Archive for May, 2007

The Votes are In!

May 31st, 2007

Last night I emailed a bunch of you the following request:

Okay – I’m entering Levi and myself into a photo contest for Similac. The instructions were to send a photo showing my favorite “mom job,” along with a brief caption that explains why it’s the one job you wouldn’t trade for anything. The deadline to enter is tomorrow, so please write me back ASAP if you want me to consider your vote.

So here’s the caption:

Our 4-month-old son had an intrauterine stroke, so my favorite and most important mom job is to feed his growing brain, whether by making his environment stimulating, reading and chatting with him, or feeding him lots of DHA and ARA. As you can see, he likes it too!

Now, please help me decide which photo to use. I’m trying to choose between the two that are attached. Trade-off: Levi’s cute smile vs. better angle of the nursery. Don’t worry – my original photos aren’t as blurry as these – I just shrunk them down pretty far for emailing to you.

Thanks to all of you for the great response! The results are in, and the winner is…… number one (with Levi smiling really big). So that’s the one I entered. Obviously the odds are slim that I will ever hear back from them, but if I do, you guys will be the first to know!

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Four Month Milestones

May 30th, 2007

So… here’s what Levi is up to at the ripe old age of 4 months:

Sucking on his thumb. Usually he sucks on his left thumb, but sometimes one thumb just isn’t enough so he’ll suck on them both. He pushes them against his upper gums like he’s trying to put on some dentures. He still chews on his knuckles a little bit, and also likes the occasional right-thumb-and-forefinger combo.
He just found his feet. He hasn’t started chewing on his toes yet, but he goes through staring spells where he won’t let them out of his sight. He also likes to stare at his fingers, and clasp his hands together in front of himself like a little gentleman (actually, he’s been doing that for a really long time – like since 6-8 weeks old).
Standing. He is very good at it. In fact, the developmental pediatrician (by the way Robin, Dr. Pullano said to tell you, “hi!”) told us to limit the amount of time he spends extending his legs like that, so he can work on flexing them instead.
Grabbing things. He’s starting to put things in his mouth. He intently studies objects that come into his path, and is getting very good at exploring their fine details with his fingers. When you bottle feed him, he’ll grab your thumb and will even guide the bottle into and out of his mouth when he needs a break!
Batting at things. He’s been doing this for a really long time, but now when he bats things, he goes bananas. He hits things like a drummer playing a trap set. He’s also seemed to figure out that when he’s on his floor gym, he can make the middle toys wiggle if he pulls hard enough on the edge toys. It makes him really happy to see what he can do.
Blowing spit bubbles. We can see some little teeth under his lower front gums, but it will probably be awhile before they sprout.
Smiling up the wazzoo, and starting to laugh. He kinda goes “huh huh huh” and then squeaks like a dolphin.
Learning to sleep in his crib (I know, I know… we’re such bad parents to have let him sleep in his swing this long). He’s getting better at it. Over the weekend, he stayed asleep in Brad and Kristi’s old crib for a full seven hours – a new record.
Babbling. His favorite words are, “buh buh buh,” “uh uh uh” and “muh muh muh.” And of course there’s the ever-popular “mmm mmmm.”
He’s got a keen sense of hearing. When someone else is feeding him in his carseat and I walk up behind him, he will turn his head to see me. He loves to hear me whistle. The slightest rustling sound will wake him from a sound sleep.
He loves it when you read books to him. He sits there and watches just like he’s reading along. It is really cute.
He loves his nightly bath time and massage. We’ve discovered that this is one secret to helping him sleep through the night. We prop him up in a Mother’s Touch Bather in the big boy tub. Generally he just sits there and has a ball, though he absolutely detests it when you have to clean his neck, which requires acrobatics of olympic proportions to reach beneath his many neck rolls. It’s a two-person job.
He’s a big fan of car rides, though not for sleeping. He just likes to watch out the window as things go by.
He’s NOT a big fan of dressy clothes. As soon as his comfie little onesies are replaced with jeans or pants, man, he lets us know that he does not approve.
His sweet personality is really emerging lately. He wakes up smiling, and keeps it going all day. He’s really laid back, and although he is patient, he is developing a short attention span. The max mileage we can get out of his vibrating bouncy chair now is about 10 minutes.
He is very alert and bright-eyed, intently watching everyone and everything around him. He especially loves to look at other babies and the mirror. He’s also quite a talker and interactive. I don’t know what he thinks he’s communicating to us, but whatever it is, he’s obviously convinced that it’s worth conveying. He gripes when he’s mad, and for over a month now has had distinct cries for hunger, sleepiness, boredom and pain.
He’s a pretty good eater. He weighs over 15 pounds now. He’ll stare at his bottle (or your plate) when he’s hungry, and will start sucking before it even hits his mouth. We’re still struggling to breastfeed, only because he’s still reacting to something in my breastmilk. He eats at least half formula because otherwise his tummy hurts, he generates some brightly-hued diapers, and he screams bloody murder. I really wish we could get a break on that front. His pediatrician wanted to wait to give him the allergy blood test, thinking it might not be fully accurate at Levi’s age. I dunno… the jury’s still out on that one. But I didn’t push the issue, primarily because I think he’s allergic to something obscure that might not be covered in a standard 15- or 20-panel test anyway (e.g. cheese but not milk, coke but not caffeine or sugar… you get the idea). I’m still trying to eliminate things from my diet one-at-a-time in hopes of isolating the problem. Next up: eggs.

