St Patricks Day

One of very few shots with your Mami.
Taking it all in. You hadn't eaten for a while, but you weren't complaining because you were so interested in everything around you.

5 months

5 months! that might as well be 6 months ... which is like half a year. You're almost half a year old?! What happened. Weren't you just born.

During the past month, your hair has continued to fall off fuzz up into dingle berry shaped little rat's nests and fall off. It's OK, mine has too. I think it's all related through nursing. All you had left was a little row of hair at the back of your neck and a narrow little line of hair about 3 inches long at the top of your head like a mowhawk. I have to say, I received a lot of pressure to cut it all off but I just couldn't do that to your little baby hair. Just as I started noticing a decrease in my regular two-pound-hair-ball-loss from shampooing down to say maybe only a half pound hair ball and far less clumping into a big rat's nest, I noticed you are finally growing tiny little new hair of your own. It's coming in pretty much how it was before, maybe a bit lighter. So it was a dark brown, almost black but not black when you were born and now it's coming in a medium brown. We've turned the corner on the hair loss issue. I can't wait until you have hair again.

We've also made progress with the battle against eczema. I don't think we're winning but at least we're holding it at bay for now. The eczema has gotten worse. More oozing, cracking, bleeding, crusting, scaling, drying, scratching, did I say oozing. Yeah, it was pretty bad on your face, elbows, and even on your chest. A couple of weeks ago, we took you to a pediatric dermatologist at Primary Children's Hospital. They quickly prescribed some steroid ointment after looking quite shocked that you could manage to crack a smile despite the way you looked. It's definitely working, but now we just can't stop using it or the inflamed areas just come right back with a vengeance. I have also gone full circle in my search of more effective lotions and potions. I'm sticking with the Vanicream cream, Cetaphyl lotion, and regular no name petroleum jelly. The plane petroleum jelly seems to really work well on your head which has improved greatly just in the last week. I can keep applying it without making your hair into a sticky fly trap. You have no more dry scales on your head, no cradle cap, and much less itching. You're also scheduled to see an allergist next month as your pediatrician recommended. For now, I'm so happy to see your cute little face again and even more to be able to snuggle up close to you and give you kisses without getting goop on me.

Lately, you have been very vocal. I don't know if it has something to do with the improvement of your eczema, but it seems like you like to squeal joyously quite a bit lately. You've been to a couple of parties and you want to be an active participant.
You've also discovered your toes. I guess you hadn't had much of chance to look at them before, because your feet are always covered up. You are getting much better at grabbing things with your hands. You can now grab the dangling toys in you swing at will and make the lights and music turn on. We clip your binky (which you seldom use) to your infant car seat and you love to use it as a bunching ball. Just last week, you managed to grab it and put it in your mouth even though the ribbon barely allows it to reach to your face. I was so excited for you.

You continue to be a very happy baby although you still won't let us get a full night's sleep. We have a prescription for Atarax for your eczema and I may just have to start using it soon. My only other complaint is that you haven't been behaving very well when I nurse you. First it's too much for you and you choke and spill, then it's not enough and you've started pinching. Let me just say this to you now, if you want to continue having premium mommy milk, that's gonna have to stop immediately or you're going to go straight to formula mister.
You really enjoy it when your sister talks to you. I think you guys will have a lot of fun together when you get a little older. I know Sofia will be so happy to have a little companion to play with. She likes to sit next to you in your bouncy seat and explain things to you. When you cry, sometimes, she'll come over to you and say, "It's OK, Marcelo, I'm here". Sometimes, she hugs you so tight. I think she wants to make you hers, take you into her room and snuggle you in her bed like a stuffed animal. Don't worry; I stop her before she's able to drag you away by the neck.

baby mullet ... I'm sorry

"Hey look at this. I have more of these finger things down here. Why didn't anybody tell me about this."

3 & 4 months

I really intended to cover each month of your first year but already I've fallen behind and now your 3rd month has melded with your 4th month in my mind and I don't know what happened when. It's this type of post that causes your Dada to squirm when he sees the barrage of words on the screen. Although Dada's genes appear to be fairly dominant in just about everything so far, I have high hopes for you that you will not abhor literacy as he does.Look at those cute chubby fingers.
Let's see, so in your 3rd month (11/18 to 12/18) - we had Thanksgiving, of course, that goes without saying and doesn't really say much about you. OK what else. The main event was that you started daycare. I really wanted to stay home with you and not send you down the daycare path as Sofia has already gone before you, but alas, down the daycare path you've already gone. You've done very well at school because you are such a good baby, it's not a moral judgement, just your natural disposition, content and easy-going. Have I said this already? That's OK, it bears repeating. You were very popular your first week as everyone had anticipated your arrival for months. You made the rounds like a celebrity so everyone could meet you and say how cute you are. You will probably never be this popular again. Sorry but it's true.In talking to other moms, most would agree, every baby has their thing, an ailment, an issue that one, as a mom, just can't resolve, an annoyance, something. With Sofia, it was the vomiting. The vomiting that plagued me for months and months and caused me to test the limits of my washing machine. The delicate balance of milk intake and the rituals that had to be done to mitigate the vomiting. But, I comforted myself with the fact that it was not a serious ailment and it was something she would at some point outgrow, and she did. It took forever, but she did. With you the nemesis is eczema. What was at first just really dry skin and cradle cap has developed into quite the annoying case of fairly severe eczema. I've tried every lotion on the planet conducting comparison tests on each one and it just keeps getting worse unfortunately.

