March 23rd....

The first time I have ever heard Carter laugh! It was the cutest thing I have ever seen! I was changing Carter's diaper in his room on his changing pad, and I had this little Duck that his Grandmother bought him sitting on the table. It's almost like a little hand puppet where you can put your fingers in it's legs and make them move around...well I did just that and started talking to him and making the duck give him kisses and he thought it was hysterical! I was laughing so hard that Chad came running in the room. He said he thought I was crying and came to see what was the matter...I said "nothing, look he's laughing for the first time"! It was great.

I figured he probably wouldn't do it again for another couple of days, but I was sitting in the recliner with him propped up on my legs and Chad came by; he just happened to still have on his work clothes and he started putting his tie over Carter's face and saying "where's Carter"?!...well he thought this was funny too and started laughing!
I will have to get a video of it if I can catch it because it is the cutest thing! Of course, I'm sure that every Mom thinks their child laughing is the cutest thing ever, but it was the first time and I was so excited!!

In other news, I believe the Lord has answered our prayers and the Zantac seems to be working. It's not full-proof, because he will fuss some if it has worn off and it's time for his next dosage...but it is SOOOOO much better. Praise the Lord! Unfortunately, we did have to take him off the cereal because he was getting extremely constipated. Even with Karo! And his constipated scream is 10 times worse than his reflux scream. It just stinks that you can't fix one end without ruining the other! But all the cereal was doing was helping with spit-up, so now we just have to wash lots of clothes, but the Zantac takes care of the pain of the reflux, so basically, we just deal with spit-up. I can deal with that!

Also, we have figured out that Carter despises huge crowds...in particular, noisy ones. Basically he hates cookouts where there are a lot of people talking/kid's screaming, Sunday School parties, large family get-togethers, etc. And he hates anywhere in which he cannot get down on the floor and kick around. We went to a cook out this past weekend and there were 4 dogs running around and we couldn't put him down on the floor, so he was held for 3-4 hours and he SCREAMED. There was way to much noise and on top of that he couldn't play, so he was not happy. We have a Sunday School party this Saturday and we have already called on the Grandparents to keep him so we can enjoy ourselves and he doesn't have to suffer. My baby book calls it over stimulation...he should eventually grow out of it, but right now it's just too much for him.

So, it looks like so far we have figured out the cause of the fussiness the past few months. Now that we know what is causing it, we can prevent it or nip it in the bud quickly when it starts. I never knew that parenting was such a guessing game! It is crazy! I seriously feel like Chad and I are part of this big game where we have to figure out what this baby is thinking.

Geez....

This is what our living room looked like on Sunday night. Carter had a pretty bad day...with fussiness that is. Nothing would calm the child down; as you see we have the bouncy, swing, his contoured changing pad he is obsessed with, blanket in the floor with toys, the vaccuum cleaner for 'white noise', me reading the book "What to expect the first Year" holding pappy in Carter's mouth, and of course, the thing that finally worked...Carter naked.
Once he finally calmed down, I looked around and started laughing and realized what a wreck the living room was with everything we had tried! I told Chad to get the camera, that we had to remember this night.
I thought he was just fussing for no reason, but now looking back on yesterday and pinpointing some particular symptoms I have realized that Carter has a TERRIBLE case of Acid Reflux. I knew that he has had it for a while, but it never seemed to bother him this much. Mostly he just spit up....so much that we almost use every burp cloth in the house, and I change his outfit 3-4 times daily. I said as long as it wasn't hurting him that I wouldn't worry about the medicine or telling the Dr....well that all changed today! We got a prescription called in for Zantac this morning and we are doing 4 tsp. of cereal in every bottle. He has only taken the Zantac once today, and it seems a little better...also the cereal may be helping out a good bit too. It is so heavy it stays on his little stomach better. Hopefully this combo will nip it in the bud, and my little guy can get some relief from the hurt. I am praying that the Lord will make the Zantac work because the next step would probably be Prevacid and it is WAY expensive.