Year of the Babe

As it turns out, I’m a terrible blogger. I have so much that I want to write about but I just never get around to actually posting it.  So instead of trying to catch up on everything I’ve wanted to write about since September, I’m just going to write about what’s going on now.

Rolling, Rolling, Rolling...

JC is SO close to crawling. He can get up on all fours and scoot backward like it’s his job. But forward…..not so much. I have a feeling that we are going to be in trouble once he figures out how to crawl forward though. He has that trouble-maker look in his eye. Like “if I could just get to that     toy/dog/plant/outlet,   I would    eat/pull/break/hurt    myself with it.”  We keep trying to warn Greta but I don’t think she is ready for that kind of terrorist activity yet.

Pulling up on his knees

JC has also started eating some fruits and veggies. We gave him a little bit of steamed carrot the Saturday before Christmas. He seemed interested so I whipped up some sweet potatoes and he loved them. He is a good eater (is anyone really surprised by that??) and has loved everything he’s tried so far: carrots, sweet potatoes, green beans and pears. I’m pretty sure he’d gnaw on a chicken wing if we’d let him. Although we did Google “baby cpr” before giving him a whole steamed baby carrot this weekend. We were a little nervous about that and rightfully so, since he tried to swallow the whole thing! Maybe once his tooth finally comes in he’ll be able to handle the chicken wing.  He’s been working on one tooth for a couple of weeks now. You can actually see the white spots on his gum, it just won’t push through.

Sweet potatoes are even better when Aunt Hope airplanes them in my mouth!

JC's first bite of solid food: Steamed carrot. Those eyebrows kill me! 

Trying green beans for the first time

For those of you who know about our struggles with JC’s food sensitivities, we are celebrating a BIG victory. After following up with his pediatric GI just before Thanksgiving, we started him on formula on Thanksgiving day. At the time, we were still struggling with frequent bloody diapers even though I had cut out all kinds of foods from my diet (dairy, soy, egg, wheat, nuts, corn, fish.)  After Thanksgiving we took him to an allergist for testing and were able to rule out any true food allergies. So the allergist recommended adding “bovine” products to the list of foods I was avoiding. Apparently some babies who are severely sensitive to dairy can also react to cow’s meat.  So after a couple of weeks, we started mixing small amounts of breast milk with his formula and slowly increasing the ratio. As of this weekend, he is on close to 100% breast milk and has not had ANY bloody diapers. YAY! Happy Dance! It was awful to watch him struggle through the painful gas and to know that his little body was irritated enough on the inside to bleed. Thankfully he seems to have healed and is reacting very well to his dairy, soy, egg, legume and bovine-free milk! He is now sleeping better and longer too. Score for mom and dad!

Baby news….

We have lots of new additions scheduled to arrive to the Briggs-Caldwell extended family in 2015.  First, my best friend, Jill, was due this past Monday. This will be her second little girl and I CAN NOT WAIT to meet her! If baby girl doesn’t come on her own tonight, Jill will be induced on Wednesday morning. Please keep her in your prayers.  Next, many of you already know that Ken and Hope finally received their approval from China to bring baby Liam home. I feel like Liam is already a part of the family and am so excited to meet him. I’m praying it will be sooner rather than later and that he will have an easy transition to life in the US.  Last, but not least, Jeff and Adriana are expecting their second child sometime in June! More info to follow but in the meantime, please pray for a healthy pregnancy.

It seems that 2015 will be the year of the baby….so who’s next??? Not it! J