Elliot's 6 month stats

Elliot had his 6 month well child check today and his stats are:

Length- 27.09 inches which is in the 72nd percentile

Weight- 20lbs 9 oz which is in the 91st percentile

Yep, he's a big boy!

6 months old

Elliot is 6 months old today. I'm not sure where the time went but here we are. He has his well child check on Monday so I'll post offical stats then, but I do know he's over 20lbs.

He spends some time in his high chair while I'm making dinner or when I am doing something and he's tired of laying on the ground. He rolls all over so I can't leave him on the couch like I used to.

He also had his first taste of rice cereal this month. He doesn't eat it every day but he's had it a couple times and seems to like it better every time.

He wasn't so sure about it the first time.

If he doesn't eat it, Chloe wants to. You can see her little hand trying to "help" feed him.

Taking a Sunday afternoon nap with Dad a couple weeks ago.

He is one cool dude. And in case you are thinking I posed him like this, I didn't. I just happened across him like this. He's done it a number of times since.

Hospital stay #3

Elliot had a fever on Thursday. I watched him closely all day and decided to take him to the doctor when I noticed that he was breathing way too fast. We were there for 4 hours doing tests and getting x-rays before the doctor decided to send us to the hospital. Elliot's heart rate was up near 200 beats per minute and his respitory rate was around 60 (normally babies heart rate should be 80-120 beats per minute and their respiratory rate should be around 40 breaths per minute). Since we've been hospitalized for breathing issues before the doctor was more comfortable sending us to the hospital than home. We got admitted at 9:30pm Thursday night and by that time Elliot's fever had gone down quite a bit. He was still breathing fast but not as fast as he had been. The hospital did breathing treatments all night and when we saw the doctor in the morning he thought Elliot was doing well enough to go home. We left at noon on Friday. Elliot continued to improve and he seems almost back to normal today. Looking back, we probably didn't need to go to the hospital but since I'm never sure if he is going to get worse before he gets better I didn't fight the doctor too hard when he said we should go to the hospital overnight. Besides, since Chloe had RSV a couple years ago, I don't mess around when my kids are having troubles breathing.

This is a picture of Elliot playing with the toys that the nurses brought for him. As much as I dislike going to the hospital, I have to say that I love the staff at McKay-Dee! They are so kind and helpful and seem to really care about their patients.

Photo Shoot

My sister came last weekend and since she got a fancy new camera for Christmas we had her test it out on the kids. She got some pretty good shots even though the kids were being less than cooperative.

Thanks Rosemary!

Silly kiddos

With three kids it's nearly impossible to get all of them looking at the camera with a pleasant expression on their face.

But I keep trying! :)

5 Months

Elliot is 5 months old! I can hardly believe it. My little man is over 18 lbs these days which is good since I'm pretty sure we won't be having the same feeding issues with him as we did with Chloe. He loves to talk and coo at anyone who will pay attention to him and he is starting to roll around. All that chub has made this skill a little more difficult. He's working on sitting by himself and can sleep all night as long as he's not on any oral steriods for his breathing (he did three doses since Christmas and each time he was up every 1-2 hours all night long, which was worse than when he was a newborn). Elliot gets his cheeks pinched almost everytime we are out. He usually gives me a look like, "Mom, make them stop!" He's an easy going kid who loves his sisters. We love having Elliot in our family!

4 month and 4 year well-checks

Elliot and Jillian had their well-check visits with the doctor this month.
Elliot's stats:
26 inches long/82nd percentile
17 lbs 15 oz/ 93rd percentile

Jillian's stats:
40 inches tall/ 57th percentile
37.6 lbs/ 73rd percentile

Jillian got some shots and the flu nasal mist. She did pretty good. When the doctor told her that she was brave Jillian replied, "No, I screamed." At least she's honest.

Elliot was breathing really fast while we were at his check so they had him do a breathing treatment with the nebulizer and when that didn't help they sent us on up to the hospital to have him more closely monitored. We were there overnight and where they just monitored his breathing and continued to do treatments. I brought him home the next day and we've continued doing treatments. He was on an oral steroid for a few days and now he's on an inhaled steroid every day to keep his lungs open. Doctors don't diagnose babies with asthma because they're too young to do the diagnosing tests. They call what he has now reactive airway disease and we have a plan of action to keep him breathing. He's doing pretty good but I do have to pay close attention to his breathing. On a side note: He was 18lbs 4 oz just 3 days after his well-check. No wonder my back hurts every morning. He gains a pound every other week! Every single nurse we had at the hospital just loved him and wanted to take him home with them. I think he's pretty cute but I'm a little biased. Good to know it's not just me!