Connor is 6 months old today.  He happened to have his 6th month doctor visit today as well.  We have been looking forward to this visit so he can get checked out again for his persistent cough.  I had mentioned in a recent post that his cough had improved, but it actually was not the case, he continues to cough during the day and at night.  He has been coughing for a month now. 

     Today’s visit was an eventful one.  When I was undressing Connor in the exam room, I noticed some hives on his back.  He actually had similar rash on Sunday too which disappeared in a few hours.  The doctor and I were discussing the cause for that.  The major changes recently were the introduction of rice cereal since Saturday and the oatmeal this morning.  Both of these don’t usually cause any problems for babies, so we now just need to re-introduce them back to Connor one at a time slowly to test them out.  Next, the doctor listened to Connor’s lung.  His breathing seems more coarse the past couple of days and now he actually has some wheezing.  The doctor diagnosed him with bronchiolitis.  She ordered RSV and pertussis nasal swabs, and an albuterol nebulizer treatment.  The rest of his physical exam was good.  During the exam, I saw that his first tooth was showing.  I was so surprised by that since Connor has not been showing much teething issue yet.  The last few nights he had been waking up once a night, but I just thought it was due to the cough.  And he would return to sleep without a fight after nursing.  During the nebulizer treatment, Connor was very sad but he tried to stop crying sometime.  The doctor listened to his lungs again afterward, but the wheezing did not go away.  She did say that bronchiolitis does not often respond to albuterol.  We now just need to let the cold take its course.  Hopefully the course will end very soon!  After the treatment, it was time to go get his 6 month vaccinations too.  I felt so bad and guilty to put Connor through all these on one day.  He ended up receiving one oral vaccine and 4 injectable vaccines (one of them was a flu shot).  Connor once again dealt with the pain of the injections as best as he could.  He then quietly fell asleep on the drive to the daycare.  He is my little brave boy!

     Here are the highly anticipated growth stats for Connor.  He is much heavier and taller than Logan was at this age. 

Wt = 21lb 12.5oz (97 percentile)

Ht = 30 inches (100%)

Head = 18.4 inches (99%)

(Logan’s stats at 6th month = 18lb 12oz, 28.7 inches, 18.25 inches)

     Yesterday was the first day we introduced Connor to solid food.  I have been quite excited about this ever since Connor has seemed very interested in eating.  He often stares at me while I am eating or tries to grab my food or containers.  Even the teacher has mentioned that he has stared at his classmate while she was eating at school.  So I prepared rice cereal with breast milk yesterday.  The feeding went ok.  Just like other babies with first time eating, most of the cereals came right back out.  A few minutes into it, he seemed to understand the concept of it.  He leaned slightly toward the spoon.  Today, being the second day, he even opened his mouth a bit more for the spoon while leaning toward it.  Logan did not care for the rice cereal back then, but Connor appeared to be liking it so far.

     A couple more first experiences for Connor this weekend.  The weather was so beautiful that we decided to go to Happy Hollow in the morning.  We even had a picnic at the park too.  Connor and I spent some time sitting on the blanket and enjoying the sunshine.  When I tried to put him back to the car seat, he kept trying to sit up, not wanting to stay down.  I think he was ready to sit up to look around, so I had him sit in the stroller instead.  He loved looking around and he was very content in it.  Today at home we also took out the circular activity chair for Connor to try.  He enjoyed playing with all the toys, and Logan also had some fun with them too.

     The past couple of weeks, we have noticed that Logan has been speaking more and making much longer sentences.  You can almost see his mind spinning while he searches for the words to express himself.  It is so cute to watch him talk and sometimes struggle to get words out.  He is speaking 3 to 4-word sentences most of the times.  I wish I could remember all the funny things he says.  Today when I picked him up from his classroom with Connor, many of his classmates surrounded Connor to check both him and his toys out.  Logan kept reminding his friends “It’s Logan’s Connor…don’t play with toys…Connor’s toys”.  This was the first time he referred to Connor as his.  It was nice to hear that!  When we got into the freeway, he told me “too fast…mommy, drive careful!”.  Later on, he suddenly said in one long sentence “can’t see…too dark…Logan does not like dark…dark is scary”.  Yesterday we were having breakfast while watching a cartoon that also had characters eating, Logan then said “we are eating too”.  Last week during one of the dinners, out of the blue, he pointed to my tummy and said “big tummy”.

     Logan is also more interactive with reading according to Stuart.  He has his favorite books these days, most of them are the Thomas and Friends books we borrowed from the library.  He will fill in words while Stuart reads the bedtime stories, and sometimes he will even be telling the stories with his abbreviated version.  His memory has developed so that he can recall and tell us what will happen in the later parts of the books, which really ruins the stories for those of us that can’t.  I have not been reading much to Logan these days since I am feeding Connor while Logan goes through his bedtime routine.  I know I’m missing out on some of these fun times. 

