Family Outing

Someone should have warned me how exhausting it is to leave the house with a small child!

Now that are restrictions are semi lifted, we took the opportunity to get out. I'm not sure the zoo qualified as "no large crowds" but since it's open air and doesn't require touching a lot of common areas, we thought it would be safe, so Robbie had his first trip to the zoo.

He didn't seem to feel too strongly about it either way. He wasn't terribly excited, but also didn't get fussy or restless at all. He doesn't really understand pointing at things yet, so I don't think he knew what he was looking at most of the time.



Less than impressed by the lemurs.



He did seem to enjoy petting the goats, so at least there was that.





He didn't seem terribly impressed by the butterfly house, either.



I think his favorite part of the visit might have been when Mommy & Daddy had refreshments.

I may not like MY bottle, but mommy's is tasty!



Either way, mommy and daddy had a good time. It was our first family outing. (Hospital visits do NOT count.)


After the zoo, we came back home for a feeding/puking session. (His reflux is still awful.) David and I got changed and headed out to a nice dinner for Mother's Day.


We went to a local Italian place- Mungo's. Robbie did great. He flirted with the patrons waiting next to us and was pretty perky throughout most of the dinner.


He had his first taste of big people bread and boy was it a hit!






He started to get a little restless towards the end of dinner, but was pacified by the joy of playing with my to-go bag.


Bread is good, but paper is better!




All in all it was a great day. It was exhausting, though. Robbie fell asleep in the car on the way home and I could have easily done the same.

But it truly felt great to get out of the house and seem almost normal. It was the greatest Mother's Day gift I could have asked for.

--Trish

P.S. One more bonus picture. Robbie had his first trip to the grocery store with me the other day. I brought toys, but in typical child fashion, the best "toys" are always mom's.

New Toy

The sitting up continues to improve every single day.

We got a new toy that a few friends recommended and man he LOVES the thing. He sat up for a good 7 or 8 minutes in a row tonight. The only thing supporting him was his hand on the toy and that wasn't constant.

It has some flashing lights at the top and he was riveted. Definitely 2 thumbs up from me.





--Trish

all's well

The laptop seems to have recovered from its temper tantrum. That strange sound you just heard was me breathing a sigh of relief.

Today was a very trying day. It started at 7am when Robbie was fussing in an usual way and I discovered that his feeding pump had come loose at some point in the night and I'd been "feeding the bed" for a while. He was hungry. And his bed was soaked.

Then there was the breast milk dumping incident, which initially annoyed me because it was yet another waste of breast milk, but then turned into panic when the laptop died.

Robbie was also quite clingy today. Now, I secretly enjoy those days a bit, but today the timing just didn't seem to work out. The pump session that ended with the dumping had actually been interrupted 3 times to console/entertain/change him. I probably should have taken that as a sign to give up.

BUT. It wasn't all bad.

As I mentioned- we're off quarantine! Sort of.

We celebrated tonight by taking a trip to the book store. Robbie came with me and was perfect. He was probably secretly plotting how to eat all the books since paper is his favorite chew toy.

One stranger did try to touch him. (Please, for the Love of God, DON'T TOUCH PEOPLE YOU DON'T KNOW.) I managed to duck and twist to keep her hand off his head. We even got through the whole trip w/o anyone asking how old he was. That means I avoided the inevitable shocked gasp and subsequent explanation.

I got some new books and even took Robbie's picture in the mystery section. I waited for someone to ask me why I was taking such a boring photo, but they didn't.

In other good news, Robbie semi-sorta-partially-kind-of rolled over from back to belly tonight. I had a toy up at the right side of his head and he rolled over to reach for it with his left hand. He sort of thunked down so he was laying completely on his right arm, grabbed the toy and rolled back. I'm not sure that "counts" but in my book it shows he CAN do it, he just doesn't want to.

Add that to the fact that he sat unassisted for about a minute and a half tonight and really it was a good day in Robbie gross-motor-land.

In the last week he's also started doing something that I am loving. He reaches for me (or David) to pick him up when he wants up. That might seem like a minor thing, but man it's just so sweet when he's hollering and you go over to ask what the problem is and he reaches for you and looks happy. Totally melts my heart.

He's also getting better at holding two toys at once. He could *sort of* do it before, but it was pretty rare and short lived. He's still not banging them together or anything, but given two toys that he loves (his favorite "toys" being the tube of Aquaphor and a tube of Butt Paste) he'll choose to hold both for a few seconds.

He should be starting PT any time. Depending on the paperwork, he might have his first session this week but definitely by next week.

At our IFSP meeting last week, we were discussing his 6 month goals. Mine were: sitting, crawling, walking. The PTs included all of those AND stair climbing, running and a few other things.

It blows my mind to think he could be climbing stairs in 6 months. I think it's one of those things I'll believe when I'll see. But he really is making a lot of progress the last month or so, so who knows.

In eating news, it's a mixed bag. He's completely given up on the bottle. For a while he'd at least drink a little at night but now he wants nothing to do with a bottle at all. It all goes in the tube.

However, he's made some improvements with solids. He's not eating enough to rely on, but he's actually been opening his mouth and smiling during feedings. That's HUGE. It's so amazing to not having crying, writhing & fighting when he sees food. Hopefully it means good things in the future even if overall they kind of suck right now.

In one last positive milestone, he finally broke 12 pounds over the weekend. His weigh in tonight was 12 lb 1.5oz. There was a point I wasn't sure he'd hit this weight by his birthday. At this rate, I think we'll actually hit 13+ pounds by the time he's 1. Still tiny, but headed in the right direction.

All in all, I think the day ended up in the positive. All's well that ends well, yes?


--Trish

Good news & Bad news

The good:

I spoke to our pediatrician today (well, one of her partners who relayed the message from her) and we're semi-unquarantined.
We are now allowed to venture out. We should avoid large crowds and anyone with a cough. Try to keep his carseat covered when we're out and encourage hand washing practices.
Basically we need to stay germ-phobic, but we're paroled!

YAY!

The bad:
Pretty sure I fried my laptop this morning.
I managed to dump about 2oz of breast milk into it. I literally had to pour the milk out of the keyboard.
It currently won't power on. I'm praying that when it dries out it'll work again, but if not, we're screwed.
I'm using the hubby's desktop for the time being, but computer sharing doesn't work well in our house. And being tied to the office doesn't work well with a small child.

If you could think good electrical thoughts for us, I'd appreciate it.

In the mean time, updates may be sparse. And pictures non existent since I don't even know how to upload pics from my camera to the husband's computer. I always use the memory card reader on the laptop.

--Trish

Sitting Up

Robbie is getting better and better at sitting. He still needs to catch himself fairly frequently but is definitely close to sitting unassisted. He can look around (and up) w/o immediately falling over now.

He is cheating a little at the end, but he'd been sitting w/o leaning for a couple of minutes before I turned the camera on, so I think he can get away with it.

Please excuse my obnoxious narration.



--Trish