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Memorial Day Weekend

May 28th, 2007

First of all, let me apologize for my lack of blogging lately. Many of you have asked what is up with Levi’s potential craniosynostosis. Thankfully, the x-rays came back normal, so everything looks great! No further tests, and best of all no surgery. Many other things have happened in the past few weeks that are worthy of at least a paragraph, but we have been SO busy! I will try to get back and cover some lost ground when I have time, but in the meantime, I’ll at least give scoop on recent events.

Let’s start with the past few days, which have been a big weekend for our little man. What is it about holiday weekends that makes them even more busy than usual? It’s only one extra day, but for some reason we hear “long weekend” and think we can cram in four days’ worth of extra activities or something. I got half the day off on Friday, so my mom came up and we dragged Levi around on our errands all afternoon, capping off with his maiden voyage to Wal-Mart. He did great. He didn’t really take naps like I hoped he would, but he just sat there silently watching all the goings-on the whole time.

Saturday Levi officially turned four months old. To celebrate, we shoe-horned the whole gang (including both dogs, their crates, the pack & play, and about 15 bags of miscellaneous gear and supplies) into the van and took him on his first road trip to Cleburne, complete with Beatles background music. We were heading to the annual Birchfield family reunion, originally intended to be an outdoor event at Hulen Park. Since the previous days had brought a deluge of rain, they moved it to “the annex” of Brad’s hometown church as backup. Tragically, Marilyn walked into the annex that morning to discover that the roof had completely collapsed under the weight of all that rain. It literally looked like a tornado had hit it. So, we relocated to a family-owned restaurant in Godley instead, where we ate barbecue and did some serious Bingo-playing. I won some dominoes.

After the reunion, we went back to Nonna’s where Levi and his cousin Jordan (Brad’s sister’s daughter who’s 3 1/2) had some bonding time. Levi really loves her. He’s always fascinated when he sees someone his size, but he was especially interested in Jordan. He was smiling to beat the band and just having a good old time.

Saturday was Levi’s first time to spend the night at Nonna’s. She and our friend Lora watched him for awhile while his daddy and I went to a wedding (one of the Stewart family weddings, which are always fabulous). Apparently he was at the end of his rope. Not only was he wiped out, but he also had one of those awful tummy aches. Poor Nonna and Lora did a great job soothing him but apparently he made them really work for it. We came home just in time to give him a bath and put him down for the night.

Sunday was Levi’s first visit to Brad’s hometown church. By this point in the weekend, he was understandably tired and a little cranky, but he did pretty well overall. We always measure how well Levi does in terms of minutes he can stay in the auditorium. I’m proud to report he went for about 45 minutes – a rare feat! Lots of dear friends got to meet him for the first time after service let out. The finale was lunch at Buffet City followed by a visit to our friends the Browns (whose son Parker was 1 month old yesterday), after which we started packing and headed back home.

