Baby's First Christmas and 8 month birthday

Time for the monthly update! Thomas and I were both kind of having emotional moments in church on Christmas just because the baby is actually HERE. Last year at Christmas is when we announced to the family that we would be adding a new little one to the group and it's been a roller coaster ride ever since. Gabriel's eight month birthday was actually on Christmas day, and it's hard to believe that so much time has gone by already. He spent the day flirting with the choir girls at church and then flirting with Grandma in the afternoon, so by the time presents rolled around, he was zonked.

He has made quite a bit of progress in the past month. We've gone from tummy time being a trial and tribulation to rolling from back to side repeatedly and with a little help he can get to his tummy (and vice versa). He has very good  head support and enjoys sitting up in your lap and looking around. He's able to sit for about 10 minutes at a time in his Bumbo chair before his core muscles lose the fight and he starts swaying in circles. We are now in winter seclusion meaning he doesn't go much of anywhere, but we do manage to get out to non-crowded restaurants on off-peak days and go for walks. He received his Synagis shot earlier in December, so he's moderately protected against the RSV virus, which is the nasty respiratory one.

In terms of feeding, we've had quite the ups and downs. His visit to the GI doctor and dietician at the beginning of December had them wanting us to fatten him up more, so he went back on fortified breastmilk and gained 3/4 lb. and 1.2" in 2-1/2 weeks! Unfortunately, we finally figured out that the increase in spit-up and uncomfortableness that accompanied this change was due to the formula we were using. We're trialing a  new one right now, but the jury is still out. Sometimes I feel like the specialists are so focused on their area of expertise that they miss the baby as a whole. They tell me that I have to get a certain number of calories into this kid per day one way or another, but what I am seeing is uncomfortable baby, spit up everywhere, and he's still gaining weight even with the heavy losses. I'm doing my best, but in the end, I'm going to compromise with what makes him comfortable. He looks great, acts happy and doesn't even look like he started life as a preemie. We are still working through the temper tantrums, and last night we had to wait out a 15 minute tantrum before he would start eating. Extinguishing the bad behavior is hard on us, because we just have to sit and wait it out, but today showed a light at the end of the tunnel --  he took about 35mL at each feed with a minimum of fuss, which is qualifies as a great day given the past two weeks.

Next month, we will be working again with speech and physical therapy to hopefully get him onto spoon-feeding. Grandma Moser even bought him spoons for Christmas... We will also be doing a swallow study to see if we can figure out why bottle feeding is so unsuccessful. He'll have to drink a small amount of barium and have x-rays taken of his mouth and throat. Just another day in the life of Gabriel, I suppose. But for now, I'm just going to let him go back to playing with his toys!

Photos from the past month can be found at http://min.us/mbuYsfTOVzhovx