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PS Mommy Thread-Newborn to 12 months!

Both of the babies are so beautiful! They will get over that rolling hump quickly. Benjamin did it the "hard way" first and it used to make him furious, with two weeks he was rolling all over the place and not two months after that crawling. It does go by very fast.

LadyC I'm so sorry for all of your uncertainty at the moment. I hope you hear positive news soon and you can carry on with your future as you intend.
 
We moved Alec into his crib (from a tiny bassinet where he wasn't able to roll) & he suddenly got WAY better at rolling, scootching, spinning, etc. :) LC, thinking of you & hope you got good news from the test.
 
Evergreen, that's awesome about Alec moving around more. I really think babies sometimes learn the most and overcome hurdles when they're left to their own devices without adults or physical controls in their way. Bigger space to explore and nobody to help? Guess I'd better flop/scoot/twist/roll/flail as needed to check it all out! We find D in all corners of her pack'n'play and regular crib, but her newest trick is sleeping on her belly with her face on her hands. She only does it when she doesn't have a sleep sack on, so she's only done it a time or two at home. However, she gave daycare a stressful afternoon when she randomly busted out a 3 hour belly nap last week. She usually only does 30-60min naps at daycare, and it was the first time they saw her sleep on her belly. Put together it was a nerve-wracking combination.

As for me... I'm still in limbo and likely won't get any news until around the end of the month. I held off on testing for a few weeks so I could beef up my life insurance before potentially damning information enters the picture. Insurance is finally all settled, and Color got my sample on the 6th. Turnaround is 3-4 weeks.
 
Well, I think I already knew it... felt it in my bones and came to accept it as probable fact some weeks ago, but I got confirmation today that I inherited my dad's BRCA2 mutation. :( I've already sent in a request for the first available appt with my doc to pursue her advice and immediate screening, and I need to decide which of the two big genetic medicine programs in town I want to approach to start the process of referrals and decision making. I think it's going to be a good while before life feels normal again.
 
Ladyciel I am so incredibly sorry to read your news. I know you are an extremely intelligent woman and that you will find the best course of care. I wish you all of the best going forward and choosing the right path for treatment, please come back here for support anytime you need it.
 
Thank you, AHL.

Honestly, what I am the most sad about right now is how this news might affect my breastfeeding relationship with Dorah and our hoped-for second baby. Screening is more difficult in lactating breasts, and I've never had a mammogram or contrast MRI to know my status prior to pregnancy. National recommendations suggest annual breast imaging beginning with MRI or mammogram at 25 years old and then both mammogram and MRIs every year beginning at year 30. Most docs alternate them so you get some kind of screening every 6 months. It's obviously critical to rule out the real possibility that I've already developed cancer. If we can't get a good look (it will depend on how dense my breast tissue is and how well I can empty the milk before imaging), there may be pressure to wean much earlier than I hoped.

Assuming I'm cancer free and just need to decide how to protect myself for the future, I'd love to think I could reasonably push off any prophylactic surgery or tamoxifen treatments until after having a second baby. But, I'm already the age (35) my aunt was when she got breast cancer, it's a bit too soon to try for a baby just yet (I've yet to get my period back and Dorah is only 5.5 months) and that would just open us to the possibility of facing cancer during pregnancy (not good, and you might not even catch it amidst all the normal breast changes). The risk-balancing logical side of my brain says I should maximize my risk reduction (i.e. double mastectomy) ASAP so that 1) Dorah doesn't have to worry about losing her mom to breast cancer, and 2) I can recover from surgery and still maybe have time to fit in a pregnancy before I'm too old. That plan sounds logical to me, but only before I imagine the reality of it. I'd have to wean Dorah, go through surgery and spend days in the hospital without her, and go through weeks of recovery where I can't hold or lift my baby girl to comfort her. That I'd have to hope she could understand she can no longer nurse for milk or comfort, but not because I love her any less than before. Then I picture going through a pregnancy, giving birth, and not having breasts to hold my baby to for food or comfort, and I find myself sobbing (if I'm alone) or weeping (like I am now, at work). I imagine having to field "so will you breastfeed?" questions throughout pregnancy from every well intending nurse or stranger in the grocery store line and needing to find a way to tell them I can't without breaking down. I wish I'd known about this stupid mutation years ago, when my life was less full of complications and I could have more time to figure it all out. I might miss out on ever getting to experience breastfeeding, but at the same time I wouldn't ever have to truly know what I was losing out on. Some moms choose not to breastfeed, but for me it's been an integral part of being a mother.

Regardless of what I choose to do with my breasts, I will have my ovaries and tubes removed after we're sure we're done having kids. Ovarian cancer is no joke, the lifetime risk is quite real with BRCA mutations, and there's pretty much no effective screening method. The current recommendations suggest that BRCA2 mutation holders might "reasonably" get away with postponing the salpingo-oophorectomy until 40-45 if they have a mastectomy first. That's based on data showing a breast-cancer protective effect of removing the ovaries at 35-40 that isn't needed if you remove the breasts and a statistically later onset of ovarian cancers in BRCA2 carriers compared to BRCA1.
 
I cannot fully imagine your struggles and the decisions that are ahead of you. The only part I can give you any comfort on is the breast feeding. I'm not sure if you recall but things did not go well for me and Benjamin. I was devastated when I realized it just wasn't working and we had to switch to all bottle feeding. What I was able to do was still bottle feed with skin to skin all nice and close. We absolutely still had that amazing bond looking into each other's eyes as I fed him. I never rushed feedings, we always did paced bottle feeding and took our time to bond, I would even switch him from side to side and hold him in positions that were close to breastfeeding. After awhile we settled into a lovely routine and it fulfilled my heart just the same. Hugs and please come back to post or chat anytime.
 
