Parenting Check In (August 25)

ATXmommas

Good Morning Everyone,

How was your weekend? Any new accomplishments, challenges or successes?

QOTD: What's something your kiddo does at his/her age right now that melts your heart?

Parenting Roster:
(Please let me know if you would like to be added)

@KH826 – Will born 6/4/14

@ATXmommas – Sebastian (“Ash”) born 11/21/13, other Momma is Z

@Wallace323 – J and L born 8/8/13, surviving triplets born at 31 weeks

@Trisholio – Proud foster parents to M born 2/6/12 and K born 8/22/13; and pregnant expecting a third daughter in September 2014.

@JGY – Gabe born 3/24/13, other Mama is S.

@Stringy813 – M born May 2013

@Filmfanatic82 – Charley born 3/15/14

@Mamosey‌ & @Karlamo‌ – R born 2/25/14

@2brides – G & C born 5/18/06, other Mom is L

@Jrtmom – Henry born 8/15/13, other mama is L

@Sarahtrpt – C born February 2014

@CageyMack – W born 3/16/13

@Themommymonster – C (DS) born 2/18/09

@Clairmeij – Alarico born 6/28/13, other mama is V

@Mystjava – Little Bear (LB) born 3/31/10, other Mummum is Shawn

@winstan1 – J (DS) born 9/10 (currently 3.5 years old)

@newmompeanut – N (DD) born 2/12/13, other Momma is B

@herbabymama‌ – C (DD) born 12/10/13, other Mama is K

@AmandaG47 – Twin girls born 2/22/14, other Mommy is J

@mwagner25 – Oliver born 11/27/13, other parent is L

@jazibel – Kaden born 7/13/12 and Owen born 5/2/14, other parent (Aya) is EV

@redrockmama – M born 6/19/14, other Mama is J

@ball.and.chain – B born 6/28/14

@Flygirl1228 – Twins 7/25/14

@KLeigh1‌ - S born 7/25/14

@2MamazInSeattle‌ - S born 8/21/14

@shameless370087‌ - Anthony and Sati, born 3/9/2014, Other mom is S

ATXmommas

@kleigh01‌ & @2MamazInSeattle‌ - I took the liberty of adding you. KLeigh - remind me of S's bday and I'll update. There are a couple of newbies with children who have intro'd recently, and I would be happy to add you too just let me know!

ATXmommas

themommymonster said:

QOTD: Anytime he wants to snuggle he melts my heart. I also call him "Honey" a lot and he tells me I'm his "Mommy Honey" now and that I'm his favorite "Honey". MELTS me every.single.time.

Ohmigosh - this makes my heart melt! So sweet!

KH826

Things are going well in our little corner of the world. We had a nice little weekend as a family -- didn't do too much, but ran some errands like grocery store, Target, etc., did some cooking, hung out and just played... it was nice!

We also FaceTimed with my mom and sister in Massachusetts so that they could see and talk to Will for a little bit. It was cute, and he was much more interactive than the last time they saw him, and they were just loving it.

J texted me that she tried the Hyland's Teething Tablets for the first time this AM and it helped Will big time. He went from a fussy, drooling mess with both hands in his mouth to our smiley, happy boy in 20 mins flat. Win! Looks like our boy is teething...

Oh, so I have a question for the group... Will has gotten way more active during bath time now -- he loves to splash around and kick in the water. He also is a big squirm worm, and thinks it is funny to not sit still to have his hair washed/rinsed. I fear he has gotten water in his ears the last couple of times, because as I am rinsing his hair he just moves all over and it can't be avoided. Thoughts on this? I am terrified of ear infections. Any tips or pointers?

QOTW: Our new thing as of Friday is giggling! I was at work and missed it live the first time, but J sent me a video. So.stinkin.cute! He has giggled twice again since the first time on Friday, and I was home this weekend to catch it, so that was awesome. Right now the best way to make him giggle that we have found is to pull his onesie up over his head and pull it back down quickly (peek-a-boo style). He just cracks up over it! It's currently my favorite thing!

Jazibel

The boys are finally feeling better, sleeping better - huge sigh of relief.   We've had a good last few days.  This weekend was super busy and we had a ton of fun. We went to two playgrounds, several house tours, the pool and Ikea on Saturday.  Kaden had so much fun. Our friends that we spent the afternoon with love playing with him and are expecting a little boy any day now.  I think they'll be great parents, and its so nice that they're happy to hold a baby or take Kaden swimming.  Yesterday we were at our house getting things ready for the renovation and renting it out. It was crazy and hectic, but considering the fact that they were in an empty house all day and we got home after 11pm - Kaden and Owen were so good.

I think I'm ready to start being potty training out of house - GULP!  Not quite sure how I should approach it...

