still here!!

I know I have a lot to catch up on, but I thought I'd do a quick post about what's going on now and do an update post later about the rest of our summer ...

A big development that happened today that I wanted to document was that Colson finally had a firm BM!!! I know -- what? Sounds gross ... what's the big deal you ask? Well for about the past 5-6 weeks WEEKS, Colson has had either loose stools or diarrhea ... no joke, no firm BM. He had a little spell of the stomach flu thah he caught at school ... but I am chalking the rest up to teething because even when i changed his diet, no change in the poo. All four of his incisors are not just about fully grown in and coincidental too that the diarrhea has lessened. I had read that it was not uncommon for toddlers and babies to have diarrhea during teething, but I had no idea that it would last this long!

Oh yeah - school! Colson started in the toddler program at Bergamo Montessori in our neighborhood in late August. We call it school because it is actually school - hahah. On the same campus, they also have a preschool (3-5), lower elementary, upper elementary and middle school. Colson's class is for 18 mos - 3yrs. It was a tough transition and he still cries when I drop him off in the morning, but not for too long, thank god. He's so grown up! They even have parent-teacher conference coming up (not sure what we are going to discuss) and school picture day :)

summer updates

June: Pops in the Park - McKinley

June: Hanging out at the sprayground in west sac with the gouges

Panda Express after spraygorund -- we were all starving!

Hanging out with Colt, Aidan & Monroe and trying to get a picture together!

Cousins :) Elliott and Baby Shaylen

I have time to blog again

My last post was in early April ... right around then is when Colson's sleep issues really started to worsen. Colson never really slept through the night (he still doesn't!) but a few weeks after his first birthday, he started waking up more and more in the middle of the night. At first it just seemed like the usual - he was transitioning between sleep cylces, something would wake him up, and he wasn't able to get back to sleep on his own. So one of us would go in and help him back to sleep.

This used to be once a night. Then twice, then 3 times ... but then maybe around when Colson was 14 months old, I noticed that even after I would pick him up he would still be squirming around and he seemed uncomfortable. Sometimes I would walk in and he would be rolling around in his crib arching his back and stiffening his legs as if in pain :(

We took him to the doctor who ruled out ear or respiratory infection. He asked if Colson was exhibiting any discomfort during the day (no) or if he had any vomiting, or blood in his stool - also both no. I thought it was acid reflux, but the Dr. said that it wouldn't just act up at night. Nevertheless, we put Cols on Zantac for about 10 days. With no improvement, I took him off the medicine.

Next, the Dr. suggested that maybe a certain type of food was causing the abdominal discomfort and chronic constipation (and he was also very gassy at times). So then we started an elimination diet to see if it would help. First thing to go was milk and dairy, then soy, then gluten ... then we added soy back in so he could at least have soymilk. Without any improvement, it then occured to me that we should try to eliminate rice because with all the other food that we were cutting out, rice was a huge part of his diet. Within days his constipation went away - he began going twice a day regularly. He had never been this regular his whole life! We are going through diapers so quickly now ... he used to only poo maybe once every 3 or four days! Obviously now looking back this was a huge part of the problem ... he was so backed up poor guy.

Needless to say all this elimination dieting took a lot of work and monitoring. We were keeping (and still keeping) a detailed food and sleep diary. At our lowest moment, Cols was waking literally every hour from the time he went to bed until the time he was up for the day -- so for a period of almost a week he never got longer than a one hour stretch of sleep. At this point I -- we -- were beyond exhausted, but felt even worse for our little boy who could not get a good night sleep :(

After we cut out the rice, things began to slowly improve. It has only been this week that things have been almost back to normal. We re-introduced gluten (wheat) foods and he seems to be okay. I am also slowly re-introducing dairy and milk. He's only waking once or twice a night, but is able to go back to sleep on his own in about five minutes or less. It's been a long 3 months, but we are so glad that he is getting some quality sleep again ...

busy weekend -- part deux

Bubba's second Easter! We had brunch at Zinfandel Grille with Nick's dad's side of the family:

Then we had dinner at Nick's mom's house ... Colson arrived all bundled up:

Then we lost the hat and sweater:

Petting Eddy :)

One of Bubba's classic looks:

I don't wanna wear this egg basket on my head!!

busy weekend! two birthday parties and easter -- part one

We had another jam packed weekend ... Aidain's first birthday party on Saturday; Niko's 3rd birthday party on Saturday and two easter get-togethers on Sunday - oy!

Aidan is a friend of Colson's from M&M group. His mom Andrea planned his party at artBeast children's art studio in mid-town. What a fabulous idea!! We did cupcakes and presents first before the kiddies started their "art project" :) Then they had one side of the room covered in butcher paper with little pie tins filled with non-toxic paint and lots of paintbrushes strewn about. I stripped Colson down to his onsie then let him go for it! He lunged for a paintbrush and I showed him how to dip it in the paint then paint on the paper ... but ... he never really got past the goopy feeling of paint on his hands! He would drop a paintbrush in paint then grab it and get paint all over his hands, then reach up for me to wipe it off him ... we did this a couple times before I decided that we would just sit back and watch everyone else paint ;)

Yummy cupcakes made by Aidan's mommy:

Aidan with mom and dad:

All the little ones had name tags -- the staff there had a great suggestion to put them on their backs so they wouldn't rip them off (guess it wasn't their first birthday shindig!):

Enjoying a little frosting ...

Aidan enjoying his cupcake ... mmmmm ... frosting ...

Trying to get a group pic of everyone!

The Garveys post painting!

Mommy & Me:

Happy Birthday Aidan!!! Thanks for inviting us ;)

Then Colson and I hopped in the car. He fell asleep, on the way home, where dad ran out and jumped into the car and we were off to Niko's party. Niko is Nick Garcia's son -- yes another Nick that dad is friends with (there's also Nick Steele, Nick White, Nick Moser ... don't get me started on the Matts). They had a fun backyard BBQ with a jumphouse! When all the big kids were doing the pinata I let Colson roll around in the jumphouse -- we might have to get one for Colson's bday next year :)

Niko loves Scooby Doo -- and his party was all sccoby doo'ed out ... birthday banner, cupcakes, mystery wagon decorations, tableclothes ... and then there was an Incredible Hulk Cake? His mom Erica told me that he likes both - hahaha :) Happy Birthday big guy :) Hope you enjoy your new clothes and sock monkey!

pics from Colson's first snow trip in February

I don't know about this snow business ...

Check out Colson's moon boots:

Hanging out inside the warm cabin ... all smiles!