Let Me See You Sweat

Today Baby J is 8 weeks old.  I can't believe it.  Time has certainly flown by.  Pretty soon I'll be carting him off to little league games but until then I'm taking him to MY GYM, a children's fitness center.  I believe exercise is extremely important and I want to start Baby J off right.  Today was his first visit to the gym.  Every Tuesday from  12:45-1:30 babies 6 weeks to 6 months can come to the Little Bundles class for free.  I learned about this at Mommy and Me.  A few of the other moms take their little ones too.

The class starts off with circle time.  All the babies are lying on their blankets and we sing songs to them, move their arms and legs, and do baby massage.  We also dance around with them.  Baby J wasn't really aware of what was going on.  He preferred to look at the bright colors on the wall and ceiling.  He did, however, protest quite loudly when it came to tummy time.  That poor boy HATES being on his tummy.  I'm not sure why but when I do flip him over on his stomach he usually hollers right away and becomes inconsolable.   This concerns me because I know how important it is when it comes to crawling and muscle strength.

After tummy time comes the fun stuff, the swings.  Baby J did appear to like those.  They have foam discs and a foam ball that helps hold the baby in position.  It worked really well.  While the babies are swinging the staff of the class offers stations to demonstrate different activities to do with your child to help them learn balance, coordination and other developmental skills.

Baby J started to get really fussy at this point so I had to sit to the side and feed him.  Next time I'll have to plan the feeding thing out a little better.  It was obvious I had fed him too early but at least he made it though most of the class.  All in all it was a lot of fun and I look forward to future classes.  I also can work with him at home doing the things we learn in class.  I'm hoping by the time I have to go back to work he will be able to tolerate tummy time and be a little stronger.  If you are interested in learning more about MY GYM you can visit the website at www.mygym,com.  I probably will not be taking him once he has to pay.  It's kind of expensive and I can't really justify the cost, but in the meantime I'm cashing in on the free time!  

I Love to See You Smile

In the last couple weeks Baby J has started something I just can't get enough of.  He smiles!  And these are not the newborn "gas smiles," these are the honest to goodness "I'm the happiest boy on the planet" smiles.  The first one came on November 20th.  We were at my mom and dad's house for a party.  Baby J was hanging out in his bouncer seat enjoying all the noise and activity when my dad walked up and started talking to him.  I'm not sure what my dad said but Baby J must have liked it because he gave my dad the biggest grin I've ever seen.  My dad immediately called my mom over to witness the event.  Of course I wish I had been the first person for him to smile at but I guess it's fitting that my dad was the lucky one.  After all he was the first person I told when I found out I was pregnant.

After he smiled for the first time, it was weeks before I saw that toothless grin again.  It was early one morning and I was making funny faces and noises at him.  He must have thought I was just too hilarious so he gave his mama a big ole smile.  I praised him and he did it again.  My heart just melted!  I immediately felt this overwhelming feel of love.  Nothing else mattered in the world.  It was the same feeling I got when Jim told me he loved me for the first time.  Sappy I know, but so true.  Everything in that moment was perfect!

Now he smiles at me multiple times through out the day and I still get the same feeling every time I see one.   I can't get enough of them.  Everyone is as special as the first.  I didn't know something as minor as a smile could make you feel so grand.  One thing I'm learning about this whole motherhood thing is that it is the little things that makes it so great.  That smile on the changing table, the questioning stare while getting a bath or the squirty sounding fart amidst dead silence.  I eagerly look forward to his first laugh but for now I am savoring every smile as if it were the last.

It's Tradition

Anyone in my family will tell you I'm a stickler for traditions.  I am a firm believer in them and feel certain traditions are non-negotiable.  For example, there always needs to be at least one Cadbury Egg and one Peanut Butter Egg in my Easter basket.  I could care less what else, if anything, is in the basket, but those two items MUST be there.  My mom forgot one year and it wasn't pretty.  There also needs to be a sausage roll for Christmas breakfast.  One year I had to spend Christmas without my family (it was awful) and I made my mom make a sausage roll and give it to me in advance so I could keep the tradition alive.  Of course I could make one myself, but that's not the tradition, it MUST be made by my mom.  She knows this and for the most part accepts it.  I think she figures it's easier to just make one than argue with me.

Traditions are so important to me because they are what make up all the happy memories of my childhood.  There are some traditions that we no longer do and I miss them.  We use to have these big Christmas Eve parties and they were fantastic!  All the family would come and friends too.  My mom would make a sherbert punch and there would be REAL cheese and crackers.  We would sing Christmas Carols for these old song books and later my mom would pull out a birthday cake and we would all sing Happy Birthday to Jesus.  I don't remember when we stopped having those parties, but they were a blast.

Now that we have a baby I can't wait to start, and in some cases, continue traditions with him.  The first one will be the giving of the Christmas ornament and tree trimming.  Now I know this is nothing new and most people do it.  My parents did it for us and Jim and I have been doing it for each other since we met.  When I was a kid my mom would make a soup or stew, we would get to use the Christmas dishes for the first time of the season and we would get our ornaments.  After we decorated the tree we would sing "O Christmas Tree."  Jim and I have modified the tradition a bit.  Instead of soup Jim makes a tri-tip roast and we listen to Christmas music instead of singing. 

