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.

New solutions

Brennan has really been challenging us.  He climbs everything and will do it over and over again.  I realized that I was saying "no" to him all day and I really don't want to do that.  It's draining on me and he doesn't listen anyway.  Dan's approach is that he really needs to "learn" and there's no way to do it but to teach him.  My approach has always been, even with Sara, to rearrange the house so that it's more kid friendly and then when you are able to communicate with them better later on, teach them then.

I tried Dan's approach for the last two week and I'd had enough.  Brennan has learned to climb up the kitchen chairs and on top of the kitchen table, and wreak havoc on anything up there.  He's been able to dump over juice pitchers, get makers and crayons which he later used to color walls, scissors and even knives that had been left on the table.  It's just not a place for him to be.  So I told him "no" every time he climbed a chair and every time he stared to climb on the table I'd tell him no again and then put him in his crib for time out.  After doing this maybe 20 or 30 times during the day I was tired and he was angry.

Instead I went back to doing it my way.  I put all the chairs in the den over the carpet isolated so he can't climb onto anything dangerous.  In effect building Brennan and obstacle course.  I was amazed how it turned something really negative into something fun and positive.  The kids love playing on all the chairs.  They spend most of the day climbing them, jumping, playing with their toys on them, putting blankets on the chars, and so forth.  Brennan will come right to the edge and jump off into your arms over and over, he thinks it's a fun game.  So the past few days we rearrange the chairs into different obstacle courses.

It's been nice no to have to tell him no over and over and put him in time out, which I think he's really too young to learn anyway.  He just wants to climb.   Is it convenient to have all our chairs in the living room? No not at all.  It does such to have to drag them back and forth when we need them, but it beats the alternative in my opinion.

Today it was 65 degrees which is insane the end of Nov, thanks global warming.  We all played in the back yard in shorts and t-shirts.  Brennan loves to climb up on Sara's slide and play and slide down.  That satisfies some of his climbing urge too, so I was glad the weather accommodated it.

I hope that I can find other solutions like this to things he shouldn't be doing and turn them into something positive because he climbs up everything, nothing in the house is safe again.

He loves  his little "lawn mower" as we call it that he got from Granny KP for his b'day.  He pushes it all over the house and carries things in it, he has even learned to use it as a scooter which is really cute too.

Kibbles and Bits

This is a random post mostly for the purpose of putting up photos and vids that I just dumped off my phone into my computer.


Spends a lot of time in the high chair

Quite a pair :

Has no problem climbing into chairs.

Brennan gives kisses, high fives, and says Nanna, among other talents.
Video

Also he can sing the notes to hot cross buns but I can't seem to get a video of it yet :(

Leaps and Bounds

Brennan is 15 months old and he's changing so fast right now.  He says so many new words.  He even copies sounds that we say to him.  While his grandpa was visiting he said Grandpa.  He also tries to copy multiple words and he babbles a lot too.  I think he'll have this talking thing figured out in no time.  He is probably a little less verbal than Sara was, after all her first word was snowshoeing, however I can imagine in three months that he'll be starting to talk.  Here is a blog post comparison of her at three months older than he is now, just for fun.

Most surprising to me, the other day we sang a word in the tune of Hot Cross Buns and he sung the word back with the right notes.  Maybe he has a really good ear too.  He loves going to Sara's music class and shaking the maracas and bells.  I think we are going to have to start paying for his lessons soon if he keeps participating.

He has become even more active lately too.  He climbs everything he can climb.  We have stopped trying to keep him out of chairs and off the sofa because he's an expert at climbing.  Instead we are trying to teach him to sit down when he gets up there, so far it's not going well.  He's a climber and an adventurer.  He also loves to try and jump out of chairs, which usually ends in him landing on his head.  He will cry and then do it again.

He has learned to ride his airplane by scooting his legs and several months ago, he learned to use his "lawnmower" as a scooter.  I think he's already ready for a push bike or a trike, of course now it's winter.  By Spring though he'll be ready to roll.   He will need a helmet.

We've been trying to feed him more, but so far he's eating about the same and I think his weight is the same.  He is so active he probably burns off the extra calories.

He can do a kissing noise and he gives high fives excitedly too.

Every day seems to be filled with something new.

