I have to confess...

I have an addiction. Since I'm sitting in the kitchen at 6 am and the rest of the house is sleeping, I realize it must be true.
This is my addiction:

Yogurt parfaits.  Granola, yogurt and fresh fruit.  I can't get enough of it.  In fact, I admit I had some last night at 11 after the boys were asleep too.  And I eat it for breakfast every day.  Sometimes for an afternoon snack.  Sometimes I eat it for lunch too.  I glance at the yogurt container every time I open the fridge and think, "Should I?" ADDICTED.  
I find it really weird since my whole life I've hated yogurt.  Now I crave it.  I think it's some weird psychological thing to do with the hospital.  This is what Jamie got for a snack a lot from the cafeteria and I started buying it so he could have it at home.  Then I tried it one day.  Been hooked ever since.
I did detox myself off the good stuff though - vanilla yogurt.  I make myself only by plain now, so it is a fairly healthy, low fat snack.  But still - 3-4 times a day?  My only saving grace is the fact that I'm breastfeeding so I need extra calories every day.  Cause I eat more than Jamie does at meals.  Plus sneak my yogurt in whenever I get the craving!
I've also had a weird craving for caesar salad since Tate's been born. Again I think it stems from the hospital and the fact that I had a chicken caesar salad for lunch a few hours before I went into labor.  Totally weird, I know. 

ABR

Tate passed his ABR (auditory brainstem response) test on Tuesday.  Another answered prayer! This means that his hearing loss is temporary and caused by fluid in his ear rather than a problem with his cochlea.  Since he has failed the OAE (hearing screening) three times now in his right ear, the audiologist did this test to determine if there was an actual problem with sound conduction.  The audiologist was pretty sure it was fluid causing the problem (because he had failed the tempanogram twice as well) but I was still pretty nervous about this test.  First of all just nervous about the results but also nervous about conducting the test itself  When I scheduled the test she told me it would take about an hour and a half and she'd get the best results if he slept through the whole thing.  So she recommended keeping him awake all morning so he'd sleep in the afternoon for the test. Ummm...how do you keep a 9 week old awake all morning?!?  Fortunately Tate cooperated because he only took 2 short - about 30 minute - naps that morning.  But he also didn't eat well before we left so I wasn't sure what would happen.

When we got there she let me nurse him for a little bit to get him nice and drowsy (My first time to get to use my hooter hider! Thank you Nana!).  That worked but once I laid him down and she started the test it woke him back up.  She was sending sounds into his ear and you could tell he could hear them because he kept turning his head to that side and looking around.  (Pretty cute and reasurring to me because I could tell he was hearing from his right ear.)  After about 5 minutes of trying to get him to hold still and go to sleep she suggested I hold him.  She was able to put the computer on a strap and I hung it over my shoulder, then I was able to walk around and get him to sleep.  Then I ended up holding him through most of the rest of the test.

After just a few minutes the audiologist was able to tell that it was most likely a fluid problem.  As she was sending the soundwaves into his ear, the results were showing a "shifting".  Meaning that if it should have taken 2 milliseconds for the sound to reach his brain, his were taking 4 milliseconds.  And all the sounds were shifted that way.  So the results were already looking good.

For the second part of the test they actually tested the cochlea.  This involved putting a pair of "headphones" on him that instead of going on his ear rested behind his ear where the cochlea is.  This showed her that the cochlea was functioning completely normal.  In fact, his results were perfect.  So perfect, the other audiologist, who is presenting at a seminar in a few weeks in Chicago, asked if she could use his test results as a sample at the seminar, to show what a perfect ABR is supposed to look like!

So the next step will be to take him to an ENT (ear, nose and throat doctor).  We'll do that in the next month and see what they suggest about the fluid that must be blocking his ear drum.  The audiologist said the most common thing is to do tubes, but they don't normally do those until around 1 year of age. So we're assuming that the ENT will just tell us to wait and see if the fluid goes away on its own.  If it hasn't when he turns one, then we'll have to consider tubes.  But the audiologist did say the hearing loss he has is minor so it shouldn't interfere with his speech development.  She said to him it probably sounds a lot like what we hear if we hold a finger over our ear.  Just muffled but still intelligible.  We are supposed to take him back in to the audiologist at some point for another OAE test.  She said they like to have on record showing he actually passed one, so we'll probably do that in another year too.

brothers

I finally pulled out some of Hudson's baby pics to compare.  Tate looks so much like Hudson did when he was a baby.  Tate's face is more narrow and long vs Hudson's round face, but the features are exactly the same!  And Hudson looks just like I did when I was a baby.  So it will be interesting to see how much alike he and Tate look as Tate gets older.  I pulled out some baby pictures of me and my siblings the other day and I think Tate looks a lot like Christin (my youngest sister) when she was little. 

Just in case you can't tell - Tate is on the left, Hudson's on the right.

brotherly love

It's always the simple things...that remind me how blessed I am.

Hudson - 34 months (when did he get SO big!?)

Tate - 4 months (9 weeks adjusted)

4 month checkup

Tate had his 4 month checkup today.  He weighs 12 pounds and is 22.5 inches long.  He is actually now on the very low end of the weight growth curve for his actual age - 4th percentile!  His head is in the 6th and still in the zero percentile for his height.  Adjusted age though he is in the 60th for his weight and 30th for height.  Growing bigger each day!  The pediatrician said everything looked good and Tate looked great, especially considering he was a preemie. 
I've been concerned about the fact that he always keeps his head to one side, but the doctor said it wasn't anything to be concerned about since his range of motion is fine (same thing Jamie's been telling me for weeks!).  
I had noticed a few days ago that his hernia seemed to be getting smaller, as his belly button was sunk in more than it used to be.  I pointed this out to the doctor but he said not to be surprised if it actually got bigger again, bigger than it was before even.  He said as the stomach muscles get stronger they'll push it out even further before it starts to shrink. 
Tate has a small hemangioma on his back.  He had it when we left the hospital but I had noticed recently it seemed to be getting bigger.  The doctor said that was normal too and it will eventually fade into a light blue spot (right now it's dark purple). 
He did look in Tate's ears and said he could see the ear drum fine and there wasn't any fluid.  Which if there's no fluid would mean it's a problem with his cochlea.  But we'll find out for sure next Tuesday at his ABR screening
The doctor did say that Tate should have figured out by now how to drink his bottle without being paced.  So whether he's having trouble with it or Jamie and I are just too scared of choking, I'm not sure.  I really don't think he can do it without being paced some.  He's been choking on me whenever I let him go too long without sitting back up to breathe.  He also said that he should be big enough now to not get too worn out from breastfeeding exclusively.  He said to just do every other feeding and work our way up to breastfeeding exclusively, so we are really going to work on that.  I tried it 2 weeks ago for one morning and I really felt like it wore him out and confused him because he slept a lot and had a hard time with his bottles for the few days after that.  So we'll try to gradually ease into it over the next few weeks and see what happens.
We did decided to not do anymore Synagis shots (their $2000 shots and we have to pay for them in full up front, and then our insurance only reimburses half of the cost).  The doctor doesn't think they are that effective to be worth so much money.  Tate's had 3 of them but they only last 30 days so he now doesn't have any of the "coverage" they provided against RSV.  So the doctor stressed keeping him home and away from lots of people, children especially. He said there are a lot of cases of RSV this year, and a lot of kids in the hospital.  So we continue to wait...
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4 months!

My little "sumo"

Love me a man in wranglers....

but a boy in Osh Kosh is even cuter!