We had a bit of a rough week.  Mason was having a hard time eating, and we spent most of the week pulling our hair out trying to figure out why.  Is he in pain?  Does he have gas?  Is he associating the bottle with his medicine?  Will he eat cereal?  Will he eat applesauce? 

 We finally discovered that if we held the bottle on the left side of his mouth (his more developed side), he ate (slightly) better, so we decided that he must not want to eat without his feeding plate.

 For those of you who aren’t familiar, Mason has had a dental appliance since he was 5 days old.  It fit in his mouth like a retainer, and 1) gave his mouth an artificial roof, and 2) molded the growing tissue in the right direction to help close the cleft.

There have been several adventures surrounding the plate–trying to get it in the first few times; trying to tape his lip with it in; and more recently, trying to prevent him from grabbing it and pulling it out EVERY 20 MINUTES .  

Shortly before his surgery, Mason learned the new trick of pushing it out with his tongue–a trick which we are powerless to stop–and so Dr. Stenger decided to keep the plate at the last appointment to see if he could devise a solution.Thursday’s appointment we were given a new plate (after several hours of appointments), which Mason seems to like.  He’s eating pretty well so far, and Andrea and I have high hopes.

That was the drama for the week.  Everything else has been pretty great.

Andrea gets a weekly email from babycenter.com which describes what our baby should be doing developmentally.  Last weeks indicated that Mason might be starting to sit up, so Andrea decided to try it out.  She sat Mason down in his play area (formerly called the ‘living room’), and…….he sat up.  For 10, 20, 30 seconds at a time.  Apparently he has been practicing  in the middle of the night while we’ve been sleeping, because he’s got it down. 

 

The other day we were practicing sitting up in the bedroom, and Mason was playing with his new favorite toy–the tissue paper that his latest gift came in (Thanks, Mitch & Mackenzie!).  Somehow he ended up on his stomach with the paper on his back.  Apparently he was more interested in practicing being a turtle. 

Mason’s grandparents have been tremendous lately. Oma and Opa (those would be Andrea’s parents) come up just about every weekend to help out, and Grandma (Gabe’s mom) is up frequently during the week, whenever work brings her within about 75 miles. Grandpa sees him every time we go home–his work schedule isn’t quite as accomodating.

 And just because we’ve got SOOOOO many, here are some more of this week’s pics:

Playtime with Mason:

 

Mason’s new fall wardrobe (Thanks, Mary and Joe!):

And finally, Mason’s GQ pose of the week:

Love you all!  Thanks for all your support, and keep up the comments .  They always brighten our day! 

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 20th, 2007 at 7:27 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.