as thus it begins

It's amazing how impressionable Ethan already is! Last week my mother-in-law was giving him a bath, and suddenly I heard him say "oh my gone, oh my gone!" I assume he was repeating "oh my God" but just didn't know what he was saying. And then the other day he was riding on a broom, which he does sometimes when he pretends it's a horse, but this time he said "I'm a witch!" Whaaaa???!! I have no idea where he's picking these things up! Well, my neighbor says "oh my God" a lot, but dunno where the witch thing came from! I guess we're in for a lot more of these little surprises as the boys get older. Hopefully we'll have the wisdom to know what to do when these things sneak up on us!

Lazy Days

I was reminded today about how blessed I am. I was talking to an older mom (her kids are teenagers) and she was commenting on how she missed the days of staying home with her kids. Where the most pressing decision was what to have for lunch, and sometimes you could stay in your pjs all day. In the middle of the stressful times of being with two itty-bitty boys, I hope I can remember how much I am blessed to be able to stay home with them.

I am grateful for 5 loads of laundry, because it means I have more than enough clothes for my family.
I am grateful for 3 am feedings because I always get a smile when I change his diaper.
I am grateful for messy counters because it means I can feed my family.
I am grateful for dirty floors because it means I've been able to spend time playing instead of just cleaning. They also remind me that I have beautiful carpet and hardwood floors, not dirt or straw.
I'm thankful for tantrums because they mean I have a healthy, normal boy who's full of energy and his own opinions.

memory

Apparently I'm back with a vengeance! It's been so long since I've posted and now I just keeping thinking of new things I want to say. It helps that I'm not so exhausted anymore. Pregnancy, toddlers, and newborns can really take it out of you!

So Ethan keeps surprising me with his memory. We ask him every evening what kinds of things he did and it's always interesting to see what he remembers! The other day Jon was talking to him, and Ethan said "french fries". That was what we had for lunch - apparently the most exciting part of the day to this toddler is food!

Today we were at the mall for a bit, and we walked past a set of stairs. Ethan stopped to look at it, and then said "I want to go to [the] library!" Funny thing is, the library hasn't been there for almost a year! I was so surprised that he would remember that he used to go downstairs in the mall to get to the library. Wild.

We also like to test his recall with some books. There are a few books (Oliver Jeffers books in particular) that he can almost recite by this point. Today we were reading "The Paper Bag Princess" (except we call it "the dragon book", haha :), which I don't think we've "tested" him on before. Every time I stopped reading and looked at him, he gave me the next phrase!

One more story - yesterday we walked over to Sobeys, and at the till I realized that I'd left my wallet at home. So we had to make another round trip. This morning, just as we were leaving for the doctor's office, he says "oh no! Wallet Mommy!" Haha. Apparently my folly made a big impression on him. :) Reminds me of last May when I'd lost my keys and we were trying to get to swimming lessons. For days after that, he kept saying "Keys lost Mommy!"

This is probably a normal thing for toddlers, but I love being surprised by him every day!

And just for fun, here's a picture of him holding a bunny with Jon. :)

and the fun continues

Pretty sure I have mastitis. Oh well, I'll go to the doc tomorrow and get pumped full of antibiotics. Then I'll just hope I don't end up with thrush, haha. :)

beddy-bye

Hurrah, finally a regular bedtime for Oliver! About a month ago I started giving him a bath before I wanted him to go to sleep for the night, and finally in the last 3 days it seems to have clicked in. Around 6:30 I give him him a bath, during which he coos and squeals and smiles right at me the whole time. Then I give him a little massage and bring him upstairs to put his pjs on. As soon as I put him on the change table, he starts doing his "I'm tired" cry and doesn't stop until I start nursing him. Then he does his feeding and falls asleep! I put him in bed and voila, I have an evening again! Wow. He still usually wakes up for two or three feeds in the night, but he usually goes right back to sleep! And early mornings are a little bit of a bum because he often needs help to sleep past 6ish, but he's been doing that since day 1, so we're used to it! Someday he'll surprise us and sleep straight until 8 :)

Ankyloglossia

The term “ankyloglossia” comes from the Greek words agkilos for crooked or loop and glossa for tongue. Also known as a short frenulum, and also known as tongue-tie. It seems like such a minor thing, but our journey with tongue-tie has felt very major!

