long and lovely updates on all things abel.

We have a lot of Abelupdates to get to, as I have been too busy chasing Abe around the house, the yard, the neighborhood and the city to write anything down. I apologize in advance for the length, but this stuff has built up! The fun factor is increasing by leaps and bounds around here.

While I have always loved Abel, I was really really really bored out of my mind for his first three months (ok- six months) of life. Of course I enjoyed holding him, nursing him, looking at him, singing to him.... but all of these things took a combined 40 minutes. And then we would start again. God, those were loooong days. When he started rolling over we were able to add another 5-10 minutes on to our activity cycle, but still..... At six months, his hamminess was firmly established, and his naps (while short) were starting to fall in to a predictable rhythm. This meant my sanity (or lack there of) was also falling in to a predictable rhythm. By nine months enjoyment was the in the majority. But by 12 months? We are having a ball (most of the time!).

Since the last post, Abel has been p.r.a.c.t.i.c.i.n.g. walking. Never one to be still and actually play with a toy for long, Abel completely abandoned the notion of sitting and favored pacing around the house. It's hard to believe parents go from eagerly counting each step strung together one day, to watching your baby ramble around the house with relative ease the next! In an instant he turned from a baby to a tiny toddler.

When Abel was on the verge of walking, people would often predict that we would soon regret ever wanting him to. "You just wait", they would say, "your life is going to get so much harder". Full disclaimer: I find this type of comment from cynical and wizened parents more annoying than getting woken up every 3 hours. I mean how is that helpful to anyone?! I have taken to responding to this sort of thing, "I'm so sorry you had such a miserable time with that part of being a parent". It usually causes back-pedelling and then the telling of how wonderful raising children really is. And then I am being doubly helpful- discharging my annoyance AND assisting them in a lovely parental reframe. Yay, me. Don't say I am not a giver. In reality- Abel walking is adorably fun. He can actually control his need for action, and satiate his desire for movement. He seems even happier than usual.

Abel has been signing up a storm (milk/nurse, drink, more (and more and more)) and is coming out of the verbal expressive language gate featuring the letter B ("baaaybeee" and "ball"). He is perfecting "hi" and "bye", and has thrown in "keys" for good measure this week. (Fitzgibbons family note: if his next word is either "punk" or "clock radio" I think we have Bernie Jr on our hands!).

Last night, Abel and I went on a hot date to Panera Bread while Mike was at work. After Abel spent the entire meal nibbling on his grilled cheese, waving and saying "hi!" to everyone in a 10 foot radius, an elderly woman came up and shouted in Abel's face, "Personaaaaality PLUS!!!". It was a compliment. Either that or she was having a petit mal.

While the last three months have been filled with major developmental leaps, lots of fun and lots of hilarity, it has also been filled with LOTS of trips to the doctor's office. In case you have been hiding under a rock or (more likely) hiding from me and my fervent tirades on the state of Abel's health, here's the list that started in May:

1) 14 day stomach virus (Including hospitalization- of which I am reminded daily by the never-ending stream of hospital bills in my mail.)

2) strep throat (oh yes- babies CAN get it!)

3) strep throat (oh yes- babies CAN GET IT AGAIN!)

4) Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease (Guess what is horrid? A feverish baby covered in blisters.)

5) ear infection

6) strep throat (What's that? Good things come in threes? Thanks, strep throat! Don't mind if we do!)

We have practically set up camp at Partners in Pediatrics, and have interfaced with some lovely medical professionals (and one abhorrent pediatrician that Mike plans on writing a future blog about as a warning to other Denver parents). We have done antibiotics (after five rounds- Abel may be responsible for single handedly creating a super bug that will wipe out an entire generation), throat swabs, blood tests, an i.v., x-rays, memorized all the fish in the doctor's waiting room, lost weight, lost more weight, worried and cleaned and cleaned and cleaned up puke. While our pediatrician says that she isn't worried about the frequency of illness, we are. Why is he getting sick so much!? Which leads me to our next topic (it will all tie together soon, I promise).

....The Great Sleep slash Acupuncture Project.....

Barring the many many many nights Abel has been ill, his sleep has continued to be improved since the last acupuncture blog update. With the average night involving 2-3 wakeups, we have been feeling well rested (or- better rested) and much less stressed out. We had our third acupuncture appointment on Saturday, and I shared Abel's myriad of illnesses with Dr. X. Her take? The illnesses were due to the acupuncture dislodging all of the blocked um...badstuff(?) that was going on with Abel. Dr. X predicted that he would start a healthy streak soon. (She also completely acknowledged that all of the illness he had were very real.)

Dr. X did some more wet-noodle inducing moves on Abel, and sent us on our way. Saturday night sleep: not awesome. Sunday night sleep: as good as we had ever seen it. Monday night sleep (hold on to your hats): Slept.All.Through.The.Night. I am not talking about that 5 hour stretch you read about in baby books. I am not talking about waking up for the day at 4:30am. I am talking about 10 m.f. hours. Now... I am no pollyanna-sleep-mama at this point. I have been around the block, and seen too many 2am's, 3am's and 4am's (10pm's if you want to be honest) to think that this will be an every night occurrence. But I am so so so excited that Abel learned to sleep through the night, even just once. And I am really proud of Mike and I for figuring out how to night time parent without the risk of cortisol flooding.

Mike took photos of the big sleepa' this morning. Here are some of our favorites.

Hanging out by the cast-iron, rusty ol' box of tetanus and choking hazards.
Surely our next trip to the er will have something to do with this.....

the lucky p.j.'s.
never to be washed again....

early morning snack of garden lettuce.

not a fan of the lettuce before breakfast.