6 Month Check-Up
My baby is already 6 months old!! I just can’t believe it! And he is growing like a weed. This last month I started him on solid foods, and by solid I mean pureed of course. Up to this point he has eaten single grain rice cereal, sweet potatoes, avocados and drinks prune/apple juice. He seems to be a good eater so far. His growth proves it. At his 6 month check-up he weighed in at 17lbs, 15oz. and is 27.63 inches long! Wow! On a typically developing baby’s growth chart he is in the 55th percentile for weight and 85th for height! On a Down syndrome growth chart he is off the charts in both height and weight!
He seems to be a pretty good sleeper at night. However, I do have some concerns with him getting enough deep sleep. When Jeremy and I attended the DSAMT conference in April they discussed the common sleep issues for people with Down syndrome. One of them being Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA). I guess this occurs in around 45% of people with Down syndrome and can be the cause for many health concerns that are acquired as they age. Click here to learn more about OSA in Down syndrome. I think Liam has shown some signs of OSA because of some of the noises he makes while sleeping and how he sleeps with his neck bent back a lot of the time. I discussed my concerns with our pediatrician and he made an appointment for us to meet with a sleep specialist next week. We will then have a sleep study done on him sometime this summer to find out if he does have OSA. I’ll keep you posted.
On another note, I was thinking about all the places Liam has already been in the first 6 months of his life! He has been on 4 road trips and 1 plane ride. He’s been to GA, KY, OH, MT, MN (if you count the airport), and Ontario, Canada! We have been busy these last 6 months and it’s not about to slow down. Liam is a great traveler so we are taking advantage of that, along with Jeremy’s frequent flier miles, and going to spend some time with our families. It’s nice that he is free to fly for now!
Here is a picture of my big boy testing out the umbrella stroller. This will really come in handy for me in the airport next week! Doesn’t he make this stroller look small;)!?
Easter Surprise!
Many of you may have figured out where I went for Easter judging by my Twitter the other day. But for those of you who don’t know, let me fill you in! Jeremy and I used our frequent flier miles (one of the perks Jeremy has for traveling so much) and flew to Montana for Easter to surprise my parents. We flew into Bozeman, MT and stayed with my older sister Julie and her family for a couple days first. While we were with her we set up a 3-way video chat with my parents (who live 3 hours from my sister) – we made it look like Jeremy and I were still in TN. We were just chatting away as if nothing was different when I told my parents I would go grab Liam so they could say hi to him. Instead, I went and grabbed Maya (Julie’s new little girl). You’ll see pictures of Maya below – she looks distinctly different from Liam, mostly because of her head full of long black hair! Well, I brought her in and held her up to the camera… and my parents didn’t catch on right away. They just thought Liam had grown a bunch of hair all of the sudden!! My dad kept saying he needed more bandwidth because he knew something didn’t look right. Eventually Julie left her screen and came over to ours and put her face next to mine and we said “Happy Easter!!!” At that point they finally figured out that we were in Montana, not Nashville! So that was a lot of fun. We figured we’d let my parents in on it before we showed up at their doorstep a couple days later just to give them a little time to plan. It worked out really well and we were able to celebrate Easter all together and it was a blast!
My parents have an absolutely breathtaking view from their deck which definitely adds to the celebration of the resurrection. Our traditional family Easter weekend schedule goes like this: on Friday we attend a Good Friday service (which we didn’t end up doing this year), then Saturday we dye and paint Easter eggs, and Sunday we celebrate the resurrection at church! And we ALWAYS take a formal family photo after church. Especially this time since we won’t be all together again until Christmas. I’ve posted lots of pictures below so you can get a glimpse of the fun time we had at Easter!
Family photo
As my sister Jacque says, “we take our egg dying seriously.”
Jacque’s masterpiece… a sunset over the ocean!
Our family with a view from my parent’s deck… it came out dark so I had to lighten it a bit, so it looks kind of fake.
The new babies… Maya and Liam!
Liam loved his Easter basket from Grandma;)
Julie and her beautiful little girls!!
