Hallie and Travis

Mark’s encouraged me to clarify that, had I read his post carefully, I’d have noted that he didn’t forget T’s 6-month birthday, either. Just forgot to post about it. Sorry!

This year we’ll be virtual participants in the WalkAmerica Fundraiser to prevent premature births. The walk is May 7th, smack in the middle of our Italy trip.

Instead of making it to the actual walk, I’ve been making phone calls to encourage the formation of family teams. And I’ve been using the March of Dimes’s great web site to do on-line fundraising. I’m thrilled and humbled by the generosity of our friends and family. We’ve already raised $925, and I’m hoping we’re going to close in on our goal of $1200. What a high bar that sets for next year!

Anyone interested in contributing can go to www.walkamerica.org/kellyturner. We sure appreciate all the support!

I went to the annual meeting for Hallie’s new school last night. I’m even more excited (if that’s possible) than I was when she got in. It’s a truly amazing group of parents who make this school happen. I feel privileged to be a part of that group, and I know it’s going to be a wonderful experience for Hallie. If she spends three years there and then T starts, we’ll be connected to Children’s House for 6 years. At which point Hallie will be NINE! There’s a thought to make my mind spin!

Just two more days until we leave on our Italian adventure! The amount of stuff we’re taking is obscene. Once we get it all together, I’m taking a good hard look at everything. Maybe we can leave some behind? I hope? I guess we need to find the happy medium between prepared and dysfunctionally overloaded. Right now we’re leaning towards D.O.

We didn’t ALL forget T’s 6-month birthday. Hallie and I wished him Happy Half Birthday at lunch on Monday, and she even (altruistically, I’m sure) suggested we get him a cake. I just forgot to post about it.

Kelly pointed out to me that we completely forgot to post about Travis’s six-month birthday on Monday.

Travis has been keeping us busy with all the new tricks he’s learned. This morning, for instance, I walked into his room to say good morning and found him happily on his tummy, his smiling mouth full of fingers. He’s gotten very good at turning onto his tummy, and does it with very little prompting. We’re not so convinced that he remembers how to get down, even though he did that first (at two weeks!).

I’ve positively verified that Travis’s tooth is there. He pulled my finger into his mouth today and I felt a definite scrape as I gently pulled it back. Look out, Mommy!

Travis also put himself to sleep last night, as Kelly had to attend a meeting at Hallie’s new preschool. Travis went to sleep around 7:30 and we didn’t see him again until 6 AM! In between, he woke up once or twice and made some noise, but settled himself nicely.

Can I say again just what a great family we have?

I posted recently about how Hallie’s finally let us take her bedrail off, or at least fold it down (she’s still resisting it coming off completely). Once she started calling it the “party pen” and making it something fun, she seemed fine with it turned down. To help encourage this, we’ve made a big deal about how fun the party pen is, we’ve played with her and her animals there, and just generally hyped it up.

During her stories the other day–maybe 4 or 5 days after the creation of the party pen–I said in a very excited, chipper voice, “This will be fun, Hallie. Who’s going to sleep in the party pen during naptime?” Hallie looked at me with a good bit of disdain and said, “It’s just my bedrail, Mommy.” She sure put me in my place!

Finally getting around to posting about T’s checkup—

In a nutshell, it was great. T now weighs 17 lbs 9.25 oz (how’s that for precise?!) and is 55% for weight (up from 40th–we knew he was looking chubby). He’s 26″ long (Aargh! just long enough to be growing out of his carryable carseat, but we’re postponing that switch until after our trip). And his head is 45.8 cm (95th %tile!!!–the nurse actually had to remeasure it, since her first number put him literally off the chart. Since big heads run on both sides of the family, we’re not too worried about it.)

I had lots of little questions but no big concerns. Dr. Hewett reassured us that T’s repetitive head stroking while nursing and his frequent tugging at one ear are just “behavioral”. He said the trouble I’ve head nursing during the day b/c T’s so interested in his surroundings is very normal, but it’s also (as we suspected) probably why he’s started getting up at night again. The doc said that creates a tough cycle where he’s used to getting his calories at night and thus doesn’t have to eat enough during the day.

The solution he proposed was to do everything I can to not nurse him in the night, whether that means letting him grump a while, or soothing him and putting him back down without nursing. He said that if T’s not getting food at night, he’ll quickly realize he needs to eat more during the day. Since nursing is our #1 (and only reliable) method of soothing, this may be tough.

We’re going to put off taking a hard line on this a little, b/c T’s had a few rocky days. (And also because our trip next week will throw everything off anyway.) Our best guess is that he’s been out of sorts because of the combination of his shots and his teeth. Every once in a while, while he’s cramming something in his mouth, he’ll give a sharp, plaintive cry like he’s in sudden pain. I don’t know if he’s pinching his lip or if his gums are just that tender. It’s sad to see, though.

Today he ended up taking a long, late nap after his regular ones were really short. He nursed like a fiend all day and ate lots of cereal and went to bed close to his normal time. He also had some really happy times, and gave me the best round of chortles and belly laughs I’ve ever gotten from him–which Mark caught on video. I gave him some Tylenol at bedtime and I’m hoping for a good night of sleep to get us back on track.

Travis’s first tooth is popping through today, just in time to be discovered by the doctor at T’s 6-month checkup. T’s been a little fussy or out of sorts the last few days, but nothing major. That gives me hope that he’ll be like his sister. Most of the time we didn’t even know when Hallie was teething until we could already see the tooth popped through!

For months we’ve been telling Hallie that Travis can only eat cereal and breastmilk “because he doesn’t have any teeth.” Now I guess we need to change to “he doesn’t have enough teeth.”

For the record, since I’m not keeping a real baby book, T’s first tooth is the bottom left in the middle. More details of T’s great checkup to come. . .

Hallie’s had a rail on her bed ever since she switched to her big girl bed. In hindsight, I don’t think she ever needed it. But once she got used to, she got attached to it. Now, we’re having trouble convincing her to give it up. We’ve tried on and off for the last few months. Until this week, most attempts evoked hysterical tears, either right away or midway through a nap or bedtime–whenever she noticed it was gone and wanted it back.

This week we made a great improvement. After two or three separate attempts, Mark was successful at leaving the rail attached but folded down when he put her to bed. She wanted it back on the next morning, but a little creative playing convinced her that it made a “party pen” next to her bed that was great to fill with her stuffed animals. So, we’ve had a couple days of fun with the party pen (at naptime yesterday she said matter-of-factly, “It’s good to have a party pen.”), and I think the novelty is wearing off. Before long, maybe we can retire it for good!

For now we’ll keep up the habit of putting a gate across her door when she’s sleeping. We always put it up after we close the door, and she clearly listens for it. If you don’t get it up right away she’ll shout from inside her room, “I need my gate uhhhhhp!” Since it’s serving a purpose for us, we’ll keep that going for a while.