Henry Healthwatch: Six Month Edition

Henry had his six-month well child checkup at the doctor this week. He's doing quite well! He weighed in at 16 1/2 pounds (almost two pounds heavier than Molly was at the same age). He's 26 inches long -- the same as Molly at that age. He's sitting up well for his age, and he's learning to enjoy his cereal. His main problems are the milk allergy, of course, and the eczema on his head and face. The poor kid scratches his face until he bleeds. We're putting some mild steroid cream on his rough patches for a few days (left over from Molly's dose for the same problem!) All in all, nice to know we've got a happy and healthy kid.

A Trip to the Zoo

Last weekend was the first weekend of beautiful weather after a long and snowy winter. So we thought it would be a good idea to take a trip to Turtleback Zoo. Apparently, we weren't the only ones! The zoo was crowded enough that we parked on the top deck of the parking garage.
We were happy to have Grandma H. join us and to show her all of the great new exhibits like the Carousel, which was new last year, and the new gibbon exhibit.


Henry was a real trooper, going all day without complaint as Molly lead us all over the zoo, from Jelly and Jam the black bears, to the ride on the train at the end of the day.

We are looking forward to lots of zoo trips this year! The day after the zoo, Molly spent the day at Grandma and Grandpa H.'s house, where Molly helped Grandma make peanut butter cookies and helped Grandpa dig up crocuses from the garden to give to us for our flower bed in our front yard. It was a great way to ring in spring!

I Came, I Sat, I Conquered

Henry had his longest-ever run of sitting on his own today -- probably about 4-5 minutes before he toppled over! I managed to catch some of it in this video.

St. Patrick's Day!

Top of the mornin' to ya, from a couple of wee little green beans. (Yes, I know St. Patrick's Day was yesterday. That's when I took these photos).

Damn

Well, that didn't take long. Just as with Molly, we've determined that Henry has a milk/dairy allergy. We actually have suspected it for a few weeks for a few reasons, and after giving him his cereal this morning we decided to test it for sure by putting some milk on his skin. Sure enough, hives. This is sad news for us. It was a rough time for me as a nursing mother to give up all dairy while continuing to nurse Molly. I'm going to try again to give up dairy and continue to nurse Henry. The soy replacements are out there for babies, but breast milk is still best, and frankly, cheaper. With me out of work for over a year now (only working part-time and temp right now), we have to pinch every penny.

I'm pretty blue about it all, since I am truly a milk addict. We go through two or three gallons of milk a week in our house, mostly due to me and Molly. Not to mention cheese, yogurt, butter, and basically all desserts -- all sources of dairy. It's a tough thing to give that all up, but I'm going to try and see how it goes. I did it before. A terrible part is contemplating throwing away all the frozen breast milk that I've been working so hard to pump for months. It all has dairy in it. I have to keep some of it to feed him something at daycare until I can clean the dairy out of my system and build up some dairy-free breast milk in storage. But most of the stored milk will end up down the drain. It's heartbreaking for me -- all that work for nothing.

I'm depressed right now since we just found out, but will try to be really conscious of not letting the depression get the best of me like it did last time around. I've got a great supporter (and a great chef) in Jonathan.

Chow Time

Today was a big day for Henry. He had his first taste of rice cereal, which is the first step towards solid food. He's almost 6 months old, and we had some coupons to buy the cereal, so we figured, why not? Let's give it a try. He did pretty well for his first time. He didn't spit it all out, as babies will often do with a new texture. He seemed interested in rolling it around in his mouth, and he did swallow some. But after five or six bites, he was ready to stop. We're very excited to continue slowly introducing solids to him. It's sort of remarkable to think that I've kept another human being alive for almost six months just on milk from my own body (and I intend to keep nursing, of course), but I'm also ready to share some of the responsibility with someone else, thank you very much!

Kids All Over the Place

So, the kids have been sick for the last few days. Molly even stayed home from school one day last week, which almost never happens (not if we can help it!) Henry's been battling a cough and runny nose, but that's par for the course. Everyone is getting over their various ailments, but it has definitely meant we've had a wonky schedule and everyone has been piled on top of each other and cooped up more than usual.

Lucky for us we had a terrific play date with our friends Paul and Sarah and their kids. They live in a wonderful scenic part of the state, and have a big back yard and lots of fun toys to play with. The kids had a ton of fun and Sarah sent some great pictures of our kids.



In other news, Molly is getting really good at learning the alphabet. She recognizes all of the letters most of the time, and she can spell her name and is learning to spell Henry's name. It's pretty exciting to see her learn this stuff; it's the first step to her reading on her own. She also is showing more imagination in her play and in her stories. A typical Molly story involves dinosaurs in a forest chasing us. Strangely, her increasing imaginative play is not extended to naming her new pet fish. She got three fish for her birthday and I keep encouraging her to name them. But all she can come up with are things that she sees right in front of her. So sometimes the fish are named "plate," "fork," and "cup," or "foot," "other foot" and "newspaper." At this point we think she's just doing that because she knows it's silly. Which it is!