QOTD: EVERY single time I look at Owen he smiles at me - its just too darn cute. Kaden smiles a lot - but Owen always smiles at everyone. I also love when we're nursing in bed, he just snuggles up to the boob and throws an arm around it, and I can just see how happy and relaxed he is. I love falling asleep next to him.

Kaden is becoming a little boy more and more every day. When he was just learning to walk EV and I would sit on the floor opposite each other with our feet touching in a diamond shape so Kaden could walk between us and stumble into our arms. Well yesterday we were sitting in our empty house on the floor and Kaden ran back and forth in that same way throwing himself into our arms for a hug. I love moments like those.

ATXmommas

Flygirl1228 said:

@jazibel kleigh01 had her baby on July 25th.

Got it. Thanks!

ATXmommas

We've had a rough couple of nights. Our A/C went out (again) last Thursday. We've had problems with the A/C ever since buying the place in 2008. The unit is from the 80s and we've just been putting band-aids on it over the last 6 years. Good news is that the warranty company is finally going to replace the whole unit. Bad news is that the existing unit can't be repaired in the meantime. And, it's August. In Texas.

We bought a window unit to put in our bedroom and borrowed another one for downstairs, but Ash's room doesn't have one, so he's been sleeping with us in our bed. For some reason, he is super restless in our bed and has been waking frequently. Reaffirms our decision to move him into his crib a couple of months ago even though we really enjoyed co-sleeping for the first several months of his life. Last night was particularly bad. Took forever to get him to go to sleep and then he woke every hour to hour and half afterwards. My MIL is visiting right now, so we finally gave him to her around 5am. So tired. One of coworkers told me that she has a window unit we can borrow, so I will definitely take her up on that offer if it's going to be more than a couple more days before the unit can be replaced.

In other news…. We did start supplementing last week with my friend's milk last week. I think we ended up supplementing about 10oz for the week. She gave me 28 more ounces yesterday. You would think this gift would take some stress off me - and it does to some extent, but I still find myself getting frustrated when I pump. I had one good pump day last week in which I pumped my normal amount of 11 ounces. Every other day I pumped around 7-8 total - and that was after the full 20 minutes of pumping, plus several minutes of hand expression. I've pumped once so far today and it was a really good session, but that may just be because I was nursing Ash every hour last night! We'll see how the rest of the day/week goes.

I didn't update last week with Ash's stats. I was a little surprised that he only weighed 18lb, 13oz, but he stayed on the 20th percentile growth curve for weight and height, so there are no concerns. Still my little peanut. So strange to me. Boys in my family are all tall (6+ feet), and his donor is 5'10" if I am remembering correctly. I don't know why I get so fixated on his size. He's absolutely perfect the way he is. I was also happy that his hemoglobin levels were spot on since we're still BF-ing and I don't give him any vitamin supplements or any iron fortified cereal. The doctor said, "You must eat a lot of legumes." Yep!!! As a vegan, I eat a ton of legumes and so does Ash.

QOTD: What a fun question (if I can say so myself!). I'm getting warm fuzzies reading everyone's responses. I don't typically pick Ash up from day care, but I have been picking him up about once a week for the last few weeks. Whenever I go into the classroom, I say his name and he looks up at me, gives me the biggest, happiest smile, and crawls as fast as he can towards me. My heart lights up every single time. What a sweetheart.

Karlamo

Thanks @ATXmommas‌ for editing @mamosey and adding me. I noticed. It's the little things that make you feel welcome :x

As for us, R is doing great. He is 6 months as of today. We did his 6 month photo shoot on Sat and they came out great. He's sleeping is.....well...better I guess. He's not up 8x a night anymore. Now it's more like 3-4, which is progress.

Our challenge: Right now we've have 1 friend whose about to have a baby and another who just got her BFP. We are ecstatic for them both but dare I say also jealous at the same time. It's weird because I have a 6 month old, I should not even be feeling that but my wife and I both just admitted to each other that we share that same envious feeling. Every time I think I've moved passed our pain of TTC I realize it still lurks below the surface.
I think it's because our FET is coming up soon and we both know we're not done making our family. I hate how infertility has robbed us of ever having a normal TTC and pregnancy. I'm planning on carrying #2 and I feel like it's already failed and we haven't even done it yet. I don't even have any fertility issues. Maybe I'll be that lucky one that gets knocked up on the first try. That would be a miracle!!

I apologize for dumping on you all. I feel like if anyone could understand even a little bit, it would be this group.

QOTW: we just started having him sleep in his own bed. The thing that melts our hearts is going into his room in the morning and seeing the huge smile followed by a squeal when he sees us. Makes you feel like I rock star!

ATXmommas

@KH826‌ - don't worry about bath time. The type of ear infections that babies get that you hear about all the time are middle ear infections and not caused by water in the ears. We've had at least 3 doctors tell us that.

