Wow – just when I got used to saying that Levi is 6 months old, he turned 7 months old. This means he’s now closer to one year old than not. Good thing I already bought all the supplies for his first birthday party.

So here’s what our little man’s life is about these days:

• Sprouting more teeth. His top two teeth broke through a few days ago.

• A sly grin. He’s such a flirt. He’ll do his new trick: starting with a high-pitched scream and gradually deepening his voice until it’s a loud, low, gutteral grunt. Then he’ll look at you out of the corner of his eyes and smile, obviously satisfied with himself.

• Bouncing. I now know why they call them “Bouncing Baby Boys.” As far as entertainment stations around the house, the bouncy chair is by FAR his favorite. It lasts probably 20 or 30 minutes, compared to the average 5 minutes everything else lasts. Although his exersaucer is not a bouncer, he bounces in it anyway, making a huge racket. If you hold him on your lap, he’ll start jumping up and down and making this irresistable little giggly face, so you have to indulge him in his activity.

• Eating more food. We tried to give him a Cheerio the other day, and apparently he’s not ready for that yet. He made the most offended face, held it in the middle of his tongue, and gagged quite dramatically. But he is making progress – his diet now consists of sweet peas, squash, applesauce, sweet potatoes, bananas and prunes in addition to formula and rice cereal.

• Chasing the doggies. He thinks it is really funny when his dad holds him while playing with the boys. It gets a few cackles out of Levi every time.

• Scooching. He can’t really crawl yet, but he can spin himself in circles and push himself backward.

• Sleeping like a champ. I guess he decided he was ready to sleep through the night (thank the Lord) and he has been for about a month now.  Most nights he sleeps from around 8PM until 6AM.  We’re still working on naps, but we have finally figured out a little trick. Once he goes down for a nap, we set a timer for 25 minutes, and then go wait in his room once the timer goes off. He will awake three times in a row after exactly 30.0 minutes, and you have to be in his nursery ready to pat his little bottom and lull him back to sleep all three times. Then he’ll sleep another hour or so.

• Just generally being a charmer. He now likes to play with my hair – he gingerly twirls it in between his fingers. He also likes to gently touch his hands to people’s cheeks when they hold him. When he awakes, he’ll lie contentedly in his crib, quietly cooing and sucking on his toes until he sees you, at which point his face erupts into the sweetest little smile.

• He kinda reminds me of a baby bird. He has this fuzzy hair on top of his head, his moves are spastic, his eyes are bright and curious, and he pops his little mouth open when you feed him something he likes.

• He now does the “baby banana.” He has already figured out how to arch his back until he’s roughly banana-shaped, and wriggle so that it’s very hard to hold onto him. He usually invokes this maneuver when you’re trying to get him to sleep before he’s ready, or when he’s reclining when he wants to sit up.

   

Wow, has it been six months already? As Jessica commented the other day, “our little boy is growing up fast.” Here is what Levi is up to these days:

• Sitting up on his own. As you can see above, Levi is now able to sit up for an extended period of time without any support from us or the bumbo. He’s a little wobbly at times, but is getting pretty good at figuring out how to balance himself and keep from falling over.

• Gaining weight and getting taller. At Levi’s 6-month checkup, Levi was in the 70th % for weight, 50th % for height, and 75th % for head size. Considering he was below the 10th % for height and 15th % for weight when he was born, that’s not too shabby! And as for his head, well, he’s always had a pretty big noggin. Our pediatrician continues to monitor his head size closely and is watching for any signs of macrocephaly, which is a condition where the head grows abnormally large. But so far, everything looks great.

• Growing more hair. Levi is definitely going to have a full head of hair real soon. It’s growing in pretty thick, especially in the middle, and it looks like we’ll have to cut it in the near future. I think he got this from me. My dad always had a full head of hair and ladies who cut my hair always comment on my think hair and how I’ll never go bald. It looks like Levi’s hair will be similar. As for the light brown/blondish color – we’re still puzzled where that came from.

