Six Months and Strep Throat

September 16-22, 2013

Leila had her six month appointment this week and Caleb got to have an appointment for strep throat (and then so did Mom and Dad).
Leila's six month stats:
Length: 25" (15%)     Weight: 13.2 lbs (5%)       Head: 17" (77%)

Caleb's vocabulary is exploding and pronunciation is improving quickly. He can count to ten and uses concepts like both. Do you want the yellow or green colored pencil? Both. He still usually only uses one word at a time to communicate. Instead of saying tall giraffe or blue train, it's 'giraffe... tall' or 'train... blue'. 

When telling grandparents about nursery: dada, bye bye, train... blue, color, bubbles. (Dad dropped him off and he played with the blue train, colored a picture and they did bubbles.)

He's been getting more temper tantrum prone. Hitting and throwing things in frustration. He's very deliberate and controlled about it but uses it to communicate anger. 

When he gets hurt or scared, he cries until you acknowledge that it was scary or ouchy and ask if he's okay, then he's fine. If you just say, you're okay, he will cry longer. He wants you to understand how he feels before he moves beyond any emotion.

He has become an amazing older brother: generally protective, loving, gentle and sharing. And he loves nursery now!

Leila sits up on her own for a minute or two before losing balance, except when she's in her high chair, then she sits up for a long time. She likes sweet potatoes and chewing on the spoon. She likes to chew on bottles and play with them but still doesn't drink out of them. Here we're practicing her sitting. Sometimes it's only a few seconds, but it's progress!

Loves being sung to and read to. Loves laughing at mom, dad and Caleb. Smiles at anyone who will hold her, smile at her or play with her. Unless she's hungry or tired, then she wants Mom. Is still very ticklish. Loves to be held. When she laughs, her whole body shakes and it's deep and from her belly. 

Doesn't like being force-fed through the tube. She squirms and yells and tries to knock the syringe over. Loves playing with/chewing on the tube. 

"Crawls" around her crib by putting her knees under her and pushing forward, supported by her forehead instead of her hands. Can hold a crawling position on her hands and knees with help balancing. Pushes up into mermaid pose on her belly but does like playing on her back when reflux isn't bad. Uses her left arm for pulling on dangling toys and prefers rolling over her left shoulder. More coordinated with her right hand using a spoon. Kicks well with her legs and is strong but when you try to have her support her body weight, she doesn't. Sometimes she'll hold some body weight but always with her bum poking out, never standing up straight. 

Still a little bit of her dark hair in back and blonde on top, what little hair is there. Doesn't like wearing bows and pulls them off. Has mastered the angry yell, cries when she's in pain, and has a variety of yells and growls that range from happy to upset. Seems to follow Caleb's lead and goes mmm when she's hungry, accompanied by sucking on her lower lip. 

This is something I wrote during this week, not in hindsight:

I feel as though I've received some insight into how helpless God must feel at times... Bear with me, as this is long. It takes time for me to make sense of the thoughts that have been whirling through my mind. This is meant as a cathartic experience for me more than anything and allows me to relieve some feelings of guilt and inadequacy for not being able to fill a basic need for my children. And allows me to make some sense of the confusion of the past six months. This is just one aspect of the rollercoaster of motherhood and of life in general... There are so many moments of joy, and I'll gladly take the bad with the good. My heart has been stretched by the difficult, sad and trying times that have allowed my heart to be filled more fully with the joy of the happy times. 

Leila, because of a combination of reflux-induced pain and inability to correctly use her tongue, will not and cannot eat enough to sustain the growth her doctors expect of her, despite plenty of milk being available to her. 

The reflux causes her to eat enough to curb her hunger but never to satiety. It causes back-arching pain when she eats more than just a couple of ounces. She hungrily sucks away like she will never be satisfied and then pulls away abruptly crying as milk continues to spray her face. She flails around, and then reattaches for brief moments, only to pull away again in tears. Comfort comes as she sucks on her binky and assumes a Sandifer's position. 

This is repeated every two to three hours. Sometimes she cries and acts hungry, only to refuse to eat at all, sometimes for hours. In turn, I'm left puzzled as to what to do... If I pump and she decides she wants to eat half an hour later, I have nothing to give her since she refuses bottles (more on that later). If I don't pump and its five or six hours until she chooses to eat, she is overwhelmed by the flow and over time my once overly-abundant milk supply has diminished to the couple of ounces she will eat. 

As for her tongue, the occupational therapists believe she is using her tongue incorrectly or not at all when feeding, which is why she won't use a bottle or empty my breast. At first I loved the thought of this being the answer but the more I've reflected on her past behavior and as I have watched her as I've tube-fed her 3.5 oz (she should be eating closer to 6 oz each time) and she has returned to her back-arching ways, the more I feel that it's more of a choice to not eat as much than an inability to do so. 

And then I watched Caleb for six days choose not to eat anything and drink very little... For the first four days I thought he was nauseous. A positive strep result showed a sore throat was making any swallowing painful. He was starving and would ask for food, only to stop after one tiny nibble and declare himself done. Plenty to eat, and yet he was starving. 

Watching both of my children has made me grateful that I have plenty to feed them. It has also caused me to reflect on how the Lord has made so many blessings available to us. We have to choose, through obedience to the associated law/principle, to partake of those blessings. 

If we want peace of conscience (which is a remarkable blessing), we have to forsake the wrong that is holding us back and choose to repent. If we want happiness in our homes, we need to serve and love those in our homes. 

As the saying goes, "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink." I can physically place food before my children and beg them to eat, try to convince them why they should eat, but I can't make them eat. 

The Lord tries to convince us it is worth the necessary sacrifices to enjoy the blessings He seeks to bestow upon us. He even begs us to repent, so we don't have to suffer painfully as he already did in our behalf. 

I feel helpless as a mother as I watch my children in pain. They are hungering for what will ease their pain and it is right there in front of them. I have it at my fingertips and cannot it upon them. 

In Leila's case, through medical intervention we have stopped her hunger and forced her to eat. With a slow continuous drip, we have taken the hunger away, but with it she learned she didn't need to eat to be filled. She learned that eating conventionally is painful. As we've tried to reeducate her into a more physiological pattern of eating, she refuses to partake and waits for the forced feeding. She is losing opportunities to develop normally. 

God sees us in pain, knowing what can relieve our pain. Unlike me, He has the power to force His will and the associated blessings upon us but we will not learn if He does so... And so, with His infinite love and power, He restrains His power and allows us to choose, regardless of how we may harm ourselves or deprive ourselves of joy and relief from pain. He still reaches out to us in love and asks, begs and encourages us to choose to satiate our hungering souls. We must choose to feel/hear, recognize and act upon those heavenly promptings

Excerpt from my journal September 15, 2013:
"With all that has been going on, I have been as close to depressed as I ever hope to get. The one thing that gets me out of my slump is gratitude. When I take a minute or two to express gratitude in a prayer or simply in a mental list, I come away recognizing how truly blessed I am. Gratitude is powerful... I saw a quote but don't know who it was by: happy people aren't grateful, it's grateful people who are happy.

Ephesians 5:14-20 "Awake... and Christ shall give thee light. Wherefore be ye not unwise but understanding what the will of the Lord is... be filled with the spirit... singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." We have to choose to awaken to receive the light and understanding that Christ will give us through the spirit. It is when our eyes/hearts are open that we will be grateful for all things because we will have a greater understanding of the Lord's will."