his toy to the stroller to be sure we didn't loose the thing.  On the bright side, he doesn't seem to care once he tosses the toy aside.  He'll happily sit there with nothing to do, especially if we're in the van.  I think he likes looking out the window.

We're also still in the middle of separation anxiety, although Zach has it worse than Alex.  Jim's mom came over Tuesday night to help watch the boys while I went to the Mothers of Multiples meeting.  It was pretty embarrassing how messy our house is right now.  I don't know how many times I tried to clean up some, only to have Zach explode when I put him down.  He'll only tolerate the Jumperoo and sitting on the floor to play, and that'll last about 10min.  Both boys are also extremely scared of any vacuum, even the tiny cordless one.  They just start screaming and have this terrified look.

They're also eating every two hours at night right now, so I'm pretty much just worn out in general.  They're waking up more than that, but I'm making them go back to sleep.  I am not a vending machine, available for 24/7 snacking.  Hopefully I'll be able to catch back up on chores and sleep this weekend since I think we're all healthy for once.

The diaper rash thing seems to be under control for now.  After every messy diaper, we're washing their behinds with soap and water (via disposable washcloths).  Then they get dried and a layer of triples paste is applied.  We spent one afternoon driving all over trying to find hypoallergenic disposable washcloths.  For some reason only Publix seems to carry them, and ours was out.  Not even Babies R Us had them.

We upgraded my phone and cancelled Jim's.  I got one of those smart phones, like the iPhone but with Verizon.  It's come in pretty handy, especially having internet when we're out and about.  I used it to look up fruits while I was in Whole Foods, and I did a voice search to get the address of the park for our playdate.  It also has a built-in camera, which is good for taking pictures of the boys.

Well, I'm going to call it a night here.  Hopefully the next week will be less eventful than the previous.