One Month && 22 Months

Our first month with Zeke was a whirl-whind as I'm sure it is for all parents of newborns. Today marks Z's 8th week earthside, and I am only just recently able to breathe and consider things like the blog and the outside world in general.

Some highlights of Zeke's first month:

• While Easy-E maintained a relatively calm demeanor, he did develop some pretty intense acid reflux, which I could assume by his screaming and thrashing, caused him some pain. 
• Additionally, he became quite congested and therefore had difficulty sleeping considering his laborious breathing.  I was informed that acid reflux can cause chronic congestion but there was also the possibility of a respiratory infection causing the drainage.. begging the question, what came first, the reflux or the congestion?
• Despite the reflux/throwing up copious amounts of milk, Z was gaining weight well.  Thus his practitioner determined he was what is called a "happy spitter" leading me to stare at her blankly. My poor baby didn't seem happy when he was screaming from tummy pain.
• I finally got in to see the Dr who gave Z a round of antibiotics.  After a few days, his congestion started clearing immensely.
• Aside from the congestion and reflux, Z did pretty stinking good his first month. He slept a lot during the day which helped me recover and spend some time wrangling an active toddler. 

Garrick's first month as an older brother went fairly well! I was pretty nervous that G would have lots of negative emotions/behaviors when we introduced him to Zeke but it was love at first sight.  During the first few weeks of Z's life, older brother, G, seemed to finally comprehend what Mom & Dad meant by "nice," "gentle," "soft," that we'd been coaching him for months without progress. 

Current highlights in the world of Garrick at 22 months:

• Garrick continues to prefer the floor in his bedroom over his bed, causing me some distress.
• Seemingly overnight, G turned into quite the chatterbox!! After Zeke was born, Garrick had a lot of daddy time spent reading books and talking. They would spend hours alone together. I would wake up from a nap and could barely believe my ears as I heard Garrick naming new animals & things around the room.  
• Our new chatterbox has troubles with the letter "R" and to my dismay calls "Remmie" "Mommie." This has been pretty confusing at times and got even more annoying when he shortened "Remmie" to "Rem" aka  "Mommie" to "Mom."
• Garrick has started getting into "coloring" more than ever and enjoys short periods of time with crayons, markers, stickers or stamps. We think this has lots to do with time spent with his older cousins at Grandma's house!
• The haircut: G has the fastest growing hair ever! What was supposed to be a cute stylish haircut turned into a disastrous and uneven buzz cut when we sat down this 22 month old and he threw one of his biggest tantrums to date.
• Garrick got to really play in the snow for the first time! We got a huge snowfall in November and G liked following Alex around as he shoveled, falling in the snow and rolling around, and eating snow chunks.