I did it again...
I moved out of my comfort zone and held a birthday party somewhere other than my house!
This time it was for Noah's 7th birthday and at his request, we BOWLED!
The space and time constraints at the alley did't allow for a lot of decorating options, but I couldn't resist jazzing up the place just a bit!
Noah invited a group of boys from school and divided them into two teams... The King Pins and The Rolling Thunder! Each team had their little table decorated and prepped for cupcakes and ice cream with a bowling ball cake pop "appetizer"!
The boys all wore white shirts to the party so they could wear their team logo on their shirt. They were super cute!
I thought it would be fun to have the boys do some silly bowling too...after all, they are very SILLY seven year old boys!
So inside each guests place card was a silly bowling technique that they had to perform during certain rounds.
They ended up loving the silly bowling so much that they kept trading cards so they could all try out all of the silliness! "Tunnel Bowl" was the hands down favorite of the day!
For treats, we had chocolate and vanilla cupcakes, chocolate bowling ball cake pops, and ice cream.
Noah had no problem blowing out his SEVEN bowling pin candles, but opted to continue bowling instead of eating his cupcake!
Unfortunately for her pretty white shirt, the same can't be said about Molly!
At the end of the bowling, I awarded each guest a trophy with a special award. The awards were things like "highest score", "best warm up routine", "most dangerous bowler", "most strikes", "silliest bowler", "fastest ball", etc. The little trophies had cake pops inside them too.
The kids thought the trophy's were pretty cool, but each wanted a thorough explanation as to WHY I chose them for their awards... it required some creativity on my part!
We opened presents (of course!) and I was so proud of how thoughtful Noah was with each gift. He read every card out loud and remembered to thank every one as he opened their gift!
At the end of the party, Noah gave each guest a take home "Bowling Ball" filled with more sweet treats.
The party favors are always one of my favorite things about a birthday party and I was tickled to find these balls to use for the bowling party treats.
Here's what was inside...
...LOTS of sugar, a bouncy ball, and a bowling pin writing pen. I'm sure the parents were thrilled with the amount of SUGAR I loaded them up with at this party! It sure was CUTE sugar though!
Speaking of SUGAR, do you think all the sugar made them act like this?
Seriously, when did my child get so old that he makes silly faces and random finger poses for pictures?
All in all, it was another successful birthday party in the books! Noah was very happy and so I was very happy too!
*****
I had to include a few pics of Emily too! She and her friend, Ellie, had an absolute BALL bowling on their own lane. Emily alternated being tap dancing with the bowling shoes and cheerleading as her ball S-L-O-W-L-Y made its way down the lane!
I was hopeful... very hopeful.
But it seems that it was not meant to be.
Round 4 has begun...
Abby has colic.
We had about a 2 week "honeymoon". But now, she is either asleep or crying. There are little to no happy awake times. And I dare say she may be the most unhappy of all the babies during her waking hours... which at this point, are very few.
It's sad. Very sad.
And quite honestly, I feel like screaming and crying just as loud and hard as she does!
Colic is miserable. I think the very worst part of it is that NO ONE knows what causes it or what to do about it! It is downright awful to watch your newborn baby cry in obvious pain and not know what is causing it or how to fix it.
And even though I feel like I've already tried everything on the market to try to "fix" the colic in my past babies, I simply can't do nothing. And so I've begun Round 4 of searching for something... anything... to make it better. But as I said, NO ONE knows what causes the unending, painful crying...
Some say it's acid reflux...
So we use this...
It's called a "Nap Nanny CHILL" and the packaging said something about guaranteeing the best sleep ever for your baby (yea, right!). So when I saw it in Babies R Us before Abby was even born, I bought it despite its hefty price tag and its exclusion from my 20% off coupon! This is not my first rodeo when it comes to colic and I knew the first "cause" my doctor would jump to is reflux... even though Abby doesn't vomit or have many other symptoms of traditional reflux. I also knew she would tell me to elevate the top of the baby's crib. As I said, it's not my first rodeo and in the past, I've used stacks of books to prop up the top end of the bassinet. This Nap Nanny seemed a better solution and given it's package guarantee of good sleep, I caved and purchased it!
But it doesn't cure colic!
Neither does holding the baby in an upright position for 30 minutes to 1 hour after she eats. And yes, that includes the middle of the night feedings!
Some say it's an immature digestive system...
Several friends who are well versed in the world of natural cures and whole foods nutrition informed me that baby's get all of their good bacteria (flora) during the delivery process. So I started taking triple the amount of my own probiotic before Abby was born in hopes of giving her enough flora to prevent colic.
It didn't work!
And now, I'm taking double amounts of all of this to try to get even more good probiotics into her unhappy digestive system...
But it's not curing the colic!
Some say it's just gas...
