Our Perfect Little Storm

What can I say?  I'm finally, 6 months in, starting to accept that my new constant is change.  Eamon was going a long just fine and dandy, loving his sweet potatoes, when a week and half ago he got his first virus.  Many pathetic hours of cuddling ensued.  Then he started teething again.  (Number 2 is now visible!)  And I'll be darned if he isn't in the middle of a growth spurt and nursing all the time.  He's also decided that 6 am is a perfectly decent time to wake up for the day.  Which means his first nap is at about 8 am.  (What??  Who naps at 8 am?)  Eamon does  - and most days so do I.  Then I had some chocolate Tofutti ice cream and it became very clear that Eamon's skin gets real irritated when I eat soy, so we're dealing with his skin discomfort again and my renewed effort to deprive myself of every enjoyable food.  But wait, there's more: he's dealing with some intense separation anxiety.  And he seems to have lost some interest in eating solid foods....


Don't even get me started on my theories of how this is effecting his sleep.  And my sleep.  Sigh.


Of course this was all timed perfectly with Gramberg's visit.  It took until the last day of her visit, her 4th here, for Eamon to let her hold him for an extended amount of time without whining helplessly and making desperate eye contact with me or Rory.

The hardest part for me throughout all of these milestones is feeling out of sync with Eamon.   I look forward to getting back into a rhythm with him.  Or at least being a little more confident of how to respond to his needs and wants.  


Anyway, it's a good thing swinging makes everything better.

Trips to Dad's work are great too!

Wearing spiffy caps and sucking on apples can cheer anyone up.

In other news we're (or maybe just me) trying to come up with a good nickname for our dear baby.  I shower this kid with many terms of endearment, but none that are viable, life-long nicknames.  There's no rush, I know.   I come from a nicknameless family so I'm concerned about my skills in identifying and cultivating a nickname.  Thus we're recruiting some help.  A couple friends have made some suggestions we're considering....  Smalls (as in Biggie Smalls because Eamon's big), Cheeks (because Eamon's cheeks are SO awesome to pinch, even when their a little red and speckled due to allergies), Amy (because that's how Eamon's cousin Tina says his name at 22 months), and Dizzy (because many of the sounds he's been making recently sound like a trumpet).  I'm not sold on any of them so the search continues....  This could be your chance to (sort of) name my firstborn child!

And Now the Numbers

Eamon weighed in at 17 lbs 5 oz and measured 27.75 inches.  His head was 43 cm around.  The weight and head are at the 50th% mark and length is 75th%.  We're thankful for his medium-sized head as I had an enormous head as a child, so much so that my parents decided to take me to the doctor to get it checked out.  Anyway, here's Eamon looking so smart playing at the doctor's office!  (Don't those things look like some old fashioned intelligence test?  Clearly he's acing it.)

If you look closely you can see the redness on his arms... and legs, cheeks, ankles, belly....  When Dr. Callahan walked in the room the first thing she said was, "He's a poster child for eczema!"  We're so proud.  Sigh.  His irritated skin is why I'm eating dairy free (a true testament to my love if you know how much I adore ice cream) and that has helped lots, but not all the way.  Rather than go gluten and soy free and starve to death, this visit our doctor gave us some prescription strength hydrocortisone cream.  She also recommended a mixture of shea butter and eucerin as his twice daily lotion.  We had a funny/awkward moment when she asked if we knew where to get shea butter.  I paused because I wasn't sure if she meant, "Do you know that this is something from Africa and that black people use it as moisturizer so you should look in the 'specialty' section where products for black people are usually relegated?"  Or if she simply was asking if we knew where to find it....  Anyway, the mixture of lotions and creams is doing the trick and for what seems like the first time in months Eamon's looking clear-skinned and scratching himself less!  Yippee!  Like most semi-hippy moms I've got some reservations about smearing my baby with steroids, but its effective, my baby's more comfortable, and our doctor was all about stopping using the cream as soon as his skin cleared.  

In the last weeks we've discovered some new activities that Eamon likes.

1) swinging

2)  putting everything in his mouth/dancing.  Can you guess our current favorite?

3) eating sweet potatoes.  Grilled sweet potatoes, no less.  We're trying to develop a sophisticated palate early on....  And for this one I've got another poem for you:

sampling solids

smacking on sweet potatoes

mom's tasting freedom