Happy Baby Returns

Well after nearly a month of being "off" my cute, little, happy baby returned to me yesterday (Tuesday). Axel is finally his normal playful self. He was so tired and out of sorts for the past few weeks that he was much less physical. Today he is nearly bouncy off walls, if such a thing were possible at his age. I am quite ecstatic.

Axel and I went to the Dr. yesterday after emailing her on Monday. She increased the dose of Zantac and referred Axel to the GI specialist. We have an appt. with the GI doc on Friday to make sure nothing more serious is wrong with Axel's stomach. The decrease in food consumption was a worry to the Dr. because Axel has been dropping on the weight charts. He is currently 13 lb 6 oz and in the 14%. Good news is Axel is growing well and grew an inch in 2.5 weeks and is now a whopping 2 feet 1.25 inches and in the 54%! I might end up cancelling the appt. because it seems after increasing the Zantac he is eating better, but I will see how the rest of today and tomorrow goes before making any big decisions. I also decided to cut diary out of my diet again to see if that helps his belly. I didn't have any milk or dairy yesterday and I do believe yesterday Axel consumed 25 oz out of the bottle and nursed twice. He slept from 7:30pm-10:20, 10:30-3am, 3:15-6:15, 6:20-7:40. It was amazing!!!! I have my old baby back! I really hope it stays this way. I actually already messed up his nap schedule today because of my busy morning. Hopefully he catches up on his nap sleep by sleeping until close to 4pm today. I will just have to wait and see.

Because of Axel's increase in restful sleep he has developed more new tricks!!! Over the past couple of days Axel discovered his FEET! It is so cute to see him grab them and try to stick them in his mouth. I don't believe he will ever be successful at getting them in his mouth because I don't believe his is limber enough. Hopefully I will get a photo of this soon. Axel has also rolled over on his stomach from his back twice in the past couple of days and I discovered he can keep his head parallel to the ground if I sit him up from his back by grabbing his hands. His sitting continues to improve but he still tumbles to one side after a few seconds. The new thing about sitting is he started reaching for his toys while I help him sit and before he was confused as to what he should do while sitting :).

I have mentioned quite a few times how Axel loves watching the dogs. Well, I have been teaching Axel to "pet the dogs", and today Axel pet Louis all by himself. Luckily Keith was still home so I had him grab a few pictures before he left for work. Can you see how much he loves the dogs!!! I can't wait until he is old enough for them to really play together. You can see Louis is a little less excited than Axel, but I am sure that will change over the years. Axel also was not as chatty as he has been in the past because of being overly tired. His smiley, chatty nature has returned. I was cracking up almost crying an hour ago because Axel was laughing loudly for about 5 minutes. Of course when I grabbed the camera he stopped laughing, but I think this little video clip is still adorable.

Well, I only have two more days left of maternity leave. I will be returning to work Monday through Thursday. Axel will be at day care anywhere from 5.5 to 7 hours. Tomorrow we are going to do a test run and I am going to drop him off for 2 hours. I decided the best thing for me to do is go for a ride because I don't believe anything else will distract me enough not to cry. I may even cry on the bike, but not for long. It is hard to cry too much on the bike....it is exhausting you know?!

Okay, well I hope you all are having a good week and I hope to post again soon. If you don't see a new post by Monday I might not get to it until next Friday. I am not sure how the first week is going to go. Wish us luck!