Peaches

We're still working on this whole food thing. Chase isn't exactly begging for more whenever we have his baby food out. He's still not sure about it and trying to figure it out. So far we've tried bananas, peaches and apple sauce (in addition to the rice cereal). Here he's just finished up with some peaches.

Rah rah Carolina-lina

I know Matt's going to kill me for this but I can't help it. I was looking through Chase's clothes yesterday trying clear out some of the 3-month things that are now too small (I know! I can't believe it either!) when I came accross this Carolina t-shirt that is 6-month size. When UNC won the NCAA Championship (sorry, Matt) Chase was 2 weeks old and the smallest UNC outfit we had was this t-shirt. It's so hard to believe that the shirt that swallowed our little peanut whole is now almost too small.

Crazy, isn't it??

I'll hold him

Last weekend we took a trip to Henderson to visit everyone. The second we walked in the door, Justice wanted to hold Chase. "I'll hold him," he kept repeating and immediately ran over to the couch with his arms stretched out toward Chase. It amazes me how little kids as young as 2 are so interested in babies even though they aren't much more than that themselves. We'll be out shopping and kids in other carts will point towards us and say "Baby". I think it's really cute. Anyway. Here are some funny pictures of Justice holding Chase.

It cracks me up to see how happy Justice is that we finally handed Chase over to him. :)

It also cracks me up to see how clueless Chase is at being man-handled by so many people. He's probably at the brink of not being so cooperative.

I think this is where they both decided that they'd had enough.

Bananas

The pediatrician told us right after the trip to the ER that it would be okay to start introducing fruits and veggies but I didn't want to take any chances until after the allergy appt. Something about seeing the little guy broken out from head to toe in hives was more than a little scary. So last night we busted out the bananas (baby food of course). Chase wasn't so crazy about them/it but we had fun anyway. I guess we'll just keep trying?

Allergies? Already??

About 3 weeks ago, as soon as Chase turned 4 months we began trying rice cereal. We'd mixed it with breast milk twice and he'd had no problems eating the cereal so I decided to try mixing a little bit of formula with it. After about 10 minutes of eating the tiny bit of cereal mixed with the formula a red rash started around his mouth. Within about 20 minutes the rash had spread up his face up to his forehead and looked like he was covered in poison ivy. While I was on the phone with the on-call nurse and pediatrician I literally watched it spread all over the rest of his body. The doctor told us to take him immediately to the emergency room. So off we went to the Duke emergency room. Luckily he was fine after 24 hours of benadryl. But from that severe allergic reaction we discovered that he had what we (I mean the doctor) thought was a milk allergy. Dr. Dunk, Chase's pediatrician referred us to UNC children's allergy clinic where we went yesterday to have that allergy confirmed.
I was nervous about taking such a little guy to undergo this testing but he was a trooper. Even though it was right during his morning nap time he did really well.

Here he is squirming around on the examining table where we discovered that he was much happier than being held the whole time.

This was the tough part where they had to do the skin test. The red part that you can see here at the top of his back showed that he has a definite milk allergy. Awesome. Of all things, milk. Very strange since there's probably noone on earth who eats more cheese than me. It's very bizarre to me that he can have such an intense allergy but yet tolerate it through breast milk. I'm not asking any questions, though. Thank goodness he will most likely outgrow it. I can't imagine the poor little guy having to go through his childhood without macaroni and cheese and grilled cheese sandwiches. What would life be like without that???

Chilling at the pool

So, yeah. The hat we brought was slightly too small for Chase's head. Didn't really do so well in keeping the sun out of his face. He didn't seem to mind so much, though.

Again. He seems pretty content.

Here we go. Luckily Terry (Papa) let Chase borrow his hat. All those brains apparently mean that we need to invest in adult-size hats. No more 0-3 month-size for Chase.

Swimming in the big pool

We went to my mom's house this past weekend and Chase swam in the big pool for the first time. Unfortunately the hat that I brought for him was too small so he's wearing Terry's (aka Papa) hat. He seems to be holding his own in this little float and was even "swimming" away from me by kicking his legs...He doesn't seem too scared of the water so far so that's good.

Real men wear pink

What?? They do!

How fast they grow

I thought it would be fun to look back and compare how much Chase has grown in the last 4 and a half months. You can see how little he was when we first brought him home in his car seat. It's amazing to see the difference a few short months can make.

Chase's friend, Noah.

At Diane's (Chase's babysitter), Chase has a friend who is just a few weeks older than him and his name is Noah. I think it's so cute to see them together because they are so close to the same size. They seem pretty happy with one another here where it almost looks like they're holding hands.

It looks like Noah's thinking, "Wait. Why aren't you interested in me anymore?"

Noah's happier here.

New toy

We pulled out this Baby Einstein activity center that we got as a gift at one of our baby showers before Chase was born. It's been a lot of fun to pull out these kinds of things as Chase grows into them...It's almost like getting new presents! :)
Chase seemed to enjoy this new toy as you can see him holding onto it.

A couple of minutes later he became more interested in eating his hands as you can see in this picture...

Notice how small he looks here...His feet were dangling and it seems like it'll be a while before he can reach the bottom so that he can spin around in the seat...I thought it was funny that it looks like he's floating in this new toy.

It wasn't until several days later that I realized the activity center can be lowered and therefore Chase won't have to "float" in it any longer...(notice that there are 2 shorter "notches" that you can move it down to). Thanks, Betty Ann for helping me realize that. :) Everything is so complicated these days.