The Weekend

It's been our first weekend home in a while. It was sure nice to be around. We had a bunch of things to do but we ignored the list most of the weekend. Instead, we did family things around town and relaxed. Everyone seems to have a cold so we all worked on getting over those.

On Saturday, we took Dougie to the Butterfly Flutterby. It's a festival that celebrates the passing of the monarch butterfly through the area as it migrates to Mexico for the winter. It was a lot larger than we expected. All the kids dress up like butterflies so it is very cute. Dougie, of course, dressed up. So we, of course, took pictures.







On Sunday morning, we packed ourselves up and went out to Flower Mound to go to the "good" pumpkin patch. It was certainly worth the drive. It was much more impressive than the local one. There were a lot of activities that were much too old for Dougie but I'm sure he's going to love it in a few years. The best part was that all the activities were free. We spent about an hour there and then came home.

Sssh, don't tell him this is really his second pumpkin patch

Dougie's Blood Update

On Friday, we took Dougie back into the doctor to get his blood checked again. He wanted to be sure that the iron was making enough improvement. On Saturday, they called with the results. His iron levels had jumped 3 points! The doctor told us we had to have a 1 point jump or Dougie would have to go to a specialist. Three points puts him just 0.2 points below a normal range. The doctor was thrilled with his progress, as were we. So, he needs to stay on the iron another month and then we're going to get him checked again. Assuming he's leveled off and in a normal range, then he'll be on iron for at least another month or two and then he can stop it. One more check a month after he stops will be sure that his levels are remaining in the normal range and then we can rest easy. It's still a long road but at least we know that we're going in the right direction.

BC Visit

Since we were out in Alberta, we thought it would be a good idea to take the short flight over to BC to visit Scott's parents as well. We've been wanting to bring Dougie out there to see them so this worked out perfectly.

I arrived a few days before Scott so everyone could have some extra Dougie time. He took full advantage of his time and got to know Grandma and Grandpa better as well as enjoying a bit of play time.

Playing in the tunnel


Playing with Grandpa


Hanging with Grandma


So many new toys


You'd be amazed how much noise he can make with this


Scott got up there a bit late because of a variety of airplane troubles. We were glad he made it though. Dougie enjoying having time with Daddy as well as his parents.





Aunt Judy even came by to meet little Dougie. He warmed up to her quite quickly and sure enjoyed her visit.





We even managed to get a few family pictures.





Our trip back was rather uneventful. It was a long flight and Dougie was up for most of it so that made it somewhat difficult. At one point, one of the flight attendants came and took him for a while. When he came back, he had a present she gave him.



I'm not sure exactly how it happened but everyone seemed to think it was funny that it was his favorite thing to play with.

Dougie started eating better while we were away. We are so excited. One of his top teeth is in and the other is just starting to break the gum now. He still won't take anything off a spoon but he's certainly eating hard foods a lot better. Hopefully, we're turning a corner here and Dougie's eating problems will be in the past.

Canadian Thanksgiving

My sister, Laurie, invited the entire family out to her farm for Canadian Thanksgiving. What a great treat! We decided it would be a wonderful opportunity to see everyone so we packed up the family and headed out to Alberta.

What a fabulous time! Laurie, as usual, out did herself on the food and the hospitality. She was very accommodating of my restricted diet. We spent the first few days hanging out at the farm while Mom and Dad were there and Lesley and Sean came up from Edmonton. By Monday, it was just Laurie's family and Dougie and I left. We toured the area and then headed to Calgary for the last day. I was so glad that Dougie was able to see everyone and meet a few new relatives.

We took a ton of pictures. Here is a small sampling:

Uncle Glen and Dougie


Dougie and Auntie Lou


Playing with Cousin Molly


Uncle Glen, Dougie, Cousin Dale and Grandpa


The whole family at Thanksgiving


Dougie with Grandma and Grandpa


Dougie and Auntie Lesley


Cousin Sean and Dougie


Dougie Dressed for Calgary Weather (thanks Auntie Lou)


Ready for more outside fun


Playing in the leaves with Cousin Molly

Anemic

We got the results of Dougie's anemia test. Unfortunately, it turns out that he has it. The doctor called this morning and said that he had a hemoglobin value of 7.6 g/dL. Normal is 12 and the lowest they would allow is 10. He's considered to have moderate to severe anemia (severe starts at < 6 g/dL). So, he has called in prescription of iron medication that we'll start to try to get his levels back up. We have to go back in 2 weeks to get his blood rechecked to ensure that the drops are making enough difference.

We're obviously concerned about him. Prolonged anemia can have lasting effects on growth and development. Apparently, sometimes, any anemia can have negative effects but the study done that proves that was quite small and I'm trying not to think about it.

Nine Month Check-up

Dougie went to the doctor today for his 9 month visit. He's not as big as last time. In truth, I thought perhaps they had mis-measured him last time so we're not overly concerned about the lack of height growth.

