21 Weeks Old

This week has been a really good week. I think Max has recovered from his visit last week and is on a schedule and getting lots of rest. We took him to see the dermatologist on Monday. She said it was really bad eczema and that we needed to get it under control. She prescribed an ointment that we had to put on him twice a day for three days, head to toe. After that three days we were to stop doing his face and head and only do the body from the neck down once a day. It is amazing how fast it cleared everything up. I think we washed away the last of the skin flakes last night. I only hope that we can maintain it and keep it from getting that bad again. We are supposed to use hydrocortisone as needed and just keep aquaphor or vaseline on him. Needless to say, he is one greased up baby! One of the girls at daycare commented to me yesterday how he looks like a totally different baby without all of the dry skin and scratches. I also think that it has helped him to sleep at night as well. Max, like his mommy, gets hot when he sleeps. I think he would get hot and kind of sweaty at night and that would start to irritate his head, he would start to scratch it, and it would eventually wake him up because it was so itchy and uncomfortable. Now that we have it all under control, he has been sleeping better. We've been putting him down in his crib around 9:00 each night and he will sleep until about 4:30 or so and then wake up, eat and go right back to sleep. Last night he slept all of the way through the night until around 7:00 this morning. I hope that we can keep up this routine! I still have to wake up at some point in the night and pump, but that's not too bad.

He has also started to sit up on his own too. I think it was Monday or Tuesday, I picked him up from daycare and the girls had written that he had fun sitting up like a big boy. So, I went home and put him down and sure enough, there he was just sitting up and playing. He would get really excited and flail his arms about, so we put the Boppy around him to make sure he doesn't take a dive to the carpet (which he has done a few times). I posted a video of him earlier this week. So, needless to say, things are starting to get a bit more structured around our house. No longer can we just leave him to play on his back under his little gym. He rolls around all over the place and looks for absolutely anything to put in his mouth! Speaking of putting things in his mouth...he has become OBSESSED with having his feet in his mouth. I looked over at him the other day and he was trying to cram both of them in there. This makes changing his diaper interesting as he just wants to play with his feet. In some ways, it's easier than having him squirm and twist around, but it is still difficult. Another not about putting things in his mouth...we noticed the other night that he has two little bumps where his bottom two teeth are going to be coming in. He likes chewing on his rag or a cold wash cloth. This is the only thing that really soothes him. Most of the teething toys we have are pretty big and won't fit in his mouth, but we bought a few that we keep in the fridge and he will go after those like nobody's business. He is such a wonderful little guy. We were giving him Tylenol, but then he seemed to be fine, so we haven't given him any for a few days.

All in all, we've had a good week. He is growing more and more each day and keeping us entertained along the way. He is with Eric this weekend as I will be working in Cedar Rapids on a show through Sunday, so we'll see how the boys get by without me. I'm sure they'll be just fine! :-)

Not too many pictures this week, but there are some good ones!

My big boy!

He loves to put his feet in his mouth!

My chunky little boy passed out!

Vroom Vroom...he loves his driving toy!

Poor penguin...if he ever gets it to his mouth, it's all over!