Look what Caleb did for me today

I’m a very happy Mama.

Mouse over the arrow and click “HQ” to watch the video in higher quality

Caleb is six weeks old and getting so big so fast. During the first few days of pooping/crying chaos, I thought that it would last forever. But now, Caleb’s doing so much better and I realize just how short of a phase that really was.

Caleb’s fussiness is almost gone. Now when he fusses or cries, it’s for a reason. I just go down the baby care checklist (hungry? poopy? gassy? tired? bored?) and almost every time, one of them is the culprit. It’s nice to actually solve his issues instead of suffer through them.

We’ve had some really good days of cooing and playing. He’s now on the verge of the big gummy smile we’ve been looking forward to. We’ve gotten him to grin a little several times so far. He also has really good head control already. He will look around when he’s held upright and he can get up on his elbows during tummy time. Here’s a picture of when I caught him doing it yesterday:

He’s also been “talking” up a storm. Whenever we start talking to him, his face lights up and he starts making tons of cute little noises. Our little “conversations” are probably the best part of my day. You can see him and Andy talking in the video at the beginning of this post.

Caleb, Toby and I went outside today to enjoy the beautiful weather.

Here’s a slideshow of our pictures before the game, tailgating, during the game and the celebration afterwards.

Once upon a time, in a city far far away (from the cold) there lived a team that no one thought could or would amount to anything. Often doubted, always mocked, and forever in our hearts as let-downs, this redbird was destined for failure. Until the whole stinking world turned upside down. THE CARDINALS ARE GOING TO THE SUPER BOWL!

What an amazing, incredible game! We had an amazing time tailgating and then watching this incredible match up in our home stadium in Glendale. We got picked up by my buddy Robert and his Dad, who came into town from Utah to see the game. My friend Andrew and my Uncle Steve also came with us. We headed down early and ended up meeting up with some more friends, Jason and his wife, Bryant, and some others. The place was a madhouse. I traveled to Green Bay and saw a game in Lambeu and dreamed that ONE DAY, SOMEDAY the Cardinals might have a fraction of the excitement and fan base that they have in the frozen tundra. That day was today. The place was absolutely filled with fans and it was like a giant party with 60,000 of your lifelong friends.

The game was a roller coaster ride of emotions. We had the most incredible first half, up 24-6 and ready to shock the world. Incredibly, and appropriately for the playoffs, the Eagles stormed back and took at 25-24 lead. It was up to Kurt Warner and the Cardinals to rally and they did with an amazing game-ending drive to score. The place erupted into a mix of jumping/screaming/crying/disbelief as we watched confetti fall down upon the players and the NFC Championship trophy hoisted. UNREAL. For a man who has lived 24 years in this state, and been around for every single game this team has played since they moved here, it was surreal and amazing. I had a dream the night before that we would win 33-13…and I was wrong. The final score was 32-25, but we did win and now we’re in the Super Bowl! So all you family and friends better root on the BIG RED in two weeks!!! Go Cards!!!!!!

PS…more pictures to come, as Robert got some of us in our seats from across the stadium, and we also took a little family picture with the little guy before we headed out.  Special thanks to my parents for watching him all day long!

(Oh and isn’t my wife extremely cute in Cardinal red?)

Here’s the little old man in all of his cuteness:

Today is Caleb’s 1 month birthday. Where has the time gone? He has definitely changed since he was born. He’s filled out quite a bit and has grown some “poppo cheeks” Unfortunately, he’s going through his awkward newborn stage with baby acne, dry skin and hair loss. It’s like all the bad effects of puberty and old age all at once. Poor thing. The hair loss was the most traumatic for me; probably because almost all of his hair on top fell off in the matter of a couple of days. And because he still has hair around his ears and at the back, he now resembles an old man.

Caleb is so strong. He was lifting his head at one week and as of 3 weeks, he can keep his head up for a good 30 seconds and can lift up off his chest a little bit. He’s making great eye contact and can track moving objects really well. He makes so many noises now like grunting and sighing, especially in his sleep. He goes to sleep grunting and wakes up grunting.

We think a milk oversupply is causing most of Caleb’s stomach ailments. Basically, one side is producing too much milk and when he begins nursing, it’s like trying to drink out of a garden hose. He ends up gulping and choking which makes him swallow a lot of air. In order to fix this, I’m adjusting my milk supply and making sure to burp him several times when he eats. If we stick to this method, he seems to improve significantly. We’re trying to establish a good predictable routine for him. It’s hard though when he eats on demand and still has some sleepy days and awake days. We’re trying for three naps during the day 2-3 hours each and bedtime by 7 or 8. This doesn’t give him much awake time but he’s still a very sleepy baby.

