Aren, a.k.a. "Tom Thumb"

Aren had his 9 month check up last week.  Some of you may recall a couple of weeks back I posted what he weighed when I put him onto the baby scales at Alex's 4 year check up.  He was 12lb 3oz then and, as of last Tuesday, he was 11lb 15oz.  He was 25.5 in long.

To figure out why he wasn't gaining weight (in fact, losing it) we ended up drawing more blood.  The doctor wanted to run a few of the tests that we ran a couple of months back again plus a few new ones.  We learned that he has low protein, iron and vitamin D.  There were some other numbers that weren't in the normal range but these are the three we're working on.  We've got some Vitamin D drops and an Iron supplement, too. 

In addition to running the blood tests our doc wanted us to do a sweat test.  That was to check for Cystic Fibrosis.  It seems that children with CF, while they don't sweat more than anyone else, they do excrete more salt than others when they do sweat. 

Friday morning we dropped Ajay off at school, took Alex over to play at my sister's house, then Aren and I went to one of the hospitals in town.  The guy working with us cleansed Aren's left arm with alcohol, then water, then put two gauze pads soaked with a solution onto his arm.  He then took two little metal bands and placed them on the gauze pads.  He was hooked up to a box and there was a slight charge administered to stimulate his sweat glands.  We sat there for five minutes while the charge ran and I had to keep Aren's arm extended so the gauze pads didn't touch each other.  

When the 5 minutes were up the guy took the metal bands and gauze pads off.  He then took a special round pad and placed it on Aren's forearm.  He took some special tape and taped the round pad into place in such a way that any sweat that came out could only go into that pad.  Once the left arm was finished the same thing was done to his right arm.  The guy then left and Aren and I had a little nursing session where I covered him with a blanket and tried to keep him hot enough to sweat. 

After 30 minutes our guy returned and collected the little circlular pads.  One was dripping with sweat, the other one didn't look like it had that much - it was damp, but not dripping.  The guy told us we would know the results later in the day.  After doing some research I knew that we wanted Aren's numbers to be 39 or below.  When we got the call that afternoon we learned that one arm's reading was a 10, one was 9.  Whew!!  Not anywhere near the maximum number so we can rest easy knowing that Aren does not have Cystic Fibrosis!

So, smallness aside, Aren is doing great.  He finds the army crawl to be quite sufficient at getting him around so doesn't feel the need to "technically" crawl.  He is pulling himself up on low objects, which means more bumps and bruises.  (The measuring cup was what he was after since that was his toy for the moment.)

He likes to look at the cat.  If she's in a tolorant mood she doesn't even mind him experimenting with her fur.  But, as he found out earlier this morning, she isn't always in a giving mood. 

He loves to eat.  It took him awhile to figure out how to eat from a spoon but once he did he discovered he really digs food.   We still grind up or puree some foods but we're also letting him feed himself.  Bananas are slippery and so hard to get ahold of so he lets me feed him those chunks.

A few of his favorites:  bananas blended with plain yogurt, pancakes smothered in coconut oil, and an egg omelette, cooked in coconut oil. 

I just finished a hat for him.  He doesn't like it.