I don't want to jinx this, but...
almost eleven weeks
...I think Evan may be turning the corner of his colic phase. This last week he has been all happiness and smiles, hardly having a fussy moment unless he's sleepy or something. He also seems to be developing quickly now (physically, mentally, etc.). He has been doing more of the deep knee bends, where he wants to be held up and he bends his knees over and over again, or else he stomps, one leg at a time. I had him in the new mom's group on Monday, and he was laying on his tummy, propping himself up on his elbows. I didn't actually notice it (or know that this was a big deal), but one of the other moms pointed it out and was impressed. He stays there for about a minute. He is also cooing and smiling a lot more. He does this cute thing where he'll smile at us, then smile bigger, then his tongue touches the roof of his mouth, then he coos or makes some cute noise almost like a giggle, then he'll turn his head to the side, still smiling, as if shy. Then we'll say something else funny and he'll do the same thing all over again.

Oh! I don't mean to brag, but there's one more good thing. We got to watch an entire movie tonight! He slept during Chicago (quite a long movie, and very good). We wouldn't have dreamed of trying to watch a movie a month ago. It was glorious. We really appreciate the little things now.

The biggest challenge right now is when I go to night school and Jery tries to feed him with a bottle, he cries. He really only wants to eat one way (cafe mom's). Jerry's been trying to find creative ways to sneak the bottle into his mouth just to get something in his tummy, without him really noticing. More on that later.

first temper tantrum???
ten weeks
Is it possible for a two month old to have a temper tantrum???

First of all, we think Evan discovered himself in the mirror. Jerry was holding him in front of the mirror, and he was staring intently at himself and his dad for a good ten minutes. After awhile, he started to lean into his image, looking intently into his own eyes, then a slow, sly smile emerged from his lips, his eyes twinkled, and he giggled. He continued to flirt with his image and make cooing noises for a few minutes. Is it possible he knew that it was his own image, or does he think that's a cute baby in the wall?

Jerry then moved Evan over to the larger mirror in the bathroom and stood him up on the counter (holding Evan under his arms, of course). We had put these big duck slippers on Evan's feet that are way too big for him, and he was practicing stomping his duck feet up and down while staring at himself in the mirror. This went on for quite a while, and Jerry decided it was time to end the game, so he started to carry the boy into the other room. As soon as Evan was moved away from the mirror, he let out a blood curdling scream, started pumping his legs up and down and arching his back. I was in the other room studying and I thought for sure Jerry must have accidentally stuck the kid with a pin or maybe dropped him or did some other horrible thing to him, but no, Evan was screaming out of anger. Evan continued to scream this way while Jerry changed his diaper and clothes.

Jerry then brought Evan back to the mirror and he immediately stopped crying, resuming his stomping activity. What happened to my baby who, just weeks ago, was only interested in eating and sleeping?

Splish Splash
Today Evan learned how to splish splash in his bath. I give him baths in a little baby bath which goes into the regular bath tub, and for the past few days I have been grabbing his ankle and making splashing noises with it. He always seemed interested in what I was doing, but hadn't imitated it before. Today he really understood it, as his legs were quickly bouncing up and down, in and out of the water, with his arms flailing all about. The whole time he looked straight up with a very focused look on his face. After five minutes of this, there was hardly any water left and it was getting cold, so I took him out. He cried.

