Herring Family Happenings

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Semi-professional pictures--Preview

One of my former students graciously took pictures of Piper and Graham last week. I don't have access too all the images yet, but I couldn't resist posting these previews. I will get the rest up as soon as possible!

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Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Picture Post

After the race on Saturday morning, my friend Ashley (the one who ran with me--nay, beat me!) and her husband joined Josh and I at a concert downtown. I asked Ashley to take a picture of Josh and me because we haven't been photographed together in a long, long time!

Piper loves to watch the "Castles on a Cloud" song from Les Mis. Here she is watching it while trying to go poopy on the potty. Whatever works!

Tea for two

Little G has learned to blow bubbles and spits everywhere!

My new favorite! He was laughing at Piper :-)

I'm not sure what the diva was doing here, but Brother loves her anyway!

self-portrait

Yesterday I left Graham on his back in the middle of his play mat when I had to go upstairs to get Piper up from her nap. All told I was probably upstairs for about 10 minutes. When we came down, he had rolled himself all the way off (this would take several rolls away). Does this count as mobility?

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Saturday, May 5, 2012

Running

I have to take a moment to toot my own horn (I don't think I've ever done this on the blog before!). One of the ways I was able to cope with Graham's tummy troubles and life in general with two babies was to start exercising on a regular basis. I joined the Y near our house where I can leave the kids while I work out. As much as I thought I hated it, I decided to start running with the intention of running a 5k race within three months of starting. Well, this morning I did just that! My goal was to finish under 35 minutes without walking. I ran the whole way with a time of 32:15! Now, that's pretty slow, but I am so proud of myself for meeting my goal. And I had a good time training and running today, too. I think the running bug has bitten me; I've already signed up for my next race in a few weeks!

Post-race with my friend Ashley

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Roseola

Piper had been unusually whiny several days this week. I chalked it up to the "terrible twos" and was keeping an eye out for her two year molars to appear to explain her behavior. On Tuesday, her teacher called from preschool to tell me she had spiked a fever of 103. That's not messing around! I came and got her, of course, and brought her home to rest. She was definitely more "sensitive" (that's what her teacher said--I think that's a nice way of saying "whiny"), but she would not tell me if she hurt anywhere. And then as quick as it came, her fever was gone by the time she woke up on Wednesday morning. I just wrote it off as some quirky virus, but I was intrigued by her sudden, high fever. On Thursday night, I noticed a fine rash all over her stomach, back, and neck. By Friday morning, it had crept up her face. It wasn't bothering her at all, but I decided to take her to the doctor anyway since it was moving around her body and because it was the end of the week. He diagnosed her with roseola, a fast-moving virus common among small children that begins with a high fever and ends with a harmless rash. It still seems strange to me, but at least we got an answer! He also checked her ears just because we were there, and apparently she has a nasty ear infection. She has yet to complain that her ear hurts, and the doctor can't believe she hasn't noticed it!

If you look closely, you can see her rash.

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Thursday, May 3, 2012

Comparisons

Four Months

Five Months

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Graham: What I want to remember from 3 to 5 months

Graham will be five months old tomorrow, so I thought I'd write an update on how much he has grown and changed. I realized I hadn't done such an update last month. Truth be told, last month was rough, and I kept waiting for things to improve before I updated. Obviously, that didn't happen. Thankfully, the past two weeks have shown a little bit of improvement in Graham's overall demeanor.

Eat: Graham still nurses every three hours, and many times even more often than that. I think his stomach dictates that he take in small amounts quite frequently. We supplement every once in a while with a prescription formula that would cost us about $400 a month if we were using it exclusively--yowza! It seems to sit easier on his stomach than the $250 a month formula. Needless to say, I'm still mostly breastfeeding. I've now limited my diet to exclude dairy, soy, eggs, peanuts, almonds, and red meat. We have an appointment with a pediatric gastroenterologist at Vanderbilt in a few weeks.

Sleep: What's that? On a good night, Graham will only wake twice between bedtime at 7:00 and 7:00 the next morning. But I can't count on one hand how many times that has actually happened. Most nights have three or even four wakings. Josh and I have tried all the sleep training tips (cry it out, pacifier, no pacifier, back sleeping, side sleeping, tummy sleeping, laying him down drowsy but awake, etc), and nothing has worked. I'm tired. He has begun to nap a little better most days. He usually takes a short (30 to 45 minute) nap in the early morning, a 1 1/2 to 2 hour nap in the late morning, and another 1 hour nap in the afternoon.

Play: This boy is very busy like his sister was at this age! He now has pretty good use of his hands and loves to grab and play with anything within his reach. And of course, most things end up in his mouth. I love to hear him playing while we're in the car with the little bug toys that hang from his car seat handle. Also like his sister, Graham prefers to be with other people rather than by himself. His favorite playmate is Piper, by far. She can always get him to smile and laugh! And speaking of smiling and laughing, he does this so much now... and then he screams.