Nate is one month old today. This month has FLOWN by! Time moves fast once you have a child and even faster when there's more than one in the mix.
Logan has adjusted well and likes to help me take care of his baby brother. He doesn't seem to mind me feeding him and all the attention Nate needs. He has, however, become attached to his stuffed Curious George. George now goes to sleep with him, eats breakfast, wears diapers occasionally, and gets kisses and love from us all. I guess George has become his baby.
Nate is growing like a weed!! His cheeks have really filled out, bless his heart. Most nights he sleeps really well and will go 4-5 hours before he wakes up to nurse. However he will only sleep with me. I know, I know. That is bad, very bad!! I am the point, though, of struggling all night to get him to sleep in his cradle and then be miserable the next day with no sleep and dealing with Logan OR I can let him sleep by me and we are both happy. He was having a really bad episode from about 10-1 but that has ended now so I'm hoping to be transitioning to his crib this week and skip the cradle all together.
He's starting to smile a little mimicking us. Turns out he has two dimples when he smiles really big. Now that his eyes are open more I am starting to realize just how much he favors Brent. Especially in his eyes. His eye spacing is all me, but his eye shape, the way they squint when he smiles is all Brent. His lips, ears, and toes are all Johnson though! He is already able to turn up on his side, and much to my surprise that's the way he prefers to sleep. I'm going to have to break him of that too, I'm afraid, if at all possible.
He's nursing very well, going 2-3 hours between feedings and not nursing for an hour like Logan did. He's perfectly content after 15-20 minutes most of the time. I haven't had to modify my diet that much this time around. The only things I know I can't eat so far are salsa and McDonald's hamburgers. The salsa obviously because it's spicy and I'm guessing the onions on the burgers, but I've been able to eat onions on everything else. With Logan I had to cut out dairy, which was really rough so I'm glad I haven't had to do that yet.
The pediatrician called last week and said that Nate's repeat PKU came back normal. I feel confident that if he had anything wrong with him the enzymes would still be elevated. I also went over the paperwork that she had given me to take to the geneticist and found some more information that eased my nerves a little. Apparently they took some info from his enzyme test and put it into some sort of calculator at Emory and determined that he was not at risk for VLCADD. From what I gather, if this C14 enzyme is elevated other enzymes are elevated if he has VLCADD as well and thankfully they were not elevated on Nate's test. From all this information I'm pretty sure I've decided to not go ahead with the genetics testing. I need to make up my mind by the end of the year though because we've already met our family deductible this year and that will keep cost down. Money is not an object when it comes to our children's' health, but it would make more sense to do it before 2011 so it's covered. His spitting up has reduced greatly as well. He still does, but not projectile and not all of what he ate. I haven't filled the Rx for acid reflux meds yet. Some days I'm convinced he has it and others I'm not. He goes to the Dr on Tuesday and I'm interested to see how much he weighs. I swear he's got to be pushing 9-1/2 lbs!! I will update then!
For everyone that doesn't already know, I'm planning on having Logan's birthday party Sunday Oct 17 at the TN Valley RR Museum. I haven't booked it yet, but it will be that day regardless of where it is.
.....this thingy so we could sit down. Silly boy.
