18 Months

Brennan will be 18 months by Friday.  It's been a rough go for us I think.  I don't know maybe this is all normal.  It's also been a bit of a blur.   Can you tell I'm a tired Mother?

So far the post-ear-tube update is good I suppose.  We all caught a terrible flu the first of January and Brennan did get another ear infection.  However this time instead of having to take another course of oral antibiotics, we got to use ear drops.  It was so so much easier.  I just hope it worked.  He is still pulling and picking at his ears and still cranky.  So as for as the true efficacy of it all,  I guess the jury is still out.

I think we have acclimated to some of his behavior.  The climbing is better, he still climbs everything but he does not fall off and hit his head as much, so that's good.  He still clocked himself pretty good this week by falling backwards off a chair onto the tile, so it's not totally out of the picture.  He still opens every cabinet and drawer.  I'm not sure whether it's right to blame him or us, because we are too lazy to install cabinet locks and drawer latches on every drawer.  Dan thinks though at a certain point, he just needs to learn what "no" means and so far, he's not very clear on what that means yet.  According to his behavior, he thinks no means to stop for a second until parents aren't looking and then real quick like, sneak back and do it again.

Still it helps that he is really cute and he gives kisses now and hugs generously.  He is talking more  and  he is really trying hard to say things complete with expressive hand gestures, even if we can't figure it out.  Surprisingly, he is getting good at saying "no, get down".  I wonder if it's because he hears it 100 times a day.  He also seems to understand quite a bit more, like when we say "night night" he runs to his bedroom door and stands there.  Also he is getting quite a bit more interested in books.  He will gladly bring books to us and tonight he was trying to repeat back words in his food book, I'm pretty sure I heard him say pizza.  If he likes books half as much as Sara, we'll be doing good.  So far he doesn't really have the patience to sit with you very long, but that is getting better slowly.

I am still concerned about his weight.  He's still around 21 or 22 lbs and he might even be off his weight chart now for his age.  He has really be refusing food a lot lately, not sure why.  I have been trying other options such as high fat shakes.  I make him a Greek yogurt, heavy cream, whole milk, banana, strawberry, and orange shake everyday, sometimes twice a day.  He does not drink any just plain milk on his own so we've been trying to figure out ways to add fats in any way we can.  Also I add flax seed oil in there by the tablespoon.  Another good thing is that he will eat an entire avocado in one sitting.  That's got to be good for something.  As far as other veggies, he's not such a big fan of them as Sara is.

He also is still holding his breath.  He goes through phases where it's really bad, like when he had the flu, it was three times a day.   Small things would set him off.  Now that he's feeling better, we haven't had a spell in days and it's been nice.  His doctor wanted to run some blood work to analyze his blood to see if he has any genetic disorders or diseases that keep him from maintaining his iron levels (which is related to the breath holding).  He is still on iron supplements and his iron levels have come up, but they are right on the boarder of being normal.

I hope we continue to get used to having a boy, it is quite a change and has been very challenging, more than I expected.  I'm excited for him to get bigger so hopefully I won't have to worry quite as much, in theory.  I'm sure my experience is similar to many other moms with little boys, but it's all quite new to me.  He is teaching us a lot about it all and we love him.

Brennan has really been into horsey rides lately.  Lately Daddy and Sara have been taking turns being the horsey, they wear a belt around their chest so he can hold on.

Tubes and Pacis

Brennan recently had another ear infection and even though our pediatrician said I had to wait until he had 5 ear infections this year (he was only on #3).  I had had enough.  He had probably had 10 or more since he was 2 months old.  He was already resistant to multiple antibiotics and we had just had enough of all the doctor visits, late nights crying, pain medication, etc.   We were ready for action so I took it upon myself to make an appt with the ENT. 

Immediately he scheduled us for surgery.  He looked in Brennan's ears and listened to his story and recognized a chronic problem.  He said Brennan was a prime candidate for the surgery.  The surgery would only take 15 minutes but he would have to be put under general anesthesia.  Luckily this doctor had done hundreds of these surgeries and we felt like we were in great hands. 

We took Brennan early in the morning  week later for his surgery.  Here is a pic of Daddy holding him in his Silvester hospital gown as he getting prepped.

I wasn't very nervous for the surgery.  I really felt like it was the right thing.  The doctor said that almost all kids with tubes never get infections again.  It was worth the risk considering the alternative, possibly years of ear infections. 

Brennan flipped out when we handed him to the nurse and was crying really badly when he came out of surgery.  The rest of the day he seemed fine though.  We gave him ibuprofen for two days and he still picked at his ears like they felt funny but we thought maybe it was just because he could actually hear again.  He had heavy thick fluid in his ears before and now it should be draining from the tubes.

We went back for his post surgery check up, 10 days later, and they said everything looks great.  The tubes are in place and there is no built up fluid.  We have to be careful to not get his ears full of water, but other than that, he's good to go.  He's a new Moosey.  We can all breath a sigh of relief.

Another big change is that we are trying to ween him off his paci now that he's not having ear trouble.  It's been a huge challenge.  He cries and cries for it but we feel like it's the right time.  We had just weened him before his burn accident and gave the paci back, but now that he's not in a lot of pain, we feel like he can do without it.

Hopefully by Sara's birthday he'll be totally paci free.  We have noticed however that he seems to be replacing it with a fleece blanket fetish.  I guess then that we'll deal with that.  Also, he's really attached to his Daddy to the point where if Dan walks out of the room or out of his sight, he'll hold his breath and pass out.  So clearly, we still have lots of issues to work on, one at a time...

Here are some really cute pics of him recently!

2013 is going to be a great year for Brennan, he'll turn 2 years old!  We love him, he's cute, and we are looking forward to seeing him grow, play, and learn.