Funny How the Mind Works (03/31/14)

Baby blues can do funny things.  Sometimes your mind just snaps, almost like a clean break, sometimes I imagine could be shattered into a million pieces.  The less breaks the easier to fix I suppose.  I am doing better, and I hate to blame baby blues, but it affects a lot of women, and I guess I am no exception.  

Doctor’s Update (03/26/14)

This week I’ve had a couple appointments for Spencer.  First one was on Monday when he saw his physiotherapist.  So far all is looking good.  We need to keep going with his awful stretches but don’t need to strive for 6 a day, four is a good number.  We now need to work on strengthening the left side of his neck.  So we have to carry him tilted so he has his right side down and his left side needs to pull his head level to see straight, if he is tired we need to continue with the way we have been trying to carry him.  We also need to work on exercises of tilting him in front of a mirror so he is focus on something to have him lift his head perpendicular to the ground, same as carrying him, but more of a repetitive motion to build muscle. 

The next appointment was for the follow up with his general doctor regarding his scrotum ultrasound.  Dr. H is being a little cautious and referring Spencer to an urologist.  So that means more appointments, hopefully he doesn’t change the diagnosis; I was happy with the statement “It will resolve itself.”  Given the wait list for any specialists in Calgary, I guess it is better to be on the list and not really need it when the time comes, than not be on the list and things get worse. 

Over all Spencer has been doing great.  Gas seems to be his enemy today. I’m not sure why, as I’ve been having fairly regular foods that shouldn’t affect him.  Alas, he is sleeping it off, only to wake up periodically to toot.  Hopefully this passes soon, as when he has a bad bubble somewhere he cries, which is understandable, gas can be painful. 

Here are some more pictures courtesy of the smile card.  The first one is one of my favourites so far.  His personality is coming out in the photos now that he can smile and express himself. 

This is our photos for St Patrick ’s Day.  They were fun photos. 

Bypass crawling. He wants to walk.(Well stand for now)

He pulls himself to standing as well, we just didn't get it on video yet.

Sleeping all night? (03/18/14)

This past weekend we went on our first trial run road trip.  We went up to Edmonton, to visit my Aunt and Uncle, so they could see Spencer for the first time.  Along the way we also got to visit a few friends that we hadn’t seen in a while.  All in all it was a good trip. 

Spencer did fairly well with travelling.  Once hitch was, by Saturday night he hadn’t pooped in 36 hours.  I know they say breast fed babies can go as long as three days before it is a problem, but for him after 24 hours he is starting to get uncomfortable, and gets progressively worse.  Deb spent a lot of Saturday’s dinner visit pacing the restaurant parking lot with him to help sooth him.  I think it was a combination of new stuff, travel, and a busy restaurant.  He constantly wants to see and take in everything.  Which is great for learning, but once he gets past tired it becomes a battle.  Even after dinner we had to wait in the car/pacing long enough to get him settled before we could get him into the car seat without bawling. 

Once back at my Aunts, and after a couple hours of pumping his legs, massaging his tummy, and letting him kick to himself on laid on the couch, he finally pooped.  He then ate, and passed out.  We went to bed shortly after that.  I woke up at 6:30, and he still hadn’t waked.  I checked on him and he was still sleeping peacefully, so I went back to sleep.  Spencer slept from about midnight until 7:30.  That was a novel sleep for me and Deb.  We hadn’t thought it would be the start of a trend though. 

Sunday night, after travelling home, Spencer napped at home, and when it came time to go to sleep, once again he slept from about midnight right to 7:30 again.  Woohoo.  But I think all the excitement of travelling helped with this trend.

Monday night wasn’t quite as lucky, however he did sleep 5.5 hours straight.  At this point, it is now over 48 hours since he last pooped, so when he is awake, he isn’t comfortable, unless you can find “THE” position for him to sit/lay in.  That could be some of the issue as to why he woke up after 5.5 hours, as he wasn’t too awake, and mostly slept ate after getting rid of some gas.  Sometimes it is hard to breastfeed him though, because the position to latch isn’t comfy for his tummy, which is hard to see too, he is hungry and wants it, but cries because his stomach hurts. 

We have been giving him some Gripe water to try and help the situation, but still nothing more than a shart.  We can hear and feel his tummy gurgling, and can sympathize why he is grumpy.  This makes it even harder to do his neck stretches, as he starts grumpy only to make it worse, but they half to be done to help his neck. 