     I had a relaxing and enjoyable birthday yesterday.  In the morning, we initially planned to go to Los Gatos shopping mall for a walk and to have a picnic lunch.  But Connor ended up taking a long morning nap.  By the time he woke up and fed, there was not much time left before Logan needs to nap.  So instead, we took a stroll in our neighborhood to pick up some lunch.  It was a bit foggy and cold, but the walk turned out to be very refreshing and fun.  After the family nap, we hung out for a bit then headed out to the Kaos.  Michelle and Ted graciously hosted a birthday dinner for me.  They prepared a delicious meal with a “deep fried” turkey, roasted potatoes and salad.  Julie and Robert also brought a beautiful yummy birthday cake for dessert.  Besides stuffing ourselves last night, we had a great time chatting and the kids had fun playing.  Logan warmed up to Mckayla very quickly this time.  They played, laughed and ran after each other a lot.  They even shared a head bump leaving each other a bruise on the forehead.  Mckayla was so brave that she did not cry while Logan needed some consoling.  The babies also had fun and did very well.  I didn’t recall any crying from any of them.  Marcus and Ashlyn ate their dinners while Connor took his nap.  Ashlyn even smiled to me and leaned on me when I was holding her.  Connor was quite smiley all evening; he enjoyed watching all the running and crawling.  We had such a good time that we ended up staying a bit past Logan’s and Connor’s bedtime.  They both behaved quite well the entire evening and stayed awake during the drive home.  Connor finally got very tired and started crying the last 10 minutes of the drive.  After the bedtime routine, they both went to sleep quite quickly.  It was a great evening.  Thanks to the Kaos and the Changs for helping me celebrate my birthday!

     The birthday celebration will continue this week.  Stuart will take a day off tomorrow and it will be the first day we have together without a kid for a very very long time.  We might go to the driving range or play some tennis, or we might do some shopping.  I have all these things in mind that I hope the day is long enough to do them all.  I am also looking forward to a birthday lunch on Friday with my friends at work.

    This was a wonderful birthday.  I received many birthday wishes, cards and gifts.  Thanks everyone !

     We finally start to see some improvement on Connor’s cough.  It has been 3 weeks now.  After the bad night I mentioned in the previous post, Connor had another bad one the following night.  He kept waking up from coughing that we decided to bring him to our bed.  But none of us could sleep well either.  Finally Stuart decided to try bouncing him to sleep; he ended up holding him from 3-5am.  Stuart woke me up when Logan was up super early at 5:15.  At that point, Stuart and Connor finally went down for some better sleep.  After these two bad nights, Connor was able to return to sleeping through without being woken up by coughing.  Last night was the first that he did not cough overnight.  He still has some coughing during the day, but we are so happy to see some improvements.
     Another event to mention was on Wednesday morning, after the difficult night, the teacher called me at 11:30am.  She reported that Connor was very sad, crying a lot and refusing bottles.  So I decided to visit him during my lunchtime.  When i got to school, Connor’s face was all red from the crying; it was difficult to see him like that.  As soon I picked him up, he stopped crying.  He also started drinking right away when I nursed him.  The whole time he was looking up at me, like making sure that I stayed with him.  I was able to watch Connor’s classmates while sitting there.  He has 6 classmates and 4 of them are also July babies.  They were all sitting down nicely around the teachers, watching and playing.  Very adorable!  When Connor finished drinking, he returned to the smiley one again.  He kept smiling to me and to the teacher, and he did not cry either when I handed him back to the teacher.  I then felt comfortable to return to work.  Since this incidence, he has been ok at school again. 

Connor has been coughing for almost 2 weeks now, started shortly after Christmas.  He was coughing when he began daycare last week, but the cough got a bit worse mid week and sneezing was added then.  We did expect Connor to pick up another cold as Logan got sick for the first time right when he started school too.  Despites these cold symptoms, Connor was doing fine adjusting to daycare.  However, coughing still has not eased up and last night was worse.  He woke up after midnight from a bad coughing spell.  He was coughing continuously for at least 20 minutes.  It sounded so bad and he looked so sad.  So I decided to hold him for the remaining of the night to keep him warmer and keep him upright.  And I made an appointment for him to see the doctor today.  I was concerned if he was having any wheezing given Logan’s history of asthma.  At the doctor’s office, Connor was in good mood and gave everyone smiles.  He checked out well, no fever and had good oxygen saturation.  Doctor also confirmed no wheezing too.  I was quite relieved to hear that.

P.S. Connor weighed 22lbs 0.5oz (with clothes and a poopy diaper).  We really need to shop for the convertibles now to switch him out of his current carseat soon.