On a side note, the hat in those pictures was sent to us from Caleb’s Great Aunt Amy. She has a friend who knit this hat and a pair of socks for him. I think it’s absolutely adorable and had to put it on him for these pictures. Plus it hides his receding hairline.

I was talking with Bri this morning about how it seems that since the new guy came along, it’s been so much harder to focus on the disciplines of our faith right now, like spending time in God’s word as well as prayer.  We’ve had the floods of praise and giving glory to God for all the amazing miracles that have happened along this journey, but the overwhelming time-crunch that is having a newborn has rattled my disciplines quite a bit.  It kind of reminded me of a truth I’ve always known and try to remind those that are trying to live for God.  Discipline is not opportunistic.  When we say in our heads things like “when I get a chance” or “when the right time comes up” then more often then not our disciplines fall by the wayside.  This is true in life, and even more true in the spiritual realm.  Our adversary will constantly try to flood us with justifications, busy-ness, fatigue, discouragement, distraction and the like.  Discipline lives up to it’s definition.  It takes some to have some.  It’s easy to believe the lie that “well in a few weeks Caleb will be a little older so then it’ll be easier.”  I’ve talked to enough parents and am enough of a realist to know that there will always be challenges that bend our normal plans and life.  I hope to be disciplined within the joys and storms and set a good example for my son one day.

Well, its been a few days since we began our quest to find what is causing Caleb’s discomfort. I have to admit we did not follow the plan exactly. After only a bottle and a half of formula which left all three of us frustrated, we nixed the formula and decided for me to stick to the strict diet and breastfeed through it until everything would be out of my system. We would just tolerate Caleb’s complaints until then. Then, one night of fuss made us cave and we started giving him Zantac a few days ago. So we’re basically doing everything at once instead of one thing at a time.

I have to say I think his reflux has diminished but now he seems to be having some gas issues. Go figure, right? So now, I’m going to start eating wheat and dairy again in moderation but lay off the gassy foods (like cabbage, broccoli, corn, beans, etc.) We’re getting serious about burping him well and keeping him upright after eating so he has a chance to keep everything down. We’ve decided that if he continues to be problematic this weekend, we’ll try the formula for a few days just to see if anything in my milk is affecting him. This will help ease our minds about what I’m eating and what I’m not.

My parents came down here on Monday to help out and keep us well fed. They’ve been great at soothing Caleb when he gets fussy. Between the four of us, he’s been okay and Andy and my sanity has slowly returned to a satisfactory level.

As far as sleeping, Caleb’s been a champ (knock on wood). He’s really getting into the hang of waking, grunting for attention, getting his diaper changed, eating, burping and going back to sleep all in about 40 minutes. His first sleeping stretch lasts about 3 1/2 hours and goes to about 2 hour cycles from there. He’s bee sleeping a lot during the day but apparently that doesn’t really affect his night sleeping so I won’t complain.

For the past week or so, Caleb has been overly fussy/crying for reasons we couldn’t figure out. Finally we set up an appointment with the doctor this morning to find out what was wrong. Andy and I were pretty sure it was some sort of reflux based on his symptoms. After a round of questions, the doctor gave us two gameplans.

1) His discomfort may be caused by a food allergy. This makes sense with Andy’s family history of allergies.
Plan of action: Since I’m exclusively breastfeeding, the allergy would be in my milk. I will have to clear any problem foods out of my system which takes three days. In the meantime, I will have to pump and dump, eat no high allergy foods, (this includes dairy, soy, shellfish, nuts, wheat and eggs) and feed Caleb a hypoallergenic formula for 3 days. If this is indeed the culprit, we should have a less fussy baby by the end of today. After the three days, I will start introducing back the high allergy foods one by one so I don’t starve to death, because, really, who can survive on a diet like that?

2) He does have reflux, poor thing.
Plan of action: Zantac. The doctor already wrote us out a prescription for the medicine. So if the allergy test fails, we’ll have that to try.

As of this afternoon, Caleb seems to hate the bottle with a passion. I don’t blame him. I took one whiff of that formula and almost gagged myself. So basically he hasn’t eaten in five hours. I’ve resolved that if he doesn’t take it again when he wakes up, I’m going to nix the formula and deal with a fussy baby until all the offensive foods clear my system.

In other news, they did a weight check at the office and Caleb gained nine ounces in four days! He’s on his way to becoming a little sumo wrestler.

I’ll try to keep everyone updated on this little project and hopefully have a good outcome.