Katelyn, Conner and Caleb! » October 2006 Journal Entries » AboutMyBaby - online baby scrapbooks, photo albums, videos, birth and pregnancy announcements

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Wed, Oct 18, 2006 5:26 PM
Caleb is up to the 50th percentile for his weight for actual age, not the adjusted age! He'd be over the 90th percentile for adjusted age right now. He also has hit all the milestones that the pediatrician looks for in a full term 3 month old. Yay!

His lungs were also clear despite the snottiness so I'm pleased with that also. He's acting much better this afternoon then yesterday so he seems to be getting over it quickly.

Conner is doing well also. He's flip flopping his height and weight percentiles and this time was at 50th for weight but 25th for height. The pediatrician commented on his excellent muscle control for his age.

Good appointments for both!

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Tue, Oct 17, 2006 4:39 PM
Sodium Ascorbate (vitamin C) is amazing stuff. We celebrated Conner's birthday on Sunday and Caleb got passed around more then he ever has before. By Monday morning he was snottier sounding then ever and coughing a moist sounding cough. He wasn't wheezing (the ped showed us what to look for when we though Conner was wheezing) and there wasn't a fever so I wasn't terribly concerned but still, any illness at this age is worrisome especially since we're now into RSV season

RSV shows up as a common cold in people without lung problems. Preemies by definition were born with some lung problems simply because the lungs were not given as long to fully develop. For them, RSV isn't just a cold, it's a life threatening emergency that usually requires hospitalization. So we've been watching out for RSV and taking precautions. We don't let many people hold him for example, and we don't put him into the church nursery. Or any other nursery for that matter. He rides in a sling if we're going to be around other children at say, the library.

I've been pumping these last two days and then giving part of that back to Caleb with some vitamin C in it for him. He's been getting the reccomended amount for a 12 pounder (it's based on weight in kg but I did the math) spread throuhout the day. Before I looked up the math for how much he should get, I wasn't giving him enough. When I started giving him the right amount his whole mood improved and his breathing sounded better and he just drifted off to sleep. He slept 4 hours after that dose which is the longest I've ever seen him sleep for a daytime nap. Daytime naps themselves are unusual so this was doubly strange. It did him good though and he's much improved this evening.

I just gave him his latest dose and Katelyn asked to help. I got a couple of great pictures (that I'll put up hopefully this evening) of her giving him a bottle. It was really cute. I told her he only got half (I accidently put double the dose in) so every couple of swallows she wanted to check to see how much he'd swallowed.

Eric just got home and Conner came running to him with a new soccer ball. He asked Conner, "Whose ball is that?" Conner replied, "Meee ball."

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Wed, Oct 4, 2006 8:42 PM
Katelyn was playing with some of Eric's "guys" aka... his star wars game pieces. I was cleanging in the kitchen when I noticed a guy on the counter. That was when Katelyn came over, picked it up, looked it squarely in the eyes and said, "Guy... no hit, no shoot, come back." He'd been in time out for shooting the other guys.

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Tue, Oct 3, 2006 6:04 PM
Katelyn, singing happily:
Here we go walking down the street, merry merry, life is a dream.

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Sun, Oct 1, 2006 12:30 PM
I've been delinquent updating. Chalk it up to a change in routine that has been keeping us super busy.

We did talk to the pediatrician and both tests qualified as negative for cystic fybrosis. So now we're 3 for 3. All 3 tests that Caleb has had for cystic fibrosis have tested negative. Yay! And from what I've read, once someone tests positive or negative on a sweat chloride test (if administered properly), they'll always test that way. However, I've also found out (from chatting on e-mail with CF parents) that there are a few strains that test negative on the sweat test.

There is one more test that the ped wants us to do... this is because when I asked for speeding up the further testing, it was after noticing that Caleb's stools were "off". They were nearly normal but not quite normal. They have a stronger smell, are slightly different in color and are slightly mucousy instead of heavily seedy in appearance. It's just a little off in all those areas but since it is off I wanted it looked into.

So we're doing a fecal elastase (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fecal_elastase) test to make sure that his pancrease is sufficient. This is a commom factor among CF patients so this'll be another way of telling. Unfortunately I'm supposed to collect 100 grams of "formed stool" for this test. And not over the course of a week... it's supposed to be from one collection time. And then it's supposed to be frozen and sent to Mayo Clinic. I had not been told this initially so I went into the lab with the largest amount of stool I'd been able to get from a single diaper... only to be told not enough and not frozen. When I heard about the 100 g minimum, I asked if they realized this was for an infant. And formed stool? That just doesn't happen with BF infants! So they called Mayo and discovered that 20 g is enough. So I'll be a while waiting for a full enough diaper to get that much into the bottle. The problem is that most of the stool is absorbed into the diaper right now. It's just a matter of waiting...

Caleb is however gaining very well. He's up to Katleyn's birthweight! Doesn't that sound odd?

We weighed him Thursday when we were at the hospital finding out about the stool stuff and he was 10 pounds 10 ounces. That was 11 ounces in 10 days. So based on that, he'd probably weigh in at 10 pounds 13 ounces today... right where Katelyn was at birth. Amazing.

He's also startign to wear 3-6 month clothes. He's simply outgrowing a lot of his 0-3 sleepers... but not the separate shirt/pant outfits or onsies.

He's definitely eating well. For a few days (and part of why I didn't post) he was eating in a 20 minutes on/5 or 10 minutes off pattern. All. Day. Long.

Yep... didn't get much done those days!

And then the sleep... he regularly "cluster feeds" until after midnight which means that I don't get to sleep until after midnight either... and then I get to get up with the older two kids get up...

Not a recipie for a well rested mommy!

But things are evening out again. And we're getting into the "school" schedule with speech therapy, Bible study and MOPS. It's a fun schedule and Caleb got over the constant nursing just in time. Now he's willing to wait a little so that I can drive places. And I've discovered that when I need a break from nursing, I can snuggle him into a sling and he'll happily sleep.

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