Friday, March 21, 2014

Baby Hulk ~ And the Winner is...

It is World Down Syndrome Day! March 21st. The 21st day of the third month. Symbolizing the 3rd copy of the 21st chromosome that is Trisomy 21 or Down syndrome. I just can't let it go by without making a post of some kind!

This morning, while the boys and I were in the car taking Mr. Grey to school we talked about what makes Baby Hulk different. He has Down syndrome. He has 47 chromosomes and we only have 46. Well for a 5 and 6 year old this is just not okay! Having more means you win! So congratulations to all the winners out there! Today is your day to celebrate!

You hear this business about children leaving an imprint on you, changing you. Well Baby Hulk, I recently discovered, took this literally. He HAS changed me. Instead of leaving an imprint on my heart... he left on on my ribs. With his butt. I am guessing he did this in the last 4 months of his 9 months on the inside because he had his butt shoved so far up in my ribs I was constantly doing a gangsta lean to try give my poor ribs relief and a few days ago I discovered my ribs don't match! They are warped on the right side where his butt was! Today I understand though. That was him winning.That was his victory lap, his touch down dance. He said "I WIN!" and he left his mark. No one else in here has ever had this many chromosomes and no one else ever will!



Baby Hulk is always winning.







Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Baby Hulk ~ Great New Steps

I know, I know. This is the most horrible I have ever been at being horrible at keeping up with posts! It has been since his first birthday that I have made a Baby Hulk post, I believe, and he is 15 months old (as of last Saturday) now! That is far too much time with way too much having happened for me to even remember it all! I wish I had at least written it down somewhere but alas, I have failed even myself!

At some point in time Baby Hulk has started crawling a real hands and knees crawl. Now he is such a pro at it he speeds around the carpet like a giant, yet adorable, scurrying cockroach. A better comparison would be a bird. He will tuck his head and scurry across the floor a few feet, pause, look around, and then tuck and scurry again, like a little bird. Run, stop, look, run, stop, look. It is pretty hilarious.

For months, I have been hearing of all the teeth my friends' babies are getting and for months I have had the pleasure of receiving many a gummy grin from my toothless wonder. That ended a couple of weeks ago (2/15) when Darling Husband stuck a finger in his mouth (probably to retrieve something he wasn't supposed to be eating) and felt a little tooth poking through! I was actually really sad about it! There is no oh yay how wonderful! A tooth! I know it is that way for some but for me it was just rubbing it in that my baby, my last baby is growing up. It is saying goodbye to those sweet gummy smiles I love so much. Just this past Saturday (3/1) he cut his second tooth and then the biting began. That first one came in so nicely we didn't even know it was happening! No drooling, no fussing, nothing! Nothing until just now actually. As I was beginning this paragraph on teeth Baby  Hulk cruises on over, and starts trying to climb up onto the couch with me. I pulled him up and he went straight for my shirt. I see the time, 11am, naptime. He wants to nurse to sleep. I put him to my breast and there isn't even a test suckle, just straight to the chomp! I pull him back and say "no biting" he looks at me like there is something wrong with me and starts wiggling, trying to get back to my breast. I try to latch him back on again and this time he bites so hard I yelled. And then told him no. I think my yell along with the no really upset him because he has never cried when I have told him no before! But he starts wailing and of course what have we been doing to sooth his crying? I nurse him! So what does he want? The boob! I feel so bad for making him cry that I bite the inside of my mouth hoping he is just giving me a test bite and will maybe bite twice and then start nursing but nope, he bites, bites again, bites again and then bites HARD! All while still crying. So then I start crying because I am sad that he is crying and of course it HURTS!!! and then Lumpy who is my sweet sensitive boy, starts crying because Baby Hulk and I are crying and we are all just a snotty crying mess! I finally just wrapped him up in a woven wrap and jiggled him to sleep, tightly tied to my chest. I have no idea what I am going to do when he wakes up if he keeps this biting thing up! I do not remember it being this horrible with the big boys. I guess it is a good thing one of the new things he is doing is drinking from a straw. Before that I was his only source of hydration!

Okay, happy thoughts! No need to dwell on that! I got him to sleep so we will deal with these new teeth when he wakes up!

Next on the exciting new list of things that I can remember! My baby is almost walking!!!! He is walking really. I think he would have it down by now if he really wanted to but some days he just doesn't seem to care to try! Then he will have days like today when he just practices all by himself! He has been going down the hall where we have 3 steps to the sunken in back of the house and he climbs the bottom step, turns around sits on it, bottom on the step, feet on the floor, then he stands up and takes a few steps, plops down and crawls back to the step to do it again. Tuesday though, that is how I know he is holding back. Tuesday we had our Early Intervention Birth-3 annual review. We were all sitting on the floor in my living room discussing all Baby Hulk can do, and what we would like to see him doing in the next year. Well all these people around in his space and none of them were paying him any attention! He decided he would force us to pay attention to him when he stood up, from the middle of the floor, with nothing to hold on to (that was new!). Then he walked probably a good 10 steps across the living room to Barb, (one of the EI ladies we see weekly) climbed into her lap and then patted her on the breast and said clear as anything "boob". We all cheered and he got lots of kisses and the attention he had been craving.

I am most proud of his walking and his few words. He says "dat" (that) when showing me things. He says and signs "all done" when he finishes eating, he still wont say "Mama" but says "Dada" pretty often. Well... he yelled "Mama" at me duriing the nursing fiasco but it was like the first time in 3 months he has said "Mama" with meaning and always when he is stressed out about something! Darling Husband gets "Dada" for play! Clearly "boob" is a new word, I was going for "nurse" and using the ASL sign for "milk" but  his brothers call nursing "the boob," "do you want the boob, Baby Hulk?" Oh well. I am still proud of him. Also I like that he obviously listens to his brothers. I am sure I will not be happy about things they teach him eventually too but for now their interaction makes me happy. A lot of his words go with a certain routine. Like "dat" came about from a frequently played out scene. He gets something he shouldn't have and puts it in his mouth. I say "what do you have?", he pulls it out and shows me and I say "can I have THAT?" So then he started taking whatever was in his mouth out and saying "dat". Then after he hands it to me I would say "thank you". Thank you is another more recent word that he now says after you have taken something he hands you. I am all for a polite baby!

I really do need to get better about making these posts, if not for you, then for myself. I need record of all these amazing things he is doing! Especially with how quickly it all seems to be happening! I have the worst memory when it comes to things like this. If I don't write it down I forget. I hate it but I need these blog posts and photographs to stimulate my memories!