When Oliver was checked by the pediatrician in the hospital, all was apparently normal. Yet from the start I had incredible pain with breastfeeding, causing a lot of crying, toe-crinkling, anda significant amount of screaming. There was blood and permanent damp scabs (bearing in mind that babies nurse every couple hours and newborns take 45-60 minutes each time!), yet every breastfeeding pro I talked to said it must be a latch problem. This included a doula, a couple nurses, and a volunteer from the La Leche League. On Day 4, the community health nurse came to do a routine check, and the first thing she said was "oh, I see he's tongue-tied". That phrase went off like a buzzer in my head - I knew that tongue-tie could cause problems with breastfeeding, because the tongue can't get in the right position. So on day 8, Oliver went through a minor frenotomy - the lactation consultant snipped his frenulum by a couple millimeters - as far as she felt was blood-vessel free. There was a drop of blood and he immediately nursed a little bit better.

By this point I was using a nipple shield (a piece of silicone vaguely shaped like a nipple - it decreases the pain, and allowed my scabs to heal), and for a few days after the snip, I tried to get him weaned off of it. He would fuss and cry, and I would fuss and cry, and in the end we ended up continuing to use the shield. Showing the lactation consultant how much he fussed without it convinced her to set us up with an appointment with a pediatric plastic surgeon. But the appointment wasn't until Oliver was 6 weeks old! I know that 6 weeks is an extremely short period of time, but when you're in the middle of it with an extremely slow nurser and crappy sleeper, it seems like an eternity!

To top it off, when I went to the pediatrician, he gave me heck for getting the frenulum snipped, because apparently the Canadian Pediatric Society has just decided that tongue-tie doesn't affect breastfeeding! Yeah right. And to prove it, Oliver got his final snipping last Thursday. And now he nurses perfectly WITHOUT the shield. The poor guy had to deal with a mouthful of blood and the occasional re-opening of the wound, but overall, he did great, and we are MUCH happier now! Instead of taking 30-40 minutes, he takes less than 10 minutes to finish a feeding.

Remind me to tell my pediatrician that the Canadian Pediatric Society really needs to do some further research before telling mothers that tongue-tie isn't important, and especially that it doesn't affect breastfeeding! It makes me wonder how many women have given up on breastfeeding their baby because of undiagnosed tongue-tie.

The great doorknob fiasco

Ok, time to start updating my blog again!

So a couple weeks ago, Ethan was deciding not to nap. When he does that, he lays down in front of his door and alternately whines and chatters. Usually I plunk him back in bed until he finally conks, but this time I was too tired and was busy with Oliver, so I just left him. Suddenly, the sounds in the monitor sounded...different. I wandered upstairs to find Ethan at the top of the stairs, holding the iPod (which was in Oliver's room), and wearing the biggest grin ever. His only comment? "I get out!"

Then, at 11 pm, Jon had just fallen asleep when suddenly a little shadow appeared at his side. The shadow plunked a book on his belly and said "read this book!" Needless to say he got ushered straight back to bed. Then again at 5:30 am, he was in our room. Now, we might have more patience with this and be willing to teach him the appropriate time to leave his room, had we not also been dealing with a 4-week old baby! So we rushed out that day to get those fabulous doorknob covers. Good thing too, because it turns out he's also discovered how to unlock and walk out the front and back doors.

So we nipped that in the bud, but we had a little addendum to the story a couple nights later. We were at the home of some friends, and we put Ethan down in a playpen for bed, since we hoped to stay for a while yet. As we're sitting outside, I suddenly saw this small child walking towards me. I had to blink a few times before I realized that it was Ethan! He had gotten out of the playpen and through 3 doors! Yet again, he approached with a big grin and the phrase "I get out!"

Turkey.

DIY Science...

So, in an effort to avoid a medical induction, I'm experimenting on myself to see if any of the do-it-yourself induction techniques hold water. I suppose it's not a perfect experiment, as there is no "control" group, but it will have to do!

