quick update

Since there's been lots of radiosilence here on familiography, I thought I'd do a quick update. 

Sylvia and Rafael are doing well in school.  We're already proud parents as the teachers were so excited to tell us that when Mr. Ben came for music time our kids did the motions to the songs AND SANG ALONG!  And they were the only ones.  [cue beaming, competitive mother]  We were talking about school this morning and Rafa started naming all of his classmates!  We'll take that as a good sign that he's enjoying his friends enough to remember their names.  Our kids have better memories than their parents.  Next time we go shopping, I'm just going to dictate the list to the kids and they'll be sure I don't forget anything. 

It's a good thing Rafa has had some cute moments like that because he is in a funk these days.  He's exerting his independence on just about everything.  It seems like it's mostly a transition issue, that he really likes whatever it is he's doing and doesn't want to move to the next thing.  Leaving school one day last week, he stood in the doorway for about 5 minutes while parents were coming and going picking up their kids walking around him.  He stood there until I just left for the car and after I was a good distance away, he decided to run after me.  (For those thinking I'm a negligent parent, I waited until the traffic died down and the security guard, Rafa, and I were the only ones left, so the security guard helped keep an eye on him until he got to me.)  Of course, he fought getting into the car.  Then, when we got home and I unbuckled him, he buckled himself back in!  He used to love singing at night with us, but since he knows that bedtime follows shortly thereafter, he's begun protesting the singing.  I won't even talk about the war we wage for diaper changes, brushing teeth, and bedtime.  Fortunately, it seems that when one of the kids goes through a difficult phase, the other one lightens up and Sylvia hasn't been quite as challenging lately.  That doesn't mean we don't have moments (pretty much every evening) when all three are wailing at the same time.  If that doesn't teach us patience, we are lost causes.

Oscar, well, where to begin with Oscar.  We got him on a new medicine that seems to be helping.  It's not perfect, but he mostly seems to be better related to the reflux.  He still spits up, but doesn't seem to be in as much pain.  He just is not a very happy baby.  Which makes his parents not particularly happy, either.  He did hang out awake and content for about an hour this morning, which was so wonderful that I told D to take another look before going off to work.  There's just always something making him uncomfortable: gas, reflux, hiccups, poop, hunger, fatigue, dirty diaper, boredom, you name it.  I think he's called a high needs baby.  He's only quiet when he's sleeping (and even then there's lots of grunting and moaning) or in my arms while being rocked and bounced and sung to.  We finally got him to take a pacifier sometimes, which helps.  He has stayed asleep for naps a couple times in the swing, but other than that, he's social and wants people, particularly mami.  Looks like we'll have another active one on our hands!  He has started sleeping better with the new medicine and we usually get him to sleep well for the first two feeds of the night, but lately he really wants to be up starting at 2am.  We are going to try REALLY hard to keep him awake as much as possible during the day today and hope that we can shift his idea of nighttime a little to align a little better with ours. 

OK, so not particularly quick, but there's a lot going on here.