As I said, this isn't my first colic rodeo so I already knew not to even bother with Mylecon drops... they only make the gas worse! I've purchased all kinds of Gripe Waters in the past and none of them worked, but I decided to try another one. That, along with the Colic tablets that never worked before and a new "tummy belt" are my current attempts to eliminate her gas and calm her upset tummy.
This is what the packaging on the tummy belt says...
If only it really were as easy as 1-2-3! But, guess what?!
It doesn't cure colic!
And neither do the Gripe Water or Colic Tablets!
Some say it's neurological...
This is the one that really perplexes me as there does seem to be some component of truth to it. The theory is that newborns are overstimulated by the new environment they find themselves in and to calm them, you should do what you can to emulate the prenatal environment in which they lived for 9 months. So we use the "Miracle Blanket" to swaddle her up tight at night and sound machines that mimic a heartbeat and white noise.
We have an expensive swing that swings side to side (more like the movement in utero) and has white noise/heartbeat sounds built in. She clearly hates it!
And I own every sling and baby wrap on the market and although I can occasionally get her to sleep in the sling...
None of it cures colic!
Except temporarily...
The perplexing part of all of this mess is that turning on the vacuum cleaner or the blow dryer temporarily calms the crying. Even during bouts of what seems to be extreme pain, the loud sound of the vacuum or hair dryer cause her tense body to relax... but only while they are running! And so if you come to my house you will often see (and hear) a blow dryer running inside my sink, a vacuum running upright in the middle of my kitchen, or water continually running from the faucet.
Some say its a reaction to MY stress...
When a doctor asks me if I'm stressed, I'd like to respond by sarcastically asking them when the last time they spent 24 hours with a coliky baby and 3 other small children was! YES... I'm stressed! My baby screams all the time and I don't know what to do about it!
Nevertheless, I'm going to a chiropractor to help me with my stress. He gave me this "Calming Essence"...
And I put this on her feet to relax her...
But as you might imagine...
It doesn't cure colic!
And I'm still stressed!
Some say it's a temporary lactose intolerance...
I happened upon a news story on Fox News before Abby's birth in which Dr. Sears was talking about a potential new cure for colic. My ears immediately tuned it. He surmised that for years, most people have assumed that the dairy intolerance that some babies have is from an inability to digest the PROTEIN in the cow's milk (consumed by the mother that passes into the breast milk). But new research has shown that some babies are actually temporarily lactose intolerant; meaning it's the SUGAR in the cow's milk that is the problem. And there's a fix for that! It's in the form of an enzyme drop that helps babies break down the lactose. It's called Colief and Dr. Sears said it was "curing about 50%" of his colicky baby patients.
I ordered it online from my hospital room!
I gave it to Abby a few times; and guess what...
It doesn't cure colic!
At least not the variety that she has!
And then there's the standard dairy protein insensitivity...
This seemed to be at least part of the culprit with Molly. The solution is to eliminate every single bit of dairy from MY diet facilitating label reading and lots of patience and endurance to make sure that I don't consume anything with milk, casein, or whey. I'm working on it, but I haven't been perfect. And it doesn't seem to be making much of a difference (except that on the one night I ate ice cream, she had a particularly awful night).
And last, some say it could be any number of things I am eating... beyond the dairy issue.
My chiropractor told me not to eat dairy, grains, wheat, red meats, or sugar! That leaves veggies, nuts, and white meats. I wanted to ask him if I can get steamed veggies and fish at a drive through because when you have to hold a screaming baby all day and night, it doesn't leave any hands left to make meals! And as I wrote while enduring colic with Molly, the unending crying makes me want to eat endless amounts of Oreos!
I've been going to a chiropractor and although he told me not to eat most foods, he told me take all of this...
And while it might be making me healthier...
It's not curing the colic!
And so I'm left with trying the one thing I've never been able to bring myself to try...
I bought it tonight along with some bottles.
And I cried when I got home. Just the thought of it upsets me.
It's hard to explain, but I want nothing more than to be able to nurse Abby in the same way I did the others. And so I'm slightly terrified to try the formula for fear that it will make it better and I'll be forced to decide if I want to live on veggies and fish for the next year or if the formula is worth her happiness and my lowered stress level.
But as I watched her scream in pain last night, I told myself I could do it... give it 48 hours to see if it makes a difference. At least I will then know if it has anything to do with my breast milk. At least it might be a starting point...
Because short of boiling an onion in sugar water and giving that to her (yes, that was a recommendation I recently received), I feel like I've tried everything else.
And I need it to get better because even with Nap Nanny's and Tummy Belts and Pacifiers and Sound Machines and Vacuum Cleaners, I simply don't think I have the stamina to endure many more months of Round 4!
*****
I happened to find this article while searching for information online about colic. I think it is a pretty good representation of what colic does to a parent!
And lastly, if you happen to be reading and have a solution for colic that I haven't tried, please share it with me! I'll try anything... except the onion/sugar water because the mere thought of that makes me want to cry!
