Back home

Dominick had his first trip away from home this weekend. He went to see his grandma (Mike's mom) in southeast Missouri and had a fabulous time playing with his cousin Seth. Dom slept soundly for the two nights he was there. He told me today that the lights didn't come down but stayed in the ceiling, so I guess that's why. Not only did he sleep well, but he also did something he hadn't done since September 2005: he sat down in the bathtub. Even better, he did it again during tonight's bath at home, so maybe we're finally past him standing for his baths. Too bad Dom didn't come home using the toilet, too!

While Dom was gone, we took things easy around here. Without his older brother to pounce on him, Noel got a little bit of floor time. I finally took some pictures of Noel pushing up on his arms. He's gotten pretty strong but still isn't ready to crawl. Here's one of the pictures:

Our digital camera has a very handy movie mode, which I've barely used, so this weekend I decided to take a video of Noel and try to post it here, just to see if I can figure it out. Here goes!

Celebrations

Two things happened today:

First, we learned that Noel's kidney scan was normal. You can imagine our relief at hearing the results. I guess I had been more worried than I realized.

Second, Mike and I celebrated our tenth anniversary. Yikes! Has it really been that long? We had dinner tonight at Macaroni Grill because it is kid-friendly, fairly loud inside (so you don't have to worry too much about kid noise) and just sounded good (love that bread!). It was the third time we'd eaten out since Saturday, but Noel chose this particular time to cry inconsolably. So for our anniversary meal, the two of us took turns walking the baby around the lobby while the other ate with Dominick. For his part, Dom behaved very well, though he preferred to use his fingers instead of his fork and then, for some inexplicable reason, kept putting his hands over his ears. By the time we left, his face and hair were oily and his clothes stained. But he was charming throughout the meal, so who cares about the mess?

Ultrasound

Noel's second kidney scan was this morning. By some miracle, I managed to get all three of us out the door at 7:40 am. Though we were scheduled for 8:30, once we registered, we were taken in, so we finished early enough to take Dominick to PDO on time. Now Noel's upstairs crying in his crib. So much for everything going smoothly.

I don't have any information from the ultrasound, unfortunately. The technician told me to call the pediatrician in a day or two for the results. When I asked her whether she'd seen anything, she gave me a somewhat evasive answer, saying that she doesn't know because today's scan needs to be compared to the one taken in December. What that says to me is that the hydronephrosis must still be there. We'd really hoped that it would have resolved itself by now. I won't know for sure until I talk to the doctor's office, though. I'll keep you posted.

I need one of these!

Anyone who knows me at all will realize why I have to post the following link. It's not a new video, but I just discovered it the other day. Dom really likes it, too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ul0gfCyeiyM

The question is where do you find turtles like this one? Can they be trained? The turtles I've seen in our yard pretty much just sit there, so they're useless against unwelcome visitors of the furry kind.

Some photos

I've finally gotten around to naming and organizing our recent photos and thought I would post a few random images.

This one dates back to late February. Dom had put one end of a slinky in Noel's hand and proceeded to stretch it as far as possible. Don't worry--Noel always let go first.

This was taken at the Missouri Botanical Garden a couple of weeks ago. Dom was having so much fun he did not want to leave the fountain. Here's Noel waiting for us to move on:

Dom wanted me to take a picture of him with his string of letters.

What a pose!

Recent Dominisms

I haven't posted any of these lately, so here are some funny things Dominick has said and their translations, where necessary. I've got to start writing these down when he says them! It's so easy to forget. There was another good one at lunch today, but I can't remember it now for anything. If it comes to me, I'll add it. (Update: I remembered.)

Maybe okay

va (there)

lips (Blistex--I think he's confused because it goes on the lips.)

flashing shirt (the little graphic of a phone on our phone display. I guess it looks a little like a shirt.)

playgro (allegro)

waffle (falafel)

stuff in my mouth (vomit)

Let's spell "stuff in my mouth."

Let's spell "light coming down."

I'm going to turn into a girl. I might, in a minute.

I like cooking shows. (Nothing strange here, just something he says that I find amusing.)

Phone fun

Here's a milestone, if you can call it one, that I would rather do without: Dominick made his first 911 call today. He didn't just dial 911, but those happened to be the first three numbers he hit. He plays with the phone a lot but never actually calls anyone. He puts letters on the display, changes the ringtone, pages the handsets, changes the language to Spanish, that type of thing. Today, however, as I was making lunch, he came into the kitchen holding the phone and said, "I called someone." Sure enough, I could hear a female voice, and it wasn't the one that says "If you'd like to make a call..." I wrestled the phone away from Dom and apologized to the woman, explaining that my three-year-old had gotten the phone. She said, "Well, this is 911, so you need to watch him." Ouch! How embarrassing. Then she asked if everything was okay here. I assured her it was and apologized again. From now on, if Dominick wants to talk on the phone, he can talk to Elmo.