Stats:

• Weight - 18lbs 9oz (10%)
• Height - 28" (36%)
• Head - 18" (60%)

They did a blood test to check for anemia. That is standard at 9 months so there was no particular concern. We had wondered if he was low on iron though so I'm anxious for the test results.

We talked to the doctor about Dougie's eating strikes while he's teething and he said that it was totally normal. That sure was a relief. He said lots of kids do it and they can go on for months. So, though not idea, we're okay there. He said that we should start trying to get Dougie to eat some of the same foods as we are and that hopefully, that will encourage him to eat a little.

The doctor indicated that Dougie has separation anxiety. That's totally normal at his age though he did comment that it peaks at 1 and Dougie is already showing a lot of it. Just something to look forward to. This combined with his newly found stranger awareness makes for some difficult moments though he does seem to warm up to people quite quickly.

We got Dougie's next Hib vaccine and decided to get him a Flu shot as well. The doctor said that at minimum, it will reduce flu symptoms if he does end up getting the flu and likely it should help prevent him from getting it at all. We have to go back in 30 days for a follow up on the flu vaccine otherwise, nothing until he's a year.

It's hard being a baby.

Pumpkin Patch

The pumpkin patch near our house opened yesterday. We decided we'd go today so we could get some pictures and do the pumpkin thing before it got too busy. It was a bit smaller than we were expecting so we didn't stay long but we did get some great pictures.











As you can see, it's still very hot here so it was hard to get into the fall spirit. There is a bigger patch that we're planning to go to when we get back from Canada.

Self Feeding

We're still on a quest to get Dougie to eat better. We've managed to get him to eat some Puffs and Cheerios but he has still be turning his nose up at "food". So, yesterday, I tried again. He ate three spoons of Shepherd's pie. The issue appeared to be that he wanted more self involvement in the feeding. So, we bought some new dishes and spoons that would let him try things himself. Tonight, he did:









Don't ask how much actually got in him, but some did. And we both had fun. Hopefully, he'll get better at this soon.

GI Update

We went back to Dougie's GI yesterday. The entire appointment was good news. He said that Dougie appears to be doing very well on the diet. He wants us to start backing off the Prevacid to see if we can get Dougie off it. That would certainly be great! He also wants us to go to an allergist when Dougie is 11 1/2 months. He said by then he will likely have out grown the allergy but he wants to be sure instead of just experimenting. The 1/2 month before his birthday is to make sure if the allergy is gone, he can have cake and milk for his birthday. A thoughtful if not totally medical reason. If Dougie hasn't outgrown it, we'll re-test in 6 months.

So, we continue on the restricted diet for now but clearly it's working which makes me feel better about all the trouble.

Back from Cancun

We are back from our first vacation as a little family. It's amazing how different it was from our vacation last year. Fortunately, we picked a beach vacation this time so we could better accommodate naps. It worked out really well. We did take one trip out to Chichen Itza and Dougie was able to nap on the bus and in his stroller so even that worked well.

Unfortunately, our camera got stolen so we don't have all our pictures but we have some.

Mummy and Dougie with Flamingos


Daddy and Dougie at Chichen Itza


Family at the Sink Hole


Dougie's First Trip to the Beach










All in all, we had a great time. We certainly didn't want to come back.

Womb Day!

Today is Womb Day! I'm not sure where the term came from but a friend of mine online celebrated it and it seemed so great, we thought we would too. Womb Day is the day Dougie has been out in the world for as long as I carried him. 39 weeks.

In celebration, Dougie slept 8.5 straight hours last night.

Baby Jail

We set up a playroom a while ago. It's worked really well to give Dougie a safe place to play. We even installed a baby gate though he was well away from being mobile enough to need it. He's finally shown that it was worth installing. One of his favorite activities is to come to the gate and stand up. Poor little guy looks like he's in jail.



One extra picture of Dougie and dad. They match!

Post Grandparent Update

Grandma and Grandpa McCall have gone back to Canada. We had a great visit with them.

Since they left, Dougie has been working on all sorts of milestones. He can now officially crawl. It sort of sneaked up on us. He was doing something that looked a bit like crawling but it wasn't quite close enough. Then all of a sudden, he started. He doesn't seem to like doing it that much but it gets him where he wants to go. He still loves standing. He basically crawls over to something so he can pull up on it and stand.

He'll use anything to stand


It's amazing the mischief you can get into once you can move around


We've officially started a new swimming class (our last class was last week). Initially, we had the class on Tuesday mornings at 9:15. We thought it would be a good time since it was before Dougie's first nap and he wouldn't be too tired yet. We were wrong. He was way over tired and miserable the entire class. So, we moved it to Saturdays at 11:15. We had our first class at that time today and it was so much better.



The best part is that Daddy can come watch the classes and take pictures. Our new teacher is quite nice as well. We only had 2 kids in class today so we got a lot of attention.