Taming the twitchy sphincter

After months of changing Is's clothes and our clothes and spot-cleaning the carpet and furnishings multiple times per day, we finally decided that perhaps we should take the doctor's offer to prescribe something for her prolific "spitting up." I didn't want to put her on any medications unless medical professionals felt it was absolutely necessary. However, her weight gain had slowed precipitously, and we worried that perhaps she wasn't getting enough calories.

She has gastroesophageal reflux (GER), which basically means that the little sphincter muscle between the esophagus and stomach relaxes at the wrong times, and the food and milk come back up. Most babies with GER outgrow this problem by 12 or 18 months. We can't wait for that day. Until then, there's Zantac, and it has helped tremendously in the two weeks she's been taking it.

The Kentucky Hillbillies

Come and listen to a story bout a kid named Is.
Tiny little thing who was minding her own biz.
Then one day her dad applied for a job
And the publicly traded company hired the old slob.

Well the Next thing ya know old dad's a moving east.
Kin folk said, "take yer wife and kids at least."
Said Luhvuhl is the place ya outta be...
So they packed up the Suby and moved to Kentucky.

Nice folks, We're comin back now, ya Hear?

Creeping Crawling

We crawled this weekend.

It was more of a belly dragging army crawl but a crawl nonetheless. Teh Is decided she really wanted some of the very garlicky mashed potatoes her dad was eating while sitting on the floor. She took off towards them with several good spurts of crawling. It was a big milestone.

When she got to the potatoes, she got a handful of the first thing she has eaten that she hasn't liked. Perhaps it was all of the garlic and herbs. She made a face we hadn't seen yet and ejected all of the potatoes she could, preferring to play with them rather than eat them.

Webhamsters and Is's Excellent Adventure

If the trip to Baltimore and Philadelphia was any indication, Isabel will be a most excellent travel companion (cue air guitar riff). On the way out, we departed at 4:00 a.m. and arrived in Baltimore 14.5 hours later. What could have been a most heinous day was a fun family adventure. Although we traveled by Jetta rather than by phone booth, we quickly reached milestones and took relaxing breaks: Louisville; Winchester; some rest stop in West Virginia past the "8 Ball" motel; a remote gas station in Maryland; the side of the interstate in Maryland (for an emergency diaper change); and finally Baltimore.

We stayed with the godparents that night, drove to Philadelphia (only two hours) the next day, stayed there two days, went back to Balto for another day-and-a-half, and then took two days driving back to Illinois.

Our baby is a pro traveler, sleeping well in the car, in her pack-n-play in a strange home, in hotels, wherever. She almost always had a pleasant smile on her face and freely offered lots of laughs and cuddles.