The Small Family   

Well, it was a relatively uneventful week and then a crazy weekend around here! I had a lot of editing work, so Theo and I mostly stayed around the house during the week, with me working as much as I could. Chris has been insanely busy at work, too, so he had several late nights of work…ugh. But, we’re just glad to have jobs in this economy, so no complaints.

Theo and I did venture out on Monday for a doctor appointment to meet his new pediatrician. He seems okay, but I prefer Theo’s old pediatrician. Ah well, this guy will do. My main reason for going (other than to meet the new guy) was to ask him what he thought we should do in terms of transitioning Theo from formula to a milk-type product. Most babies outgrow a dairy allergy/intolerance by somewhere around 14 months or so, but it’s hard to know—it really just depends on the child. When we tried a bit of cheese with Theo a few times around his first birthday, we didn’t get good results. (Very crabby baby!!) So, we tried soy milk (because he can tolerate soy formula), but that didn’t have great results either (crabby baby the first few times and then a reasonably fine baby with icky, icky diapers that just didn’t seem to improve). So, where to go from there? Goat milk? Almond milk? Rice milk??

Our new pediatrician (Dr. B.) suggested we stick with soy milk or cow’s milk and just give it more time. He suggested that if we wanted to try cow’s milk, we start with yogurt, as it’s fairly easy for most babies to digest. So, Theo now has yogurt in his repertoire of foods, and, as he says, “Mmmmmmm!!!” Well, let me clarify: He says, “Mmmmmm!” about flavored yogurt. He is not keen on plain yogurt, which I ended up hiding in his oatmeal! But I can’t blame him—the fruit-flavored yogurts certainly are more tasty. And there are several brands that are organic and don’t have added sugars, so I’m fine with him eating those. (That kid has enough energy already—we don’t need to add excess sugar to the mix!!)

Anyway, so far, so good. He has been eating yogurt for about four days now, and we’ve had no scary diapers, no signs of eczema or rash, and no excessive fussiness. So, I’m cautiously optimistic at this point that he may be outgrowing his intolerance for dairy!

I did learn one interesting bit of info from Dr. B. I mentioned that although I outgrew my dairy allergy as a baby, Chris outgrew his but then it came back when he was 20 years old, which I find quite odd. Dr. B. said that’s not terribly common, but it does sometimes happen if someone has a virus that triggers an allergic response to come back. Chris said he did indeed have a nasty virus when he was 20, so that may be the reason he is once again allergic to dairy. What a bummer! He loves ice cream and cheese, so he’s not too crazy about having to keep the cheese to a minimum and avoid ice cream. Ah well…thank goodness for sorbet and sherbet.

We also ventured out to Theo’s float lessons Monday through Thursday. He is doing great! Chris was able to come with us Thursday, and Theo put on quite a show for him. He had been squalling through his lessons all week, and then come Thursday, he was suddenly much, much calmer. He fussed for maybe half the time, but not nearly as emphatically as before. He was much more relaxed, and Chris was able to see how Theo is now starting to turn himself onto his back in the water. He still needs assistance to do it, but he’s starting to initiate the roll himself. It’s fantastic!

Friday, Grandma Diane came over to babysit Theo so Chris and I could go see the new Harry Potter movie, which we were dying to see in the theater. We were not disappointed!! We’d heard mixed reviews of the movie, and I can see why the average moviegoer might have a complaint—it really is a lot of setup for the next movie, rather than a movie that 100% stands on its own. But for anyone who loves the Harry Potter stories and has followed the books and/or movies, I thought it was great. Lots of humor in this one, which I really liked. We both liked the book better (not surprisingly), but we also really enjoyed the movie and are glad we were able to see it in the theater.

And Theo very much enjoyed his visit with Grandma Diane, who looked rather worn out by the time we got home. (Ha—three hours of Theo will do that to a person!!) Apparently Theo was a very good boy, but just a ball of energy, into everything under the sun. (And he graced her with three dirty diapers…lucky her! Who would’ve thought he’d go #2 three times in three hours?!) We repaid her kindness by fixing dinner for her. Nothing fancy—just cheeseburgers and potato salad—but it tasted very good. Chris makes a mean cheeseburger!

