Alex Is Three Months Old!

Time hasn't stopped or slowed down yet, so here we are at three months old already!  If I could stop time I'd keep Alex here forever..okay somewhere between here and nine months old these are my favorite baby months.  

Alex doesn't have an official doctor appointment until the beginning of August so I don't have any official weight, height etc. stats.  But I stepped on the bathroom scale with him this weekend and he's at at least an official 16 lbs, give or take some ounces cause who know's how accurate that thing is and it only measure to the half pound.

He's still in his 0-3 month clothes mostly because I haven't dragged the tote of 3-6 month clothes down to make the switch, but as you can see from his shirt he won't be squeezing into any of the 0-3 month for much longer!

Alex is sleeping most nights for a good 6 hour stretch, sometimes its longer sometimes its shorter.  He still just wakes up to eat and goes right back to sleep so I'm not bothered by his sleep cycle at all.  At least he doesn't want mid-night party time or anything!  He's still sleeping in his rock and play through his first wake up then he comes in bed with me and stays there.  I feel bad on the days when he's actually truly slept through the night and I have to wake him up so that I can feed him before I leave for the day.  Nobody who is sleeping well should ever have to be woken up, especially a baby!

Alex still has a great easy going personality.  He's generally content to sit and talk to a toy or a blanket so long as his belly is full and his diaper is clean.  He get's a little bit fussy when he's tired and will usually go to sleep without help.  (As in you don't have to do 10 things the exact right way and rock/shush/sway him to sleep most days)

He really, really wants to be able to sit up, he's spent most of the month trying to sit upright when he's put into anything that has him in a lounge position.  (Carseat/swing/bouncer)  He love to stand and still hates tummy time with a passion.  Lucky him he doesn't even get a chance for much of it with a sister who can't be trusted around a baby on the floor.  Eventually going to have to get out the baby fence to keep her away from him I think!

Still exclusively breastfed, I pump at work so he's still getting breast milk at the sitters, he takes about 4 ounces still every 3-4 hours.  Or whenever he feels like it.  When I've worked all day he wants to nurse 100 times between when I walk in the door around 6:30-7pm until he goes to bed around 10-10:30.  I'm tossing around the idea of baby led weaning with him rather than dealing with/using puree's & cereal.  I barely used cereal at all with Addison, mostly used just to thicken some of the pureed foods.  I don't know for sure I don't have any experience with it and I'm not sure what his pediatrician will say about it. (not that I'll let her opinion on the topic decide what I do in the long run.)  If you have experience with it, by all means, please pass on your wisdom!

Alex can all but roll from his back to his belly, that darn arm keeps getting stuck and he can't quite get all the way over but he's sure working at it.  Goes along with can't get time on the floor to practice these kinds of things with the sister! :)

I'm not positive but I think Alex has eczema, we've been fighting a patch of really bumpy, dry, itchy skin across his forehead between his eyes for the better part of the month. (Almost like poison ivy rash) I keep on top of putting on ointment and lotion and it heals up, stop for a day or two and its right back.  He's also got some dry red patches on the back of one of his elbows, his legs and his chest.  Currently it's healed up and I'm trying to keep him all lotioned up to see if some of the other patches will also heal up.  Believe me with my lack of spare time putting lotion on my kid 16 times a day is the last thing constantly on my mind.  Trying to do it at every diaper change to keep it in my brain.  I should make a doctor appointment specifically to figure it out but I'm not a worrier about things in general if it continues to improve I'll just ask about it at his next appointment.  But everything I read points to eczema.

I still hate with a passion that I have to leave the kids to come to work Monday - Thursday.  It's definitely been harder coming back this time than it was last time, and feels like it's getting harder rather than easier as the days go on.  I pretty much HATE it.  He's been doing well with the baby sitter though.  Doing 100 times better with the bottle that he was in the beginning and so far he's been surviving the crazy that is her house full of kiddo's.

I just love this happy little man.

Grandma McMurtrie

I mentioned my grandma was placed into hospice care a couple of weeks ago on the first of May, she passed away that Sunday the 4th.  My mom spent the day with her and said she really didn't respond to her all day, Mom left and my aunt Lucy was there with her when she passed about 20 minutes later.  Lucy said it was very peaceful and had she not been watching her breathing she wouldn't have known that she stopped.