This morning, we went on a charity tour of homes in Frisco. Levi did great again – he watched intently as though he was every bit as interested in the homes as we were. We successfully avoided any rain – the day’s downpour started literally as we were driving off to leave in the van. So now, that leaves us with just enough time to get started on some long-overdue cleaning on our own abode.

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Hallelujah!!!

May 18th, 2007

Let me just tell you, I am giddy as a schoolgirl. Our little man slept 8 hours straight a couple nights ago!!! Last night he did great too. Oh my gosh I can’t tell you how excited this makes his daddy and me. We’ve been trying to get him on a schedule for quite a while. We’ve had a few setbacks along the way, but maybe now he’s ready to get with the program.

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On a separate note, we had Levi’s first developmental pediatrician visit yesterday. It was very interesting! Basically, the doctor felt for various abnormalities on his head, watched him play and interact, took measurements, established baseline milestones, etc. More than anything it was a foundational visit that will help us track Levi’s progress over time so we can quantify his development and growth.

Overall the visit went great. Levi is up to 14 pounds 10 ounces and 23 and some-odd inches long. He was being his usual sweet self. The doctor kept talking about how handsome a baby he was, how well he seems to be developing, and how great and laid-back of a personality he has. He told Levi, “You’re just a delightful baby. I wish you could stay here all day.” Aw, how sweet!!! The way to a man’s heart might be through his stomach, but the way to a momma’s heart is definitely through complimenting her children.

Pretty much, he’s developing right on par with his peers, even though he was a month early. He’s rolling over, grasping objects, tracking objects as they move, etc. He loves to try to stand up all the time, and is really good at it.

One thing that will require a follow-up (an X-Ray on Monday, and possibly a CT scan and perhaps future surgeries if abnormal) is a potential craniosynostosis. Basically, an infant’s head is supposed to have loose plates that maintain their gaps until an older age to allow space for the head and brain to grow rapidly. If these gaps close up too soon, it can cause the head to grow abnormally (e.g. side-to-side instead of front-to-back). We have noticed a slight bump running from ear to ear over the top of Levi’s head, technically called a ridging of his coronal suture, that might indicate his gaps have closed up too soon. I really, really hope Levi doesn’t have this problem!!! He’d probably be fine with it, but I might come unglued if he had to go through cranial surgery.

Another thing Dr. Pullano noticed, unrelated to the other skull issue, is that one side of Levi’s head is flatter than the other, called plagiocephaly. We’ve tried rotating his head around when he sleeps or sits, but we need to do a better job of it so as to avoid the helmet.

Another thing we discussed is that Levi has been stiffening his legs lately, and the only explanation I found about that online was cerebral palsy. That Internet is somewhat of a blessing and a curse, in that you can really get a lot of answers, whether or not they’re applicable, and whether or not they’re optimistic. Basically, Dr. Pullano said that is the type of thing that Levi is at risk for, so we will have to watch and see how things go. The earliest they could diagnose that is 12 to 18 months of age. It’s usually only a motor-skill impairment ranging anywhere from slight clumsiness to complete paralysis, but occasionally it is a more global issue involving thinking/developmental challenges as well. I don’t even know if Levi has it at all, but if he does, I know it will be a mild case at worst. No matter what, we have God on our side so we Birchies can handle whatever comes our way. We just have to work on flexing his legs (bicycling, etc.) and limit the amount of time he spends extending his legs (as in the bouncy chair that I spent about 3 hours putting together for him the other day – dangett!). We also need to make sure we give him ample opportunity to play with toys using both sides of his body, especially his right side which may have been impacted by his stroke.

On a lighter note, the doctor said that Levi’s verbal skills are at or ahead of his milestones based on birth date, meaning he’s even farther ahead as far as gestational age, which is how you’re supposed to compare preemies. This is great news! The left temporal lobe where his stroke occurred is the speech center of the brain so we are ecstatic that his language skills are doing so well. He hasn’t laughed yet, and we are dying to hear his cute little chuckle!!! So hopefully he will indulge us on that here soon.

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Happy Mother’s Day!

May 13th, 2007

First of all, Happy Mother’s Day to all you moms out there!

This has been a big weekend for us. Friday night, Brad finished his last final of the semester, thus also his second year of law school. It’s hard to believe he’s already 2/3 done! I hired somebody to mow the lawn, as congratulations for this milestone and so he wouldn’t have anything hanging over his head this weekend. He starts his first of two summer clerkships at Baker Botts tomorrow.

