16 Months!

We met with the GI doctor in the middle of August.  The doctor was really nice, sweet and encouraging.  He was funny too.  Here is a sample of the visit note from that day (note what he wrote under social history):



He's mildly concerned there might be an underlying problem that's causing the poor weight gain.  To assess this concern Miles will have an endoscopy, where they put a camera down his GI system all the way to his small intestine and have a look around.  They'll also take some small samples from his intestine, stomach, and esophagus to send to pathology to rule out food allergies and celiac disease.  I was hoping to have an update on that procedure by now but Miles got sick a couple weeks ago with a GI bug (see my last post) and we had to postpone the endoscopy to allow his GI tract to heal.

As for that GI bug, Miles lost some weight that week.  But he has rallied this last week and there has been a huge uptick in his food consumption.  It used to be that he would barely eat a breakfast sausage in the morning.  (We choose sausage because it's really, really calorie dense).  For the last week, he's eaten two whole sausages each morning plus additional calories from other sources.  Our goal for him is around 1000 calories daily.  This morning, by 9:45am, he'd already had 540 calories!  I really, truly hope this pattern is a new normal and he's not just making up for calories lost when he was sick.

Seeing Miles eat normally brings not just a sense of calm to my troubled mind but also true joy.  I feel so happy and grateful when he's eating well.  And he needs it.  He had his normal 16 month checkup this past Friday and he's not only in the 2nd percentile for weight but he's dropped to that percentile in height too!  For a sense of what a big loss this is, when he was born he was in the 88th percentile and he's dropped consistently but had been hanging around the 15th percentile as of last visit.  Despite the fact that everyone says he looks and acts normally, and I agree that he does, you can't really argue that it's normal to drop from the 88th percentile to the 2nd percentile in height.  The only saving grace here is that his head circumference hangs strong in the 50th percentile.  His brain still continues to develop normally.

And it shows.  He is smart, clever, and funny.  He's really determined as well, which comes out by way of the tantrums he's been having recently.  Without the language to express what he wants combined with some limitation of physical abilities, as well as an unrivaled will and determination, we have witnessed an emerging emotional turmoil that we were not quite ready for.  I'm talking about a kid, screaming at the top of his lungs, as I carry him four blocks through a street festival.  Why?  Oh, because he wants to walk, and touch every rock along the way, and stumble into people and get in some dogs' faces.  That would all be okay if we weren't with a bunch of other people and trying to get to a stage to see a band play.  He also has started screaming and crying when we try to put him in the shopping cart.  He has a budding independence that won't be quelled.  He wants to walk.  He wants to explore.  He wants to touch.  He doesn't want to sit in the seat and be an idle observer.

These personality traits will serve him well later in life.  And I'm glad that I don't have a complacent and boring baby.  I'm also very thankful that Lucas can (and wants to) stay home with him so he gets the kind of attention he needs.

We're a happy little family with a great support system.  I couldn't ask for much more right now.  Except that Miles' new pattern of eating become his normal pattern of eating.

Mowing the lawn?

Evolving sleep schedules means a lot more of this

How'd you guys get in here?

Everybody come here!  Caterpillar!

He pretends!  To wash his hands!  So cute!

Cutie Pie!

He wears our shoes

He wears our shoes and carries my purse

photo by Milena Corredor

photo by Milena Corredor

photo by Milena Corredor

Going for a ride

He's a big kid

He pretends to talk on the phone

He eats!

He reads the Baltimore Zoo magazine

He plays with friends!

Frankie's pretty happy!

He waits for bands to play with his friends

He watches bands

This candid turned into

this...

which turned into this...

which evolved into this.  These are all offspring of PUNK ROCKERS!!!!

And finally, we saved the best for last.  This is our favorite video from the last month.  Classic toddler eating strategy:

The Plague

And the first time parent award goes to: Me! I've just been up in the middle of the night for the last two hours dealing with an irritable and then puking kid. Why? Oh, just because I fed him sausage and cheese and pediasure before putting him to bed. You know, just a day and a half after he last puked. Just a day and a half after I lectured Lucas about resting Miles' GI system with a bland diet. Ugh. The worst. 

And his room smells like puke so we've got the windows open and the fan on high. And the little dude is sound asleep (finally) next to me in bed. Lucas is asleep in the guest room. And me? Wide awake! Staring at the ceiling. Mind racing. 

