Does he come with volume control?

Gabe has been exercising his lungs a lot lately. I'm not entirely sure why, but blood-curling screams are now his signature "hello". We get to hear these screams all day and night long.

He stirs in his sleep? Blood-curling scream. Hungry? Blood-curling scream. Wet? Hot? Cold? Quiet? Happy? Just because?

Melissa and I have started cuddling for survival. Family that visits usually leaves visibly disturbed. Meanwhile, Luke somehow sleeps peacefully through it all. Which means he's roaring to go at 7:30 every morning. Two children is definitely a different scenario than one.

Luke went to Holiday World, and he was fearless on the water slides. He's already eager to try out roller coasters (really, aren't they just glorified trains?), so I should have an amusement park buddy in the future.

We're trying to clear out the house with a garage sale. Maybe we'll have room again for the mountains of toys that endlessly accumulate. Probably not, so it's a good thing we're thinking about a bigger house.

Gabe the Weed

Gabe is growing. He's already out of 0-3 month clothes. Fortunately, growing has it's benefits. For one, his digestion is improving, so he's grunting less often. It still happens a lot, but it's better than it was.

Gabe's digestive issues are a lot like Luke's. He seems to do a lot better on his side than flat on his back. Luke was strong enough after a couple months to roll himself on his side to sleep. I'm guessing Gabe will do the same when he reaches that age.

While Gabe is grunting less, he's suddenly becoming a spit-up machine. He'll spit up a little milk from just about every meal now. He tends to gorge himself at every feeding, and he's upset if he's not 100% full. He's a chunky baby. I don't remember Luke having spit-up issues.

Gabe's starting to notice people now. He'll stare at Melissa and I anytime he can. He even smiles at us occasionally.

Luke is fully potty trained now. The welcome relief on the diaper budget was excellent timing. Luke is still misfiring occasionally. He pees on the toilet as often as in it, and he occasionally soils himself. There's a couple slides in Bloomington you might want to avoid. Overall he's doing great though.

Melissa continues to not get sleep. We finally get the children to sleep for a solid stretch and then she has a night where she can't fall asleep for hours.

And even more depressing, hockey's almost over for the season.

The Milk Protein Allergy

Gabe's been having a rough time. He grunts for extended periods after every feeding. Melissa has narrowed it down to being a milk protein allergy.

I had a problem with milk for a few months when I was a baby. My parents had to switch to a soy formula. Gabe acts like he's got gas or is spitting up after every feeding. This wouldn't be such a big deal except you have to feed a baby every 3 hours all day long. So Melissa has to fight the grunting every night to try to get him to sleep, so she can actually sleep.

A lot of websites say that Melissa can alter her diet to cut dairy and that should help. Cutting out ice cream is no fun. She'll have to find something else for her cravings (I'm hoping it's me). We also are going to experiment with different formulas to see if we can find one that makes a difference.

In another two months, Gabe should develop enough of a digestive system to handle the milk. Hopefully we can find a better solution until then.

Meanwhile, Luke's now completely "#1" trained. We still have to overcome some fear with "#2" in the potty, but I'm guessing it's not far off. That'll be a huge relief on the diaper expense.

Luke had an interesting week at the lake. I'd say the most interesting discovery we had was Luke's reaction to swimming. Apparently I need to teach him that putting your head under the water is safe. Luke's experience is getting his hair rinsed in the bath, and he usually chokes a little bit on the water. He doesn't quite understand holding his breath. Apparently he generalized that experience to meaning that having your head under water means certain death.

He went swimming with cousin Macy, and Macy would float around using water wings. However, whenever her head or face got near the water, Luke would scream bloody murder. He would try to grab her and help her up, which of course made her actually breathe in some water and start choking, reinforcing his fear. We picked him up and found his heart pounding; he was generally scared to tears for her.

Finally we realized what was going on, so I demonstrated that your head can go underwater and it's perfectly fine. It helped some, but he was still scared and crying for Macy a lot of the time. We're going to have to practice in the bathtub some before the next lake trip.