Baby Boy and Baby Girl Pounds: MONTH 6: Allergy to formula, Thanksgiving, family photos

William is 6 Months old!

This months quilt was made by one of our friends' wife. The other side has some cute clouds :)

It's definitely getting more and more difficult to take these monthly pics. He wants nothing to do with hanging out on his back, unless he's shoving a toy in his mouth while hanging out. He is all about being on his tummy and has now figured out how to continue rolling over, so it doesn't just stop after one roll. Between his army crawl, and him sticking his bottom in the air, I have a feeling he's going to be crawling by the next blog post. Terrifying!

Rough Month for William's tummy:

This month was probably the scariest for us as parents. Maybe because William has been such an easy baby so far, minus the whole sleep thing- everything has been pretty predictable. I had a whole freezer full of breast milk that I thought would last me a while, but hungry man William proved me wrong. He finished that stash around the beginning of the month. I was trying to minimize the amount of time I spent pumping, and thought I could supplement only one bottle a day with formula.

I woke up one Sunday morning and gave him 4 ounces to see how he would do on formula. William just chugged it and didn't seem to mind the taste so I thought it was going well. About 10 minutes after finishing the four ounce bottle, the nightmare began. He literally projectile vomited the entire 4 ounces. I knew that was not a normal reaction, so I started yelling for Garrett to wake up and come downstairs. I handed him off to Garrett so he could help clean him off, while I cleaned off the chair, (and myself) and on the way up the stairs William vomited again! We decided to bathe him, since it was just all over him. That's when we noticed the hives all over his chest and legs. Long story short, we called the pediatrician on-call. It took forever for them to respond so we drove to the ER just in case our biggest fear happened...anaphylactic shock. Where the hives get into the babies lungs so bad, that it doesn't let the baby breathe.

This is one pic we took of many, just in case we needed to show the pediatrician :(

Thankfully, none of that happened! He is obviously allergic to cow-based formula, which was made clear with the hives.

I'll spare the details, but I'm lucky to have been able to re- increase my milk supply to cover his milk needs.

He was also doing just fine on rice cereal prior to this whole formula incident, but after, he would violently throw it up, until he dry heaved. We had to put him on pedialyte the rest of the day to re-hydrate.

I was just mentioning to Garrett, that even if we have more kids I don't think I will ever start with rice cereal again. We are one of the very few cultures that do it, but most cultures go right into fruits and veggies. If I can avoid any of the above, I definitely will!

William has been doing really great with carrots and butternut squash. Today I started him on some homemade yams, which were so yummy even I had some! Ha. So far so good though. He now opens his mouth pretty wide, and feeding him is actually a fun little activity. He likes it when I make the train and airplane noises with the spoon. And it's also probably still fun for me because he can't make an enormous mess yet, ha!

Thanks to all my friends and family for their support through these really tough episodes. It was one of the most stressful times I've ever experienced in my life! I'm glad it's over, and I pray the rest of his food/ eating habits go well!

Family photo shoot....you mean children don't like getting dressed up and photographed???!!

I spent a really long time coordinating our holiday Christmas outfits, since these pics were the first one we were going to officially have as a family.

Unfortunately for me, this was the first day...ever...in Williams' whole little life, that he decided he didn't want to nap as long as he usually does. He couldn't even stay asleep, and therefor our 4 pm park photo session was a disaster. I was able to save the Christmas cards by zooming onto his little face on some of the pics, but he still had puffy eyes that were super red.

When I told some of my other Mommy friends the story, most simply said, "Welcome to Family Photos, it won't get better for at least four more years." Good to know!

Here are some pics that DID NOT make the Christmas card, for obvious reasons. ;)

This one sums it up pretty well

You can't see, but he was NOT happy with this pose. He was like, "really?"

Wanting to nap pretty bad

Garrett is actually holding him up, but the photographer edited his arm out

Thanksgiving overload!

William had a great time hanging out in the morning, wearing his cute little Thanksgiving outfit that Grandma Doris bought him.

He did not however, have a great time hanging around the 40 people later that night. He does great in groups of up to 20, but 40 people was just too many. He cried harder than I've ever heard him cry before, and he would only calm down when I took him to a dark room by ourselves. Hopefully, next year will be better.

Pre- guests arriving: He was having a great time!

I kept looking for a picture I thought I took of William in his Thanksgiving dinner outfit with my Aunt Rosa Maria, but then I remembered my memory card was full when I tried taking it. By the time I made room for the picture, William had the melt down...ugh. Here are some pictures of some of the guests, after he fell asleep :)

Cousin Pic:)

The soon-to-be -married happy couple!

My Mom, Meli and Magda setting up all the yummy food!

Hanging out with my cousin Jose the next day at my Aunt's house. Thanksgiving weekend was the first time they got to meet him :)

Spending some time with Great-Grandpa Harry and Great-Grandma Edith:

During Thanksgiving weekend we went to go visit Great Grandpa Harry and Great Grandma Edith in San Jose. We had a great lunch with them, and William was happy as a clam that day. So they got to see him being the baby we usually get to see, which was nice after the whole Thanksgiving melt down!

Hanging out at the lunch table with us :)

Jumparro- full speed ahead!

William loves jumping on this thing, and he even double jumps when Garrett comes home. He has started to dance/jump lately when we play music and dance around with him, it's pretty cute :)

I think he's sick of me taking his pic...oh well. He's going to have to get over it!

Video of him dancing while on the jumparroo:

Story time with Grandpa Mohamed, Cuddling with Grandma Pita and Auntie Susi!

Bath time in his favorite shark towel!

Blowing some bubbles!

Reindeer hat and Making silly faces for his Mommy:

I finally got to meet Kristin's little man, Baby Wesley! He is a little over a month below and was a good little baby. I forgot how often William used to go number 2, haha! It was a fun visit and can't wait to see them again:)

William has started to become much more physically active when sleeping, or on his way to falling asleep in his crib. Garrett and I caught him sleeping like this twice! He is actually asleep in both pics below...silly William :)

Someone thinks they have struck the milk mother load!

Video of William having "ants in his pants" while on the changing table:

William "helping" his Daddy with the lights!

Our little helper decided he wanted to hang out on the floor instead, and we let him play with the lights until he decided he wanted to stick them in his mouth...that was the end of it.