Growing Up Second

So here is my promised entry about lil’ Ollie Neil. But first I must start with a confession. I have been grossly negligent in providing our friends and family a better account of Oliver’s growing up. It has been on my mind over the last several months, if not longer. I knew some time ago that I would have to be very conscious about how I divided my time and affections between Lola and Oliver. It’s probably no secret that I very much wanted a daughter when we found out Julie was pregnant with Lola. I’m not sure exactly why and I’m not really interested in pyscho- analyzing my preference, I just knew I did. So naturally Lola has been the apple of my eye.But there is more to my dereliction than that. Since Ollie was born Julie and I quite naturally divided our responsibilities between the two. Because Oliver is exclusively breast-fed, Julie has to be the closest to him at all times. Once you get into a groove with taking care of someone, it’s not that easy to switch gears back and forth between different schedules, needs, and abilities. So my focus has remained on Lola throughout the first 5 months of Ollie’s life.But wait - there’s more. I also have to admit that many of the things Oliver does is not so life-stopping-amazing. For example, I don’t have the time much anymore to contemplate Ollie’s flatulence as I did with Lola (Today’s Poll). And because Lola continues to lead the way with new and “exotic” things that a child learns, it has been easy (for me) to overlook Ollie’s accomplishments. Is that bad or natural or reality. I don’t know but, it’s a subject I think about.OK, enough about me - let’s talk about Oliver!He had his 4 month doctor appointment recently (a little late) and he is doing quite well. Physically, he is way ahead of the curve. His doctor was impressed that he is able to sit up by himself already and seems to have gross motor skills that are normally seen in infants several months older. He weighs 16 lbs. and is 26 inches tall. To end his visit they gave him 5 vaccinations in 3 shots! Poor guys. But he recovered just fine and now we go back at 6 months.In other news, first mentioned in my last post, he has two teeth which have broke through the gums in the lower, front and appears to have four more on deck on top! Even his teeth grow fast. It’s almost to the point that when Lola takes clothes off at night they go straight to Ollie!A few other interesting tidbits - he has pretty much outgrown his infant car seat. We are going to get him a convertible seat this weekend. He has been expressing (in no uncertain terms) some separation anxiety when Mama drops him off at daycare or leaves after his afternoon feeding. And, one of my favorites, this young man has a regular habit of poopy diaper blow-outs that shoot straight out the top in back and has been the ruin of every other onesie he wears.His sleeping habits are not as far along as we’d like. He wakes up two times a night, if we are lucky, and three or four if he’s feeling troublesome. The sleep training may be difficult because he can really let out a loud cry and we don’t want to wake Lola up by ignoring him and hoping he goes back to sleep. We are looking into next steps. Oh, and finally, we have slowly started to introduce him to solid food. We hope that has some affect on his ability to sleep through the night. We gave him a bit of avocado and rice cereal and he gives that classic scrunched-up, “what the hell is that” look. I got some video that I will post in the near future.Ok, that’s all I’ll make you read tonight but come on back for more regular and in-depth reporting on Lola’s little brother. Here’s a gallery of recent Oliver pictures.