• Eating solid foods. Well, if you call baby food a solid food, that is. Levi has been eating cereal for several weeks now. He’s still not a huge fan, but Susy (our nanny) can usually get him to eat a bowl every morning. Fruits and veggies, however, are a different story. We bought just about every variety of Gerber baby food the other day. We picked out what we thought to be the blandest one and let Levi try it. He made the most horrible faces and basically refunded everything we were able to get in his mouth. We tried several others to see if we could find one he liked but with similar results. So at this point, he’s eating mainly cereal and occasionally we’ll try a fruit or veggie.

• Throwing stuff. We think Levi is a southpaw because he loves to throw his toys with his left hand. He loves to grab, hold, and touch things with both hands, but when it comes time to get rid of something, he always uses his left arm for the job. This is what we’ve been anticipating all along. Since his stroke affected only the left side of his brain, we’ve been expecting him to utilize his left arm more (since it is controlled by the right side of the brain.) Other than that, though, he shows no signs of having any disabilities or limitations using his right side. In fact, he primarily uses his right foot for pushing off while in his bouncer.

• Getting talkative. Levi loves to jabber and make sounds. Sometimes, we’ll talk to him or ask him a question and he’ll respond with some random sounds like he’s trying to talk back to us. Also, he’s discovered how to scream in this high-pitched voice in the last few days. At first it was really cute, but now it reminds us a lot of that line in Dumb & Dumber where Jim Carrey asks, “You wanna hear the most annoying sound in the world?” It still makes us chuckle when he does it – but we also hope he grows out of it in a hurry.

• Loves his bouncer. Levi just loves spending time in his bouncer. He’ll cackle and laugh the whole time he’s in there. He’ll bounce and bounce and seem to never get bored with it. We bought an exersaucer for him the other day that has tons more toys and sound-makers than his bouncer. Levi tries and tries to make it bounce like his bouncer, but since it won’t, he gets bored with it pretty quickly.

• Sending emails. I received this email the other day. Although he hasn’t quite grasped the idea of email addresses, the internet, or even the English language, Levi definitely loves to bang on his mom’s keyboard when she is working:

From: Jessica Date: Aug 1, 2007
Subject: an email from your son

mny vk yukj b kn,
,m s ,./l.uuuuuuuuuj|K<<”

Here he is with Nonna at Dr. Sugerman’s office (our pediatric allergist, whom we love!) on his 5-month birthday.

• He has already sprouted his two bottom teeth! I saw them for the first time at that allergist visit on his 5-month birthday. He had been slobbering to beat the band, and was really cranky (for him, which still isn’t very cranky) for a few days prior. My mom said that she had noticed that his gums were really red earlier in the week. So when they took his temperature, he was running a very slight fever and I mentioned that I thought he was about to start teething. I pressed on his gums a little to make them feel better, and lo and behold, felt two little hard things. I looked to discover that his little teeth had already poked right through!
• At the advice of two pediatricians and the allergist, we’ve officially abandoned breastfeeding. Dr. Sugerman thinks Levi may have a soy intolerance. Since switching to formula, things have been better, but I’m still not convinced he’s 100% there. I think I’m going to take him to a pediatric GI specialist just to see what they can tell us.
• We have all but confirmed Brad’s (and therefore most likely Levi’s as well) Factor V Leiden blood clotting disorder, which is probably the cause for Levi’s intrauterine stroke. We see the hematologist first thing next month to get more info.
• Levi’s still not such a good sleeper. He sleeps from about 7 PM to about 6 AM, but wakes up maybe 5-8 times in there. He goes down fine, but has trouble staying asleep. He also takes about 4 naps a day, but for no more than 30 minutes each. We’ve already read Babywise, Baby Whisperer, What To Expect the First Year, and several other books, and now we’re reading the No-Cry Sleep Solution and Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child in hopes that they’ll shed some light. I can’t tell you how old this is getting.
• Levi LOVES his bouncy chair. He just bounces and bounces in that thing. He looks really cute in it, with his beaming little round face, giggles and wide open smile, and fuzzy hair.
• I’m not sure if this is normal or not, but he’s developed quite the penchant for flapping his arms like a bird. Aggressively. He lifts his little arms and repeatedly punches himself in the gut with gusto.
• He weighs about 18 pounds now. We got his length and head circumference measurements at the allergist’s office too, but they didn’t quite register with me because they were in centimeters.
• He can still roll over, but more by virtue of throwing his large noggin around than purposefully and coordinatedly “rolling over.” He doesn’t do it often, but occasionally will in order to see what toys are dangling over his head.
• He loves to make raspberry sounds. The more drool slobbering down his chin, the better.
• Already we can tell that he is such a boy. He sits in his bouncy chair, pummels the heck out of the dangly toys, and cackles in amusement at how funny he thinks that is.



