Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Food challenge

April was tested positive for shrimp last year, and the same this year. Dr. strongly recommended a food challenge since seafood could be 50/50, meaning the skin test could give false positive result. Therefore today Mommy brought April in for the 3-hours food challenge experiment.

Mommy bought about 10 cooked shrimps from Whole Food and brought them to the allergist office. The appt started 9am sharp. Here are the procedures:

  1. Have April touch the shrimp with her bare hands
  2. Wait 15 minutes, the nurse return to check for any allergic reaction and measure her oxygen level and heart beat
  3. Rub the shrimp around April's mouth
  4. Repeat step 2
  5. Have April lick the shrimp
  6. Repeat step 2
  7. April had a small bite of the shrimp
  8. Repeat step 2
  9. April bite off half of the shrimp
  10. Repeat step 2
  11. April eat a whole shrimp
  12. Repeat step 2

3 hours later, we knew that April could eat as many shrimp as she wants. She enjoyed the experiment and finished watching the movie, Alice in Wonderland on a 15 inch TV :)

Sleeping through the night?

Lately River's sleeping pattern goes 2 poles, a night of 6-7 hours followed by couple nights of 3 hours sets. Last night, she scored 8 hours, however, all the long hours are achieved by the CAR SEAT. There must be something wrong with the crib, we just don't know what it is. Any suggestion?

Number of feedings per day has been reduced to 6, yesterday was just 5 feedings. Not sure if she has enough...and she has pretty serious spilling lately which calls for more laundry cycles. Mommy thinks it's because of overfeeding while grandma thinks River's catching a cold. Couldn't find the real cause yet.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Monday, May 19, 2008

2 months checkup

Little River achieved the same result with a little more on the length.

Weight: 11lb 4oz(Gained 5lb 8oz, exactly the same weight gain as April when she's 2 months old) Dr. praised little River almost double her birth weight.

Length: 22 1/4 inch(River is half inch longer than April @2months checkup)

Both weight and length are at 60 percentile. Overall, she's a healthy baby. The baby acne on her face seems to turn into a mild eczema, comes and goes away quickly. She has bowel movements 3 times a day which Dr. thinks that's normal and needs no concern.

Dr. gave River 3 shots and 1 oral vaccine. She handled the shots fairly well, just cried for couple seconds, once Mommy hold her tight she stopped crying right there. But the oral one, not so good, she spilled out some milk with it. We had no clue how much she swallowed.

All went well going home. Mommy gave River a nice bath, a feeding, an exercise then she fell asleep. Yet after the nap she suddenly broke out crying and it was non-stop for a good half an hour. This is the longest cry we've ever seen from little River! :( Grandpa and grandma were so broken hearted. She has been such a calm baby which made this cry exceptionally alarming to grandma. There was some swelling on her right thigh where 2 shots were administered but no sign of fever. Grandpa held River walking in circles for quite a while until River was tired of crying and fell asleep again. The swelling went away after the second nap and River returned to her normal self.

Lately, River is a chatty little blob who demands quite a bit of face-to-face time, mostly after feeding when she's in her best mood. She will reward us with her 10-thousands watts smile when we not only talk to her but also look into her eyes. Her cooing fills our days with endless joy. Yet she also starts to call for longer holding time when she's bored or sleepy, with the increasing weight on our arms, pain and soreness also increased proportionally.

River also starts to stretch her sleep at night a bit longer with the longest record of 7 hours, counting from beginning of one feeding to the second one. Yet there also nights she wasn't being consistent and threw Mommy 3 hours sets until dawn. Mommy shouldn't complain too much, it's a lot better than those nights with April when she's River's age.

Monday, May 12, 2008

2 funny clips - April trying to be a big sister

April's trying to calm River


这叫鸡手鸭脚!

过了?没过?

Last Monday, April came home with a pair of red eyes and lots of discharge from both eyes. Mommy knew it's an infection again. She had it before, like 2 years ago, just need the antibiotic eye drop. Yet it's late, ped's office's closed, we would need to wait until the following day. Mommy checked that last time the medication has no refill, darn! We told April not to touch River, and every one's required to wash their hands before handling River in hope we could avoid any contamination before treating April.

After dinner, we went to Sears for a stroll while Daddy needed to get something from there. While we were strolling, Mommy and 婆婆 noticed River's right eye looked swollen with redness. Not so soon! We were being careful already...Daddy and Mommy dropped 公公婆婆 back home and rushed to urgent care with both kids. On the way there, River took a nap, and when she opened her eyes again her right eye looked normal. Was Mommy day dreaming? But 婆婆 saw it too!

We got called fairly quick. The doctor checked April's eye and prescribed medication. She also confirmed that River's eyes are okay and normal, need no treatment. Daddy and Mommy were much relieved. This incident marked our first taste of cross contamination between both princesses. I'm sure it will happen again in the future and probably for real. This is just a warm up exercise. Hopefully next time we will be better prepared mentally and psychologically.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

妈妈要写个"服"字给 River

从第五个星期开始到现在,每天晚上River都会送妈妈一顿5-6个钟头,一般是从9点多喝完奶睡下,半夜里3点多发出喉咙的声音,妈妈会先起来打奶,然后给她换尿布,再喂她奶,接着她睡下就每3小时一顿直到快中午为止。中午洗完澡就一直醒着到晚上,中间只是断断续续的睡,10分钟到1小时不等。有时候是从早上9点到晚上9点都睁着眼睛。印象中 April 大概是要到4个月才有5小时的记录,而且 River 现在可能10lbs 还不到,妈妈的确觉有点得不可思议。

Nursing blister

We thought she has a characteristic upper lip until one day Daddy touched it and announced it's hard. There is this half transparent bubble in the middle of River's upper lip, caused by vigorous suckling. And this bubble has been burst and regrow itself 5 times already. If only I could convince her that she can still get the milk with a little less strength...

To our surprise...

April was very well behaved last night. After Daddy read to her, she asked Daddy to leave her alone. She falls asleep in her own room in about half an hour, then she woke up around 3am to pee, and went back to sleep. The question is, would she be able to stay this way? Report later...