Logan is 2 months old!

(I tried inserting pictures, but then Blogger would lump all words into one paragraph. Let me know if you know what I'm doing wrong-to keep the spaces between paragraphs and my list at the bottom.)

Logan is doing well. He is totally over the virus and back to his old self. We are praising God for his recovery; the whole experience was scary and made us feel like first time parents again because we have never experienced a sick infant before. He is starting to smile! He doesn’t do it all the time, but when he does he throws out a bunch of them. They are very cute I must say!

He also is sleeping through the night some of the time. The last 4 nights he has slept until either 5 or 6am 3 times and the other night woke up an additional time around 2. I am pleased with that! We also started putting him in his crib in his room instead of the bassinet in our room. I decided it was time even though that means my baby is already growing up!

Napping has been harder. He doesn’t like to sleep during the day without being in one of our arms. We had one really good nap day when we swaddled him for the first time. He slept for over 2 hours in his crib. The 2nd try with swaddling didn’t go well, but the next couple of tries weren’t as good as the first time, but he did sleep swaddled in his crib for 30-45 minutes. He is a much fussier baby than Shaun ever was.

Here are his 2 months stats from his appointment today:

Weight: 13 pounds 2 ounces, 80 percentile. He gained 3 pounds 11 oz since his last well checkup at 13 days, and it is up from the 74 percentile.

Height: 24 inches, 84 percentile. He grew 1.75 inches, and is down from the 95 percentile.

Head: 40.5cm, 61 percentile. His head grew 2.7cm, down from the 69 percentile.

He also got his first round of shots. I hate my babies getting poked, but it is necessary.

Here is how Logan compares to Shaun at 2 months:
Shaun was 11 pounds 11 oz, 46 percentile.
Shaun was 23 inches, 50 percentile
Shaun’s head was 40.7cm, 66 percentile

Other news:
Shaun started preschool level swim lessons this month. He goes Monday & Wednesday mornings for half an hour. He is having a blast. The first 10 minutes of the first class he didn’t like it. He had to get used to getting and being in the water without mom or dad, but after the 10 minutes he was doing great. I love taking him!

Bill is currently in the middle of his 2 week yearly Navy duty. This year he had to go to the base on Whidbey Island, so he is staying there during the week since it is an hour and a half drive. So, I get to experience having the boys by myself during the week; so far so good! He is doing it a bit earlier in the year while I’m still home, so we can give Auntie a year off this summer.

As I mentioned last fall, there is a baby boom going on at our church in 2011. Logan was the first. Logan’s first friend, Madelyn was just born on 3/20. They have yet to meet because we didn’t want to chance passing on any lingering germs we may have still had, but it will be fun when they do. Both of my boys have girlfriends named Madelyn!

I have about 1 month left on my maternity leave. I will be going back to work, probably on May 4. I am trying to make the most of my time left and telling myself that I can do it again! I have gotten a lot of things accomplished so far along with spending time with all my boys!

Here are some of the things I have checked off my ‘To Do List’:
*Printed 2010 pictures and got them in the album (yes, I was that behind)
*Printed January & February 2011 pictures
*Started Logan’s photo album
*Started Logan’s baby book by filling things in and picking out pictures to include
*Updated Shaun’s baby book and picked out all pictures to include (I hadn’t put any pictures in his book yet besides the ultrasounds)
*Updated/finished Shaun’s little photo album from Grandpa
*Started Logan’s little photo album from Grandpa
*Started Logan’s 1st year picture frame (includes 1 small picture for each month in the first year)

Things still remaining on the ‘To Do List’ (& it grows):
*Take a good up and down picture of Logan to go in the frame from Grandpa
*Pick out pictures and order a collage of 2010 for my work wall
*Get the professional pictures in frames and organized in groupings on the walls
*Keep up with printing pictures monthly in 2011and beyond
*Do Logan’s 3 month pictures at the end of April
*Clean out Shaun’s too small clothes
*Go consignment store shopping for clothes for Shaun (we have been blessed with a lot of hand me downs, so I haven’t had to do this yet!)
*Get rid of baby clothes & equipment soon after Logan is done with them. We have already given 1 bassinet to a friend-we had 2, some clothes to a friend expecting their first boy (yes, he is outgrowing clothes already), and my maternity clothes I gave to someone at church who knew someone in need. It feels so good to get rid of stuff instead of it cluttering up the house (and help someone else out at the same time)!
*Clean out the garage (Bill’s job mainly:)
*Clean out the basement/family room
*Convert the basement into a playroom by getting rid of the loveseat and chairs and organizing toys, etc.
*Get the carpets and ducts cleaned
*Go to the zoo!

What a week!

Before I get into the details of this week; I’ll first say that Logan is now doing fine and on the mend. As I said in the last post, Logan came down with a cough/cold late on Thurs, 3/10.

Logan got a slight fever on Saturday. Sunday the fever spiked up to 101.5, so I called the consulting nurse who said to go in to urgent care. So, we spent 3:30-7:30pm at Bellevue urgent care on Sunday getting checked out. Luckily we only had to wait about 40 minutes to be seen. We were in the "pediatric line", so it went quicker. I heard others saying they had been waiting 2 hours. They took blood, urine, and a chest x-ray to rule out serious conditions. All was fine with those tests. He also did a nose culture which proved that he has a virus; RSV. So, he just needs to get over it with Tylenol, time, etc. We were to go back to urgent care if anything else came up like struggling to breath, which happened Monday afternoon.