The eczema has left raging red circles on your cheeks that are dry and weepy. (That means they ooze). Your arms have raised red bumps that dry and crack creating scabs that dry and crack and sometimes bleed. Your head oozes. I gotta say, it's kind of gross. Sometimes I try to kiss you or snuggle you and get ooze on my face because I forget. You're just so adorable, I can't help it.The dry itchy skin started causing you to wake up much more often at night then you had been. You had been waking up only around 5:00am to eat and we couldn't figure out why you were waking up so much now. You also started scratching your face and head causing little cuts on your skin. At first, I thought it was accidental. You're getting bigger now and can manage to get your arms out of the straight jacket swaddle blanket we put you in to sleep at night. Finally, I put all the evidence together after seeing you arch your back and wiggle side to side in your moses basket and scratch your face and head on deliberate areas that were already irritated. You were waking up from discomfort. Sometimes nursing you would calm you, but you weren't really hungry. So we are now just helping you go back to sleep by re-swaddling you and only feeding you when you wake around 4:30am.

At school, you get rubbed down with lotion 2-4 times and I lotion you up at least 2-3 more times at home. I've only recently found something that helps your scalp. It's called Softee Hair Food which I got for my horrible dry hair. I rub it all over your head at night and wash it off in the morning. And your head is conditioned and new until the cycle starts again which is usually within a day or two. At your 4 month Well Baby Checkup, Dr. Arnold recommended you go see an allergist and prescribed what I think is an antibacterial cream and also suggested trying Vanicream. I'll report on that next month.

Did I mention you have bad hair too. A couple of weeks ago, we woke up to this lovely site.

You cried heartily upon receiving your immunizations this month which means all your circuitry is functioning properly. Sofia's non-reaction to shots was a cause of concern, as I theorized for several months that although she had the use of her legs, she may not be able to feel them. You also took the rotavirus oral vaccine with pleasure and all systems were "go" during the checkup. You measured and weighed in around 40-50 percentile on all accounts. I think you are following a similar but less chubby growth pattern to Sofia. You have the same short and stubby legs at this point that she did.This past month, you have really enjoyed Sofia's company. You love it when she talks to you or just makes noise in general. You even enjoy it when she's loud and obnoxious energetic and you empathized with her when she cried. Your lower lip started sticking out and quivering just ever so slightly and the look on your face was pure sadness which of course caused me pure sadness too. Even without proper opportunity, you learned how to roll over in your bouncy seat because we don't put you on the floor. The carpet is just too unsanitary as a result of Lolo and Dudi's continued protest over Sofia's birth and renewed protest over your birth. With Sofia, they were just trying to make a point of their displeasure, but with you, wow, they really mean it. They (since I don't know which one did it, they share equal blame) peed on your infant car seat and the pram and the rocking chair in your room. You are also all about your hands right now. You love looking at them and now sucking on them and slobbering, making a big slobbery mess on your clothes. Oh, and you are quite smitten with yourself in the mirror. Apparently you find yourself more interesting than just about anybody else. It gives you great pleasure to see yourself smiling back.

We have rollover

Your first full rollover was on the bouncy seat. I guess we better start strapping you in.

Merry Christmas

First day of school

Today was my first day of school. I was pretty tired because I had to get up at the crack of dawn. I wore my best little boy outfit cuz I'm kind of the smallest kid in class right now and I wouldn't want anyone to think I was a baby or something.


Before starting school, I did my homework and practiced drinking from a bottle. Well, only a couple of times but I did it. Shortly upon arriving in class, I perfumed the room with my farties just to let everyone know who was the boss.

It was a pretty big day for me. After school, I got to participate in the Christmas program. Since I don't know how to sing or play any instruments yet, again, I just used my farties to perfume the stage for when the big kids came out so it would smell good.

2 months

Wow, it feels like I just got done writing the 1 month post and here you are already 2 months +. Already, you may be suffering from the photographic neglect that is bound to happen to the second or later born child. Not too many pictures to share from the last month.
In the past few weeks you have further perfected your cutie-petutie skills, cooing and smiling more and more each day. Sometimes you smile after waking when you first see my face -very gratifying, thank you; sometimes, midway through nursing, you're welcome; sometimes after hearing mine or daddy's voice.

We can't talk about how you are doing without talking about poop. The quality of baby poop is pretty much what all baby welfare is measured against. Your poop is still pretty yellow and pretty liquidy. It's not uncommon for baby poop to look like yellow diarrhea for breast-fed babies but I think you take the trophy in this department. I'll have to bring this up at your 2-month well-baby check up.

I no longer have time for errands, exercise or house work as I've spent most of your second month scratching your head. It looks like, not only do you have dry eczema prone skin (thank you again daddy's genes), but you have cradle cap as well. Although I have already only been bathing you with Cetaphyl cleanser for sensitive skin and using Cetaphyl lotion for dry skin on you, this cradle cap problem which extends down into your forehead, has prompted me to buy a rash (no pun intended) of expensive french baby products (Mustela) in an attempt to beautify your skin. I don't think they are working all that well, but I hope you might appreciate the effort when you are older. I only say this because my parents never even bought me a toothbrush until my first dentist appointment when I was nine and half my teeth were rotted out. I didn't even know such a thing as lotion existed until I was in college I think.




Anyway, you continue eating heartily and with less spit up, I think. Pooping, we've talked about. And sleeping, sleeping still goes well with usually one feeding during the night aroundish 3:30am. You are now sleeping in your moses basket on the rocker (mental note, must take a picture of you sleeping angelically in the there). In about two weeks you will be starting school. I'm not looking forward to this time at all but I know you will be the smartest little baby in your class.