Our whole tree is filled with some pretty awesome ornaments.  All of them selected for a specific reason.  This year I got Jim a catfish ornament.  I choose it because it looked exactly like our orange cat, Rusty, and because he used to go fishing with his Dad and Uncle to catch catfish when he was a kid.  Jim got me one that celebrates our new parenthood.  I used the blank heart to fill in Baby J's birth stats.  Together we got Baby J the little penguin ornament.  People had already gotten us a few Baby's first Christmas ornaments so we wanted to find something different.  We picked out the little penguin because it reminded me of Happy Feet.  It just seemed fitting.

Of course there will be many more traditions that we do with Baby J as he gets older and understands what is going on.  I hope he will be a stickler too and demand that tradition be followed when others try to slack.  I also hope it gives him many happy memories of his childhood.

Baby J Snip Snip Update

Just a quick update since Baby J got his tongue snipped.  Things have been WONDERFUL!!!  My little man is finally a happy boy!  He has gained 4 oz in 6 days (compared to the 10 oz he gained in 21 days, this is fantastic!) he also is taking in about 3 oz of milk per breastfeeding session (before he was getting .8 oz).  We have really seen a great improvement in just this last week.  The Zantac is helping too.  He still spits up but he isn't screaming in pain anymore.  I took him to the park yesterday and laid him on a blanket.  He hung out for 40 minutes as content as could be while I read my book.  There is no way he would have done that last week.  He is also sleeping in 3-4 hour chunks at night where as it was 1-2 hours before.  All in all we have a happy baby and a happy mama!

Snip, Snip

The past few weeks have really been a struggle for us here in the Young household.  Baby J seemed to have two modes, lightly sleeping and screaming.  There was really nothing in between.  Occasionally he would just hang out and stare at the wall, but not very often.  He also was breastfeeding every one to two hours.  I was up at least three times a night feeding him.  This was getting exhausting.  It was apparent he was not a happy baby.  The evenings were the worse.  He would start screaming bloody murder and nothing seemed to calm him down. If I tried to hold him he would scream even harder.  Now keep in mind this was not a colicky scream this was a some thing is hurting me cry, but I didn't know what.  I would sit in the chair trying to comfort him with tears streaming down my face because my own child didn't want to be with me and I couldn't make him feel better.  It was such an awful feeling.  I truly felt he did not like me. 

In addition to all of that, he decided he didn't want to go to sleep at night either.  I would start putting him to bed at 8pm and he wouldn't fall asleep until well after midnight after I would put him in his bouncy chair in the living room and sleep on the couch.  There were a few nights I had to change his diaper and he would just scream and kick, making it nearly impossible to get him re-dressed.  I was so frustrated I remember telling him I was done and didn't like him at that time, then he peed on me.  Awful, I know, but I was functioning on no sleep, frustrated as all get out and angry that my kid was so ungrateful for all I was trying to do for him.  Of course I didn't mean the things I said and I did still like him.

On Thursday I went to my Mommy and Me group.  It is a support group of new moms offered through Kaiser.  Let me tell you, that group of ladies has been a lifesaver.  Every week I go with a hundred questions and this week was no exception.  I was explaining what was going on and getting some advice.  After awhile I asked if I could weigh Baby J since it had been three weeks since his last weight check and I was curious to see how many pounds he had gained.  I weighed him and was shocked to discover he had only gained 10 ounces in three weeks.  He should have gained at least double that.  Kristen, the Mommy and Me coordinator, asked to see his tongue after seeing his lack of weight gain.  She determined in a matter of seconds that Baby J was tongue tied.

Under the tongue we all have a whitish vertical strip of tissue called the frenulum, which attaches to the floor of our mouth at one end to the tongue at the other.  When the frenulum is tight, it can prevent the baby from getting his tongue well forward to cup under the breast and extract milk.  Oh my gosh.  No wonder my baby was screaming all the time.  He wasn't getting enough to eat.  It was all beginning to make sense.  When I would let him feed for 40 minutes I just assumed he was filling up with milk and could not understand why he would be hungry thirty minutes later.  Now I knew.

The next day I took him to his pediatrician.  The doctor gave us a prescription for Zantac to help with his acid reflux and continuous spit up.  He also sent us with a referral to the head and neck specialist to see about having his frenulum snipped.

Later in the afternoon we met with the specialist, Dr. Doctor (no joking that was his name).  He decided it would be a good idea to snip it.  It is an extremely simple procedure that takes less than a second and rarely causes the baby pain.  There is only a drop or two of blood and immediately after the snip I began breastfeeding him and he fell right to sleep.  The worse part was having to hold him down and hearing him scream because of that.

I noticed a difference right away.  His latch was 100 times better and he stopped crying all the time.  He also began feeding every 3-4 hours.  After Jim gave him his bottle last night and laid him in his crib he went to sleep with no crying.  In the morning I gave him a bottle and then we snuggled in bed, something I hadn't been able to do since his first week home.  It was wonderful.  He has been calm and content all day.  He even smiled for the next door neighbor.  I can't tell you how great it is to finally have a happy baby.  I hope it lasts and this isn't just a one day fluke but I don't think it is. 

I guess my baby is just like me, give him food and he's a happy boy!