Talking

Max loves to make noises. He squeals, yells, and even does a little devil groan that sounds like it would hurt his throat. But they are always one vowel sound. Ehhh Ehhhh Ehhh. Ahhhhhhhhh. And his cute laugh Eaha Eaha Eaha Eaha.

Tonight while I was giving him a bath he just started saying Ba Ba Ba Ba. So I yelled for Chris to come and bring the camera!

He's growing up so fast!

Like Father, Like Son?

So, I have been doing a sort of "Project" recently of going through the probably hundreds of pictures of Max I have taken and trying to determine my favorites so I can get a photo book and slide show together for his 1st birthday. (Sorry future kids if this doesn't happen for you.)

The majority of people who see Max think he looks like my husband. But some people can see me or some of my side of the family in him. He has my color of eyes, my ears, and definitely my fat feet. When Max was born, the moment I laid eyes on him I thought he looked like Chris. He looks like him the very most when he smiles.

So as I was going through his pictures, I thought back to a few pictures I had scanned into my computer from our wedding video. I didn't have many of Chris's baby pictures, but I did find this one:

And I compared it to this one:

What do you think?

 Like father, like son.

(Here is one of me in case you want to compare)

Awkward Crawl

Max is starting to move. He has figured out how to awkward army crawl his way to his favorite things (like remote controls). Why are babies so enamored by remote controls?

Max the Last Month

Wow. I knew I hadn't posted for a while, but has it really been a month?

Sorry. My Laptop is on the fritz. The screen barely works. The keyboard doesn't type every letter and it moves SUPER SLOW. I've spent much of my alone/computer time trying to back up everything on my external hard drive and not much time blogging. But here is a little sum up of he past month:

Max is getting used to his helmet. Some mom's I talked to said it didn't take long for their babies to "get used" to the helmet. I'd say, for Max, it took him a good 2 weeks. Now it wasn't like he would cry all the time... he was just fussier than normal. It is still funny to watch him look up at things, because it is like he has a visor on that he always has to look over. So he tilts his head way back to look up at things. I find myself crouching down so he can see my face.

 (His shirt says hard headed... ha ha ha)

Max has definitely learned to move this month. While he is not crawling, he has figured out that when he really wants something (like papers or cords) he will steam roll his way over or maneuver his body around to get to desired item. One morning I left him like this to play:

 And I found him like this:

He has also started doing these push ups. He gets up on his hands, but as soon as he bends one leg, he flips over onto his back. He'll get it eventually. It is fun watching him try. He even army crawled a little today!

 

Max has also progressed in his solid food consumption. I think feeding him solid foods is the LEAST favorite part of my day. He gets distracted very easy and turns his head, he sucks on his fingers as I try to spoon in the food, and he blows raspberries thus splattering food EVERYWHERE. I absolutely dread doing it, but I know he just needs the practice. He is already improving and it isn't quite such a battle every time anymore.

He takes rice cereal and has tried various fruits and a few veggies. Every time I give him something knew he pulls the funniest faces... like it is the worst thing in the world. He has eventually gotten used to most foods. Here he is trying a biter biscuit. He gnawed off the end, played with it in his mouth and then gagged a bunch instead of swallowing it. In fear that he would vomit all the food that I took 15 minutes getting into him the biter biscuit was taken away. Maybe we will try those a little later.

 Here's a few of my favorites:

 (Eating a Carters Tag)

Proof he isn't always happy. His "cry face" looks exactly like it did when he was a newborn.

He LOVES strings (and cords)! It reminds me of my cats. All he needs is a shoelace and some paper (maybe a dryer sheet) and he is happy! Who said kids need all the expensive toys!

And here is his most recent head picture taken 10/12/10 after 6 weeks of helmet therapy. It is so much more round, but still a little off set (meaning his right side is more foreword than the left). But it is improving! 3 more weeks and we get to see if he can go to night time use only. But that might be wishful thinking. Cross your fingers!



Here are some video's I took as well:

The Pushup

Trying Apple Juice (mixed with water)

Eating the Biter Biscuit

Improvement?

So Here was max at about 3-4 months with his flat head

Here he is right before helmet therapy:

And this was last night:

I don't know about you... but to me... it already looks better!

Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, but it sure is nice to know that it is already working and that by the end he is going to have a beautiful head!

Helmet Therapy

When Max was about 3-4 weeks, I noticed that his head was always tilted to the RIGHT. I was so worried about other things like breastfeeding issues, pumping, baby care, depression, and SLEEP that I was hoping he would sort of "grow out" of it.

At about 5 weeks I started to notice a flat spot had formed on the back right side of his head. Being a nurse I am aware of a thing called TORTICOLLIS (basically a stiff neck muscle causing shortening on one side of the neck) and PLAGIOCEPHALLY (basically FLAT HEAD) the occurs as a result of the torticollis in combination with the fact that the baby's skull has sutures that are very movable to help with the birthing process and subsequent massive head growth in the first 2 years of life. Torticollis can occur during the development in the womb (it's cramped quarters in there) or shortly after as they are developing in the first few months of life.

