Wanda - I am glad that you found the solution for your daughter. My grandson does not seem to have a milk allergy. That was the first thing the docs checked. Carla - They do keep him upright, in fact, a lot of time is spent holding him that way. If he's down (on his back only) or reclining, they keep his body straight. They have the Bjorn carrier, which braces him pretty well. I'll mention the notion of not burping him, which is amazing! He is not constipated, lol (I know that that is not really an lol, especially for you). His stools are pretty much what is expected when breastfeeding. I think that they are going with the growing out of it expectation. I would like them to press harder, but it is very difficult for me to make suggestions. They are sensitive; they are using all their energy to hold things together. Interesting that you mentioned their marriage. I've thought about that, but things seem to be okay. My DIL is a very calm and patient person, and my son is a very earnest and sincere guy about all this, so I think that they'll be all right. My now ex-husband and I took our elder son through ten years of catastrophic asthma. It was a tremendously difficult, awful ordeal. At around year seven of that battle, we divorced. I know that the illness played a big role; it eventually drove us apart. Even though my husband was a superior dad in terms of being there when the asthma struck and our son was hospitalized, too many times to count, nevertheless he spent more and more time away from home. He needed adventure and excitement and we had a boy who needed all kinds of meds and a breathing machine if we were more than twenty minutes from a hospital, not to mention our home life, which was very quiet. Mainly because my son and I would use the non-crisis times to recover and get normal again. Then it would start all over again. My now DH's love of hominess and just generally being around all the time is one of the things that drew me to him. He was and is always "here". I have also thought that my younger DS, the baby's dad, was deeply influenced by his brother's long illness - in his child's mind he observed that no doctors, meds or many hospitalizations, even surgeries, could make the asthma go away. His brother had to grow out of it, which he didn't do until he was in college. So they may feel that as we were alone, so are they. I have noticed on the reflux boards that many parents are just holding on, even with a battery of doctors and various treatments. Some of their situations remind me of my mind-set with my son's asthma. IOW, hang on, try whatever, there is no cure, only coping, forget about the house, just "hold it together." Thanks for your attentiveness!

LOL! The colors are sometimes kind of shocking! But fun :) DD had a palate expander for a while - that wasn't so fun. The braces are going great for us so far. Remarkable change in just a few months!!! Those first couple days are kind of tender - but that goes by fast. Like others have said, have some soft food ready. DD is 17 so she drives herself to all her appointments, and usually has a couple other younger kids with her that aren't old enough to drive off their permits. They all kind of schedule together so they can car pool. That works great! Then they hit Mc D's before returning to school - lol! Our ortho is about 25 miles away. Your just the sweetest Grandma!!

Thank you for updating us, it's good to know your grandson is on the road to recovery. Also good to know he is taking this 'lesson' to heart! ! And to be perfectly honest, I have learned from this, too! It never occurred to me that minor scrapes & scratches can be so dangerous! I have reached the age where my skin is thin, very thin! So I am forever getting little nicks and tears, especially on my arms. Sometimes I don't even notice them until I find some dried blood dripped somewhere. (I am on blood thinners, so there is always a lot of blood with even very small skin tears.) Then I just wash them of & go on with what I was doing. But from now on, the wasting off will be followed by antibiotic cream & a Band-Aid! And by the way, Anglophilla, Band Aids were causing bruising and skin tears on me, too. I found the Band Aid brand 'Comfort Sheer' comes off pretty easy. And something I learned from a nurse after my second cataract surgery, gently massage some type of oil into the bandaid and it will come off very easily. In fact, the Comfort Sheers will almost fall off! I think any type of oil or lotion will work, the nurse that used this method on me was using what looked like hand lotion. I've used Vitamin E oil because that was what was handy at the time. I just wish I had known this trick 50 years ago, when I had a house full of growing boys! ! Rusty

I'm so happy for you, Rose, that you will have this time with your grandson. I echo what everyone else has said, enjoy him! My grands are from 14 to 36, and the times when they were so little, and I could hold them, snuggle them, read to them, play games with them, seems such a short amount of time that happened so long ago. Now I have great grands, from almost 2 to 12, but I don't get to have nearly as much time with them has I had with their dads. Life changes as we grow older. Rusty