Also on Friday we had his scrotum ultrasound.  I had refrained from googling what could have been the problem, to not get myself worked up.  The doctor said it is water around his testicle, and it should absorb itself, and progressively get smaller.  Monday I got a call from his doctor wanting to see him next week.  I mentioned to the receptionist “They said his balls are fine.”  She laughed and said, “That comment made my day, and yes this is follow up to that ultrasound, but I don’t have the results.  Dr. H wants to see Spencer regarding this.” So we have an appointment next week to see his doctor.  

PS: Spencer’s overall trend of sleeping before this weekend has been 4/2/2/1  on a good night and 2/1/1/1/1 on a bad night. 

Why shopping takes all day (03/10/14)

We have discovered the smiles card. This has been detrimental to quick shopping trips.  You can get a free photo whenever you go in, in hopes that you buy more photos.  We are about a 70/30 ratio of buying more photos.  But here is the chronological order of us getting photos of Spencer. 

This was our first session when he was about a week old, and where we found out about the smiles card.  Needless to say we bought more than one image.  First time parents at a Walmart Portrait Studio, dangerous to the budget. 

But overall it didn’t cost us too much, thankfully.

We didn’t get into the habit of going until February.  This is where thing get going.

Cuddly, then tough guy.

Being in a track suit, we couldn’t resist trying the sports angle.  It worked out great.   Deb is starting to get great ideas for this.

Around Valentine’s Day we did these; (It is me under the purple blanket holding him up, they said I looked like a purple Snuffy.)

"Girls, who said anything about girls?"

These were a hoot to take and hard to choose out of the total session.

 It is a constant rotation of pick up photos, and “Oh, we might as well take some while we are here”. We do have some more, but don’t have digital copies yet.  So random photos to come.  His Boofle shoot turned out fantastic, can’t wait to share them. 

Another Ultrasound (03/06/14)

At my last doctor’s appointment for Spencer’s two month appointment, Dr H saw that Spencer’s gentiles weren’t developing properly. She gave us an ultrasound requisition to have another ultrasound to see the problem.  At the time I didn’t worry about it much.  It seems that I’ve heard about men with different sizes, so I didn’t give it much thought.

Deb and I went out for our first Coffee Day with H & R.  We had mentioned the ultrasound needed in conversation.  R mentioned “Oh that’s not a problem, my son had the same thing; he had surgery to fix it.”  In my books, if you need surgery, things aren’t fine.  I am trying my hardest not to Google what could be the problem.  Our ultrasound is scheduled for March 14^th.  The closer it gets the more nervous I am getting. 

 Let’s hope this is the proverbial “things happen in threes”, and this is his last ultrasound for a long time.  

Torticollis (03/04/14)

First I would like to note, Spencer’s weekly photos are now posted on a page at the top of the blog to see his growth.  Oh how time flies and sleepers and onesies get retired to the too small bin. 

Next up is to update you on Spencer’s lump in his neck.  Last week I got a call from a physiotherapist regarding a referral she got for Spencer.  Hm, I was unaware he was getting a referral for his neck.  She went on to explain how he should probably get physio, and I didn’t object, I just didn’t know we were getting a referral.  To our knowledge the lump would “resolve itself in about a year.”  I guess yes it will, but only with some help.  The ultrasound doctor did the referral. 

Yesterday we had our first physio appointment.  The therapist went over what the problem actually is.  It is called torticollis.  She said that some people say they have that, but it is only a slight muscle flexion.  Because Spencer has the lump he has true torticollis.  In my opinion, the lump on his neck is much smaller from when we originally found it, which I hope is a good thing. 

To get rid of it properly, we need to work on strengthening and stretching.  The stretching is heart wrenching to do to him.  I need to have my hand on his right shoulder, then have my right forearm beside him and pull his head towards his left shoulder.  I need to hold this position for 30 seconds.  Spencer tells me that he doesn’t like doing that.  We need to work into being able to do that twice in a row, and 4-6 times a day. He hollers while doing it and when I pick him up afterwards he has the heart pulling sob that is a whimper of pain with sniffling cries. 

On top of that we need to work on his head turning from side to side, as well as adjust the way we carry him to make sure his right side is down so he is prone to use his left side muscles to strengthen them. 

The good news is we caught this fairly early.  Trying to do the stretches with an 8 Month old is a LOT harder apparently.  So that is what I try to explain to Spencer before and after we do the stretches.  Here’s to hoping this clears up quickly.