Snip-snip, Vrrrmmmm, Yum
First Hair Cut--Before
My boy got his first haircut. And I cried. I didn’t understand crying over a haircut. Its just hair. And then I got HIS hair cut. In a matter of minutes, he went from my baby to a BOY. I had her leave most of his hair on top–I have spent too many hours pushing that back as he nurses; I’m not ready for it to be cut. I got it cut at the barber shop on base. She wanted him to set by himself in the chair! HAHA. He did really well. I had to hold his head still a couple times. They gave him his first sucker–orange–and he LOVED that.
First Hair Cut--After
Jim’s parents were visiting earlier in the month. We spent one week here and then went over to the Big Island for a week. We had such a wonderful time both weeks. I did a trip report, posted photos and the link to the rest of the photos on our family blog, if you want to check it out.
If you’re the praying type, I’d appreciate your prayers. This deployment is doing a number on me. Mostly I’m doing okay with it mentally but I’m WAY tired and quickly approaching burn out. And, mentally, I have my moments. Jim’s leave getting pushed back six weeks was really my tipping point. On the plus side, we’re half-way done!!!
I’m not sure I’ve talked about it here but we’ve had “issues” with Ben and eating. He has been taking solids for months now but wouldn’t swallow anything. I met with the hospital’s feeding team about a month ago. They strongly suspect, based esp. on the history of all the horrible troubles we had with latching, that its simply a matter of training the mouth and tongue muscles on how to swallow. With latching, I’d finally get him on well and then, the next nursing session, it would be like he’d completely forgotten how to do it. So they instructed me to do a positive reinforcement food (they got him to swallow chocolate pudding, so chocolate pudding it is!) every day to help with the training, in addition to continue offering a variety of other food. Its working!! He will generally swallow most any foods, asssuming he’s hungry and the food is in really small pieces. He loves foods with strong flavors–lime yogurt, pepperoni, taco meat, chili, etc. He doesn’t do well with drinking yet. He is better with an open-faced cup than a sippy or straw cup. But, like nursing, its like he forgets how to do it. After several attempts, he’ll swallow but then has to start again the next time. But we’re working on it. I don’t mind if he skips a traditional sippy but it’d be awafully handy if I could get him to take a straw cup at least, especially considering his delight in dumping cups!!