Why did we move here again?

Well, illness has hit the littlest Coffey this week . . .

Last weekend we noticed Liam had a little bump on his leg, and the next day I saw two small blisters on his index finger. By Monday he had several bumps on his hands and we began to see them on his feet as well. Most of you have figured out by now that he has hand, foot, and mouth disease. Big bummer. : (  I'm not quite sure where he got it since he wasn't around other kids while we were on vacation, but it could've been on the airplane or even the plane ride Liam loved so much in Mallorca -- who knows? Besides the few small sores, he has also been coughing and sneezing, drooling like crazy, and had a low grade fever for a couple days. I could tell his throat is sore so I've been giving him a cup of water throughout the day and he guzzles down the cool water as quickly as he can, as I'm sure it soothes his throat.

Things I've learned . . . (3 months)

So my "baby" is now 3 months old and I know everyone says time flies, but DANG! Liam is growing by leaps and bounds -- he's sleeping like a champ (10-12 hours a night), rolling over both ways, and eating steak and potatoes for dinner. I kid, I kid, but seriously, he may as well be for how much he's grown! I'm even wondering if he's about to have some teeth cut through with how much he's drooling!

Liam had his monthly check-up today and his 3 month stats are:
weight: 14 lbs. 13 oz. (6.72 kg, for my Dutch friends)
length: 24.8 in (63 cm)
head circumference: 16.6 in. (42.2 cm)

. . . a laundry problem

One thing we've been dealing with lately has been Liam's spit- up. About a month ago we took him to the ER because he was spitting up bile, to which they concluded it must've been a bug or something. Well, twice last week he spit up bile in the morning again -- but not near as much as the first time, and with no other symptoms. He acted completely normal the rest of the day and seemed ok. But we took him to the doctor on Monday anyway, just to have him checked out. The doctor said it must be reflux, and said for me to "feed Liam less" -- I almost asked him if he had ever tried to remove a baby from his nipple before. But I didn't. I obviously have lots of restraint.

Keith and I were less than thrilled when we left, so I took Liam to our consultatiebureau the next day because they had open office hours after 4:00 pm that day. They weighed him and he's a whopping 14 pounds, 8 ounces! I talked with the doctor there about what had been going on, and she gave me much better advice about a few things to try. She also made me feel better about how normal it is for breast-fed babies to spit up this way, and really said that this is more of a laundry problem than a health problem. Especially because he is gaining weight great and hitting all his milestones. It may just be something we deal with for the time being. He hasn't had any more problems with spit-up this week, which is wonderful, and I hope the trend continues! But if anyone has any other advice, I'm all ears -- especially how to cope with the bile when it happens, which isn't often, but I hate to know he's in pain : (

2 month check-up

Today we took Liam to the consultatiebuereau, which is where he goes for all his "well visits." We go to our "huisarts," or house doctor, if/when he gets sick, but all the well visits are done down the street at our local consultatiebuereau. This was our second visit and we were much more prepared -- we had no idea what to expect the first time we went, and were a little caught off guard with their procedures. Although maybe it's the same at the pediatrician's offices in the States? Being our first child, we obviously didn't know what we were doing!