Again, I thought..."He's ONLY 5 weeks. It will be OK." At 6 weeks when we took him into the pediatrician for his reflux and I mentioned his flat head. The pediatrician took a look and noticed that not only did he have a flat spot, but his right ear was almost an inch more forward than his left. So now he had a flat spot AND his ears were completely off. How could this happen to my beautiful little baby. He taught us exercises to do with Max's neck 4-5 times a day. We came home and immediately started the exercises.

2 weeks later we already noticed much improvement with his neck. But his head was still flat. So we went to see a plastic surgeon as recommended by our pediatrician. They told us that he may need helmet therapy. But they said sometimes sleep positioning and the exercises would help with the problem.

We came home and used foam wedges and rolled towels trying to get him to sleep on the other side. But even with the neck exercises... he still favored that right side. Especially when he was sleeping. We would reposition him on his left side with a wedge by his head so he wouldn't turn it right. But that little bugger would move his BODY (yes at 2-3 months) away from the wedge and sleep on his right side. I felt like I was fighting a losing battle.

As he became more mobile and we continued his exercises, he would move his neck all around. He would sleep on both sides of his scalp, Left and Right. But that darn flat spot would not go away!!

So we went through the painful process of getting approved for helmet therapy by insurance. He fortunately was approved because those suckers are expensive! We had his scalp measured by the orthopedist. It was 14.4 mm off on the cross section diagonals. He definitely would benefit from helmet therapy.

Now deciding to do helmet therapy has been hard for me. I know he needs it, and I know he will benefit from it. But the process of making him wear this heavy thing on his head 23 hours a day, while his head profusely sweats, and people look at him strange and wonder if he is "special" is hard. I have been on an emotional roller-coaster this week. I have to make my poor baby wear this thing for 3 months... or longer. I know that is such a very small short period in his life... but right now it seems like forever. It is equivalent to half his life up until now.

I know people are dumb, and crazy, and I will probably have a few fingers pointed at me, and dumb questions. I try to tell myself that I won't care what people think. But obviously I do! He is MY BABY. I wouldn't even be doing helmet therapy in the first place if I didn't care what people thought. So I am just going to have to try and not cry every time people are dumb. What if I did have a special needs child, or something different about myself? I would have to endure a life time of dumb comments. I can do this for 3 months.

So here is my beautiful baby as he gets used to his helmet. So far people have been great! I have had lots of Mom's that have reached out to me because either their own child had to wear one, or someone really close to them did. It is really helpful to have that emotional support.

He is adjusting to it. He doesn't love it, but then again he doesn't cry the whole time it's on. Just putting it on and taking it off makes him very angry. But other than that... he just goes back to playing as soon as it's on.

We are ramping up the process with hours on and then one hour off. Tonight will be the first night he sleeps in it... so we will see how he does.

Max may take his head for granted because heads are supposed to be round... but I hope he thanks me one day because I think this process has been a lot harder on me than it has been on him.

Half Birthday

When I was a little girl, my sister would always mention she had a "half birthday". It is the date 6 months after your birthday that you turn __(insert number of age here)___ and a half. Little did I know until a conversation I had with her on her birthday (3 days ago...Happy Birthday again Jill!) that the reason she celebrated her half birthday was because her birthday is in the summer and so she couldn't bring treats to school. So some of the kids brought treats on their half birthdays so that everyone was able to celebrate and bring treats on their birthdays. I never knew that until now.

If Max would have been born on his due date, it would have been on my sister's 1/2 birthday!

But here we are! MAX IS 6 Months!!! I can't even believe that it is all going by so fast, yet I can barely remember my life without him.

Here are a few fun facts about him:

1. He is sitting up. He still topples over and doesn't quit get the entire balancing thing, but he does pretty well.

2. He loves chewing on EVERYTHING.

3. He is grabby. He grabs my hair and pulls (hard). He grabs my glasses off my face when I wear them. He grabs toys and brings them to his mouth. He is Mr. Grabby.

4. He is in 12 month clothing... and some of the shorts are a little snug

5. He wears size 3 and 4 diapers, but mostly 4's... we are not going to be wasteful of the 3's I still have.

6. He is in his big boy car seat which isn't fitting very well in my small Mazda Protege. It doesn't like to recline and his poor head falls forward when he falls asleep. It will be the bane of my existence for the next 6 months until he can face forward.

7. He moves! But isn't crawling yet. He can scoot all over the floor.

8. He loves to giggle, especially in the evening.

9. He finally eats rice cereal, and we have tried a few other foods!

10. He melts my heart every single day

Chris put him in his University of Utah onesie today. Ironically Max's half birthday is on the first day of Fall semester at the U. Maybe there is some foreseeing in the future. (Watch, he grow up and goes to another college south of here)

We had a low key day. Just played a little, watched a little Baby Einstein, napped very little (typical) and ate some cereal. And of course we had a little photo session.

HAPPY HALF BIRTHDAY MAX!!!