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Maternity & Parenting Center

Repetition is a good thing

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I learned one important thing today . . . singing the same song over and over to your child has its benefits. Since the day Micah was born, there have been 2 songs that I sing to him when I soothe him – You are my Sunshine and The Rose. We sing other songs for fun, but those have been our soothing songs. I will sing them over and over when I am putting him down or comforting him when he cries. What I learned today is that he recognizes the songs. I barely had to begin singing You are my Sunshine on the plane today and he started to calm down. The flip side is he started screaming again every time I stopped, but I digress.

This morning, Micah woke up around 7, happy and chatting once again. I fed him and then got myself packed and ready for my meetings. Elliot joined us for one meeting (I brought him in as a consultant on an Emergency Preparedness project for this client), so Micah came to our meeting for a bit. He was a really good boy – he hung out in his stroller and played, smiled, and laughed. He also wanted to talk a bit in the meeting since his Daddy and I were speaking. Everyone kept telling us what a wonderful baby he is. Here are some photos of us at the meeting together:


We headed to the airport around 3:30. We made it to the gate in plenty of time. Once again, it was a packed flight, so Micah had to sit on my lap. We got on the plane, and he was a bit fussy. I nursed him, and he fell asleep just before takeoff. He slept for the first part of the flight, but we hit some turbulence, we changed altitude and Micah woke up crying. I think his ears were bothering him. I brought Micah close and began to sing to him, and he quickly calmed down. Within a few minutes, Micah was chatting and smiling again. I passed him to his Daddy, and they bounced, and played flying baby, and took a walk around the plane.

Towards the end of the flight, Micah got fussy again. I’m not sure if it was his ears, or if his reflux was the problem, or perhaps those possible teeth cutting through, but he was miserable most of the last half hour. I sang him to sleep and he cuddled close to me – as long as I was rocking and singing, he was quiet. Right when we landed, he started getting hysterical – exactly 12 hours after he took his last dose of Zantac. As soon as we got off the plane, I gave him his medicine and changed his diaper. We went to the parking garage, and I nursed him while we waited for Elliot to get the car. Elliot decided to capture the moment . . . this is me nursing Micah while I sat in a wheelchair in the parking garage:

As soon as we got in the car and started driving, Micah got upset again. I was leaning backwards, holding his hand, and keeping his paci in his mouth. About 10 minutes into the trip home, he fell asleep. We managed to get him in the house and into the crib without waking him up. He is still sound asleep right now!

Here are a few fun pictures of Micah – he is sitting in a real high chair for dinner at his Aunt Jen and Uncle Jeremy’s house, and playing in his new exersaucer loaned to us by his Aunt Jen and Uncle Jeremy. Can you believe what a big boy Micah is becoming?


My very noisy baby

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The Micah man (one of my nicknames for him) had a great day today with his Daddy (and I was just excited that I managed to pump as much as he was eating!). I think his Daddy was a bit exhausted by the end of the day, and perhaps came to a new appreciation of how hard it really is for me most days, and how impossible it is to get much work done. Apparently, from when I left around 9 am until lunchtime, Micah was mostly wide awake and playing and chatting.

My boys came and joined me for lunch, and Micah was a huge hit (as always). He was sweet and smiling and just . . . charming. His nose is still pretty leaky, and he has been sneezing, but I still do not think he is sick – no fever, everything is still running clear. It is probably allergies (even though the doctors tell you that babies do not get environmental allergies until they are two). May I digress for a second? That theory is a lot of crap to me. If babies can develop allergies to food under 1 year of age, they can certainly develop allergies to the environment. I understand the doctors do not want to diagnose or treat it that young, but let’s be honest here. His sneezing and coughing worsens when my allergies worsen – clearly there is a connection. The vet gave me the same story when Nugget was a puppy – she sneezed and coughed and itched, and I said it was allergies. She did it seasonally for 2 years, and after her 2nd birthday, they suddenly said “now she has allergies.” Let’s just hope the stuffiness doesn’t give Micah an ear infection this plane trip. He was a little unhappy with the pressure the last flight.

