Manic Mommy Monday ~ So What If I Make Travel Sized Babies?

Welcome to Manic Mommy Monday hosted by The Gnome's Mom! Every week we link up posts that are updates about us and what is going on in our lives. Everyone is welcome to link up (scroll down to find the linky) and you can find more information on the main Manic Mommy Monday page. 

Jaron
Jaron had his follow-up visit with the GI doctor. I came home and cried while I made up some Make-Ahead Oatmeal Smoothies.

He's fine, I'm frustrated.

Sweet Avocado Frozen Yogurt, Yum!

At Jaron's 15 month Well Baby Check he was diagnosed with Failure To Thrive. The only symptom he has is being little. Developmentally he's above average in verbal, social, fine & gross motor skills, he doesn't look sick or un-healthy in any way. His height and his head circumference are between 45-50 percentile on the CDC charts. His bones don't show, he's just doesn't weigh a lot. Like most toddlers, he has people who comment on how big he is for his age as well as people who coo over how tiny he is.

I didn't feel like he had any problems, but I couldn't deny that he had only gained 8oz in the 3 months since his 12 month appt. So we agreed to see Dr. S, a GI (Gastrointestinalogist).

It took us 6 weeks to get an appointment and in that time Jaron gained 1.5lbs.

Dr. S still ordered an x-ray and urine and stool samples (can't say how thankful I am that Jaron decided to potty train when he did, made getting those samples so much easier!). He told us to try and up Jaron's calorie intake and asked to see us again in 6 weeks to see where we were.

Upping the calories was interesting, Jaron just wasn't interested. We tried milkshakes - he would drink a few sips and then nothing else. We finally started giving him some juice again, just to keep him hydrated, he won't drink much of anything besides juice, breastmilk, and milkshakes IF he's in the mood.

In the past 6 weeks he gained a total of 3 ounces. Dr. S was not impressed.

Granted, I guess I could've tried harder. But I really don't think anything is wrong. It's hard to be motivated to fix all these special meals when I know that tiny kids run in our family, when there are NO other factors that indicate that anything is wrong. (His urine, stool, and xrays came back normal.)

I guess I'm motivated now. I have exactly 8 weeks to pack 2 lbs onto Jaron's little frame. If he doesn't gain 2 lbs by then Dr. S wants to do an endoscopy and extensive bloodwork. On the upside, he wants to draw the blood while Jaron is under anesthesia for the endoscopy.

We'll see what happens, I still don't think anything is wrong, but I doubt myself. I also know that there is wisdom in going through the process of ruling out other causes for him not gaining; I am just terrified of letting them put him under general anesthesia. I need to find out if I'll be able to stay with him or not, if I can I'll feel a whole lot better.

 Prayer and thoughts are appreciated, as well as quick, easy, tasty high-calorie snack ideas. We tried avocado, but have to sneak it in (plus they're pricey), he does eat quite a a bit of cheese and whole-milk yogurt.

This was before he stood up...

Aedyn
Aedyn has a had a pretty good week, despite trying to run straight through a sliding glass door at a friend's baby shower this past weekend. The funniest and saddest thing that's happened in awhile, poor kid. He would've laughed it off if he had been awake, but he was about 3 minutes out of a very deep nap, and really not sure what happened.

Between stunts like that and his climbing adventures this week, I'm just waiting for our first ER trip.









Us

Jake and I celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary this week by  going to dinner at The Melting Pot. Delicious, but a lot of work! We'll probably go back for a cheese or dessert course, but I doubt going for a full meal will happen again. It was still a great experience! And of course, we didn't get any pictures of us...just the food...



If you want to hear more about my 2 (not always) sleeping babies and the rest of the family you can follow us on Google+, Facebook, and Twitter!

Manic Mommy Monday - Mommy Mind Dump #2

Reading through the Manic Mommy Monday posts from last week made me realize that maybe I should do a little more introduction instead of just jumping into the middle of our lives.

I'm Heather. I'm 28 years old and have lived all over the US as an Air Force Brat. I also lived in Central Mexico for 2 years right before Jake and I got married. I love being a SAHM(stay-at-home-mom)but regularly play with the idea of turning my crocheting, sewing, and re-purposing hobbies into an actual WAHM (work-at-home-mom) business.

Jake is my hubby, we've known each other for 13 years, you can read our long and involved fairytale story here, here, here, and here (Yeah, it took four posts - I said it was long!). He manages a local restaurant and has a weird schedule, but it's nice that he has time at home early in the day and can see the boys when they're awake.

Aedyn is 3 years old. He is the poster child for "strong-willed" but is also a cuddler and sweetheart. He's already his little brother's greatest irritant and protector. Aedyn was born via an emergency c-section that saved his life. You can read a little more about that here. In a nutshell, his umbilical cord was so short that he probably wouldn't have been able to make it through the birth canal without detaching the placenta and suffocating. So thankful for a Dr who tried to give me my natural birth but also protected my baby.

