Month 7

You know those posts where I whined and cried about how hard of a week I had?  How the boys wouldn't sleep all night?  Man, did I SO not know what I was talking about...

The boys (and the rest of us) have been fighting a cold since a few days after Christmas.  Sunday night they started getting worse instead of better.  After eating his bedtime milk, Alex vomited all over everything.  All I could do was hold him while he repeatedly pumped his little tummy dry.  He had thrown up the previous night, too, but had no problems keeping food down during the day.  Sometimes if he's feeling bad, he'll use nursing for comfort.  The issue is he'll overeat and then throw up, which is what we think happened here.

Zach spent about 15min in his crib before waking up crying.  Both boys went to bed with me.  Around 5am I woke up and felt Alex's head.  He had a fever.  I gave him some Tylenol and agreed with Jim they were going to the doctor the next day.

At the pediatrician's they weighed the boys.  For the first time, Zach weighed more than Alex.  You could also tell that Alex just felt worse.  Zach was happy and smiling, although his nose was running something fierce.  Alex, on the other hand, just sat in my lap and stared at the doctor.  He didn't want anyone but me holding him.  His little eyes were red from rubbing.

The doctor gave them a once over and said it looked like they might have sinus infections.  There was a chance they would get better on their own, but it was also possible they needed antibiotics to get over what they had.  We opted for the medicine since we felt like they had already taken a turn for the worse.  He also showed us how to flush out their noses with saline spray.

By Wednesday they were both feeling better.  They still had a productive cough but most of the lethargy and runny noses were gone.  Alex doesn't mind taking the bubble gum flavored medicine but Zach has figured out all kinds of ways to avoid it.  Besides the obvious turning of the head, he'll also stick out his tongue, cough (and spray me with the sticky pink stuff), fend me off with his hands, and generally try to escape from whatever is holding him.  He'll also refuse to swallow what's in his mouth unless both of his cheeks are full of the stuff.

I think the antibiotics were the right choice this time.  I am not a huge fan of medicine in general, but Jim was suffering from the same stages of illness and he's still hacking and coughing.  The boys, on the other hand, just have a little runny nose and the occasional cough.

Wednesday also marked the end of the "Let's sleep with mom!" era.  Jim and I decided it was time for them to sleep in their cribs again.  Our original method of putting them to bed (milk until asleep, transfer to crib for more sleeping) wasn't working.  As soon as Jim would pick one up to move him to the nursery, his eyes would pop open and he would start crying.  After some book consultation, we opted for Modified Cry It Out.  Basically you put your baby in their crib sleepy but awake.  If they cry (ha! like there's an "if"), you wait 5min then go in and comfort them.  Once they're calm and sleepy, you put them back down.  If they cry, you wait 10min before repeating the process and keep adding 5min every time.

Wednesday night, it took 3 tries before the boys put themselves to sleep (i.e. 30min of crying total).  Thursday night they were asleep within the first 10min.  I know a number of parents think CIO is cruel, and we own books that talk about how scared and emotionally damaged our kids are, being left to cry.  I think it really depends on your babies, though.  I know what their cries mean and their reaction to CIO was anger and frustration at not getting their way.  At no point was there any "I'm scared!" or "I'm sad!" crying.

They also slept for longer stretches than they have in a LONG while.  Alex only got up twice all night, and Zach was at a manageable four times.  I did have to put Zach down for a little CIO around 2am but it lasted less than 5min before he was back asleep.  They went to bed around 9pm and got up at 7:30am. The bonus?  I actually got to sleep in a position other than pinned on my back!

We've had some food adventures this week.  On Sunday we went to Whole Foods and picked up the next round of fruits and veggies for the boys.  Besides the normal pears, bananas, avocado, and apples, we got mango, acorn squash, and carrots.  I've also figured out that both boys will woof down their apples if I add a little cinnamon.  I searched the frozen food section for saltless peas and the best I could come up with was a peas and carrots combo.  They've been eating that for dinner all week and seem to like it.  Mango also seemed to be a hit.  I was initially worried since it can be a fibrous fruit, but the blender made short work of it.

Also, on the topic of eating...  WE HAVE TEETH!  Ok, really we just have tiny little spikes that will be full teeth at some point, but still!  This is what 3mo of drooling and chewing have netted us.  So, it looks like the first teeth for both boys will be the bottom left incisor.  Alex's is a little farther along, but not by much.  They're going to look like country bumpkins with one bottom tooth.  hehe

In other baby news, the boys have started doing this weird thing with their arms.  They'll extend their arm, wave it in a circle, then bop themselves on the head.  They'll do it over and over while they're trying to fall asleep for naps.  The bead bonk is really light, almost like they're trying to touch their hair but forget exactly where they left it.

Alex has been screaming with glee a lot more, especially during bath time.  This scares Zach to the point of tears.  Of course, the full-body splashing doesn't help, either.  I think Alex loves baths but Zach just tolerates them.  Zach turned the tables with some screeching of his own during lunch.  You could see the tears welling up in Alex's eyes.