Free From the Bottle!

Noah had his 15 month check up last week and the doctor politely snarled when I said he was still on the bottle. It wasn't a big deal but she said it was time to make the transition. It's crazy because I see plenty of kids using a bottle up until the age of two or three, but stopping a bad habit earlier is probably better.

I figured since he had four days before he was with the nanny again I should try now. Plus, I knew his buddy Max wouldn't be with him on Monday so it seemed like it would be good to give him an extra day bottle-free before being around Max (who is still on the bottle). In my experience, everything with babies takes 3 days--introducing food, changing sleep habits, etc. so I figured it was enough time. And sure enough it was!

Day one (2/20) he only had two bottles (instead of three), day two he refused all milk--especially when I made the mistake of putting the milk in the same sippy cup that is usually used for his water. You would of thought I was physically hurting him!! Day three I remembered the cup with lid and straw that I got at Disneyland so we tried that. A totally new cup was cool and because it was different than his water cup he loved it and drank all the required milk for the day.

So, getting him off the bottle was easy. Of course I hadn't really thought of the emotional side effect which is I miss our bottle/cuddle time!! :(

Doctor Visit (15 months)

His stats:
Height: 33.25 inches (95th percentile)
Weight: 24 pounds 4 ounces (50th percentile)
Head circumference: 48 cm (95th percentile)

Big hugs!

Noah enjoys some cuddle time every now and then, but today he pulled out all the stops.

I was sitting on the floor and he walked over, wrapped his little arms around me, and gave me a big squeeze. When he pulled himself away he looked up at me with such love and affection with the biggest smile I had ever seen from him. Jeremy and I were both shocked and as Jeremy cooed, "nice Noah", "sweet Noah", etc Noah just looked back at Jeremy all smiles and hugged me again...and again...and again. He squeezed me so tight and several times he even patted me on the back. It was simply the most amazing thing ever.

Best iPhone Picture EVER!!

Noah loves music and fell in love with this old piano instantly. Uncle Kevin spontaneously (and thankfully) took this photo and it's now my all time favorite. I can't believe it was taken with a cell phone!!

Noah's Surgery

We are home after a very, very long day of surgery. It was, as expected, a very emotional day for everyone. Thankfully, we had a lot of distractions with Booboo, Grandma and Uncle Mark in attendance. Noah wasn't supposed to eat after midnight and the surgery was scheduled at 11am so we had to keep him busy and off of his usual routine so as to not miss his normal bountiful breakfast. Thankfully he slept in later than usual so we let him play in his room until we were ready to leave. He got to the hospital and was entertained by all the attention, some new books and a few random hospital toys and more books. He also just liked walking up and down the corridor.


We checked in at 10am and waited until it was time to go in and get changed into his hospital pajamas. As expected he hated going into the little examining room and lost it when they tried to take his blood pressure. Even all the playing with his doctor kit at home didn't ease the discomfort he feels when anything is restraining any part of his body. He cried. He screamed. I cried. I wanted to scream. After he got into his pajamas it was supposed to be a short wait, but the hospital was running late. We didn't get called back for surgery until after 11:30. As the time went on Noah got more and more hunger dazed and confused, but he kept playing. He did amazingly well.

The original plan was to give him some flavored medicine to knock him out before putting him under because I knew he would not like having the mask put on his face. I guess when the hospital started running late that plan got scratched because the next thing I know we were called into a small dark room with three other people and we watched as they put a mask on our screaming tortured baby. We held on to him as they counted to three and then suddenly he was out. It was the most gut wrenching experience. I immediately lost it.

After that, we left the room. I was still confused about what I had just witnessed--what happened to the flavored little pills? My only solace was that it was very quick. We were then moved to a different, quieter, more sterile waiting room--the same place we had been to on our pre-op visit.

The surgery took about 30 minutes longer than we were expecting (45 minutes to an hour and a half was the original estimate) and we started to get very antsy. Booboo went to check for us since we seemed incapable of actually communicating with anyone else. Shortly thereafter, Dr. Hui came out and told us something we were not at all prepared to hear. It turns out Noah does not have a second testicle. And, once they got in there and discovered this fact they had to be sure that what they had really seen on the ultrasound was a lymph node--which took a lot longer because they have to be sure. So, the procedure turned out to be an exploratory one, and apparently a necesssary one because they cannot leave a dead testicle in there. It is extremely odd that he was checked out in the hospital after birth and seemingly had a testicle, but now does not. Either someone at the hospital made a mistake or he lost one after birth--which is extremely rare and scary. I suppose we will never know.

He has a belly button incision and one on either side of his belly button and a fourth larger one in the lower abdomen. He had an injection that kind of numbed him from the waist down so he isn't allowed to walk around the rest of the night. He did well this afternoon--mostly just laid around all floppy on one of us. He had a small bout of nausea that caused some mild vomiting, but otherwise he's fine. We're giving him lots of love and cuddles and we're just thankful it is now a thing of the past.

Books, Books, Books

Noah's favorite toys, by far, are his books. He spends hours a day looking at his books. Hours. Each day he'll approach one of his bookshelves and systematically pull books off the shelf, carefully opening each one, and then dropping them on the floor. When he finds what he's looking for he will carefully peruse that book for a few moments and then go back to pulling each book off the shelf. Once all the books are removed he'll sit in the pile of books and spend more time with each.

I'm not sure what he's looking for, but his favorites seem to change fairly often. Consistently, however, he has been a big fan of books with animals, and specifically monkeys or dogs.

Pre Op Appointment

Today we went to Children's Hospital for Noah's pre-op appointment. I'd been looking forward to this because I knew that we would get all of our questions answered and actually see where Noah would be on the day of the surgery and walk through the general timeline of the day.

We met with a really nice counselor who usually meets with the children to discuss the surgery and their feelings about it. However, since Noah is so young he just acted out some of the procedures with Noah and a little doll. He showed Noah how he would get his blood pressure taken and be given some medicine to make him sleep. While doing this I started to cry and once those tears came I couldn't really turn them off. I know that he will be fine but he's my baby and thinking about him going under the knife just kills me.

I'm worried about how Noah will handle the little things that make him crazy--like having his blood pressure taken. We know from the last Ultrasound that he hates being restrained in any way. I'm worried about the brief seconds when the put the mask on his face to put him under. I know he'll hate it. How can we ensure that he won't be traumatized by this experience? Thankfully Children's Hospital claims to be particulary cautious in how they deal with kids because they don't want to cause unnecessary trauma. All I can do now is trust in the process and hug my little boy very, very tight.