The latest computer virus is called Storm Worm and comes in an email message with a subject line of “230 dead as storm batters Europe.” You’ve been warned.

As you may know, I participate in the message boards at the Infant Reflux Disease site. Since Jonah is transitioning to solids – I’m speaking it into existence, people – I’m reading about how other children with GERD/reflux have fared.  Here’s a quote from a recent post:

“Meal times must be with family for socialization and modeling purposes. In my feeding clinic, I offer 3-4 foods at most during a meal. If there is gagging, it is ignored. If there is vomiting, I throw a towel over it and we continue to eat. I do not blink an eye and that is what I teach my parents to do. My patients have their parents so conditioned to freak out, that they typically get their way. All they have to do is gag or vomit when a new food is introduced.”   Robynne Elkin, MOT, OTR/L, CKT

Tough love! We’ve tried from the very beginning to minimize our reaction to the gags/vomits, with varying degrees of success (when it’s the sixth time you’ve been drenched that day, sometimes it’s hard to suppress a few well-chosen words of frustration). I offer Jonah porridge from a spoon once a day and he’ll between a teaspoon and a couple of tablespoons. He gags frequently, but I keep shoving it in there anyway. It’s right before he gets a bottle, so there’s not a lot to bring up even though he tries.

Amy, from The Texture of Things, commented on my preemie clothes info the other day....she has a preemie daughter with food issues as well. You can read more about her experiences here.

One of my faithful readers has requested a Benja-Tale. Seems most of my posts the last few days have been about Jonah, little rascal that he is. Benjamin is doing headstands. On the tile floor. This is one reason why we still have a nagging concern about his brain capacity. He has also started shrieking like a stuck pig, sometimes when he’s frustrated and sometimes just for fun. Jonah doesn’t like it. Benjamin also had great fun playing with his friend Heidi last night (we won’t tell Bob what a flirt he was).

And finally, picture a diorama with a small pom-pom chick alone in a dollhouse-sized crib with the caption: “Abandoned once again in his padded bunker, Jonas plotted a swift and sweet revenge. ‘Sleep with one eye open, Mother.’” This is one of many hilarious vignettes in the book Bitter With Baggage by Sloane Tanen and Stefan Hagen. You can see excerpts here.

Jonah’s nasty diaper rash is finally clearing – we finally figured out he was having a reaction to the lactose in the formula, which is odd, because he was on this exact same formula a month ago with no problems. So he is on lactose-free formula and the diarrhea is decreasing each day. One part of his rash was actually raw – that’s how bad it got. We couldn’t even use wipes because he would scream – we had to use kleenxes. May we never experience that again!

It looks like Benjamin is just about over the GERD / reflux. The only remnant is a tendency to throw up when he chokes even slightly. He is down to 7.5 mg of Prevacid in the morning…. We plan to stop giving him Prevacid altogether in a week or two.

And he is turning into a little boy… his legs are lengthening and his face is narrowing. Those little cheeks aren’t quite so chubby anymore! Sometimes, especially after a nap, it catches me by surprise….he’s becoming a toddler!

During the last week Jonah has been identifying Jonathan as “dada.” When I get him out of his crib in the morning, sometimes I bring him into our bedroom. Right when we enter – before seeing Jonathan - Jonah says “dada!” He knows Jonathan is in the bed. Some days he will go into our room looking for Jonathan in the bed.

When Jonathan poured the vinegar on his salad at a restaurant the other day, it came gushing out all over the place, much to his annoyance.

Me: “It bothers you because you are soiling your hands?”

Jonathan shakes his head.

Me: “It bothers you because it was so imprecise?”

He shakes his head again. Then he says, pointing to the side of the container, “It bothers me because it is bringing all this grease from other people’s fingers onto my salad.”

Who thinks of things like this?! And why?!

Here's one of my favorite pictures of the boys thus far.  It's been challenging enough trying to get both to look in the general direction of the camera, maintain a somewhat pleasant facial expression, and keep their eyes open (Jonah!)..... then Benjamin goes and tries to grab the camera.

Jonathan just said his swear word of choice in recent days is “Mother.”   (which made me laugh so hard I nearly choked on my own spit)

But may the sins of the fathers not be visited upon the sons…ack!

Here’s a picture of the boys in Punta del Este in front of the fingers coming out of the beach. Apparently we were there at the same time as Saddam Hussein’s lawyer, who I guess went for a bit of rest and relaxation after his client was executed.

Lo and behold!  Jonah is eating solids!  (Hallelujah Chorus in the background, please)  He willingly and eagerly ate 3 ½ oz of vegetable matter the other day, much to everyone’s amazement.  He didn’t want any bottle afterwards, though, so essentially he lost a meal.  The plan now is for both boys to get solids only with formula offered straight up in a sippy cup….starting with only the Afternoon Tea meal.  They will get Super Porridge (from Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron) so it will have more nutrition that just vegetables or fruit.  My hopes are high!

Jonathan let out such a loud exclamation from the hotel bathroom in Punta that I thought he had accidentally flushed away one of the boys. Alas, my germophobic husband had dropped his hairbrush in the toilet. Since we didn’t have a vat of bleach handy (and even if we had…) goodbye hairbrush.

We came back to the room that evening and found the maid had taken the brush out of the trash and placed it on the bathroom shelf, much to Jonathan’s dismay and disgust. Into the trash it went again, this time covered by The Daily Bomb.

We refer to the plastic bag holding the boy’s used diapers as The Daily Bomb. As Jonathan says, merely depositing it in the dumpster could be considered an act of terrorism.