So I have finally decided to join the world of the blog. I’m think I’m going to approach it as more of an online journal. If others are interested in reading it, great. If not, that’s OK too. I really just want to have some record of what’s going on in our lives right now. I used to be so good at keeping my photo albums up to date, but they have fallen by the wayside in the last few years. I haven’t even kept Noah’s baby book up! So, I figure maybe I’ll print it this out one day and make a scrap book.
Here’s the background:
Christian and I have been married for three and half years. We have a ten and a half month old son named Noah, who is the center of our world.
Noah is a happy baby, although this was not always the case. He was born with acid reflux and milk-soy-protein-intolerance (MSPI). Although we did not know this until he was about seven weeks old. That first seven weeks was hell – for him and for us. He was in pain and his intestines were bleeding. He was crying ALL of the time, and so was I. Newborns are supposed to sleep eighteen hours a day, and Noah slept four to six hours TOTAL. When he wasn’t sleeping, he was crying. If one more person said it was colic, I was going to choke the crap out of them, because I knew there was something wrong. Finally after we ended up in the emergency room of a children’s hospital, were referred to a pediatric gastroenterologist, and switched pediatricians, we got it figured out. Noah was put on Zantac syrup for the acid reflux and a prescription formula called Neocate, and he was a different baby. Now, many months later, that is all a distant memory.
Noah is growing out of the MSPI. He is on soy formula now and the doctor says the goal is for him to be able to have cake and ice cream on his first birthday. I cannot tell you how happy I was when I bought the GIANT can of soy formula at CostCo the other day. It makes 262 ounces of formula and it was only $27! The prescription stuff only made 90 ounces for $30, which means it cost about $10 a day! Bananas are probably his favorite solid food, although he’s not really a picky eater.
Noah is, of course, adorable. He has huge hazel eyes (almost brown but not quite) and brown hair (not much of it!). He’s also a big guy. He’s not fat or anything, just big. At his nine month appointment he was 24 pounds (90th percentile) and 30.5 inches (95th percentile). I think he’s 26 pounds now. He says ma-ma and da-da (though it’s not really directed at us), and waves good-bye. He crawls and cruises, and even lets go to stand on his own for a few seconds. He is into every drawer and cabinet in the house. He was in the bathroom with me the other day, and in the five seconds it took me to pull my pants up and pump the hand sanitizer dispenser, he had his hand in the toilet.
He loves our two dogs, although they liked him better before he was mobile. Now he laughs as they run from him. He has a few stuffed animal puppies that he cuddles with at night. He loves to play in the dogs’ water bowl, but listens (most of the time) when you tell him no. He heads for the bowl and when I say, “Noah – no, no, no,” he looks back at me and smiles. He knows he’s not supposed to do it, but he has to test things out every once in a while.
He loves to play with things we don’t want him to play with, like the remote control or our cell phones. He also likes toys that make music. He “dances” or jumps up and down when he hears the counting song on his Fisher Price house or the music on his Peek a Blocks Wagon. Christian is trying to teach him how to strum the guitar and also has a drum in the family room for him to beat on.
He smiles and laughs a lot, but he also has an attitude sometimes. I hope that it’s not a sign of things to come, but I fear that it is. He hates to have his diaper changed because he doesn’t want to stay still for that long. I have to try to distract him by playing Baby Einstein DVDs or by changing him while he has a bottle. Otherwise he throws a FIT. He kicks his legs, arches his back, and screams. If you take him away from something he wants to do, he screams and cries giant crocodile tears, and he is getting really good at holding his breath.
I’m afraid that Noah’s world is about to be rocked though. We are in the process of adopting a baby girl from Vietnam. We have completed our dossier and home study and are “next on the list” with our agency for a referral. He really likes his older cousins, Will, Sophia, and Michael, but I don’t know how he will feel about sharing our attention with a little sister.
We hope to travel in a few months. I think we will take Noah, and my mom will go with us too. We will be in Vietnam for about three weeks. We are really excited, anxious, nervous, etc. My heart jumps every time the phone rings thinking it may be our referral call. There are so many unknowns in the process, so we just have to have faith that everything will work out and that things will go as smoothly as possible.
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