@Karlamo‌ - of course! And, I totally hear you about feeling jealous of other's ease in getting/staying pregnant. We didn't have a problem getting pregnant, but our first son had a confirmed diagnosis of Trisomy 18 and we TFMR at 13 weeks because of it. Worst experience of my life and it absolutely robbed me of a lot of excitement and joy with my second pregnancy. Even though it's not rational and I would never wish infertility or loss on anyone, I still get envious that other people can have such easy experiences. I totally, totally understand.

ATXmommas

@sarahtrpt‌ - ouch, momma! I don't have any advice, but I would definitely give a LC or your pediatrician a call. I definitely think you're on the right track of wanting to nurse through it, but I know nothing about risk of infection. Hope it resolves quickly.

redrockmama

Things are okay here. Last week was my first week back at work. It was so so very hard. M seems to like the nanny and she just loves him already, but it's so hard to not be with him. We have a couple of plans for me to quit my job and stay home with him. I really want to wait until the new ED gets hired and I can see if there is any more room for flexibility at my current job before I quit. On the work topic, I am tabling at a service event tomorrow from 9-2 at a local university. I asked the woman who asked us to be there if there was somewhere I could pump. She emailed back that there are two bathrooms nearby. Ugh. Now, I have to either figure out how to pump witha cover or figure out how to pump in my car. There is no way I'm pumping in the bathroom. 

M is two months old. We weighed and measured him last week. He was 9 lbs and 22 inches, still pretty small but so much bigger than last month. We compared his 1 mo and 2 mo photos, such a huge difference! I swear he was trying to laugh yesterday morning, it was cracking me up. Sleep isn't too bad. For the most part once we go to bed around 10ish he only wakes up 2-3 times. My lovely wife does diaper changes, but then she gets to zonk out while I'm up feeding him (which sometimes takes forever). I'm still doing most of the other household stuff too, cooking, shopping, etc. because she works so much. I just keep telling myself it gets better and we'll get into a routine that works for us soon. I was so exhausted by Friday I was almost falling asleep at my desk by 2  pm. The weekend was good. We went to a birthday party for our friends daughter who turned one and then a fantasty football draft get together later that day. I was so tired M and I fell asleep at 8 on the couch, oops. The no dairy seemed to be working, but M has had more green poop yesterday and today. J accidently gave me cheese on saturday so I don't know if it is from that or if he has more food intolerances. He was definitely more fussy saturday night and yesterday. I hope it was just the cheese. 

QOTW: When he smiles for sure. He has my big eyes and big dimples and when he smiles his whole entire face smiles. It's the cutest thing ever and even when I'm exhausted it wakes me right up and I'd rather be up with him than sleeping. We also have the same smile, which is pretty awesome. Apparently we both have a crooked smile with one eye more closed than the other. 

I'm so sorry @sarahtrpt that sounds excruciating I hope it heals quickly. I don't have any advice though. Pumping might hurt less than nursing so you could always try pumping on just that side while it heals. 

2brides

It was a good and busy weekend. We ended our week long staycation with a movie, brunch with friends, letting the kids have a friend spend the night, baking a chocolate cake, rock climbing, some good walking, and getting ready for the kids' first day of school!

They are still HUGE cuddlers and will often ask to cuddle at night (and not in a bedtime diversion technique, but in a genuine desire to cuddle, talk, and have some physical connection.) I love that they still love to do this and even when we are running late for bedtime and I am cranky, I find it hard to say no to.

Karlamo

Thanks @ATXmommas‌.
Also congrats to the new mommies!
@sarahtrpt‌ that sounds so painful. Ouch. I wonder if a nipple ointment would work in keeping the area moist.

@redrockmama‌, I'm a self proclaimed expert in car pumping. I use either my pump battery pack or car adapter I bought to run the pump. Then I park at the furthest spot from the building for privacy. I don't use a nursing cover but take a baby blanket and loop it thru the hand grippy thing at the top of the door and make a curtain. It's not fool proof and many gardeners/snow plow men have had a good show but since I started bf I have lost all modesty

Jazibel

@karlamo - thats a great pumping technique, I think I may borrow it. :-)

Thanks @atxmommas for updating our list :-)  I hope you're a/c is fixed soon.  Rg. Ash's weight, I think kids must grow at different rates. Kaden was the 95th percentile always an now he's in the 50th. He just slowed down after he turned one, and he went from chunky to a healthy size.  Being that I've always struggled with maintaining a healthy weight, I really want to influence my kids positively. I'm guessing Owen will do the same. At least I hope so he's 17.25lbs now, I'm not looking forward to lugging around a huge toddler if he doesn't ;-)

@KLeigh1 - She's adorable, I love the iPood onesie!!