White Man’s Overbite
Well, our good friend Krista captured this wonderful moment Friday night in Muskegon, MI. I’m not sure what to say – I know I make faces when I play, but I had no idea they were this bad! Wow…
Jeremy’s Week in Review
“Week in Review” – that sounds pretty lame, really. I’ll have to come up with some clever title for this like Grandpa’s “Weakly Note” – any suggestions, Grandpa? I’m obviously having a hard time hitting the Monday deadline, aren’t I!! As usual, we’ve had a pretty full schedule since I last posted. Let me “break it down” for you:
- Last Friday we drove BACK to Nashville and flew to California where downhere performed at Spirit West Coast in Monterey on Saturday. On Sunday we did a concert in Roseville, CA and then flew back home (finally!) on Monday.
- Tuesday we went to see the Bourne Ultimatum (I’m a big Jason Bourne fan – you can read more about the movie here).
- Wednesday Erin did a Cinderella party in the AM, then we had lunch with some friends of downhere who had travelled in from various places (VA and MI, mostly), and then I was wrapped up in meetings the rest of the afternoon.
- Thursday was spent getting ready to leave town again for 10 days. Erin worked at her part time job and I ran around getting errands taken care of – it was a pretty busy day (and not enjoyable in 100+ degree heat!) and we finished it off with dinner with two other couples from church – so that was great.
- Friday we got up at 2:45am (I’m shaking my head as I type this) to drive to Michigan to play at a festival with Leeland, Jars of Clay, Casting Crowns, and others. Erin’s going to post some pictures from the day, and you can read some of my post about the day here as well (we nicknamed them “Jars of Thigh” for the night – need I say more??).
That should be it – we’re headed to Ireland next week so it will be probably much more interesting. Hopefully we’ll get some down time next week – I’m really feeling like I’m needing it. So we’ll see…
Update on the last week
Well, I told Erin I would do my best to do a weekly post on Mondays about what we’ve done during the past week, and I already missed my first post. How did Thursday get here so stinkin’ fast?!?
I’ll tell you how… we have been trying hard to just keep things together in the last little bit. Here are some of the noteables from the past week (and a bit):
- we went for dinner to The Melting Pot which was a wonderful experience – a first for both of us to this particular restaurant, and a reminder that we need to pull our fondue pot out of the closet! (Read a more detailed post about our night out here.)
- Thursday we (Erin, myself, and the band) flew to Seattle, WA where we arrived around midnight and stayed with some friends there
- Friday we drove out to Quincy, WA and performed at Creation West. What a GORGEOUS venue (I’m sure Erin will post some pictures from the day soon). The day was definitely slammed – we were on the run all day – but it was fun to share it with Erin’s parents who drove out from Montana to spend the day with us. We arrived back in the Seattle area by 1am or so to stay with some other friends.
- Saturday we got to sleep in a little bit before Glenn, Erin and I went for a run on a beautiful riverside trail in the Redmond area. Erin had one of her better runs, and Glenn and I did 7 miles at a 7:58 (min/mi) pace – the fastest run I’ve done at that pace for that distance in a long time. We performed Saturday night in a coffeeshop in downtown Seattle where we were surprised by a visit from two of my best friends (groomsmen at my wedding) Wes Morris and Mike Guenter, who drove down from Vancouver. So we were up until 1:15am that night just hanging out and visiting with them.
- Sunday we played three times at Overlake Church – twice in the morning services and once in the evening – before rushing off to the airport and flying through the night back to Nashville, arriving at 8am Monday morning. We were picked up from the airport and drove directly to Lookout Mountain, GA where we set up to lead worship for a camp all week.
And that’s where we’ve been this week – here in GA leading worship for these kids and taking naps in between sessions trying to recover from the crazy weekend. We’re pretty much recovered – just in time to mess it all up again by flying out to CA tomorrow for the weekend. I’m going to have to squeeze in some laundry somewhere… Okay – you should hear from me around Monday again – the update will be much shorter I’m sure. Later!
Life with Jerin 