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.