We're Moving

Where are we going you might ask? Well...nowhere. The HumorMD family is not physically moving. We're just migrating our web presence over to www.humormd.com. The link to this website has been on the top of this page for awhile. I've posted a few medical articles there already. You will note that the post at the top is a new step for me. I've wanted to put down some things down to show the emotional and relational aspects of being a doctor. Hope it speaks to you. So, change your blog feeds and bookmarks. We'll see you over at the new home base...

HUMORMD.COM

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Operation Sleep Alone: Accomplished

What can I say? HumorMD Jr did exactly what I thought he'd do. He slept alone in his room for the first time two nights ago, and he slept the entire night without any problem! Little buddy is just a flat out All-Star. He did all of this despite his dear ole' Dad's incompetence as well. I forgot about removing the bumpers until after I laid him down of course. So I had to untie all of them while doing everything possible to not wake him up. Fortunately, he sleeps just as soundly as I do!

Speaking of ways that he's similar to me, it turns out that little buddy is also just as active in his sleep as I am. As a child, I was infamous for banging my head on my pillow while I slept. HumorMD Jr hasn't done that, but he bangs just about every other body part. He's already scared his grandparents while sleeping because they thought he might be having seizure-like activity. Nope, that's just the way he rolls.

We'll see if he can live up to my previously set standard for sleep movements. My pinnacle as a child came when I was able to physically move the crib across the room while I slept. Little buddy can turn himself completely around while sleeping, but he has a long way to go before he accomplishes crib locomotion. I'll keep you posted on his progress. The odds are there will be some pretty interesting things to report. Should we even talk about my sleepwalking as a young child? Sorry little buddy. You're going to have to put in some serious work to overcome some of the wacky things I've handed down to you.

Bumbo Innovations

I've documented well our exploits with the Bumbo. Little buddy hated it at first, but it's grown on him now. Our main issue now is that he gets a bit bored while sitting there. All of his other toys have something for him to grab or swat at. The Bumbo is just a chair of course with no provided entertainment. To remedy this problem, Mrs. HumorMD came up with the ingenious idea of combining some of our toys. Here's a babyless picture of the set up:

Combine the Bumbo with our trusty Activity Gym, and we have an instant hit. Now, he'll sit there for quite a while and swing away at the hanging toys. All of this happens while getting a great little head control workout. He can even take in his favorite show, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, while doing all of this. Pretty great idea by Mrs. HumorMD if I do say so myself. The final step will be figuring out a way for him to have his own bottle holder while he sits there, but that's going to take a little more work. Can't rush greatness, right?

Rice Cereal with a Little Flair

We're continuing our journey of adding real foods by circling back to the original. Oatmeal has been going well, and we decided it was time to continue to branch out. As an aside for you non-medical folk, you typically add one new food per week so that you can make sure the child isn't allergic to it. Allergic symptoms typically don't happen after the very first time a kid eats something, so that's why you wait an entire week.

Knowing how bland rice cereal is, we decided to get one of the rice cereals mixed with fruit (apple in our case). Makes perfect sense if you ask me. I wouldn't be real thrilled about eating plain rice cereal myself, so no reason to expect little man would like it either. Sure enough, HumorMD Jr loves it. It actually smells like apple sauce a bit, which makes it even pleasant for whoever is feeding him as well. I'm pretty sure that we have a new favorite food now, and we'll probably be trying all of the different fruits that can get mixed in.

This newly discovered glee with rice cereal comes with a bit of a mess unfortunately. Little buddy gets so excited about his rice cereal that he regularly squeals in delight while it is still in his mouth. This has a wonderfully efficient projectile effect, and the end result is that he splashes it all over himself and whoever is feeding him. I have to admit it's pretty hilarious, and I haven't figured out a way to show him that he has to stop being so happy in order to eat it. What sane person is going to change a happy baby? The alternative is a whole lot worse than having to wear a little bit of rice cereal. It's a good look for me anyway.

Operation Sleep Alone

I know I detailed some things yesterday but we have one other major activity about to crank up here at the HumorMD household. HumorMD Jr has been sleeping in his own digs in our room, but we are about to begin the transition to little man sleeping in his own room. This is hard to do for us in particular because there are many nights that only one of us are home. Consequently, you don't want to risk going back and forth all night if something goes wrong and you're the only parent home.

These fears are mostly unfounded of course. I've mentioned numerous times how good of a sleeper little buddy is. So, we've decided to go ahead and tackle this transition. I've gotten him to take several good naps there so far with much success. He seems to like it pretty well, and I'm confident he'll do just fine. As usual, transitions are harder for the parents than the child.

One other small development, over the past few days mostly, is HumorMD Jr has begun to effectively use his crying ability. He mostly uses it to entice people to pick him up. I'm glad he's developing his thespian skills at such a young age. We'll let you know when he tries out for his first on air part. He'll be the crying baby. Can't miss him.

Under the Weather and Other Happenings

In a drastic turn of events, HumorMD Jr is no longer the one with allergy problems. That would be me currently. I think I might be adding in a nice little upper respiratory infection as well (oh goody!). This means that I'm not able to keep with all the things I want to do, like write more stuff for the blog here. To HumorMD Jr's credit, he hasn't slowed down one bit. We have several things happening right now.

First, Operation Eat Oatmeal is still in full swing. It continues to go well. We had been giving it to him around 6 PM or so because that was a convenient time. Had a little snafu last night and couldn't give it to him until about 8 PM. Typical of most discoveries, this mistake turned out to be great. It seems that feeding it to him later makes him sleep more! He slept for about 9.5 hours straight after that. Amazing.

Our most recent thing that we have started is Operation Roll Over. It is well documented how much little buddy hates Tummy Time, but it is growing on him a bit. He's now OK with being on his belly a bit each day, and I am trying to show him that this opens up a whole new window into his world. He will lift his head and look around, but he still hasn't figured out that he can actually be mobile. Rolling back and forth a bit is about as far as we've gotten. I'll let you know when we make progress. I'm hopeful we can capture the big moment on video too.

Last and on a personal note, one of my aunts is having surgery today to remove a mass on her pancreas. This is obviously a big deal and your prayers would be appreciated. The surgery will not only remove the mass that is blocking her pancreas, but it will also allow us to find out definitively if it is cancer or not. Again, your prayers are appreciated and everyone have a great day!