Where are things at, Patsy? Has he made any phone calls to set up any appts. yet? Has he talked about it any more to you? I REALLY hope he gets the help he obviously needs-for all three of yours sakes.
SOLIDS-I wanted to wait as close to 6 months as I could when I first started off but the week leading up to Zander's 4 month birthday I put cereal in his bottle. He hasn't slept all night in a month now, and I am talking getting up numerous times, not just once. When I took him to his 4 month checkup they gave me specific instructions to also start giving him veggies and fruits, starting with once a day to make sure he doesn't get bad gas from it but to start feeding him 3xs a day asap to try and fill him up!!!

He was in the 80th percentile for height and weight!
He loves bananas and sweet potatoes but not peaches or oatmeal or rice cereal unless they are in his bottle. he will eat an entire Gerber container of food and then follow it up with a four ounce bottle!

And he STILL doesn't sleep through the night yet!!
BTW, he never developed croup. his ped seems to think he had a reflux episode and that the position he was sitting in caused it to reach the esophagus and choke him a little, causing him to gasp for air. Makes more sense than the whole "well, he may have forgotten to breath" or "he's getting the croup" that the hospital told me!
Staley-your trip sounds awesome!! I would love to do a 10 day trip and be able to stay at POR! Hopefully your DH will surprise you (as well as your mother) and it will be a quite pleasant trip!