Here's what I've tried:

1) Shaking a fist at the heavens and daring labor to start while 2 hours away from the nearest hospital for 24+ hours. The heavens apparently didn't feel like rising to the challenge.

2) Eating a whole pineapple. Yes, it's supposed to work - supposedly it helps soften the cervix. I suppose there's no way to tell if my cervix is softer, but there's certainly been no labor!

3) Walking. I spent 3+ hours on my feet on Canada Day. Unfortunately, nothing but tired feet.

4) Biking. We were out for 2+ hours today, probably biking for at least an hour of that. While my lungs and legs got a good workout, I think they forgot to send the memo to my uterus.

5) Induction Massage. They should re-label this "the painful massage". Seriously, labor hurts enough, why would I want to induce it by repeating the not-so-delightful "induction" techniques at home?

6) Washing the floor. Not much to say about this one, except that my floor is temporarily spick-and-span.

With my luck, labor will come on at 11 pm just as I'm about to go to bed. So what would be the induction technique then? Probably "wait until you least want it to come".

In all seriousness, my current theory is that NOTHING will work if the baby's not ready to come out. So all those stories you hear about women who ate a pineapple, walked for 6 miles, or did the "nasty" just before going into labor? All circumstantial.

Clearly my experiment is much more valid than their not-so-sage advice. Maybe I'll try to get it published.

I just love hearing Ethan pray. I don't think I've ever heard such a young child pray before, since usually when we pray in Sunday School, the 2 year olds are too timid to say anything. Anyway, we always pray at mealtimes, and Ethan's taken to adding his own prayers. He folds his hands and looks at his plate. Then he says his prayer. It always sounds something like this...

God...bebbuce (lettuce).

God...cheese.

God...meat.

God...doodoos (noodles).

In the ellipses, imagine him thinking "thank you for", since that's what we say. He doesn't stop until he has thanked God for each individual thing on his plate!

Looking for some peace in your day? Check out my favorite new website: aholyexperience.com.

I've been reading her book and starting my own gratitude journal. Her journey started out with counting out 1000 gifts from God. My own is currently on 106 and surprisingly, there's more every day! It's amazing how much more peaceful and joyful a day can become when you recognize and take joy in those moments.

I noticed it again today. Ethan was going downstairs, holding onto his daddy's hand. Suddenly he lifted up his legs and hung! Daddy commented that "you sure trust your daddy a lot." Later on we were doing some exploring outside, and Ethan was jumping from sidewalk into puddle-on-road, and then onto the snow-mound beside the puddle, and back into the puddle. The puddle wasn't very wide and was next to the sloping sidewalk, so he had a hard time standing. But he kept doing it because we kept steadying him. He never fell, not even once.

It made me think. Shouldn't this be what it's like to trust our Daddy a lot? To know that we can jump and He will steady us? To know that when we lift up our legs, we won't fall down the stairs but will be held tightly and land gently?

That kind of trust is hard to come by.

from the mouths of babes

Jon was frustrated with something at work, and he was explaining it to me this evening. He was rather upset, but we were sitting at the kitchen table with Ethan, and suddenly I noticed that he was trying to get our attention. I looked at him, and realized that he was folding his hands together, and saying "pray? pray? pray?" I was totally blown away because of the timing of his request. And strangely enough, we don't fold our hands to pray here, we holds hands with each other. So he learned that at church or Buddy Break and decided that right then was a good time to pray! I love it!

the power!

For the past 3 years I've been teaching the parents of our 2-year olds about the power of praying Biblical blessings over their kids. Since I've been teaching it, I figured I better put it into practice when I had a kid, so I've been praying the "may the Lord bless you" blessing over Ethan almost every night since he was born. Sometimes I vary it up with one I really like from Ephesians, but this one is the normal one.

Well, last night Ethan woke up very upset. I don't know if he'd had a bad dream or something, but I couldn't get him to lay down quietly and go back to sleep. So he was standing up in the crib and I was hugging him across the bars, and suddenly I decided to pray and then bless him. I prayed a short prayer, then recited the blessing. Immediately he calmed down, laid himself down, and went back to sleep. I was totally blown away!

