Tapeworm?

Don't be frightened - I don't really think Cayden has a tapeworm, but MAN that kid is putting away the food lately!  Under advice from our occupational therapist and dietitian, we are upping the amount of solid food he gets in a day and cutting back on the milk.  Ideally, he should be eating three meals and two snacks with a maximum of 24 ounces of milk a day .  Just a week ago, we had him drinking about 31 ounces of milk and only eating what could be considered a couple snacks and I think he's making up for lost calories!  He's sitting in a high chair now (thanks to the Ericssons for loaning us their old one so we didn't have to buy another one since Jamison is still using his for the time being) and we can't slice, dice, tear, and feed him the food fast enough.  He double-fists things into his mouth.  Half ends up in the pocket in his bib and half makes it in his mouth.  We recycle the stuff in the bib and he eventually gets that down too.  The dietitian said a "meal" for him would be about 1/4 of what an adult would eat.  I swear he's eating about half of the amount I'd eat!  It'll be interesting to see what he weighs at his 15-month check up in February.  As of January 13th, he was 19 pounds 14.5 ounces.

In other developmental news, I think he's finally catching on to the benefits of real crawling.  For quite awhile now, he's been "army crawling" - where he pulls himself forward with his forearms and sort of drags and kicks his legs behind him.  Starting about two weeks ago, we'd see him crawl a few steps, but he'd only go a few steps then flop down on his belly.  He gets around pretty quickly using his unconventional method, but not quite quickly enough to keep up with his brother.  In the last day or two he's been crawling a lot farther and more often.  Hopefully he'll convert over to all crawling here soon.

He's also figured out how to pull himself up on things.  First he gets on his knees, then he pops up to standing, leaning on his activity table, on your leg, on his crib, on the edge of the bathtub - whatever he can find.  Getting back down is another story... 

He's had a cold for almost two weeks now.  Thankfully, it never got really bad, but there were a couple of nights where his nose was so stuffy that he couldn't breathe and hence, didn't sleep well at night.  And once again, he's teething like a drooling madman at the same time.  My guess is that the stress of teething lowers his immunity a little and makes him susceptible to the tiniest exposure to a cold bug.  So on top of having a cold, he's miserable because his mouth hurts.  Poor little guy.

Two weeks ago, we ended our relationship with Jamison's daycare provider.  We had hoped that Cayden would be able to join him there in April, but the spot that was open that we hoped would be his was taken by another infant.  Jason has been home since this change happened, so we've been able to manage the transition up until now, but we're looking at having a nanny come to our home one or two days a week to help out when he's gone for long stretches of time.  Having both boys home full time is going to be a challenge, but I hope that things will continue to get easier so that I can take care of both of them, meet their needs, and keep them entertained and reasonably happy all day, every day!