So much has been going on – I’ve been too busy to write. Well, first off, our little guy is already almost 6 months old! He has two teeth (got his first one 8/15/15 and his second 8/31/15), can roll over, is eating solid foods (rice cereal and sweet potatoes so far), can crawl (his version – basically got just using his arms to pull himself), and can almost sit unsupported. I cannot believe how quickly he’s growing!
Look at how cute his little teeth are!
Teething hasn’t been too bad, but it hasn’t been great either. To be honest, I’m not sure if the teething was really that bad, or if it was the THREE ear infections he’s had. So far this has been hard to watch – he wriggles in pain and it breaks my heart that I can’t do anything for him. But, he’s tough and usually if we hold him or I nurse him, he can go to sleep relatively easily… but he is waking up 2 or 3 times a night. Here’s how the infections have played out:
Ear infection 1: Keegan’s pulling on his ears, chewing on everything, has a fever. Is it teething? Is it ear infection? Don’t know – better go in – especially because we’re supposed to fly to Florida on 8/29. We bring him in on 8/19. Yep – ear infection in left ear. She starts him on amoxicillin for 10 days, recommends not flying if he’s still hurting. So, we do the amoxicillin twice a day (Mark gives it to him – he’s the medicine giver) and bring him in on 8/26 to get his ears checked again so we can fly. Doctor says his ears look good and to finish the prescription off (2x/day for 10 days), but we can fly!
Ear infection 2: In Florida. Lovely weather. We spend early Monday morning searching for in network urgent cares because Keegan’s in pain and we need to get him back in. Find two in network; go to both; both decline seeing him because he’s too little – they both won’t see babies less than 6 months. FINE! I find a pediatrician that opens in an hour. They can get us in that day at 11:15. We go to Starbucks for a coffee since Keegan is finally peacefully sleeping – we don’t want to have to take him out of his carseat just to repack him up in an hour. So, we head over to the pediatrician. The doctor that sees him is very nice. Looks at his ears and says, yep. Ear infection in right ear. The other ear is too full of wax too see anything. So, he starts Keegan on Septra, 2x/day for 10 days. He gives us ear drops for the pain and to use on the plane for our flight back – no need to come back. We ended up bringing him back anyway because he had little bumps on his tummy and we were worried it was a reaction to the antibiotic – but the pediatrician guessed it was a reaction to the laundry detergent at the resort. We fly home 9/5.
Ear Infection 3: Home from Florida. Keegan is good for a couple days, but is getting increasingly fussy. We’re not sure if we should bring him in yet, but he got sent home from daycare for a rash on 9/11 at 2pm. Mark gets him home by 3 and there’s of course no longer a rash. But, since he was sent home he has to get a doctor’s note before he can get back to daycare. I called the pediatrician right away, but there of course was nothing available Friday at 3pm, but we did get scheduled for Monday afternoon. My mom and Grandma Sue watched him during the day until his appointment. So, get to his appt and the doctor sees no rash so signs the slip no questions asked. Then, I ask him to check his ears. Yep – double ear infection. We get started on Augmentin 2x/day for 10 days. The pediatrician told us he has no clue why the FL pediatrician used Septra, because that’s not usually used for ear infections (however – Dr. Google says it is). Said Augmentin will for sure knock it out and Keegan should be good to go. We’re on day 3, so here’s hoping!
Vacation
On a lighter note – Keegan got to go on his first trip! We went to Ormond Beach and stayed at Casa Del Mar. Mark and I have been to this resort multiple times and like the location and the view. We had a lot of people with us: Grandpa Mary, Uncle Jeff, Phil, Pandie, John, Krista, Simon, Mom (Stacy), and Emma. We had a lot of rooms. My mom had never really been on an ocean vacation – she’s actually only been on 1 vacation before… it was 20 years ago. She had a really good time – loved the water and loved spending time with Emma and Keegan. There of course was the normal spat here and there between such a large group, but overall, it was a really great trip. Keegan wasn’t sure about the ocean water, but he loved the beach and especially loved the pool.
