Dr. Wagner

The most recent exciting event in our family was Marcus's graduation from medical school. He has been in his residency at UF for one month now, and it has been just as difficult as we expected it to be. He works a 30-hour shift from 6 am one day until noon the following day (staying up all night with maybe 2 hours of sleep, if he’s lucky), takes a nap in the afternoon, then goes in for 10 hours the next day. Then the cycle resumes, leaving him working 80+ hours each week (with staying up all night every 3rd night). It really is an inhumane work schedule, and we’re glad that he’ll have a better schedule for the month of August.

--Rachel

Caleb's 1st Birthday

Caleb's first birthday party took place today. We had it at our friends' neighborhood clubhouse and pool, which turned out to be an ideal place for the varied group in attendance. There were 12 children from infancy to age 7, as well as around 30 adults at the party. The only family members at the party were Caleb's Aunt Traci and Uncle Josh, and Great Uncle Mitch. We had snacks and cake, and the Gator basketball game was playing on the clubhouse TV (the only way the guys would come). I just used balloons and framed pictures of Caleb for decorations, and I made the cakes myself with Aunt Traci's help. I also put together a slide show of Caleb's first year and played that after the basketball game. We didn't really do anything structured like games or a pinata because the kids were all different ages and many were toddlers like Caleb. Everybody just swam and played until cake & song time, and then went back to swim and play some more. Caleb's grandmother (my mom) paid for an amateur photographer to come to the party and take spontaneous and posed pictures for an hour. The pictures turned out extremely well and I'm very glad that she came because we might not have gotten many pictures ourselves with as busy as we both were during the party. All in all I was extremely happy with the party and really wouldn't have done anything differently in retrospect: it was economical, a lot of fun, and we got great pictures!

Sickness

Caleb has been sick SO MUCH this past six weeks. He has had five different 3-5 day episodes of sickness. Some of them start with fever, some start with runny nose, and one started with a perfectly happy little boy vomiting all over our friend's furniture. (All over is not an exaggeration at all. He threw up four times in a row and we saw everything he had eaten in the past 12 hours.) His fever has been up to 103 several times during these five sicknesses. The worst was the vomitting virus he had from March 2-6. He lost 10% of his body weight in that one weekend and threw up for 4 days. He was so miserable at times that he would just lie on the floor or in our arms and stare blankly at nothing for long periods of time. We let him watch Baby Einstein videos (which are his favorite thing in the entire world) as much as he wanted to when he was that sick, though even they failed to entertain him during his worst times. The three times he was sick before this virus were more like colds or infections, with stuffiness and a high fever, but he wasn't as miserable as with this virus.

I'm definitely getting discouraged by how much he's been sick. I'm becoming somewhat of a germ-a-phobe. I carry hand sanitizer everywhere and use it on both Caleb and I frequently. We don't go to the park or the mall play area any more, and he's rarely around other children except at church activities. After the bad virus, Marcus finally agreed to start showering every day when he comes home from the hospital, just in case he was bringing home the bugs. But even after all of these precautions, Caleb has come down with something again today. He has a fever and a runny nose, and I can only hope that it doesn't get worse like it did the last four times.

I've talked to some other moms about how much he's been sick, and mostly what I hear is "some kids just don't have strong immunities." I know that is true, but it just seems odd that Caleb would go from having very adequate immunities and hardly ever getting sick to being sick all the time. I just hope that he outgrows this proclivity toward getting sick sooner rather than later b/c it is very depressing to have to miss out on so much of life because of chronic sickness. I haven't been to church or play group in 6 weeks, and I've only made it to Wednesday night prayer group twice during that time! And Caleb is definitely missing out on social time as well. Even if I was willing to take him out sick, I would quickly lose all of my friends if I insisted on bringing my sick child around their healthy ones :)
I am grateful that he was well for almost a whole week after the vomiting virus, and so we got to go to two birthday parties last Saturday. Most of the more recent pictures were taken at those parties and during the week he was well. That's also probably where he caught what he has right now, since its the only time he's been out, but we did get some GREAT pictures :)