Statistics confirm..... he's chubby
9 1/2 weeks
Evan had his two month well-baby visit yesterday. First, the doctor came in and saw that Evan was doing his little standing/crouching exercises on my lap, and he said, "oh, I usually look for that at the four month visit." Yup, he's a strong man.
He's also chubby. At 14 1/2 pounds, he is in the ninety-fifth percentile for weight and the fifty-fifth percentile for height. He's also in the one-hundredth percentile for cute.
The doctor brought up the reflux issue again. He said he had talked to the other doctor who we'd seen (the second doctor who tried to convince us he didn't have reflux) and that both doctors strongly feel he does not have reflux -- just colic. So I am wondering-- did the third doctor prescribe us the medicine because she sensed that was the only way we would stop complaining and bringing him in? Did she prescribe it just to make us, the parents, happy?
Anyway, we're back once again to not giving him the Zantac, which is probably for the better since he was spitting it all out anyway. But like Jerry and I had told the doctors, we weren't motivated to give him drugs per se, we just want him to be well and happy.
If it is colic, it should clear up soon. I think on average it clears up by 12 weeks.
He also had his shots yesterday. He had fallen asleep while we were waiting for the injection doctor to call us in, and I asked if she thought he might stay asleep during the shots, and she almost laughed at me. As soon as she stuck his chubby little thigh, his eyes crunched up, he turned bright red and started screaming. Then she did it twice more in the other leg. Then I picked him up and 5 seconds later he was asleep again.

just a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down...
9 weeks
We started giving him Zantac on Saturday. He hasn't had any nasty side effects. In fact, we had a great weekend. The only problem is he really, really hates the flavor of his medicine, which smells like Scope. He cries when we give it to him, cries like we have just announced that breastmilk will now be taxed by the federal government. Then, he spits it up. We're not sure how much we're supposed to give to him after he rejects it like that, so we're playing it by ear.
What ever happened to cherry flavor? I can't believe the pharmacists don't add cherry for their younger customers. Oh well.

other stuff
He is changing all the time. Holding eye contact with us seems to be his favorite thing to do, and he smiles more often than ever before. It could be my imagination, but I think he is sleeping for longer periods of time. I usually feed him at 10 pm, midnight, then 3 and 6. Not too bad.

He started a game with me
8 weeks
I woke up last night at 3 a.m. because Evan had spit up and was crying. I took him in the other room to suction out his nose because he inhaled some of it (sorry to those of you who gross-out easily) and he was crying -- screaming, really -- the whole time. I brought him back to the bed and laid him down, and while I had my back turned, he got quiet. I assumed he had fallen back asleep. When I turned around, he was looking up at me intently, and stuck his tongue out a couple of times. (We have been playing the tongue game with him for the last couple weeks, where we stick out our tongue and he sometimes imitates us). But now he was sticking it out at me. Perhaps he was just licking his lips out of hunger? I stuck my tongue out at him, and he broke out in a huge smile with twinkly eyes. He stuck his out again, and I imitated him. Again, an amazing smile.

So not only can he imitate, but he can start the game, and in the middle of the night after puking, no less! That's my boy!

reflux update
So as Jerry said in yesterday's posting, we wanted a third opinion on the reflux. The first doctor didn't want to discuss reflux at all; he dismissed the crying as colic and avoided the topic alltogether. The second doctor discussed reflux but scared us by saying the diagnostic test was invasive and the medication did bad things to baby's bone marrow. At the new mom's support group I attend, I mentioned to the lactation consultant (and semi baby genius, in my opinion) that Evan was still spitting up and crying a lot, and she asked if I had resolved the reflux issue yet. I told her about the bone marrow. She asked me, Which medication was he referring to? I said, I dunno, I didn't ask. She said that surely there must be more than one medication out there that doesn't affect bone marrow, and surely they can prescribe medicine without doing that horrid diagnostic test. I felt a little humbled that we hadn't thought of those things ourselves.

The next two days he was almost inconsolable. Sure, there were moments of happy, sparkly Evan, but for the majority of the day, it seemed he was unhappy and in pain. Not just fussy or tempermental, but in pain and expressing that pain.

That night we saw a different doctor at urgent care (the pretty one who he flirted with. Yes, we took him in claiming that he was a crier, and he had the nerve to smile and flirt the entire time). She prescribed baby Zantac. According to this doctor and the pharmacist, there are no side effects that would affect his bone marrow, just the usual rare side effects that any medication has. And it was not necessary to formally diagnose the problem. From her standpoint, he had the symptoms of reflux, and if the medication made him happier, then we should continue to give it to him. If not, then he probably did not have reflux.

