Two Cases to Crack

We have had two mysterious things happen over the past few days...

Case #1, we'll call it "The Curious Case of the Random 'No,'" started on Thursday I believe. Brian has been shaking his head "no" at random times and for no apparent reason. He doesn't know the to say "no" yet, and even if he did, this shaking is not connected to questions, or things he doesn't want to do, so he's definitely not responding with the word "no." He first did it on Thursday in the car when the sun was shining in his face. This, I assumed, was his way of getting the sun out of his face. David, one of the Banta kids, reported it and thought it was hilarious. Brian continued this behavior on Friday when I was tutoring. I was singing the "Shake Your Booty Song" while holding him, and he started shaking his head back and forth. Again, I thought it was cute, and didn't think much more about it. However, by Friday night, he was doing it more often, and at totally random and unexplainable times. For instance, at Target, he started shaking his head back and forth in the cart while we were walking through the store. This, Shawn pointed out to him, didn't help the fact that people already assume he's "special" because of the helmet. Given that Brian is 8 months old (TODAY ACTUALLY!), this reasoning did not stop him from playing his new game.

Shawn's statement made me suddenly nervous about the behavior. As the weekend went on, Brian continued to shake his head sporadically. So, I called my Aunt Sarah who's a pediatrician and asked her advice. She said to have his eyes and ears checked, and to consult with the physical therapist. I sent the PT an email right away, and made an appointment at our pediatrician's office for Monday (yesterday) morning.

The pediatrician checked his ears, eyes, nose, throat and breathing and there were no issues-a relief. The PT called me on Monday (she's WONDERFUL) and told me that she has seen kids move their heads more, and in weird ways while undergoing PT for torticolis. She thinks it's because they are so much more aware of their head and neck since we are constantly messing with them to do the stretches and exercises. This made sense to me, so I feel much better about Brian's new behavior. Both cautioned to not call attention to it, or laugh about it, as Brian may pick up on this and continue to do it as a result!

Case #2, we are calling "The Case of the Missing Poo." Yesterday morning, Brian pushed out a small little poo while eating breakfast. For anyone who has witnessed him eating, this is not uncommon. It seems that if something goes in, something must also come out! Anyway, I cleaned the oatmeal off of his face when he had finished eating, and took him to the changing table to change the diaper. Brian's poo is quite ball-like at the moment, and would you believe the little turd rolled out of the diaper and over the back of the changing table before I could stop it?! Well, I swear it did! Anyway, what are you going to do, right? So I cleaned up his little tushie, put a new diaper on, and put him in the crib so I could begin searching for the poo.

I began by extending my arm toward the back of the changing table from the front and running it all along the back wall. No poo, but I did find some very large dust bunnies. Next, I tried moving the dresser to look. I couldn't find it anywhere! The dresser/changing table is pretty heavy, so this task had taken a lot out of me. I began to think maybe I was just crazy and I had imagined it. So, I checked the freshly changed trashcan and inside of the diaper to see if maybe I had disposed of the poo without realizing it. Nope! At this point, I figured, it wouldn't hurt to just wait to continue my search until Shawn got home and could completely move the dresser to help me look. So, I sent him an email explaining the little problem. Can you believe he didn't even respond? I mean, really, if your signifgant other wrote you an email telling you they had lost poo, would you not at least wrote back some sarcastic comment?

Anyway, when Shawn got home, we reconvened the search, this time armed with flashlights. Even with a helper and flashlights, we never did find the poo! So, this case is, for now, unsolved. Any thoughts on where it might have gone? Our best bets are on Ruben's belly. Yum!