Do Not Be Alarmed! (Yeah, right...)

So, many of you know that Evan (newest little sand digger) at the tender age of 6 weeks needed to be hospitalized for a lovely little 'bout of breathing mystery. No, he did not have a cold or even a bit of congestion. He simply grunts and squeeks with the occasional spell of stopping breathing and then starts himself right up again with encouragement from Mama or Dada. These episodes are never more than 15-20 secs (feels like an eternity when you are the parent!).

Those brilliant minds, including the head honcho himself over at UCSF went over our little guy with a tender heart, gentle hand, and a fine tooth medical comb. The current diagnosis that appears to be the cause of these scary moments is severe infant GERD. Basically, our little guy's sphincter muscle between his esphogus and and stomach is still developing and at the moment is a bit too floppy. This state allows acid to go the wrong way (up into the throat), and when this happens his smart little brain says "hey you baby - you are choking on this vile stuff, better stop breathing for awhile!" Luckily, his brain also says in a quick enough manner - "oh, my bad, that acid is pretty nasty but you can go ahead a breathe again, your parents would probably appreciate that!"

We are told by every doc that he will most certainly outgrow this scary phase and otherwise our baby boy looks "fantastic!" In fact, for a babe with a tummy ache, he is growing like a weed! His current measurements remind us of Piper at his age, off the charts... Check out photos below and see for yourself.

Piper is enjoying water of any kind and with this heat lately who can blame her? Most our days are spent either in the kiddie pool, at various creeks, the ocean, or the community pool down the street. Evan appears to be quite the water baby as well. Thank goodness! If Evan also like horses as much as Pi we have plenty to do in terms of shared family interests. However, these kiddos just may show us someday something new we didn't even realize we enjoyed. We've learned letting the little ones lead the way is always full of fun new surprises!