So, I took Logan into Everett urgent care at about 6pm on Monday. He was seen right away. (It wasn’t that busy, but saying you have an infant with breathing problems gets you right in!) They got him some medicine, sprayed at his face in kind of a fog and then saline the same way. A lot of nurses, docs, a fireman, and paramedics were all in to see him. Then there was talk of transporting and admitting him. So, Logan and I got to ride in an ambulance (not for speed), to the hospital. The whole experience was kind of scary even though Logan was laying right there pretty content. I could see urgency in the nurses and docs. At some point the ambulance had been called because it was there and the paramedics ready for us. Bill came to be my support and help at the hospital, etc after Grandma & Grandpa came to pick up Shaun & Abby and to bring me an overnight bag since I left the house not knowing I would be gone overnight.

At the hospital, they had him hooked up to monitors and monitored him through the night and into the next afternoon. He had one point during the night where he needed oxygen for a couple of hours because his oxygen level was below 90%. He still had a fever and was very sleepy and not wanting to eat much. His breathing was doing fine on Tuesday, so the doc said that in order to go home he needed to prove that he is eating so we don’t have to worry about a dehydration issue. So, Logan had an assignment at 3:30 to eat 4 ounces of milk by 6pm (calculated by how much he usually eats when he is well). It didn’t matter if he ate it in little increments, just that he gets it all down in that time. Up until this point, he had only eaten about 3 ounces since the previous evening. He passed the test, so we got discharged about 6:30pm on Tuesday. The doc said to follow up with our regular pediatrician in 2-3 days.

During the night at the hospital, Bill made me get some rest. So I slept probably between 2am-6am. Bill ended up staying up the whole night. I made him go to sleep then, so he got about 3 hours of sleep starting at 7am.

Since Tuesday evening at the hospital, we have been feeding him my milk through bottles only so we can monitor how much he is eating to avoid getting dehydrated. He ate 20 ounces on Wednesday, which was our minimum goal. He is getting close to that today. He woke up Wednesday without a fever! So, we are finishing day 2 with no fever. His eating isn’t back to normal yet, but you can tell that he is feeling much better!

We had his follow up doc visit this afternoon with his regular pediatrician. It was pretty uneventful since he is on the mend. He just wants us to come back in a week to follow up again even though we will be back the next week for his 2 month check up.

RSV is a common virus that goes around every year. In little ones it can be more of an issue because it gets more into the chest. It peaks in 3-7 days and then can take 1-2 months to fully go away because of the healing needed. The doc said he will be contagious for a couple of weeks. It could have been caught from anywhere. The doc today said that premies and those born with heart or other issues get multiple shots throughout the season to prevent getting RSV.

Bill has come down with a cough and run down feeling the past 3 days, but has had no fever. I have had a scratchy throat for a couple of days, but feel fine otherwise. So, Logan has a cough and his appetite is not fully normal yet. We are praying for everyone to get healthy soon! Shaun is feeling fine! So, counting the 2 times last week we went in for appointments regarding the reflux/lactose issues, Logan has been to the doc 7 times in 9 days; yikes!

Test Results

Before reading this post, read the previous post if you haven’t done so already.

Reflux: Negative; he does not have it. The test went fine. Logan did really well. He laid on a table with an x-ray machine that the doc could move over him. The nurses and I kept him in position while I held the bottle for him to drink and the doc took pictures. On preliminary review when we were finished, the doc told me that everything looked good and all development looked good, that some came up only once and he couldn’t get it to happen again. That means he is fine in the reflux area. The nurse confirmed that today when she called after the doc did his extensive review of the pictures.

Lactose Intolerance: Test was positive, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he is lactose intolerant yet. They want to test it again in a few weeks. It could be an underdeveloped tolerance, which he could grow out of. So, the testing on this is still in progress. Meanwhile, I get to be lactose free! Basically, I can’t have anything that has lactose, whey or milk in it. I have never really looked at the ingredients of stuff I eat; it is a lot of work! That includes all dairy products and bread, unless specifically lactose free, plus a lot more stuff too. I got some lactose free milk; it isn’t that great and a lot more expensive, but at least I can have cereal with it.

In addition, Logan has come down with a cough/cold in the last day. Shaun was kind enough to share! Shaun has had a cough since Sunday and even had a fever Sunday-Tuesday. I really didn’t like how the cough was sounding on Logan mainly because he is so young, so we went to get him checked out today. He is fine, just needs to get over it. His lungs and everything were checked. So, hopefully he gets over it soon. Other than a little coughing and some congestion, Logan seems fine. He is eating and acting normal. Shaun still has a lingering cough, but is better.

Logan update at 6 weeks!

For the past couple of weeks Logan has been really fussy when eating and at times in between. I can hear big gurgling in his abdomen and even feel tiny bubbles. He cries out in pain during eating even though he is still hungry and tries to eat again. So, we went in to the doctor today to get checked out. He is having Logan tested for reflux and lactose intolerance.

The lactose intolerance test involves providing a stool sample. You might be wondering how this is done on a 6 week old? I was wondering the same thing. It is gathered by putting saran wrap in his diaper and then putting it in the container provided to take to the lab within 1 hour. Woo hoo! I also get to go on a lactose free diet right away to get that going if that is the problem. This will be interesting. I have only briefly looked over the chart of allowed and not allowed foods, but no chocolate caught my eye! Bummer. We also are giving him a little formula, so I bought some lactose free formula too.

The reflux test is tomorrow morning. This is called a "Barium Swallow" test. They watch him eat a certain type of food and see where it goes in his body. This will tell whether he has reflux or not. If he does, he will go on medication.

He weighs 12 pounds 6 ounces, which is the 88 percentile! In 4 weeks he gained 3 pounds, well 1 ounce shy of that. He is still getting in the food!

He is 23.5 inches long, which is the 90 percentile. In 4 weeks he grew 1.25 inches!

I will keep you blog readers posted!

Family Pictures

We got family pictures taken a few weeks ago! So, here they are!

Brothers!

Shaun at 3 years!

Logan at 3 weeks!