Other than the satisfaction that you can eyeball a fatty well. But we’ll get to that later. First, how about a quick update on the little man about town.
Sunday was of course church. Chris and Liz came along (they’ve been to our church before) and Thomas was well behaved. It was all in all pretty uneventful. Afterwards we thought it would be a good idea to go into Boston (it’s on our way home) and do some walking around, grab some lunch outside somewhere, etc. All didn’t really go according to plan as Thomas was not in a good mood that we were having such bad parking luck, and we were all getting pretty hungry ourselves. Eventually we parked under the Common and hit the streets. After a short, but nice walk through the Boston Public Gardens we found some food.
As you can see, Thomas passed out. Then it started to rain and Danielle, Thomas and I hit the road, while Chris and Liz stayed in town to catch a movie. Thomas was either rained on, or got some drips from a wet unbrella a few times. This was very confusing to Thomas.
Monday everyone (except your narrator who had to go work for the man) made it out to see this week’s Mommy and Me movie Kung Fu Panda. Unlike the Narnia garbage of last time, this was both quite (they turn down the volume) and actually good. Last night we all went to our friend’s John and Sarah’s lovely pad in Cambridge for a BBQ. John and Sarah were not there, but Aunty Amy and Uncle Jonathan were and they threw a great BBQ bash. We got to experience the goodness of a Big Green Egg for the first time (imagine if we made contact with Aliens and they shared their grilling technology with us). It can do wonderful things to meat. Your narrator likes meat. I’m not going to mention the terrible traffic ridden drive home that took about 10 years, all of which were spent with Thomas in a rage. Darn, I just mentioned it.
So this morning was a busy one. Chris and Liz hit the road for Cleveland. They were planning on stopping at the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, MA on their way back. I hope it worked out as Chris is about the biggest hoops fan I’ve ever known. Anyway, we had a great visit with them. They got to see the best and worst that Thomas had to offer. I hope they don’t start sleeping in separate rooms now …
After that, we made a trip to see Stephanie, the excellent Nurse Practitioner at Thomas’ doctor’s office to get him a checkup and talk about all the reflux he’s had of late. The past 10 days have been rough, almost all day. Thomas has 4 distinct cries. 1. The “I’m hungry” cry. This one is easy to pick out, kinda weak, and is really just to alert us that His Fatness needs some grub. 2. The “I peed myself” cry. This one is similar to the “I’m hungry” cry, but a little more angry. Usually a change and some singing can get him back to normal. 3. The “I know I refused to sleep, but why didn’t you make me?” cry. This one can be the bad, and can go on for a long time. Unfortunately, when he get’s worked up, this is often interspersed with #4. 4. The “I am refluxing. Who is stabbing me in the insides with molten (curdled) milk” cry. This is what we’ve been getting a lot of late. He’s fine. Refluxes (you can so hear it – ugh). He re-swallows the badness and it burns again on the way down. Oh man, does this one bum me out. Sometimes you can wash it down with a little more of Mom’s goodness, but often it happens once he’s run the well dry and is bad, bad, bad.
So, after being very, very against any sort of a meds option, we’re thinking about it. It’s tough, because frankly we’re pretty against this whole “give me a pill to fix all my ills” mentality that big Pharma has the world believing and living. We’re more into the whole, let’s find the cause and see what we can do thing. But, we’re not going to formula (we hope) and are eager to find a solution to the boys serious discomfort. We also don’t want him to have so much reflux that it scars his esophagus / valve. That would be bad, and there are some who believe there are long-term health risks associated with that sort of heavy scarring.
Being a parent is hard. Loving him so much and wanting the best for him when there are so many loud voices from every camp yelling in our ears what’s “right” and “wrong”, good for him and bad for him is hard. Wow, “hard” is a trite word, but I can’t think of another that so simply sums up parenting. Let me say this though, this is not a case of “he’s tough to handle, let’s try meds”. We don’t care that he has some hard days/nights. That’s childhood, that’s parenting, that’s life. But, it’s the him in pain part, the choking down acid while crying part that we do care about. If his big ol’ belly is making lots of acid (maybe too much) and it’s burning him multiple times a feed all day, then we’re game to try medication. There really seemed like no chance we’d go down this road before, but that was two weeks ago, when his refluxing was bad, but sparse, instead of during and after almost every feeding. Our poor little guy.
He’s resting now with his Mom.
The foot hanging off the couch kills me. It’s been that way for an hour.
So yeah, the nurse when we got to the office did the normal “strip him down, let’s weigh him” thing and I obliged. Our little bruiser is now in the 90+ percentile at a hefty 14 pounds 10 ounces. Good job Thomas! He’s gained over an ounce a day since his last visit. It’s not all just chubs either, he’s growing out of stuff every day. We’re always sad to see such great outfits come to the end of their Thomas life, but excited for the larger clothes.
Seriously, this was so awesome of the ladies upstairs. They are too good to us.