Eating & Communicating

Caleb is such a good eater! Since he turned 8-months-old, he has been eating three hearty (for a baby) meals a day and two snacks in addition to his five regular breastfeedings. Since he turned 9-months-old, he has been eating everything that we eat. (I didn't follow the recommendations for introducing foods.) I just put a helping of our dinner into the Magic Bullet (food processor) and there is Caleb's lunch and dinner the next day. He has baby yogurt and oatmeal cereal for breakfast every morning, and Cheerios and fruit for his snacks. He eats everything I offer him, with very few exceptions. Just recently he has learned how to indicate that he would like a certain food (pointing at the cabinet where we keep the Cheerios, reaching for a banana on the counter), and he has sometimes resisted the meal in front of him because he wants something else, but he eventually eats what I'm offering.

A few days ago he started signing "more", and he signs "more" every time his food is gone. The first time I kept giving him more b/c I was so happy that he was signing, but now I just have to distract him when he's had enough, or he might just eat all day! I still do baby sign language with him regularly. I sign "up", "please", "all done", "open", "drink", "eat", "diaper" and a few others. For me, the purpose of signing is so that I can expect him to communicate some basic wants/needs without the whining that he uses now. When the baby gate closes right in front of him, instead of whining and crying, he can learn to say "open". Well, so far, all he has picked up on is "more", but I'm told that signing takes off more after a year. He DEFINITELY understands a lot of words, phrases and questions that he hears a lot, and I know he understands from his strong reactions every time he hears them. "Do you want to go outside?" sends him running to the front door. "Are you hungry?" sends him whining all the way to the high chair (as if he just realized he's starving). He also responds immediately to "Take a bath?" "Want some milk?" "Where's Dadda?" "Watch TV?" "Turn on the light" and "See the dogs?" "Time to change your diaper?" sends him whining and running, and "I'm gonna get you!" makes him laugh so hard he can barely walk.

He repeats the sounds that we make, particularly the initial sound "Ba" for "ball", "Da" for "dog", "ba-ba" for baby... you get the general idea, but doesn't have any words that he consistently uses to label the same thing. He does say "da-da", but he calls many things and many people "da-da" with only a slight but distinct preference for calling Marcus "da-da". I haven't heard any form of "ma-ma" from him since he was babbling at 5-months and then completely gave up the "mm" sound for months.
It is so much more fun to spend time with him now that he understands so much and is able to communicate some on his own. The downside is that wilfulness (on his side) and discipline (on mine) has entered our relationship, and that makes everything a little more stressful. My only sadness is that one year is almost over and I truly can't believe that he is becoming a little boy instead of my baby. If his independence at 11-months makes my heart ache, what will I do when he's a teenager??????

Mobility & Tantrums

It has been more than 4 months since I took the time to write an entry on this site! It has also been more than 4 months since Caleb became mobile... Hmmm...

Caleb started crawling at 6 1/2 months, and since then his personality has blossomed. So many options opened up for him once he could crawl: instead of just playing with whatever toy I put in front of him, he was able to choose any toy in the room. And he didn't limit himself to just toys, either! With the realization of his power to choose came the realization that many other things in his environment could be altered to please him, if he would just assert his new-found control. He wanted to touch and explore everything in sight, and he often threw a bonafide temper tantrum when he was denied what he was pursuing, be it Daddy's soda or Mommy's cell phone or the dogs' medicine. His fits at this age were (and still are) just incredibly adorable, and I really have to fight to keep from laughing when he throws them. His face contorts into the most injured expression imaginable, his bottom lip protrudes and quivers, and he wails. Often he adds to the dramatic moment by throwing himself forward onto the floor and wailing with his face buried in the carpet, with an occasional glance up to make sure that his audience is still there. For those of you who may be worrying that I enjoy his fits a little too much and may be encouraging them--fear not. What is cute in my living room is embarrassing elsewhere, and I have not once ever given in to one of his little tantrums. Alas, my consistency seems to be working and the adorable little pity parties are getting shorter and less frequent. I really hope I can get one on camera before they cease to be this cute...