I spent the next half hour mulling in bed. I knew from my lessons and other peoples' stories that Biblical blessings are powerful - I'd heard of kids who stopped fussing at bedtime, stopped having nightmares, and begged for their blessings even as young adults. Clearly Jacob was willing to totally screw his brother Esau just to get his father's blessing, and even Jesus is seen to be blessing the children in the New Testament. But I was still awed. I guess I always am when God shows up. I know I shouldn't be surprised, but I am!

Well, I guess I have a story of my own to share now when I teach the class again in June!

phone-aholic?

So Ethan wandered into the kitchen today with the phone, and I heard someone's voice coming out of the phone! I assumed he had somehow answered the phone when it rang, and I just hadn't heard it. It was our pastor's wife, and after a few moments of confusion, it turned out that she hadn't called us, Ethan had called her! I think he must have hit re-dial and then speakerphone. Good thing my last call wasn't a long-distance one!

milestones

Ethan hit a milestone on Monday that I never even realized was a milestone! It used to be that we would ask him about his day, and he would just smile at us.

But on Monday, we were rehashing the day to Daddy and he suddenly said "boat" and "water"...we had gone swimming that morning, and he really liked rocking in the big foam boat.

Then on Tuesday, I asked him what he did (after I got home from work), and he said "Moma!" And yes, his Oma was with him all day.

Today, I was reminding him about a birthday party we went to last week for his buddy, and told him that soon it was going to be his birthday. And out of the blue he shouts "cake!" And of course, we had cake at the party.

I was very surprised because up until now he's shown no indication of remembering events. Of course, he has learned a lot so obviously he's remembering stuff, but now he's able to articulate his memories. Cool!

Sweetheart

Ethan is such a sweet little guy. Today we were at the library and another little boy had a little monster truck with him. He kept putting it down to play with something else, and then Ethan would pick it up - I could tell he really liked it. But every time, I told him that we needed to give it back to the boy, and he held it out to him with no complaining. It makes me happy that he's such a sweetheart, but a little scared too because I can just imagine people taking advantage of him when he gets older. I guess our challenge will be to teach him to obey the right authorities, but to also stand up for himself when he needs to. Good thing God helps us raise our kids because I would be hooped otherwise!

jokes!

Ethan has been SO into books recently. Some days I think that's all he wants to do! We usually read until I get tired of it, then I take a break, and a few minutes later he comes to me with a book in his hand, saying "book? book?" It's fun, but gets a little much when he always picks the same ones! He has this one book that has little things you push out to reveal the animal that's hiding. The first one is a mouse, and the other day when I asked him what it was, he said (rather triumphantly) - "Mommy!" I chuckled and moved onto the next page, which had a frog. This one apparently was "Daddy!" So was the next one. The last one was a chick, which he correctly labeled. Funny thing is, I know he knows what those animals are called, so I think I might consider this Ethan's first joke!

croup!

Croup is scary! Last night we got Ethan out of the crib to take him home from our friends' place, and he could barely breath. He tried crying but couldn't and wasn't even able to cough. He was ok when he was calmed down, but that freaked all of us right out! I was pretty sure it was croup again, and I knew that we could have spent a few hours standing in the bathroom with the shower running (for several nights) like they do in all the old books, or we could go and wait 2 hours in the emergency care place. Which we did. They gave himsome "juice" with a bit of a steroid in it and soon enough he was sleeping peacefully! Whew. He's still a bit hoarse today, but much much better! They told us at emerg that most parents take their kids in after a couple days of this, and by then, the worst is over. I say, give me the treatment now! None of this waiting when my kid can't breathe!

Ethan was really calm the whole time though - he just snuggled with us and stared. Even when they put the cold stethoscope on him, he just sat there. Maybe he thought he was just having one really realistic dream!

On a random note, here's a picture of Jon and Ethan sword-fighting at New Years. :)

laundry day

Yes, he did put my unmentionables around his neck. Don't worry, they're clean! Crazy child.

In other news, due date for Pipsqueak #2 is July 5. Bring on the summer!