Halloween 2012

Brennan got to be two things for Halloween.  He just barely fit into his frog costume from last year but he couldn't really walk in it, so the day before Halloween he wore it while we too Sara to lessons and ran errands.  He was super cute and even thought that the frog feet might be duck feet, so he said "quack, quack" and Sara and I were saying to him, "No, Ribbit ribbit".  He was really trying to say ribbit and thought it was pretty funny, here's the vid.  He is really into animal noises right now.

For the actual night of Halloween we let him wear his Bat costume.  He does not really like it and I think it's because the first time we put it on him, we all laughed hilariously and he got upset.  Also, it's harder to put on and probably more uncomfortable, but it's so dang cute.

He didn't really walk that much because he was having trouble seeing and kept falling so we put him in the stroller and he watched Sara trick or treat.  He helped give out candy in front of the house for a long time and had fun looking at all the kids.  I can't wait until next year when he gets to really run and enjoy it!! 

15 month check-up

Brennan had his 15 month check up this week.  Everything was really pretty good.   Luckily his ear infection has totally cleared up and his ears got a clean bill of health.  His height was at 30% so nothing to worry about there.  However his weight has dropped from 22.5 to 21 lbs.  I'm not quite sure why but that set him back into the 5% for weight.  That is actually lower than Sara ever got on her weight chart, just comparing the percentages.

The doctor said that looking at him, he does not look unhealthy in any way so he's not worried about it.  He just suggested that we add more fat into his diet.  Brennan refuses to drink whole milk where he would be getting a large portion of the fat in his diet.  He does like cheese and yogurt thankfully, so we feed him lots of that.  He also gets fish oil caps and chia seeds so that he gets his Omega3's but they are not in any kind of dose to put weight on him.  He has been eating a lot lately and he even has 1 green shake a day, full strength with a lot of ginger (something that I have to leave out of Sara's shake).

I was actually surprised that his weight had dropped because to me he feels heavier and I thought we were doing really well with his diet.  I have no concerns that eventually he will catch up and sadly too,  I think he might even struggle with his weight at some point in his life.  So we really aren't that concerned as long as his weight does not drop further.

Another thing the doctor mentioned is that he has a small hernia.  I was surprised by this because lots of doctors have checked him and never mentioned it. He said it's small and should close up by the time he is 2 but it not, he will need to have surgery.

The other bit of good news is that his iron level has normalized and he is no longer in the iron deficient category.  Hopefully this will help the breath holding spells which do seem to be tapering off a bit.

Brennan got 5 shots including his flu shot and got his finger poked to check his iron and he did very well.  Sara always cried a ton and was very afraid of the doctors and nurses by this point, Brennan seems pretty unaffected as of now.  He's friendly and does not seem to mind the doctor or nurses, he will smile at them and is curious.  He is not a clinger, he wants to be out exploring everything in the office.

I did ask the doctor about Brennan's tantrums and moodiness, whether he thought it might be a personality trait or if there is a medical basis.  He said it's hard to tell but now that his ear infection is gone and his iron is normalized (iron can affect mood, behavior, and sleep) that if it's not teething or some other thing like his developmental age, it might just be his personality.  I hope not and I don't want to label him moody or grumpy yet in my mind so I'm just trying to think positive about it.  Hopefully it will resolve itself.  He does seem very much more serious than Sara was though and they will be different people, there's not question about that.

He is also being very active.  He has learned to climb up on to the couch and chairs, so really there's no stopping him from climbing anymore.  We are considering bolting the furniture to the walls though as a precaution.  He has already tipped over Sara's small bedside table.  Luckily nothing else.

Brennan does have a snugly and cuddly side occasionally when he slows down long enough.  He is really sweet.  He loves to snuggle and cuddle with me and when daddy is home he wants daddy exclusively to himself.  Also, Dan has trained him that when he says, "Give kisses" that Brennan leans his cheek in and lets Dan kiss him on the cheek.  It's really cute.

Also, just this week he gives "high fives" and he has learned the word "no".  He and Sara were in the shopping cart tonight telling each other "no"  it was pretty funny.  Sara would say no and then Brennan would repeat it and she would say back to him, "That's right NO".  He was pulling her hair or something and she was telling him to stop.  I said to Dan, now that they can just tell each other no, maybe we won't have to as much, yea right.