He also did great on the plane each way! The way there he feel asleep literally as the plane left started to move. He woke up when we started to descend so Mark took him from me and changed his diaper in the bathroom. I fed him while we were descending – this is recommended for baby’s ears anyway, so it literally worked out perfectly. The flight home he was up a little more, but not much. He woke up ½ hour before we started descending and was in a very good mood. He was a talking machine – he seemed much louder than normal, but I’m sure that was just my paranoia wanting him to be on his best behavior so he wouldn’t bother anyone. It seems stupid to even worry about it now. He did actually get a little fussy when we started to descend. I’m guessing it was his ears bothering him. We tried his pacifier for a minute but that didn’t work, so I fed him until we landed. Then he was totally fine.
We flew first class each way (thanks Sun Country for having the $119 first class upgrades!), so we had a lot of room which was a big help. And, we didn’t have to pay for our checked bags because one each is included with first class. We had two checked bags for the flight down, and three for the flight home (we brought the pack n play home with us – Pandie and Phil drove it down), and they didn’t charge us for any! I was so worked up over having to fly with him in our lap, but it really wasn’t a big deal. I do have a lot more respect for parents on planes now. It’s so stressful having to try to keep your kid(s) on good behavior, but really, it is what it is. I don’t think I’ll ever be upset with a child for crying the whole way on a plan again just because I know what that parent is probably going through!
I brought my pump, some milk, and a few bottles from home with me. I have to say – airports have this down. We had 0 problems getting through security with all of our junk (including the breast milk in the soft sided cooler). I did my best to pump often so my supply didn’t drop, but it did go down a little. When we got to the Orlando airport to fly home, I really didn’t want to have to feed him a bottle because I was trying to feed him as much as possible to get supply back up. So, I was already to go find a bathroom stall to feed him in, when I found this little baby sign on the side of the bathroom wall – hmmm… what is that?!? It’s a private nursing room! Thank you Orlando airport for being awesome. It worked great. I know Minneapolis has one too, but we were at terminal two – only terminal one has them here so I didn’t get to see any.
State Fair
Keegan is one lucky little man. The day after we got home from vacation, we decided to take him to the state fair. We were in it for the food – loved the deep fried reese’s. I didn’t think Keegan would really enjoy anything too much because he’s so little, but he actually couldn’t take his eyes off of the little piglets. We’d start walking away from them and he’d just move and turn so he could keep looking at them. It was adorable. Emma came with and we all had a pretty good, expensive, time despite the down pour as we walked in. Of course it only rained for 10 minutes, and it was while we were walking in. Oh well! Until next year…
Starting Solid Foods
We decided it was time for Keegan to try rice cereal for the first time before we left for Florida. I bought Gerber rice cereal and mixed it with thawed breast milk. It was super liquidy following the instructions, but that’s what we did. He wasn’t in love with it.
We decided to wait until we got back from vacation before giving it to him again because he wasn’t that into it. When we got back, he was really interested in the spoon and kept trying to grab the spoon himself – this gets messy, but it’s adorable. We’ve only fed him it probably a handful or so of times (my mom even got to feed him some when she watched him for me 9/14), but he really seems to be enjoying it. So, I decided it’s time to get rolling on some real foods – he’s almost six months anyway!
I found a basically brand new baby bullet on Craigslist for $20. Most of the pieces are still in the original packaging! It’s normally $60, so I consider this a big win. The bullet really is nice – I’m sure a blender and Tupperware/ice cube trays work just fine, but I really like this little system.
I read online about what foods to start with and all that jazz and decided our first one would be sweet potato! The baby bullet has a nice little booklet on how much each food will make when pureed and how much water to add, etc. Good news is I already have a vegetable steamer so I just steamed the potato (twice as long as it said to so I knew it would mash easily), and then pureed it using the baby bullet. The bullet said it would store in 10, but I only made 8. He’s a big boy so I figured a little bit bigger portions wouldn’t hurt. He tried the sweet potatoes for the first time 9/15. I was going to start him on 9/14, but that was his first night of the new medicine for his ears, so I wanted to wait at least 24 hours before giving him a new food. He loved them – it went great. He kept grabbing and trying to feed himself and was WAY more interested in this than the rice cereal.
Our little boy is doing great. We are a happy little family and I finally understand what parents mean when they say time flies. Every day seems to go by quicker than the last and the days are quickly turning into weeks, turning into months. I’m trying to capture as much of it as possible so I remember ever single thing – every smile, every laugh, every cry (mostly me crying at how quickly he’s growing). I love being his mommy!
His first Vikings season!!
Becoming Mommy 