It's always the roast beef

We have reached a blissfully quiet end to a long, miserable 24 hours (give or take). I now know why I got sick, after both Mike and Dominick began vomiting within about ten minutes of each other last night. We all ate the offending roast beef for dinner on Thursday, but for some reason it affected me first, and in the meantime, they ate it again and paid a much steeper price. (They probably threw up 35 times combined. Sorry if that's too much information, but now you know just how bad it was.) I had recovered sufficiently to assume the caretaker role, which meant starting the first of several loads of laundry, cleaning Dominick up as much as possible, and getting him back to sleep for a few minutes before the next bout of sickness. I stayed in his room all night, running back upstairs twice to feed Noel, who chose the worst possible night to wake up an additional time. Then Dominick decided he was ready to get up at 5:50 am. Needless to say, I got absolutely no sleep last night. Fortunately, the boys and I took a nice long nap this afternoon, which is why I'm able to function at all tonight. Dom seems to feel better and even ate a couple of small, bland meals today. Mike may stay home from work again tomorrow. When he gets sick, he gets really sick. This happened last fall when he ate some suspect roast beef at the cafeteria.

I called Sam's Club this morning to report the bad beef they had sold, and the woman in the meat department basically blew me off with a chipper "Oh, okay!" that really said, "And you're telling me because...?" When I asked about getting our money back, she snapped "You'll have to ask customer service about that." That was not exactly the response I was hoping for, so I called again and got the meat manager, who at least seemed to care somewhat and promised we would get a refund. He also said that there hadn't been any other complaints. Tomorrow, I will contact the county health department. If anyone else got sick, I hope they report it, too.

In the midst of the drama today, I did manage to feed Noel some rice cereal, which he seemed to like. Either that or he liked chomping on the spoon. Regardless, he ate all that I gave him. And later, I took his monthly photo. He'd been crying a minute before but gave me this great smile:

Noel's first meal

Thursday night Noel had his first taste of solid food. He was really tired and still feeling the effects of the immunizations, so it didn't go over very well. We gave him a very tiny amount of sweet potato, but most of it came back up, once during the feeding and later, just after his bath. We're going to try again tomorrow with something more bland. Mmmm, rice cereal!



Noel's less-than-successful first feeding foreshadowed my getting sick several hours later. Thank goodness Mike stayed home from work yesterday. He rescheduled a meeting after seeing me lying, quite miserably, on the bathroom floor, knowing that I was in no condition to take care of the boys. I slept most of the day and am feeling much better now. Yesterday, despite my sickness, I couldn't help noticing that Dominick went all day wearing his pajama shirt and no pants, and Noel's bodysuit stayed unsnapped. You can always tell when the daddy is in charge, can't you? Believe me, I am not complaining! I am so grateful Mike was here.

Mike has taken Dominick to the Science Center, and Noel is supposed to be napping, though I hear him kicking his crib, so I have a few more peaceful moments for recuperation and a shower.

Noel's six-month checkup

We went to Noel's appointment this morning while Dominick was at PDO. It was so nice not having to keep Dom from leaving the exam room every few minutes! The trade-off was that Noel's nap had to be delayed, but he went to sleep when we got home without any problems. He had three shots today, which left him a little tired and fussy. You can see in this photo that he was feeling out of it. Poor guy.

As usual, the appointment started with weighing and measuring. At six months, Noel weighs 14 pounds, 6 ounces and measures 26 inches long. While he's still in the fiftieth percentile for length and head circumference, his weight has dropped to fifth-tenth percentile from 25th percentile at the last visit. With all the eating he's been doing, this came as a bit of a surprise. The doctor wants us to start him on solid foods right away and come back in a month for a weight check. I cooked and strained some sweet potatoes tonight but didn't think Noel was up to trying them tonight. Maybe he'll feel better tomorrow.

The other concern is Noel's birthmark. The doctor doesn't think it's likely to go away. I can't remember the term for the kind of birthmark he has (it starts with a v), only the kind he doesn't have (capillary hemangioma). She pointed out that he has a patch of several small spots at the back of his head. I never noticed it under all the hair. Obviously, this was disappointing news. Still, the mark should fade, and laser treatments are a possibility in the future.

The good news is that, apart from these two issues, Noel is doing very well. He's right where he should be developmentally. Also today, the doctor's office set up Noel's follow-up renal scan at the hospital. It's scheduled for May 23. If the ultrasound shows that the kidneys are growing properly and the hydronephrosis has resolved on its own, we won't have to do anything else.

Here's another photo of Noel. He's just started sucking his toes. Everything goes in his mouth these days! He was even going after the doctor's fingers while she was listening to his heart.