• He absolutely loves the dogs and cat. He reaches out to pet them, watches them in quiet amazement, and talks to them. Sushi is getting more curious about Levi lately, and seems to be more comfortable in getting close enough to sniff or even touch the boy on occasion. The dogs really love him too. Poor mutts. They have no idea what they’re in for.
• He is such a flirt. He will sit there and do something funny, and then when we laugh at him, he will smile real big and do it more. He’s very engaging. He will sit there and watch you from anywhere he can – across the kitchen, in the other room, or right next to you. He loves to give big ole smiles to random strangers at church and when we’re out shopping. When you wave hello, he seems to struggle to lift his hand to imitate you. I’m not sure if that’s what he’s doing, but that’s what it seems like he’s trying to do – but just doesn’t quite have the coordination for it yet. My mom, Brad’s mom, and I have all noticed this independently of each other, so maybe it’s really what he’s doing. One time, he did the little hand thing on his own, and my mom waved back to him, and he just cracked up laughing.
• He LOVES to “ride the horsey” on his daddy’s knee. He will just laugh and laugh. I have got to get that on video one of these days so you can see how utterly cute it is.
• He hates to recline. He wants to sit up and check out all the action. If you put him down in his carseat or hold him sitting back in your lap, he will struggle and strain pulling up with his little head until you prop him up. It doesn’t matter how tired he is – he just doesn’t want to lean back for some reason.
• He’s starting to “skooch.” If you put him down on his tummy, next thing you know he’s at a 90-degree angle (or more) to where he started. I have this bad feeling like he’s going to start crawling soon.
• He’s really into grabbing things. He grabs things with both hands, passes them from hand to hand, and grabs two toys, one in each hand. He loves to put them in his mouth, but he’s not a big chewer though. Normally just a second or two in the mouth, and then it’s back out so he can look at it.
• He’s starting to repeat words he hears a lot. Right now, that’s primarily “hi” and “Mom.” He has no idea what they mean, or that he’s saying words, but he does a good job faking it!

 

Here we are at my parents’ house for Brad’s first father’s day.

• 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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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.

So here’s what Levi is up to now that he’s three whole months old:

• Smiling up a storm, especially when you sing to him about the Wheels on the Bus
• Holding his head up 90 degrees during “tummy time.” He is especially intrigued by his reflection in the mirror.
• Pushing up with his legs when you hold him – and he’s a strong little booger!
• Grabbing ahold of your hair or necklace
• Lots of swinging. He not only sleeps in there, but sometimes we walk in thinking he’s asleep to find him sitting there quietly with the brightest little eyes and his hands folded together like a little grown-up.
• Lots of looking around – in lieu of sleeping unfortunately!!
• “Talking” – he will tell you all about it (in terms of uh, ee, gee and ooh)
• Sitting in his Bumbo baby-sitter
• Doing the “Super-Baby” – when you pick him up, he puts his arms up in the air, arches his back and keeps his legs in the sitting position
• Eating a lot – he weighed thirteen pounds when we last took him to the doctor, so he’s probably at least 13.5 pounds by now
• Sucking on his fists and thumbs. We aren’t sure, but we think he’s going to be a south paw. He seems to prefer using his left hand.

So the next thought was obviously to name my four dwarfs. Let’s see… Kramer is an easy one – he’d have to be “Furry” since he’s a husky. For Sushi, the name “Fraidy” would be appropriate (as in Fraid E. Cat) because he’s so shy.

