Third Person: Four Months!

Little Boo is four months old already. What??? It's true. It was a rough couple of weeks for us all health-wise (damn you, strep throat), and poor little Lukas did not get off easy. He had a terrible skin outbreak of some sort on his legs mid-February, and he actually ended up with strep throat at the end of the month along with GG and me. This after I was reassured that babies almost never get strep...leave it to us to defy modern medicine. I was also quite certain that he had eczema all over his front and back but the doc we saw for the strep told me to just slather him up with regular OTC hydrocortisone and Aquaphor (which we have by the gallon). GG also had terrible eczema which we treated with a steroid so I was skeptical of his advice. But since I didn't go to med school I went with it. Eventually his legs cleared up and he started sleeping better again once on the amoxicillin. We went for our 4-month appointment with our regular pediatrician on Monday and I showed her pictures of his little legs, eyes, abdomen, etc. She confirmed that yes, he's got eczema head-to-toe and we went home with prescriptions for some super salve to slather on the boy twice a day. She called the other pediatrician "old school" which is accurate enough - he's probably in his mid 60's - and said we're going to take a much more aggressive approach and stop this poor kid from itching all over. Unfortunately, her first choice under the 'aggressive approach' category was a cream that was going to cost us three HUNDRED dollars. Thank you, Target pharmacist, for calling me before filling this. Now on to aggressive - and mere tens of dollars - plan B. She also suggested that sometimes babies with severe eczema benefit if mom goes off dairy. Living without cheese is no big sacrifice, but oh ice cream, I miss you already. I'm happy to report that after just a couple days sans dairy for me and a few good slatherings of said salve, his skin is looking much better already. Hopefully soon we can go back to regular Aquaphor and hope that warm spring air heads our way soon. These poor late fall/early winter babies and their skin!

Now that he's feeling less itchy and less strep-y, Lukas has gotten back to being a good nighttime sleeper. He's given us three or four nights of 8-9 hours. Hallelujah. He's not a stellar napper but as long as the nights keep up I file that under who cares. He's still a little chatterbox and a superb eater. He's started to give me the eye when I eat (as in, watching my sandwich go from my plate to my mouth and back again) so as soon as he's able to sit up on his own we'll be venturing into solids. We busted out the bouncer last weekend and he's not exactly doing jumping jacks but he loves to be in it and check out the toys. It also makes it easier for him to watch whatever Genevieve is doing, which is his second mission in life. His first these days is to get his hands into his mouth. He can't get enough of chowing down on those hands and fingers, and he's started to eye up his feet too. Lukas decided to grow a little bit more hair this month and I swear the color changes daily. He weighed in at 15 pounds 4 oz (about the 70th percentile and lighter than I anticipated) and 26 1/4" (90th percentile).

hey, who's over there?

mom, this thing is awesome

super lukie

another day in the jumper, with strategically placed burp rag splash guards


getting bigger!

Today I finally got around to taking his 4 month pictures. I started later than I wanted to and it was too close to nap and eating time for him to be in any kind of mood.

doing his baby crunches

come to me, toes. i eat you.

mom, i'm bored

still bored

are we still doing this?

where did you come from, blue eyed, semi-red-haired baby??

i am so not interested

hey, there's sissie. and a rattle. i'm less bored.

And one brief nap and good meal later:

kicking his legs, ready to play!

yahoo, my tummy is full and i'm ready to rock

full belly = happy baby

sly guy

more kicking and "ahh ahh ahh"ing

heh, check out my belly

mom being silly

mug shot - i didn't do it!

just kidding, i totally did it

learning to stand on those wobbly little legs (a very precarious photo indeed)

hey there's my neck!

more hands and fingers. photo session done.

Today it was about 55 degrees so we had to venture out to the playground. They both had a good time but it was really windy. So windy that when I was putting him back in his car seat, a gust blew his car door into my back and knocked me toward him. I momentarily thought I was going to fall on the baby but fortunately I'm tall enough that my forehead caught the rim of the door and broke my fall. Awesome. At least I got a good nap out of her this afternoon. Totally worth it.