Yesterday, I hosted my annual tea party and luncheon for the family ladies, which was my first post-Levi event. It was a blast, as always. We sat around, ate like queens, shared family tales, laughed a lot, and everyone got a chance to coo over Levi (and Brad and I got a little break!). Plus I got to use my mother’s day gift, a cool new camera that fits perfectly in my purse.

My mom cleaned all the dishes for us (thanks Mom!) and then she and my dad took us to dinner to celebrate the ending of Brad’s second year of law school. It was great. And Levi slept the whole time, which is totally unlike him since he usually resists sleep for fear of missing one iota of fun.

Then today was my first mother’s day. It still hasn’t sunk in that the label “mother” applies to me. It probably won’t until I have at least a couple of ankle-biters who refer to me as “Mom.” Nonetheless, today was a very indulgent day, which my thoughtful husband made utterly ideal. Brad usually takes the lion’s share of middle of the night tasks anyway, but he took full duty last night so I could have an uninterrupted night of sleep. He got me a donut & sausage roll on the way to church this morning. Church was great. Levi behaved better than ever – we were in the auditorium for a full 20 minutes! Then as we always do, we went to the store on the way home from church. (It’s always best to take advantage of opportunities like that when Levi is already dressed, out of the house, and groggy.)

Upon returning home, Brad sent me to bed for a nap (which I didn’t resist) while he cooked us a lunch of steak & lobster tail – yum! Afterward, we had chocolate-covered strawberries for dessert, and I got to take ANOTHER nap!!! What a wonderful day. I can’t imagine how it could’ve possibly been any better. Thanks for the royal treatment, Babe!

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A Little Mother’s Day Anecdote

May 10th, 2007

Sorry folks… I know I’ve fallen off the blogging wagon for the past week or so. There has been a flurry of activity here in the barnyard lately, which has precluded many other activities including this. Work’s been busy, I’ve been trying to get our new nanny up to speed (I’ll tell you about that later), I’ve been getting ready to host my first official post-Levi bash on Saturday (my annual family brunch and tea party – so fun) and Brad has been going through finals (his last one is tomorrow night, and then he’ll officially be 2/3 done with law school!!! YAY!).

Although I have many, many things to update you guys on, such as Levi’s newly acquired rolling over skills and the results of his last neurologist appointment, I think I should probably choose to sleep tonight instead. But, I will leave you with a funny story that was sent to me by my friend Amanda. She said she could envision this happening in our household sometime down the road. Obviously she knows our many hooligans very well!

The Ellen Show was on and she read this submission to a contest from a viewer:

So, we had this great 10 year old cat named Jack who just recently died. Jack was a great cat and the kids would carry him around and sit on him and nothing ever bothered him. He used to hang out and nap all day long on this mat in our bathroom.

Well, we have 3 kids and at the time of this story they were 4 years old, 3 years old and 1 year old. The middle one is Eli. Eli really loves chapstick. LOVES IT. He kept asking to use my chapstick and then losing it. So finally one day I showed him where in the bathroom I keep my chapstick and how he could use it whenever he wanted to but he needed to put it right back in the drawer when he was done.

Last year on Mother’s Day, we were having the typical rush around and try to get ready for Church with everyone crying and carrying on. My two boys are fighting over the toy in the cereal box. I am trying to nurse my little one at the same time I am putting on my make-up. Everything is a mess and everyone has long forgotten that this is a wonderful day to honor me and the amazing job that is motherhood.

We finally have the older one and the baby loaded in the car and I am looking for Eli. I have searched everywhere and I finally round the corner to go into the bathroom. And there was Eli. He was applying my chapstick very carefully to Jack’s . . . rear end. Eli looked right into my eyes and said “chapped.” Now if you have a cat, you know that he is right–their little butts do look pretty chapped. And, frankly, Jack didn’t seem to mind.

And the only question to really ask at that point was whether it was the FIRST time Eli had done that to the cat’s behind or the hundredth.

And THAT is my favorite Mother’s Day moment ever because it reminds us that no matter how hard we try to civilize these glorious little creatures, there will always be that day when you realize they’ve been using your chapstick on the cat’s butt.

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