2brides

Yup, don't worry about water in the ears. Like PP said most ear infections are middle ear infections and are because the ear tubes in babies and little kids are small and don't allow the fluid to drain. Outer ear infections (swimmers ear) are less common. We got our first bout of it this summer (at 8y and swimming 1-2x/day for an entire summer!)

ATXmommas

@KLeigh1‌ - she's precious! And we have that same iPood onsie. Z loved it so much that she tried putting him in long after Ash outgrew it.

@Jazibel‌ - you are so right about the growth and thanks for reminding me. It seems like a natural part of parenting to worry about things that don't need to be worried about (at least for me). That's why having a sounding board of other parents is so important!

ATXmommas

sarahtrpt said:

Thanks everyone for the advice regarding the burned nipple.  If any of you were wondering how the hell I managed to do that -- I went to get a pan out of the oven that was burning.  I put it under the sink and ran cold water. Then I reached over the sink to open the window, since it was smokey and my boob must have swung over right into the edge of the hot pan. 

I can totally see this happening to me. I burn myself all the time doing silly things.

Jazibel

Me too - I don't know what I'd do without all of you!! :-)

redrockmama

Thanks for the tip @Karlamo‌. We just went and bought a car adapter so that's my plan for tomorrow. I hope it goes ok.

KH826

@sarahtrtp - I am so sorry to hear about your burn! Ouch! I hope that it heals quickly.

@KLeigh1 - that little lady of yours is so stinkin adorable! Just beautiful.

@ATXmommas - I hope your new AC unit can be installed ASAP. That sounds miserable.

@redrockmama - Good luck with the car pumping! Let us know how it goes today.

Oh, and thanks everyone for the feedback on the water in the ears. I think I knew that about the middle ear infections, but I was just being paranoid. Me, anxious? Never! HAHA

ATXmommas

@shameless370087‌ - done!

ATXmommas

AH Update - I'm not naive enough to think this is the start of a new trend or anything, but my child fell asleep around 7:30ish and is still sleeping (5:20am). Of course, I woke up at 4:30am, freaked out, and went and checked in him. And can't fall back asleep. My body doesn't know what to do with uninterrupted sleep.

Just needed to share!

2brides

LOL. I remember this! It took me months to sleep through the night! And now when a kid wakes up sick or is up for a prolonged period of time, I can't imagine how I survived not sleeping through the night for so long!

Hope it is a trend for A's sleeping!

ball.and.chain

I read posts on my phone all the time (while nursing/burping/holding Ben) but hate responding on my phone so I haven't had the opportunity to post much.  We went out to lunch today and he fell asleep in his car seat on the way home and is still asleep, so I am going to try to see if I can finish the post before he wakes up!

Things are not bad here.  Ben has been fussy lately but he is 8 weeks and that's a Wonder Week so it may just be normal.  When he isn't cranky he is super smiley, which makes it all worth it.  He is also getting more interested in toys and other "things" -- enjoying the activity gym more, staring/smiling/laughing at the monkey on his bouncy seat, watching/listening to the mobile in his crib, etc.  We just placed an order with BRU and S found a monkey toy with a rattle that looks just like the one on his bouncy seat so we bought it -- I'm hoping it's a hit.  I try to read to him once in a while and he isn't interested, but I try to remember that all that language is going in there and getting absorbed.  His 2-month birthday is tomorrow.  WHAT!?  And his 2-month pedi appointment is Friday.  Yeah.  Vaccinations.  Woo hoo.

Breastfeeding continues to be a problem.  We are still plugging along with it and supplementing with formula, but I am not sure how much longer I am going to last.  I may do a separate post with some questions.  Sleeping is...well, it depends on how you look at it.  He now won't sleep in his bassinet AT ALL, which is a fail.  But if we put him in bed with us, he sleeps just fine, for 4-6 hours at a clip -- win.  We were adamant about not co-sleeping, but you change your mind when it's a matter of sleeping or not sleeping.  And the stuff I've read indicates you can't form bad habits at this age, so I feel like if we need to do this until he's old enough for sleep training, so be it.  I really, really don't want a 4yo sleeping in my bed on a regular basis.  And I worry a little about the safety of it, but I know a lot of people co-sleep and it's just fine.  It is still hard to get him to sleep during the day without holding him, but his renewed interest in the bouncy seat is at least allowing me to take showers, make myself simple meals, etc without listening to a meltdown.

We were on vacation last week and although we didn't do anything super exciting (went to visit ILs out of state and bummed around at home), it was so great having S around all the time.  She is back at work now and it's a bummer.  Fortunately it isn't long before she has another vacation, since she scheduled several weeks off to fall during my leave.

QOTW: Definitely the smiles -- he doesn't do much else at this point, but they totally get me!  He has dimples which makes them extra adorable.  And though he isn't legitimately laughing yet, he has an extra wide smile that looks like a silent laugh -- I like to think that's what it is.