Jaron is almost 17 months old. He so sweet and compliant with out being a pushover. He copies almost everything Aedyn does or says and never ceases to amaze me with how quickly he is learning and absorbing everything around him. Jaron was born via repeat c-section after a failed VBAC. His birth is still a very sensitive issue with me, due to hospital pressure/Dr pressure and my own ignorance about my spinal shape... but I'm working through it.

As for this past week. It's been a doozy. Everything around us is going ok, Jake hasn't had a day off in two weeks, but we're managing. But I have been an emotional train wreck. I've been trying to get Jaron 100% day weaned, which is going well for the most part (I'm sure I'll write a more in depth post about that soon). At least well enough that I tried to go ahead and drop the 1am session.

I'm not sure if I was moving too fast or if there are other factors going on, but I am more hormonal/mood swingy/depressed/aggressive...you get the picture...than I ever remember being while pregnant or pms-ing before kids. Just pray for my husband, I think one of us is going to die if this doesn't resolve soon!

And Jaron had his appointment with the GI doctor this morning. I don't particularly care for the office staff. I had to pull information out of them and got the vibe that I should already know the answers to the questions I was asking. The Dr himself seemed very blah and flat. I'm hoping it's just because he wasn't concerned.

Jaron was referred for failure to thrive because he only gained 8 ounces between his 12 month and 15 month well baby checks. In the 6 weeks since then he has put on a pound and a half. Growth spurt much? Just to make sure that nothing else is going on we're having to get stool and urine samples and an x-ray to check bone growth.

So I'm not really worried about the whole weight thing, but we will continue to give him milkshakes instead of regular milk or juice. And we have to do the tests, fortunately the Dr decided to wait on any bloodwork until we get the other tests back, so nothing painful for my baby, yay!

If you want to hear more about my 2 (not always) sleeping babies and the rest of the family you can follow us on Google+, Facebook, and Twitter!

(EDIT : Hmmm...just realized I have NO pictures of myself, either alone or with the boys/hubby...this needs to be remedied...)

Check out how everyone else's week has gone and link up your own Manic Mommy Monday post!!!

A Weighty Subject : Failure to Thrive

Pardon the pun, I tend to make jokes when I get worried or nervous. I've waited almost a month to write this post to try and get some perspective, not panic, and try to pull myself out of some self-blame.

Because we don't even know if there's a problem yet.

At the beginning of the month Jaron had his 15 month well-baby visit. He's perfectly healthy and is even a little advanced in his development, particularly his verbal abilities. But...

He has now completely dropped off the CDC and even the WHO growth charts.

He's flatlined. In 3 months he gained barely 8oz. his growth curve turned into a straight line. Not something that they want to see at this age.

At every other well-baby visit since he was 3 months old has been a weight concern, at first we had issues with foremilk/hindmilk imbalance, then he became so active that he was burning more calories than he was eating. He was still ok, he was just gaining slow and keeping to his own curve.

But at his last appointment he was diagnosed as Failure to Thrive.

My first reaction was panic that the state was going to get involved, that I'd lose my kids. Our pediatrician, Dr. C, was very quick to reassure me that the state only got involved in "Failure to Thrive Due to Neglect" and this was definitely not the case. But aside from that, even though Dr. C told me that I was doing everything I could, it's so hard to hear "Failure to Thrive" and not understand "Mommy Failure."

Dr. C has referred us to a Gastrointestinal Specialist. He says the GI Dr may want to just watch him and give us ways to up calorie intake, or do bloodwork, or run other tests. In our ped's opinion, Jaron is just little and burning more calories than he's eating and he just wants to get Jaron checked out to confirm.

Now he gets a WHOLE Donut...not that he eats it all...

I still can't help but wonder if I've done something wrong, not offered enough food, given him the wrong kind of food, something. His GI appointment is March 12th, still 2 weeks away. So I'm cooking with butter, giving him milkshakes and trying to get him to eat as much as possible.

And he's still breastfeeding. Some days more than others. We were in the process of partial weaning, I was trying to get him down to just nursing for bed, naps, and early morning. Now I don't know. One school of thought is to continue working towards that goal so that during the day he is eating a lot of  calorie packed food while another says pack him full of breastmilk and get calories in him that way.

I'm just not sure how calorie packed my milk really is. It's always had very little fat separation when I pump and refrigerate. And as active as he is...going non-stop all day, at 16 months. I worry. How can I not?

I guess we'll see in 2 weeks what the GI Dr says. Because I sure don't know what to do at this point.

Any advice, comments, and commiseration are welcome! Share your thoughts here or on Google+, Facebook, or Twitter!