A 4-Month Update

Owen is 4 months old on Saturday. I can't believe how time flies. He's been such a great little guy for the past few months and Bryan and I are having a blast watching him grow and learn. I feel so sheepish when I think back on those first 6 weeks with Owen and how I used to call my mom and my sister-in-law (a pediatrician), concerned about how angry and inconsolable our child was...they must have been laughing at me on the other end of the phone ("Doesn't Bridget know that's what babies do?!") It's nice to be in a phase now where Owen can interact with and enjoy his world!

An historic day yesterday - Owen found his feet! We've been helping him along for the past week by curling his legs up towards his head in a playful way, and yesterday he decided all on his own to pull his legs up and start grabbing his toes with his hands. It's such a simple task, but Bryan and I were immensely proud. I may have teared up. I don't know what I'm going to do when he actually starts walking! *sniff* Owen also tried to get his toes into his mouth - everything goes into his mouth these days - but ended up bonking his nose with his fist after he lost his grip on his toes!

Has anyone seen the toy I was playing with?

Owen's also started to babble quite a bit. I think he likes to hear himself speak, just like his dad. ;) Anyway, his "talking" is a bit random still, he's not actually responding to anything we say, but I'm sure that's only a matter of time. My favorite time of day is oftentimes when Owen is waking up. He'll wake up, squirm around a bit in his crib and "talk" to himself. We can hear him and see him on the monitor and it really is adorable.

Owen is finally healthy for the first time in a long time. For a while there, I thought I'd never see him again without a runny nose. But his congestion is gone, as well as his stomach bug. We go to the dr. on Monday for his 4-mo. shots, and hopefully it will go as smoothly as the first set and there'll be no fever.

Finally, Owen can hold his own bottle. Probably because he has some underlying fear that we'll take it away from him! He's a strong little guy - 7 ounces ain't light - but he's got such an appetite that it shouldn't surprise me how strong he is. Honestly, though, I've yet to see him hold his bottle. His teacher, Ms. Ana, and Bryan both tell me he can do it. Maybe I just need to stop babying my baby and let him hold his own bottle, too.

The Mohawk

Owen has funny hair. It sticks up in the back, sort of like Alfalfa but it's much more than just a little strand. Some people have asked if we style his hair that way...um, no. It's actually been like that since birth! Check out the 2-day old photo (with Grandma Heff) versus the 3-month old photo. Same funny hair, just a little longer over time. Owen's teacher told us that we should take lots of photos because we need to have them to embarrass Owen when he's a teenager! Smart woman.

I Miss Owen

It's been nice being back at work, but I have to admit that I open my picasa web album at least once a day and check out photos of Owen! He's so darn cute and it's becoming more difficult to be away from him during the day. I thought it would get easier over time, and yet I was fine at first and am just now starting to dread leaving him. That might have something to do with our daily routine...

Bryan and I both wake up around 5:30am (on a normal day; we haven't had many of those lately, though, with all Owen's illnesses) - he gets Owen fed and back to sleep for another hour or two, and I go for a run to try to work off the baby weight. After I'm done showering and getting ready for work, Owen is usually still sleeping and I have to say goodbye to him on the baby monitor. Bryan gets him dressed and takes him to daycare. I get to work fairly early and am able to pick up Owen at daycare before 5pm each day, and then spend the early evenings with him while Bryan finishes up at work.

It's a good routine for us. Except I don't get to see Owen until 5pm! He's way too much fun to only see him for a few hours at night. So sad, but that's the life of a working mom, I guess. I can only hope it truly does get easier (less horrible?) over time.

Medical Challenge #2

I ended my last post with the statement, "What does Owen have up his sleeve for his next trick?" I wrote that on June 25 and it didn't take long to find out. Last Friday night, Bridget packed suitcases for her and Owen to fly up to North Carolina for a couple days to hang out with her family on the outer banks. The flight was early Saturday morning so just like usual we woke up Owen around 6 for him early morning bottle. Everything seemed fine until he made it about halfway through the 7 oz bottle. All of a sudden our son, who had only spit up maybe twice in his entire life, threw up. Thinking it was a one time thing we cleaned him up and continued feeding him. Five minutes later he did it again.

So now we have a three month old throwing up just two hours before he and his mom are supposed to get on a plane. We got him cleaned up again and laid him down in his crib hoping he might be able to get some sleep. A couple minutes later, I looked at the video monitor and something wasn't right. I went into his room only to find that he had thrown up for the third time all over his clothes and this time his mattress (fortunately, Bridget always keeps a waterproof sheet on top of the mattress).

At this point, we begin to worry. What is wrong with Owen? What do we do since it's 8:00 in the morning on a Saturday? What about the flight? We hop in the car and start heading toward the hospital. We call the doctor's office since they open at 8 on Saturday's and talk to a nurse. Since he was not only throwing up but was also extremely lethargic they said we should continue on our way to the hospital. Fortunately, we live very close to the children's hospital in Orlando. That provides two benefits. One, they are used to new parents like us coming in with a sick baby and acting frantic. Two, it means that we don't have to go to a general ER and expose Owen to a bunch of other sick people.

It was in the ER where we quickly found out that it wasn't as bad as we thought. You can always tell those things in the ER when they take you to a room and don't come back for 20-30 minutes. They checked Owen out, gave him some pedialyte, and, in what may have been one of the fastest ER visits ever, I think we were out of there in an hour. While in the ER, Bridget talked to a great agent from Southwest, who was quickly able to change her flight to Wednesday without any problem.

A week later Owen is still having "intestinal issues" and has only been eating about 50-70% of his normal amount of formula but other than that he seems relatively happy and healthy.

I think I'm going to stop thinking about what challenge he may pose to us next and just start enjoying the days that don't involve doctor's visits.

BTW, I posted some new pics of Owen, including some of him hanging out with grandma, on Picasa. Even created a new album since the previous one was getting a bit big. Here's the link to the new album: http://picasaweb.google.com/bryanlabutta/Owen3Months

Query

What is worse? A sick husband or a sick child? Bryan caught Owen's cold (which went away about a week ago, but is now back) and now I've got two sickos to deal with. If they both weren't super cute, I might be more upset about this.