Cosmo is a bit harder because so many good nicknames apply. There’s “Weenie” because he’s such a chicken. He can frequently be found running with his tail between his legs, and he refuses to set his paws on the least bit damp or cool grass. Some lion-hunter he is. Then there’s “Dopey” because of how he runs head-first into things and has a completely one-track mind. But I think the most fitting name for him would be “Noisy.” He is always so loud. His stretches are loud. His eating is loud. His toots and burps are loud. His yawns are loud. His mutters are loud. His walking and running is loud. Even his breathing is loud.

For Levi, although “Cutie” is tempting, I think that’s too generic. So he would have to be named “Smiley.” He is such a happy baby. When we’re feeding him, sometimes we have to give him smile breaks because he just can’t wipe it off his face long enough to eat. You can even get him to smile while he’s crying, which makes for quite an interesting sight.

So there it is. Snow White and her Four Dwarfs, Furry, Fraidy, Noisy and Smiley. If only we still had Hugo. Then we could have a fifth dwarf named “Scratchy.”

You know, I was just starting to feel like we were making ground on the breastfeeding front… Levi was able to breastfeed for almost 20 minutes at each feeding before we gave him a bottle; my supply was finally kicking into gear; it wasn’t hurting near as much anymore… when suddenly late last week, we developed yet another new complication. I won’t go into detail, but suffice it to say that we could tell something had gone awry based on Levi’s diapers. Color, texture and content were all “off.” Plus he started getting really fussy and inconsolable, which is not like him. We called the pediatrician, who basically told us to call back or go to the E.R. if things kept bleeding and/or he developed other symptoms.

First, some background (which is how you diagnose usually-fuzzy baby symptoms).

• Disposition: Levi is usually a very happy and laid-back little guy, crying only when he really has something to say. Dirty diapers don’t make him upset. He’s even pretty patient when he’s famished as long as he knows breakfast is on the way. But lately, he pouts, cries, screams, stiffens his legs… the whole shebang… and it can last for a long time.
• Appetite: as anyone who looks at him can tell, the boy can pack it away. He has been gaining weight like a champ all along, although he has always mildly resisted certain aspects of feeding time. Namely, breastfeeding and bottle-feeding (two rather pivotal aspects to feeding a baby). Both take some coercion, but obviously we have to get the food down him somehow so he finally concedes. When he was younger, we supplemented him with formula when he needed more than I could provide, but these days all he eats is breast milk.
• Gassiness and spitting up: the boy burps like he’s prepping for a contest. He even drew some comments from other moms in the nursing room at church yesterday morning. But I thought maybe that was normal for a little boy. Also, he never spit up when he was younger, but that keeps getting worse and worse (thus it’s not acid reflux, which would be getting better). It’s not caused by over-eating either, because he will spit up after an unusually small meal sometimes.
• Sleep: not so much. Before he was even 7 weeks old he could sleep for 5 hours at a time, so I know the boy is capable of going for long stretches. However, he still isn’t sleeping through the night. In fact, he’s on a pretty regular 2- to 3-hour schedule for getting up to eat.
• Diapers: profuse. Definitely more than the recommended daily allowance. But generally “normal” for breast-fed babies.
• General health: the poor guy always sneezes a lot and has a stuffy nose. Sometimes at night an entire nostril gets totally clogged. He also has a few skin issues, and has already had one round of diarrhea.

Thanks to the Internet (where would we be without that?!?), we’ve now learned that the apparent culprit is probably some form of food sensitivity. Man, that Dr. Sears website is the best. The light is now dawning. I think the problem has been there all along, but it didn’t get really obvious and problematic until recently. Night waking, nasal drainage, sneezing, skin problems, spitting up, boycotting his food… all the classic signs were there. So now, until we figure out what things he’s allergic or hypersensitive to, the only way to keep him feeling good is to feed him formula. If he’s anything like me, he’s probably only allergic to, oh you know, EVERYTHING! Corn, wheat, soy, milk, everything green, dust, cats, dogs…

Good grief – this is just what we need. We were just getting into the swing of things – FINALLY. After THREE LONG MONTHS. Heck, at least I should be well-versed if ever I decide to pursue a career in lactation consulting. Just pray for us! Pray for my attitude (which is obviously not at its best at the moment), pray for me not to get discouraged, and pray for us to get a hard-earned break!