Okay – stepping off my soapbox, and returning to the regularly scheduled topic . . . Micah! After lunch, Micah and Daddy went on a few walks, and played with toys, and overall had a wonderful day together. After I returned from my conference, we decided to head out to dinner. We went to a little restaurant that I remembered from my days at Emory called La Fonda. We had a wonderful meal (I ordered vegetable paella) and we drank some sangria. At the end of the meal, Micah was getting tired and hungry. I nursed him and hoped he would fall asleep in his carseat so we could go visit another old “haunt” from my college years . . . Cafe Intermezzo. For those of you who have never been, it is a chichi coffee place in Buckhead. The outside heated patio was built around existing trees. They play French and Italian language lessons in the bathroom. They take you on a “tour” of the desserts. It is the kind of place that you can show up to in a fancy evening gown or in your sweats while studying for exams, and both outfits somehow “fit.”

We started the drive over to Buckhead, and Micah started to get really upset. We decided to pull into the Cafe Intermezzo parking lot, and I tried nursing Micah again while Elliot ran inside and checked out the place and picked up a slice of cake for us. Micah was really fussing, and refused to eat. I then thought he was getting hot, so I walked him around out in the fresh air, and he seemed to calm back down. When Elliot returned (with chocolate peanut butter cake!), we strapped Micah back in his carseat, and went to drive around Buckhead so I could reminisce about my college years. At this point, we were out past Micah’s normal bed time, but we expected that he would fall asleep while we drove. A few blocks into the drive . . . Micah began to fuss and cry. We turned around immediately and headed back towards the hotel. It took me another few minutes to realize why Micah was so upset – I was a bad Mommy and I forgot to give him his Zantac (we were only 20 minutes late with his dosage)! Luckily, we had some Mylanta in the car, so I gave him a bit to tide him over until we got back to the room. Not surprisingly, that did the trick, and my happy baby returned.

We brought him up to the room, got him into his pajamas, gave him his Zantac, and I tried nursing him again. He nursed to sleep, and I transferred him into the crib . . . and he woke up. I nursed him some more and sang to him – and he sat there smiling and chatting. I moved him back into the crib, and he spent the next 35 minutes playing with his feet, rolling around, and chatting very loudly. I can’t believe how much how much my little guy likes to talk! I have no idea what he was talking to, but boy did he have a lot to say! He giggled, and squawked, and made gutteral noises. I wish I knew what language he spoke. I think maybe Wookie . . . he has these gutteral growling sounds he makes that remind me of Chewbacca. Elliot insists that the language does not sound like anything from Star Trek. I’m a little worried that he can be that definitive about Star Trek languages. (Elliot is sitting here insisting that he is only certain it wasn’t Klingon, he cannot vouch for other languages). After a while, Micah just suddenly got quiet and fell asleep. My very noisy baby finally passed out around 10:00 pm.

One last note . . . Micah is officially a serious thumbsucker. I am not exactly sure how this happened – he was very happily a paci baby until a few weeks ago. He found his thumb one day, and it has been true love ever since. The nice thing is he does not need us to come in and reinsert the paci when it falls out, but the bad news is he sticks his thumb in his mouth while he is asleep – I hope he outgrows it, because that is going to be a nasty habit to break.

We fly back home tomorrow – wish us a good flight back, and let’s hope this flight is not as miserable for Micah as the trip out. We are landing around 7 pm, and we are hoping to remember to give him his Zantac, nurse him, and put him to bed in his carseat. With any luck, we’ll get him home and in bed without interrupting his sleep.

Oh, and we think Micah might actually be getting ready to cut teeth! It looks like there is a white raised patch on his lower gums – we think the 2 front teeth are not too far off!

Could it be teething?

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My little guy is out of sorts – has been for over one week now. He had those bad weeks when we got back from California, and now this. I could be wrong, but perhaps he is teething? It could just be the reflux, I suppose, but he hasn’t been feeling 100%. He has had a pretty drippy nose, but I don’t think it is a cold (it is just clear). It could be allergies. He has been wanting to gnaw on everything, though, and he has been pretty drooly, too. He seems to be in pain/discomfort, especially at night, and tylenol seems to help. His tummy has been bothering him on and off – so who knows! I’m going to ask the doctor again on Monday when we go in for his 4 month checkup. Poor guy – I hope he starts feeling better soon! I don’t know what I’m going to do if he actually pops a tooth through!