Parenthood!

15 Months

A typical day in Miles' life involves:

Stoop sitting

Hanging with friends

Eating

Playing

Miles isn't in this picture but he did play in this fountain.
And another one.  Every city should have public fountains.

Acting silly

Reading

and generally being unsafe.

Sometimes on special days we go to birthday parties,

or art festivals,

or the beach.

He watches trains,

and fish at the aquarium.

He chills out on porches in South Carolina on vacation,

or goes for bike rides with the family.

He's a pretty lucky kid with a full life so far.  

• He's on the brink of spitting out words.  He can say a bunch more now but it's a little difficult to understand him.  In his repertoire are the words: mama, daddy, reggie ("gie"), cat, bird, bike, outside, eyes, what's that ("s'dat"), and cheese.  You know, the important things.  He understands nearly everything we say to him and can follow some multi step directions ("get the ball and bring it to me"). 
• He can get his shoes when it's time to go outside.  In fact, he'll bring them to you whether you had intended to go outside or not.  Hello 6:30 am walk around the block.
• He backs up while walking and will pull push toys backwards too, to reposition them.  
• He goes down stairs pretty well.  He's even started going down forwards while holding our hands.  
• He can climb on all of the things now: the wooden desk chair in his bedroom, the couches, the step ladder, the arm chairs, the beds.  It makes keeping things safe (or out of his reach) a little harder.  
• He drinks from sippy cups.  At first he didn't get the concept of holding the sippy cup up in the air to get the fluid to his mouth, but he's finally nailed that skill down.  Thank goodness.  I wouldn't want him to be 16 and unable to drink from a sippy cup, you know what I mean?
• He shakes his head no when he doesn't want something.  He doesn't say no yet.  I'm sure that's coming.  And then that's all we'll hear.
• He's started pretending.  Yesterday, he was pretending to put toothpaste on the toothbrush and then brush his teeth. And he makes his toy plane fly.  And he makes his trucks and cars drive around.  It's pretty cool to see his little brain work.
• The cutest thing of all is when he comes to the end of the sidewalk and puts his hand up in the air for someone to hold it to cross the street.  I get all squishy inside when that happens.

Except for when we were on vacation, he sleeps pretty well.  He goes to bed between 7:30 and 8 pm and wakes around 6am.  He still takes two naps, something his young friends have done away with.  We're looking forward to one consolidated sleep period to allow for longer times to go out and do things but we also appreciate the two breaks during the day.

He's meeting all developmental milestones but hasn't gained any weight over the last two months on our home scale.  I've emailed our pediatrician and we're going to go see a gastroenterologist to make sure we're not missing anything.  And then possibly a nutritionist. I still think it's clearly a calorie deficit issue.  After hanging out with some other babies recently, it became painfully clear that other babies don't move as much as Miles.  I mean, I knew that.  But his basal metabolic rate has to be so much higher than other kids.  He moves ALL. THE. TIME.  When he sits with you, his legs or arms are going.  He's constantly looking around.  He'll only sit for a minute before he's back up and running around the house, finding a toy, emptying a cupboard or a book shelf.  I held some other babies recently and they sit, quietly, look around slowly, make a decision to move toward something and make their way over to it.  Meanwhile, Miles is chasing the 7 year old neighbor down the block.  The other stark difference is how he eats.  These other babies will go to town on some food, happily eating until the food is gone.  Miles isn't interested.  It takes coaxing and cajoling to get things past his lips.  Unless he's hungry and then we've got a five minute window to stuff as much food in there as possible.  Even though the etiology of the weight issue is clear, it still leaves me stressed and frazzled on the bad food days.  I desperately search for new high calorie foods.  We've resorted to giving him ice cream daily.  And even though I hate relying on the TV, it's the only time he slows down.  So then I face a decision about weight gain vs brain mush.  It's during these times that I feel like I'm failing Miles as a parent.  There's this little bug in my brain that makes me think that if I just knew the right trick to get him to eat, he would.  And maybe a better parent would have more success getting food into him.

But those times aren't the majority.  Most of the time, I think that Lucas and I rock as parents.  I mean, we have a kid who holds his hand up to cross the street.  If that isn't a sign of good parenting (and a good boy), I don't know what is.