Bright and early Saturday, we headed down to the Bay Area. This was a last-minute impromptu trip. In my usual Friday chatting via email with my friend Lisa, she remarked that she’d be in Santa Cruz running a race with her Dad this weekend. She had told me about it months ago, but then we hadn’t talked about it much since…so I had completely forgotten. Santa Cruz is only about 180 miles from Sacramento, so I was not about to miss a chance to see my best friend when she’s in the same state! And a trip to the Bay Area is never a hard sell with Chris, so we decided Friday afternoon that we’d head down for a quick weekend getaway. Yay for last-minute trips!!  

We spent a few hours with Grandpa Tom and Grandma Kathy (and briefly Auntie Tanya and Uncle Steve) Saturday morning/early afternoon, until Grandma Kathy had to go to a fellow teacher’s wedding. Then we headed over the hill to Santa Cruz (well, Soquel, really) to visit for a bit with Lisa and Chris and Lisa’s dad, Seto. Theo had a grand time exploring Seto’s deck, and then the six of us went down to Capitola (the beach town adjacent to Soquel) to wander around the shopping/beach area. It was a gorgeous day, so we really enjoyed it, despite the crowds of people out enjoying the beautiful weather.

In the early evening, Chris, Theo, and I headed back over the hill to our hotel in Sunnyvale. We had wanted to stay in the Santa Cruz/Capitola/Soquel area this time, but hotel choices are limited, and they were virtually booked solid because of the Wharf-to-Wharf race (which Lisa and Seto were running). But, our hotel in Sunnyvale was nice and worked well for a night, so we were happy. Theo went to sleep almost immediately, tired after a long day.

Alas, he didn’t stay asleep, nor did Chris and I. Chris and I were both awake (with insomnia) from about 2:30am to 4:00am. We finally fell back asleep...only to have Theo wake us up at 5:30am. Ugh! Usually he sleeps until 6:30 or 7, so 5:30 was a bit of a rude awakening. But, it did give us plenty of time to go get breakfast and wander the Campbell farmers’ market before driving back over the hill to Soquel.

After running the Wharf-to-Wharf, Seto prepared a delicious brunch for all of us (yummy Armenian food, among other things!), plus Kim, Danny, and Julianna. Kim is one of Lisa’s oldest friends—she’s actually known Lisa longer than I have (and that’s saying something, since I met Lisa 30 years ago!). And so, I’ve known Kim for probably 30 years as well. (Though to me she will always be Kimi!) Anyway, Danny is Kim’s husband (he also ran the Wharf-to-Wharf), and Julianna is their adorable 11-month-old daughter. So it was great to get to see Kim again and meet Julianna and Danny. Theo and Julianna definitely noticed each other, though their interactions were somewhat cautious at first. By the time a couple hours had passed, though, Julianna was handing her toy and a coveted remote to Theo, who happily took them. Hopefully Kim and Danny didn’t get too scared by their preview of what’s to come with Julianna—Theo was busily getting into everything for the few hours we were there, so we were constantly chasing him around and making sure he didn’t break anything or get into anything that wasn’t his. Full of energy, that boy of ours!

In the early afternoon, we went over to (Chris’s cousin) Billy and Sarah’s house, which happens to be about half a mile from Seto’s, in a rather odd coincidence. The five of us went for coffee. Wait, scratch that—the six of us went for coffee. Sarah is eight weeks pregnant with their first baby. J Anyway, we had a nice few hours visiting with them, and then we got back into the car for the loooooong ride home. It’s only about 180 miles, but it took just over four hours, due to all the traffic. Ugh! Theo was very sick of being in the car by the time we got home—can’t say as I blame him.

Last but not least, a fun little development from this week. Theo has, of his own accord, strung two signs together! He has known the signs for “more” and “food” for quite some time, and he has been using them separately for a few months now. But in the past week, he started putting them together and signing “more food.” This was amazing and exciting to me because I didn’t teach him how to string more than one sign together—I was just content for him to do one sign at a time. And frankly, if you think about it, “more” is probably kind of an abstract concept to a baby, so I really didn’t think he much understood what it meant. But he must, because he very clearly signed “more food” to me on at least three occasions this week. Smart boy!

We actually broke out the Baby Einstein DVD partway through our long drive home, because four hours is just a long time to expect him to sit in a car seat with nothing to do. And this particular DVD was “Baby Wordsworth”—the baby is introduced to lots of household words, and the DVD shows the object, the word, and the sign for it. I turned around to see Theo imitating the sign for “puzzle.” I don’t think he even knows what a puzzle is (he doesn’t have any of them yet), but I was pleased to see him interacting with the DVD, rather than just staring at it like a zombie. I guess he’s getting something out of it!

And so ends another busy week. More next week!