Number Nine

Cale's ninth tooth, the first of his first molars, came through today. (Actually, I didn't check yesterday, but I checked Wednesday while waiting for the doctor.) I can't believe he slept seven and a half hours last night, after weeks of poor sleep, with a new tooth. This has also been the longest time between teeth eruptions since he got his first tooth. His eigth tooth came in just before he turned nine months old, and he's more than a week past his eleven months birthday. More than nine weeks without a tooth! Yes, Cale seems to be fast on teething.

The Specialist

Karston finally had his appointment with the pediatric gastroenterologist specialist this afternoon. (Finally! Over three months of waiting!) This morning when Karston said tummy hurting, we told him he would see the doctor today. This evening, Karston asked why his tummy was still hurting after he saw the doctor. Heart-rending!

Overall, my sense is that Dr. Litchtmann isn't too worried about Karston. Karston doesn't "show" well to doctors. He starts off shy, hiding his face in Daddy's lap. Then he warms up, starts laughing and then working the crowd. He's so happy that when we say he often screams at night from his tummy pain ... what we say (crying from pain) doesn't match what Karston presents (extra happy, energetic kid) to the doctor. The doctor's not worried about his small size (nor would I if I didn't think it were a direct consequence of his food aversion that's almost certainly due to his tummy pain). He wasn't even too concerned with the poor eating habits -- but he's going to help us look for the root cause of the pain, so this doctor is reading off the right page.

The positive outcome is that we have an imaging appointment Monday afternoon. First Karston will have an abdominal ultrasound to see that all his organs are the right sizes in the right places. Immediately after that, he'll have a barium swallow (or so they think ... swallowing is close to eating and Karston would rather not) and an upper GI x-ray. We really should see something; if not, the doctor will send a 'scope down to look (requires general anesthesia, can biopsy to check level of esophageal damage from reflux). So, as I expected, nothing got resolved today, but we're on the path to see what's wrong.

Like all of his recent doctor's appointments, Karston absolutely did not want to have his vitals measured, least of all his weight. I suppose he has heard too many times that he should eat more after he's weighed. After much resistance, we learned that he's 26.7 pounds dressed in winter clothes, and 35.75 inches tall. And he looks healthy.

11

Well, Cale's 11 months old now. This is his last "month" birthday before we measure his age including years. He has so much personality! He tells us when he's hungry and if he wants baby food or self-feeding, he wants to make you laugh, he tells me when he wants another bedtime story or when I should hurry up and finish the book. I looked at a picture of Karston when he was almost 10 months. They look very similar! However, Cale has already outgrown that outfit, and the next size up too. Karston had four teeth, while I can feel #9 about to poke through in Cale's mouth. Cale is crawling at high speed, while Karston didn't crawl. Cale must put everything in his mouth, while Karston wasn't quite that fixated. They both think Tinker Toys and wooden trains are great. Cale isn't as interested in Intellitainer as Karston was, probably because he's mobile and that beats a stationary play station. Unless it's his Leap Pad station to which he crawls and then pulls himself up to play with the knobs and buttons. He's come so far and grown so big! Shucks, he's already grown so much and developed more of his own personality in the last two weeks, it's just amazing! This week he learned to drink from a re-usable "juice box" with a straw! He doesn't have the hang of tilting a sippy back (or else he really enjoys having someone else do that for him!), but he sure knows how to suck from a straw. He's been on a kick of feeding himself crunchy food (rice chex), so we wanted more fluids in his diet before the dry food got uncomfortable.

Best Big Brother

Karston really is the best big brother Cale could want! This afternoon, I could not get Cale to take a nap. He was tired, clinging on to me and crying. When I set him in his crib, he shrieked. So I picked him up, and he cried in my ear. After an hour, I was tired of listening. So I strapped a very reluctant Cale in his swing. I pushed the button to start the rocking, but after one rock, the batteries died. Argh! Karston started to sing to Cale and push the swing, and Cale got much quieter. I left the room to get a coin to open the battery compartment, and Cale quit fussing at all.

Karston followed me, No, let me rock baby brudder to sleep! What else to say but sure, you do it? Karston got his xylophone so that he could play music while he was singing to Cale and rocking him. Cale was perfectly quiet when I wasn't in the bedroom, and Karston was very attentive. About four minutes later, Karston found me to announce that Cale was asleep. I checked, and he was sound asleep. He stayed asleep for a decent nap, too! Karston loves being in charge of his brother, and I love having such a good mother's helper! There are moments, of course, when two children are much more work, but there are many oases when the two boys have each other and don't want my full attention. Then, as long as I'm ready to drop everything and run when one calls, I can go to the bathroom (I did!) or cook dinner (I did!) and remember what adults do when we're not chasing children.

Yes, Karston really is this sweet!

Over The Top Circus

This morning, we met up with Jeni, her mom, and her two boys to go the 11 am circus, the Over The Top show. Karston finally settled in to watch the show; then he enjoyed it. I'm not sure he was as impressed as we were at some of the feats! Karston seemed to think if he were watching it, it must be reasonable. He liked the tigers because he likes kitties. Once the lights went down, Cale started watching. He seemed impressed with the aerial acrobatics at the start of the show. He got pretty wiggly after 45 minutes, and he started to nurse just before intermission. By the end of intermission, Cale was sound asleep, and he slept through the entire second half until we left at 1:30 pm.

So if you asked us how was their first circus, we were impressed with the daredevil stunts and we saw all the usual circus bits we would want to see. When we asked Karston, he said it was neat. I think he likes his elephant (the souvenir cup his snow cone came in) better than the show! And if you asked Cale, he'd probably say he slept well despite the noise. And why can't he have more long naps on my lap? We really enjoyed taking our boys to the circus!

After the circus, we were starved, so we went to Cloos' Coney Island. I was sure the one advantage to such a late lunch would be that we could get our food quickly. Before we got married and had kids, we would sometimes have a late dinner and split a pitcher over pinball, and we never had to wait too long. We waited at least 40 minutes for our hot dogs! Yes, just basic, top quality hot dogs! Well, on such a gorgeous, warm day ... everyone else was at Cloos' too. We still enjoyed that too, and both of our boys ate a french fry.