I love this kid's hair. I did NOT style this faux hawk--this is 100% natural!

Kidneys: The Update

We took the boy in for his unpleasant procedure this morning. All in all, I would say he did great considering they shoved a catheter up his nether-regions and left it there to watch him pee on screen! However, there was very good news that came out of it all---no reflux! AKA, the pee is not going back in, just going out like it's supposed to.

So now we're on an every-six-month ultra-sound and check-up schedule. Hey, we'll take it. It also means we won't have to give him antibiotics everyday to ward off possible UTIs that come with reflux--not a prospect we were exactly looking forward to. We don't even use antibacterial soap!!! 

Anyway, it's all a non-issue (for now) and hopefully in six months it will disappear completely. Honestly, we didn't think it was reflux because this beastly child pees SO MUCH, that to think any way going back in would mean that there wouldn't be a diaper available to hold all that liquid!

So, pee away, little Theo, pee away! 

Happy Half-Birthday Theo!

The grand finale is totally worth it!

My baby is 6 months old today. How did that happen?

Yay for democracy!

We dressed Theo in his red, white, and blue tie-dye shirt today, but he promptly managed to poop all over it by the end of the morning. Hope that's not an omen of some kind...

Smiles and cheers all around for OUR new President!

Stroller Whores

Well, we gave being baby minimalists our best shot, but to our chagrin we are now the owner of 4, count 'em FOUR strollers. In our own defense, I feel obligated to talk about each of them and their individual functions:

-Snap-n-go for infant carrier--so very handy when Theo was a wee lad and didn't mind being in the car seat. Now the straps hardly fit around him (even though it's supposed to go to 30 lbs.) so we need another solution since we'll be switching to the big car seat very soon.  

-Large Peg Pereggo - purchased before Theo was born for a steal on Craigslist. More drawn by its designer-ness (though we know this pales in comparison to the Bugaboos, Stokkes, etc.) than its functionality, we took it out for the first time last weekend. We loved the roominess for our huge dude and the versatility of the seat positions. Storage compartment gets a thumbs down, though.

-Umbrella Stroller - We got this as a shower gift. When he's older, it will be good, although I know it has pretty much zero support.

- Peg Pereggo Aria - a one-handed, extremely lightweight version of our Cadillac Escalade of strollers up there. It's awesome. We think we like it better than the big Peg, although we just bought it yesterday, again as a steal off of Craigslist. Ahh, Craigslist...

There is a real reason we bought that last one. Theo goes to a babysitter's house every day, and every day he is strolled there in his infant carrier since our sitter lives across the street from S.'s school. Sooner rather than later, little Theo is going to get a big-boy car seat, which means the end of the Snap-n-go. The Aria will stay at school with S., and go back and forth to the sitter's house every day. So it's almost like we don't even own that last stroller, since we won't be traveling with it or really even using it. 

Okay, I just had to get that off of my chest. Please don't judge me for my excessive baby gear! 

all things medical

Some of you may recall way back in the day of 20-week ultrasounds, they found an irregularity in the baby's kidney. Well, that baby turned out to be Theo, and the irregularity still exists. We just went to a pediatric urologist hoping to have him wave us a way saying "see? I told you it would resolve by itself..." But no, Theo has Grade 2 (1 being best, 5 the worst) hydronephrosis of the left kidney and needs a VCUG, which is a catheter inserted into his penis, dye injected into his bladder, all on ultrasound so they can see which way the fluid is moving. Hopefully, not toward his kidneys. I know this will give us an answer once and for all if anything is wrong, but I don't want him to go through this. hmph. 

On another note, he's covered in patches of an excema-like rash. We have a call into the pediatrician. It doesn't seem to bother him, but it's all over his belly, spotty on his back, the back of his knees, his neck. Poor little doodle. We've been spreading Aqu@phor on him pretty liberally. My worry is that it is a sign of food allergy. We started rice cereal on Christmas - he was 5 months and sooooo ready. That kid was born to eat. 

Oh yeah, 19lbs2oz. Big doodle.

Any advice, experience, concerns????