March Madness

The four of us at the Georgia Aquarium

March has been an eventful month for our family. First, my  brother Chris (Blake’s godfather) got engaged, the next weekend Brian’s sister Christina (Blake’s godmother) got married, then my other brother Ryan’s wife Molly had their second baby (Dominic and Blake’s new cousin), and we celebrated Brian's birthday.  So much wonderful news for our family!  

Chris and Carrie started dating a couple of weeks before Dominic was born.  She is one of my good friends, and I had tried to set them up long before they finally started dating.  Anyway, Chris let us know about a week before the proposal that he was going to pop the question and arranged for all of us and Carrie’s family to go to a restaurant in Vinings to surprise Carrie there after the proposal.  It was so sweet that even the kids were included in the celebration.  

Brian and me at Christ the King almost 4 years after we got married there.  

The next weekend was absolutely crazy but a lot of fun as we celebrated Christina and Tom’s marriage.  On Friday, Brian, Dominic, Blake, and I met Brian’s cousin Kelly, her husband, and 2 adorable children along with Christina and Tom at the Georgia Aquarium.  Brian and I decided to go ahead and get a season pass since we like to take the boys so much.  Blake wasn’t too impressed during his first trip to the Aquarium, but Dominic thoroughly enjoyed it.  This was his 2nd time going.  He’s a big fan of fish right now although when he says the word “fish” it sounds more like “shhh.”  That night my parents took care of the boys while Brian and I went to the rehearsal dinner.  The next night Steph babysat Dominic, Blake, and Brian’s cousins kids - 4 kids under 3 with help from her boyfriend. The wedding was a lot of fun. The ceremony was at Christ the King where Brian and I got married almost 4 years ago. It was the first time we had been back there since our wedding. I can't believe how fast these years have flown by.  Although it was a very busy weekend full of family time, it was also really nice for Brian and I to go out and hang out with other grownups!

After a fun night (too much fun if you ask Brian), it was nice to take the boys to a post-wedding brunch the next morning, so they were able to meet/see Brian’s family most of whom were visiting from out of town.  Most of them hadn't had a chance to see the boys yet. Of course, Dominic spent most of the time running around the room at Maggiano’s (one of our favorite restaurants), and Blake spent a good bit of time being held. That meant that both boys truly had a great time.   

Blake meeting his new cousin for the first time

Then my other brother Ryan and his wife had their baby girl, Julia on my mom's birthday (while their other daughter Caroline was born on my dad's birthday 2 1/2 years ago). Julia only weighed 6 pounds 11 ounces - yes, that's almost exactly 2 pounds less than Blake was at birth. Brian and I went to the hospital the day she was born to meet our new niece, but Dominic and Blake didn't meet her for almost a week. It's so funny how close in age Dominic and Caroline are (6 months) and now Blake and Julia (almost 4 months). Family holidays should be interesting!  

The Birthday Boy rock-climbing

Ready for go-karting

Our most recent “event” was Brian’s 29th Birthday.  Yes, he’s 8 month younger than me.  On Friday night we celebrate with friends at Andretti, go-kart racing, rock climbing, and playing video games.  It was fun!  Then Brian’s actual birthday, he was supposed to have the day off work, but ended up having to go in because he had an important meeting.  So instead we just went out to dinner at Brian’s favorite restaurant California Pizza Kitchen after he got home from work.  The boys behaved themselves, so it was nice.  We also had cake when we got home.  Dominic, who hasn’t liked cake basically ever, suddenly developed a taste for icing and made a huge mess eating his piece of cake icing.  The highlight of the day had to be when I asked Dominic what we say to Daddy and he said, "Happy Birthday, Daddy!" We had been talking about it being his birthday all day and I kept hearing him trying to say happy, but I was in shock that he actually said the whole sentence. Our little boy is speaking so much more these days!

Dominic had a great time celebrating his dad's birthday.

But these last few weeks weren’t without some challenges.  Unfortunately, the night of Carrie and Chris’s engagement celebration, Brian and I both came down with what we now think is was a mild form of the flu (possibly the swine flu - flu symptoms plus some stomach problems).  Brian recovered much sooner than I did and was better by Monday morning.  However, I took several more days to recover.  It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do to take care of a baby and a toddler while I felt so horrible.  I could hardly get off the couch.  
 

such a happy baby even when he wasn't eating

About a week later, Blake seemed to lose his appetite.  The poor baby started eating half as much (4 oz instead of 8.5 oz of breastmilk) and then soon began skipping meals almost all together.  Of course, that threw him off of his schedule and he did not nap well either. Needless to say, this caused me to a great deal of stress.  When we tried to figure out what was causing Blake’s loss of appetite, there were several possibilities.  We ruled out him being sick because he was otherwise perfectly happy and smiling and didn't have a temperature.  We had just started giving him Tri-Vi- Sol as well as prescription Prevacid, so we concluded it must have been one of those 2.  

Since breastmilk apparently does not have much vitamin D in it, Blake’s pediatrician recommended that we give him tri-vi-sol.  We started this a bit late, but it was a week or so before he lost his appetite.  Around the same time, we also changed his reflux medicine around.  
Blake had been taking ½ a pill of generic prescription Prevacid, but when that was discontinued, we started administering over-the-counter Prevacid to him.  The pediatrician and pharmacist both agreed that this was a good alternative to the expensive non-generic Prevacid.  It was impossible to give him just half of a pill in this form.  Plus because Blake would end up spitting up at least half the pill, we gave him the full pill to ensure that he got enough.  Since Blake would gag and throw up this pill so much, Brian and I decided to order the non-generic Prevacid in spite of the high cost from our insurance company.  It took a couple of (long) weeks but it was finally delivered.  We continued to give Blake a whole pill of this because the 2 days that we gave him half a pill, Blake had far more spit up.

So, we first stopped giving Blake the tri-vi-sol.  After 2 or 3 days with no change, he finally started getting his appetite back.  That same day we also started giving Blake half a pill of the Prevacid.  Blake’s appetite is still not completely back to normal but almost, but we’re not completely sure which change helped him.  His sleep has been a little messed up too.  I remember Dominic having a sleep regression around 4 months of age when apparently sleep patterns change, but I figured at first it was just due to the lack of eating.  I remembered the pediatrician’s advice for Dominic being not to feed him at night under any circumstances because then he would get in the habit of eating in the middle of the night again.  So, I didn’t feed Blake, and he went back to sleep pretty easily.  This continued for a couple of nights, but putting him back in his warm sleep sack as well as stuffing him full of milk before bedtime seemed to cure this.

March has definitely been an eventful month...great weather, wedding-related fun, birthdays, and lots of other craziness!  I’m thinking with 2 boys that every month will probably end up being almost as interesting. 

Big Brother + Little Brother