Off the Charts

Both boys had doctor appts this week. Isaac had his 4 month check-up (a little late) and Caleb went to the feeding clinic. Both boys are off the growth charts. Isaac because he's chubby and Caleb because he's tiny.

Mr IZ weighs a whopping 19 pounds, 4 oz and is 26.5 inches tall! (I looked back at Caleb's records and he weighed 19.5 pounds at 18 months!!) He's off the chart for his weight and at the 90th percentile for height. According to his doctor, he has met all of his developmental milestones, plus some and is very strong for for his age. I brought up the fact that Isaac already has terrible stranger anxiety and his ped told me that in sensitive kids, it can show up earlier. Great. He then joked that the ladies will like that trait some day! We also discussed his "severe eczema" (which I will post about later). He also got 4 shots...poor baby. His appointments are so short compared to Caleb's. And most of the time, Isaac's appts are spent discussing Caleb!

Caleb weighs 24 pounds, 8 oz and is 34 inches tall. He's in the 5th percentile for height and even though he gained 4 oz since our last visit (2.5 months ago), he's fallen off the weight chart again. The team wasn't too concerned about it though, since he did gain a little. His dietitian calculated that 45% of his daily calories are still coming from his night time bottles, which totally stinks. His eating has gotten better again, so I was hoping that he didn't need to get up at night anymore. After his feeding team met, it was decided that we can stop giving him his high calorie formula at night and give him whole milk instead. Their theory is if he gets less calories at night, he might be more hungry during the day. If his eating starts to improve, then we'll start adding water to his bottles and eventually he'll just get water if he wakes up. And then hopefully he'll just start skipping them and sleep through the night. Great theory, but I am not holding my breath on this one! If his eating doesn't improve during the day, then they will come up with a different plan. Anyway, his behavioral psychologist was there for our appt today and she was so impressed with him. He was really charming them and had them all laughing with the things he was doing. I think he planned it that way so they wouldn't notice that he really wasn't eating anything. His feeding speech therapist wants him to have a formal articulation and language test to see exactly where he's at with his speech. She hasn't seen him for 2 months and cannot believe how much he's talking now. So other than being there for 2 hours, it was a good appointment. Finally we can start getting rid of his night bottles (he's still getting up 3-4 times a night). I know it's not going to be easy since he's done this his entire life, but I know he/we can't keep doing this forever. I just hope he doesn't lose too much weight in the process. The bad news is his dietitian, who has seen him since he was 9 months old, is moving away. We're really going to miss her!

We went out to eat tonight with the boys and it was pretty much a complete nightmare. This was the first time we tried this and only the 3rd time we've taken Caleb to a restaurant. I bribed Caleb all day that if he ate lunch, took a good nap, didn't whine, picked up his toys, etc we could go to a restaurant and get french fries. He was so excited to go to a "wetwuant," even though he had no idea what he was talking about. Caleb was good long enough for me to get this picture, but then he crushed my hopes of a nice dinner. He wanted nothing to do with eating (of course), wouldn't sit in the highchair, was super whiny, and wanted to run around. (He did take a huge bite of a lemon from my water though and actually seemed to like it). Isaac was sleeping in his car seat when we got there, and when he woke up he totally freaked out and wouldn't stop crying unless I was standing up and jiggling him around. I entertained the boys while my mom and Joel ate and then they took them outside so I could eat (inhale) my meal. Not exactly what I had in mind when I suggested going out. I won't be able to convince Joel to do this again for a while!