We still felt weird about giving medication to such a little baby, but it doesn't seem right to watch him suffer if we can help him, either. We'll start the meds tomorrow and it might take up to a week to see improvement.

Evan's a Flirt
We took Evan to the doctor last night for a third opinion concerning his reflux. It seems to be getting a little worse as he grows. He spits-up a lot and he has been totally cranky the last couple days. Colic is one thing, but when common sense tells you that he's upset because he's puking every 10 minutes, dammit help him. So anyway, we had him looked at again last night and the doctor turned out to be a rather attractive young woman with a very pretty smile. Evan lit up when he saw her. The whole time she was with him he smiled and cooed and kicked his chubby legs. He even shot her his patented sideways look with the Price eyebrow and she said, "You're a little flirt aren't you." He smiled. She left for a bit to get another doctor for another opinion and Evan was his normal self while she was away, not too cranky but not exactly a Snuggles commercial either. When she returned he was all smiles again.

She threatened to take him home.

We were more than a little jealous.

We're still weighing the side effects of the prescription, but we came away with some dietary changes for Andrea, some soothing techniques we can use for after he eats and generally a better sense that he was fine, he will get past this and one day soon he'll be a giggly wiggly baby all day and not just when a pretty doctor strikes his fancy.

Mr. Strongman
All of his "face planting" seems to be paying off: he now holds his head up! It seemed to happen overnight. And when he is held in the cradle position (on his back, like a little baby), he makes attempts to lift his head and sit up.
His other new thing is to "stand" on my lap and bounce up and down with a look of wonder on his face.
Today he was laying on his tummy and, for a split second, lifted his head up on his own!

His other new thing is to maintain eye contact with one of us for a very long period of time. I keep expecting him to get bored, staring at my face like that, but he seems very interested. Maybe he's looking for a pattern in my freckles.

Today his nana played the tongue game with him, sticking her tongue out while making interesting sounds. He slowly started to imitate her (without the funny sounds). He can't seem to stick his tongue out very far, but he is at least aware that he has a tongue and that it can be stuck out. It's pretty cute.

He must have smiled a grand total of 15 times today. He giggled once. Good times.

my boy is growing up!
7 weeks
He is doing new things all the time. He is cooing and smiling more often now, but the coolest thing is how long he holds eye contact with us. He stares at us with wide eyes while we talk to him. It's like he's getting to know us.

He is holding up his head now for longer periods of time. I don't know how long -- maybe 10 seconds at a time before he face plants into a shoulder. Sometimes he'll be crying, I'll hold him over my shoulder and then he'll pull away from my shoulder and hold his body away from mine. That takes strength! He has also started straightening out his legs and "standing" on them while we hold him up. He only does this for a few seconds, but it's a new thing. A couple weeks ago he had no interest in trying to straighten out those curled newborn legs.

Also, I know he recognizes my voice. Jerry brought him into me to be fed, and I had to go to the bathroom first, so I left the room, and as soon as I did he started crying harder (Evan, not Jerry). He calmed down when he heard me return.

Other cute things: he smiled in his bath the other day. He cries when I take him out. And he is starting to show interest in his toys. Jerry has been able to get him to be happy with his swing, and he stares, transfixed at the bars as they move. He's also letting us put him in the baby bjorn (one of those front infant carriers). The three of us went on a walk tonight, and he was alert the whole time, looking around at the trees, people and cars going by. Sometimes he'll let me put him in the sling (those hippy things), but usually only if he's half-asleep and isn't sure what's going on.

Tomorrow I start school. I'll be going at night (three nights a week) while Jerry is on baby duty. I'm excited to get back into the public policy world and to see my old friends, and I'm even a little excited about studying (I'll be taking a class in urban planning which sounds like a great class). But I know I'll miss the baby. I left Evan with Jerry today while I went to a cafe to study (yes, I have homework before the first day of class) and I missed him while I was gone. That was only 2 hours! Also, Evan didn't want to take a bottle, so the whole time I'm at class I'll be wondering about him and how he is doing. Classes are three hours and with travel time I'll be away from him for almost four hours. :(