It's so hard to lose people that are close to you, I feel like I've been through this way too many times.  But no matter what or how it happens, whether its something you knew was coming or it happens in an instant, it hurts and it's sad to think you will never get to talk to them again.  The selfish part of you thinks about all the things that they will miss out on that you know they would have loved to have been a part of, or you just wish they could be a part of to share in your life.  Things like watching great grandkids be added to the family, watching a grandchild graduate, grow etc.   As sad as it is to say good-bye I'm also comforted to know that she's no longer in pain.  One thing is for sure my grandma was a strong woman.  Through the past few years as her health/mobility declined she was the last person you'd hear complain.  She was also the last person to ask for help or be willing to give up the ability to do things which is probably what kept her going as long as she did.  She had a lot of pride and wasn't going to stop doing anything that she could continue to do on her own.

Grandma's Obituary

I have so many memories of a childhood filled with my Grandma & Grandpa.  Days spent on the farm, the time grandma picked me up from school in kindergarten because I vomited all over the desks..yep that happened, making us pancakes of any shape we could imagine (My favorite was the horse/cow shape), mint chocolate chip ice cream and letting us eat as much as we wanted.  I remember making towering ice cream cones with my cousins Kevin & April.  Her allowing us to have contests to see who could eat the most ears of corn during sweet corn season, being amazed at her ability to peal an apple with a knife in a huge spiral without breaking the peal, always whispering to her in the wrong ear (she lost her hearing in one ear when she was young to scarlet fever).   But always keeping us in line by threatening beatings with her yard stick, not sure anyone ever got one but I sure wasn't going to be the one to find out!  Grandma was exactly what you think of/want in a Grandma.  In her eyes we were all perfect & she was the first to tell people about her perfect grandchildren regardless of how imperfect we might actually be.  Grandma & Grandpa put photos up of all their grandchildren and great-grandchildren for grandma to see from her hospital bed before she passed, 6 kids of their own, 14 grandchildren & 13 great-grandchildren....that's a heck of a legacy when you consider that's 33 people who wouldn't exist with out the two of them.

It's so hard to say good-bye.  (thanks boys II men)  But how fortunate we all were to have someone so wonderful be a part of our lives.

Hydronephros-not: Alex visits the Nephrologist.

So I promised and update on Alex's kidneys.  At the ultrasound that they did when he was a week old they still noted that the right kidney still looked like it had fluid in it so they told me they would refer us to the specialist to see what we needed to do next.  No answers, just to wait until we went there to find out what if anything was going on.

On May 2nd, my last day of maternity leave...(wth?) They FINALLY scheduled a referral appointment for Alex up at UofM. My mom took the day off work to go with me which was pretty awesome of her.  We had two appointments first was with the imaging department so that they could take a new ultrasound of both of his kidneys.  (I may work at UofM but I've never actually set foot in the new Mott Women & Children's hospital.  It was very nice.)  The nurse who did the ultrasound was very nice and super friendly.  Alex didn't seem to mind his ultrasound at all.  Actually in typical Alex fashion he pretty much didn't make a peep all day until he got hungry.

After the ultrasound they sent us up to our next appointment with the pediatric nephrologist.  They asked us a million questions about family history and how Alex had been doing since birth before bringing in the doctor (Dr. Lombel).  The doctor started in with more of the same questions before pausing to say "he's fine" and continue on with her questioning.  They are 99% sure from the looks of the ultrasound that absolutely nothing is medically wrong with him.  (yay!)  What they say he has is on his right kidney, it's called Exrarenal Pelvis, where basically the part of his kidney that collects urine before it moves to the bladder (the renal pelvis) is misshaped.  Instead of following the typical kidney (bean) shape it is just misshaped outside of the normal bean shape.  It is a normal variant in about 10% of the population and is harmless. (My aunt has it so we wonder if its a genetic freak trait that our family carries, the only reason she knows she has it is because she was having kidney issues when she was pregnant so they did some imaging tests on her and found that she had a misshaped kidney but it wasn't the cause of the problem she was having.)  They said he should not be at any increase risk of UTI's or kidney stones.  The concern was if he had a reflux or obstruction of urine through the ureters which is not the case. They said we don't have to continue to monitor him or his kidneys.  The only way we need to go back for additional testing is if Alex starts to develop urinary tract infections.

She drew us this lovely picture to try and explain it better :)  the misshaped part is where it bumps out just a little bit right near the ureter.

Happy to know that it's nothing, really, other than my kid being a little odd.  But aren't we all?