A whole 'nother month gone by!

Time is flying and you're already 5 months +!  Wow!  Let's recap a little:

Our trip to Germany was fabulous.  You did great on our travels -- slept on the plane, slept well no matter where we were at, seemed to enjoy all of the new sights and new people, and charmed the pants off of all of them! Only that German breast milk didn't taste quite as good as it does at home apparently.  You spit it back up quite regularly as compared to our nearly spit-up free existence here at home.  Not enough to raise concerns, just funny how it started immediately upon our arrival (or even on the plane over) and stopped again as soon as we returned home.

You do seem to have gotten quite used to being on the go and seem a little bored to be back home, where we just hang out most of the time.  You did great catnapping on the go - in your car seat, in the stroller, even in the B*by Bj*rn and until this week haven't thought much of the idea of napping here in the quiet of your bed.  We're trying to work on getting back in the habit now.  (In fact, at this very moment you are busily not napping in your bed!)

No major milestones to report... you're rolling and rolling from your back to your front, but still haven't made it back the other way.  Instead you've become quite content to hangout on your stomach for a while and look around.  You're definitely working on sitting up and it won't be long until you can hold yourself upright.  And you have definitely been stretching out those legs and enjoy being held standing up and jumping up and down on Mama's lap.  This also means that you are enjoying the exersaucer more and more.

Upon returning from Germany we immediately had your baptism on Sunday, May 9th.  You were an angel throughout the ceremony and the party afterward.  Not only your godparents, Patricia and Paul, shared your special day, but your Nana Ulli, Grandma Mary Ellen, Tante Christa, Aunt Mary B, and Great Aunt Joan and Uncle Dennis, too.  Along with too many friends to list!  Your moms and Danny were there too, of course!  Now, we could have done without the big poop right in the middle of the baptism itself, but thank you for keeping it to a quantity that didn't stain the gown although it did do-in the rest of your outfit!

Mommy was not so lucky with a similar situation this past weekend at your cousin Briana's Bat Mitzvah.  You managed not only to cover yourself, but also her with poop, thus requiring new outfits for the two of you.  But throughout you remained calm, cool, and collected, and yes, continued to charm the crowds as you met all sorts of new relatives.  It was a great ending to a fun weekend in New York, which also included your first time swinging in Central Park.

Your asleep now! Yay! Time for Mama to go mow the lawn!

Chiropractor for Kids

As I’ve mentioned before, I've been taking you to see my Chiropractor, Dr. P (AKA Dr. Fantasia) for a couple of weeks now. (Three times, once ever two weeks, to be exact.) I decided to take you because you're just a little bit more cranky than your brother was, and I'd like you to be a little less cranky.

Crankiness had just started when I took you to your 2 month peds visit. I described your "like a stuck pig" scream, stiff bodied-ness, inconsolableness - even not wanting to nurse - and the nurse practitioner (whom I do like a lot) asked a bunch of questions to see if maybe you were having some reflux or something. But we decided that that didn't really seem to be it, but we'd keep an eye on it. A good solution vs. trying some medication that you didn't really need, and soon after I decided to take you to Dr. P. She tells me that she sees babies for various things including reflux, constipation (you're not, but you aren't a daily pooper either), irritability, etc.

On our first visit she adjusted your sacrum (you could see the crookedness at the top of your little bum crack!) and your neck (to address the fact that you were latching/nursing just fine on the right side, but having a harder time on the left). Neither of these adjustments made you very happy and there was much crying. She suggested that your irritability (AKA colic although I don’t think you were cranky enough to truly be considered colicky) could be due to gas and related to my diet (did I eat a lot of dairy? I said no, then tried to cut it out which showed me that I really do love my dairy! Sorry, baby!). Or it could be neurological (there was a third cause too, but darned if I can remember… maybe the reflux?). She proceeded to do some manipulation of your cranium, which was pretty amazing to watch. You were still pretty upset when she started, but at one point you became completely calm, not crying, just staring up at Dr. P. Of course, then she moved on to the next area and you were upset again, but it was really cool!

And as I wrote in my previous post, I think it has helped. The nursing/latching on the left side has definitely improved, and I think that you have been less irritable, too. Until our last visit you were still not pooping every day, which Dr. P seems to think would be preferable, although many baby resources I’ve read say that so long as you aren’t constipated when you DO poop a couple of days between poops is not abnormal for a breast fed baby. I will say that I do prefer the daily poop, because when you save it up no diaper will contain it! Why just this past Wednesday you managed to cover yourself (and then me in the clean-up phase). But since then we’ve had one or more poops per day! Wahoo!

OK, enough about poop and Chiropractic for the day!