5 Months Old!

Samson is 5 months old today - can you BELIEVE it? He is getting so big, he skipped right over his 6 month onesies and is already into 9 month onesies! He must be long - 6 month rompers and shorts still fit him, but those tighter onsies make him look like a little sausage.

So for anyone wanting to buy him clothes, buy 9 month stuff for the summer, and 12 month stuff for the fall. It is so crazy to me that he is wearing now some of the clothes Gavin wore when he was 12 months old!

Milestones - Sam rolled over this weekend - once. From back to stomach. Gavin slept inhis own bed ALL NIGHT for 2 nights in a row. I've also completely stopped cereal for Sam. He was pooping regularly on the oat cereal but crying at night for a long time. I thought at first it was teeth, but stopped the cereal and he is all better.

To catch you up on the happenings around our house - last weekend was Johnston Green Days, so Saturday we went to the parade and Chad took Gavin to the carnival. But for some reason (heat? tiredness?) he majorly freaked out on a couple of the rides. This weekend Chad took Gavin to the Celtic festival at Living History Farms. Random, I know, but they had strong man type events going on, which Gavin gets a kick out of watching on TV. He came home with a very awesome "pirate stamp" (tattoo). I have a picture, will post soon.

Sunday Gamma took Gav to Ames to watch Uncle Chris play soccer and then they came over for dinner. Which led to MFO (or major freak-out).

Let's preface this story by saying that Gavin had been extremely sassy and not a good listener all weekend. Now in regards to my previous post, this kind of behavior I think would fall into the "normal" category of preschool naughtiness. I don't know what was up this weekend, but he actually flat out told me "No" when I asked him to do something - and he's usually not that sassy to me!

So on to Sunday night, and this is an example of where I think he genuinely has an issue controlling his emotions sometimes. I liken it to when I was pregnant and hormonal. Not so much with Sam, but I was a raging lunatic with Gavin. I would get SO mad at poor Chad and upset and screaming over the DUMBEST things. And then I would wake up the next morning thinking "who was that crazy person and why did she treat my husband so badly?". I really think Gavin sometimes just can't control it, and that out of control feeling just snowballs and makes the situation so much worse.

But I digress. They came back to the house and everything was great until I said it was time to sit down and eat. Gavin wanted Chad to run races around the living room. It was time to eat. He proceeded to yell and scream at the top of his lungs at us from the living room. He wouldn't eat, we tried to let him watch a show. Nothing worked. We threatened to take away the Wii. We tried ignoring him. It just escalated. What a pleasant way to eat dinner! Finally Chad put him in his room, which never works because 1) he won't stay in there and 2) even if he does, he can't calm himself down so it's pointless. Chad stayed in the room with him for a while, and then I finally went in there. SO about 45 minutes after this all started, I finally got him to settle down by laying down in his bed with him. Then I convinced him to eat a little dinner, and after that got him to apologize for his behavior.

I've ordered a vitamin D supplement because I've been reading a lot about vitamin D deficiencies lately and that it can impact behavior. He's in the sun a lot, but he is darker skinned and we are very liberal with the sunscreen, so it's worth a shot.

A friend suggested a blood test for glucose levels. Also something I am going to look into. Other than that, I am at a loss. I thought maybe the food he was eating at the "house school" was contributing to his grumpiness - he would tell us for 3 pm snack they would have fruit snacks or reeses pieces. Not sure if that was true, or if that was in addition to a healthy snack. But now that I know what he eats, since I pack his lunch, and the behavior is still not better, I am ruling out nutrition. I've also cut out a lot of fruit snacks, etc with a lot of food colorings and additives that are supposed to be really bad and affect behavior and have seen no improvement.

I'll take any ideas anyone has. Nights like last night are so disruptive. And even worse, I know they don't make Gavin feel good, and there's nothing worse than seeing your child that upset. The typical defiant preschool behavior I can handle, when I know he's acting up on purpose or to try to get what he wants. But what I will now call the MFO (major freak-out) just makes me sad.