LC, what a heartbreaking diagnosis, made so much more difficult by the context of Dorah and any future children. Sending hugs and thoughts of strength. The knowledge available through genetic testing is such a double-edged sword, but I'm sure that everyone who loves you is relieved that you have the answer (if not the solution) and can make decisions based on that, rather than risking come-what-may. I wonder if there are online support groups/forums of women with a similar (i.e. science) background to you who are making the same choices. Or in person, linked through your geneticist. It might be good to have someone who can really understand how painful these choices are -- this is absolutely a grieving process, for your future plans, your future self, and you shouldn't expect to get through it by only logically choosing & following a course of action.

Not sure this is helpful, but -- I'm only 14 months older than my little sister, and I have plenty of friends or siblings-of-friends who were conceived under the assumption that "lactational amennorhea = not fertile." Like, at least 5. :) My mom got pregnant, and then I got teeth, and that was the end of breastfeeding for me -- at about 5mos. Even though it's not what you wanted for Dorah, I know you know she'll be OK, whatever you decide.

AHL, I'm grateful you shared your experience with bottle feeding. I mentioned teeth up there because... well, Alec has two little razor-sharp teeth now. He got nubbins, which I could feel, a couple days before I went away for a week for a conference. The day I got back he bit me a few times, and last night he was punchy and didn't want to go to sleep and bit both nipples, hard, with a dreadful head-twist motion as he pulled off, still clamped down. He drew blood on the R, and every time I've pumped today it reopened this chomp-wound -- pumping is pretty awful on both sides, even though I guess it's just bruising on the L. I had to decrease my pump suction to half of what I usually use and I'm short on milk for the day. Ugh.

So now I'm scared to feed him, which makes it worse because I can't relax and let-down and he's most likely to bite when I am slow to let down! He's always been a biter, and the second i felt those teeth start to come through I got all weepy while feeding him because I feel like this might be the end for us, even though I really, really - really - don't want it to be. I'm not going to exclusively pump; without the emotional pleasure of breastfeeding, I can't stay motivated to pump. I might be able to feed him just overnight (since he still always feeds overnight), and pump during the day, but BFing him right before I put him down to sleep is basically my favorite moment of the day. Was, anyway -- he's also most likely to be cranky and bitey at the beginning of the nursing session. Nobody has been able to give me good tips on how to address biting (even though I posted to a BF group on facebook)...

Meanwhile, everyone I talk to says, "Oh, yeah, I stopped BFing when baby got teeth. I can't believe you're still trying. 6 months is a long time!" Everyone's basically giving me permission to stop... but I know I'm going to miss it and also have a history of martyrdom...

And... this feels so superficial, but... I've fallen down a rabbit hole of babywearing, despite never having actually used a woven wrap. Alec loves our mei dai, so then I was like, well, why not try a woven wrap? And then I was like, WOVEN WRAPS ARE SO PRETTY and bought two (well, one is my mother's day present :D ), and they arrived and they are super stiff and not broken in, so then I was like, NOW BUY A BROKEN-IN ONE, and so I bought two. (obviously because two is better than one.) And I have STILL NEVER WRAPPED A BABY, i'm just hoarding all the pretty things. (I'm waiting for the broken-in ones to arrive.) So... anybody in here do babywearing?
 
Those teeth are no joke, most of the women that I know stopped at this point, my Mother included. I do know several from my birth group who persevered through it and they mainly said that when they were bit that they would stop the feeding session and talk to the baby about how they can't bite because it hurts and whatnot. After a period of trial and error most were able to continue until they were ready to wean at future times.

We did some baby wearing in the very beginning but with a Beco carrier not a wrap. This only lasted until he could sit up which was around 4 months, after that he wanted to be on the floor exploring.
 
Some of the woven wraps are gorgeous, but we just don't spend enough time together in situations where baby wearing is helpful/enjoyable for me to go down that road (probably best for my wallet). I do have a Tula carrier and a Mobi wrap. Dorah definitely prefers the Tula, so that's what I use most of the time. We started out using it with the infant insert right after she was born, and it was great for when she needed to sleep and wanted to be held. I could still make a cup of coffee, wash some dishes, etc. These days I don't use it too often at home, but it's handy for things like trips to the grocery store. She's a bit too wobbly sitting on her own to like the seat in the cart just yet, and I don't like the safety-risks involved with putting a car seat on top of the cart. For a quick trip I will just use the stroller and throw stuff in the basket in the bottom, but for a bigger trip I love the Tula. The downside is that Dorah is so curious and watchful that she spends the entire trip whipping her head back and forth on a swivel, trying to see what's around and behind her (and what she might be able to reach).

Dorah doesn't have any teeth yet, so I haven't experienced biting to give any advice there. It's looking more and more like I won't get to, either (see below. TL;DR, I likely have to start weaning ASAP if I want to have a mammogram and/or MRI before the end of the year). Until it's finalized that yes, I have to wean, I'm considering the idea of switching D to formula bottles at daycare so I can pump and deep freeze as much as possible. I have almost no freezer stash at the moment, which I regret now. My OB actually threw out the idea, too, not knowing I'd been thinking of it already- build a stash before/while weaning so baby 2 can get some of my milk even if I have surgery before TTC.

I saw my OBGYN on Friday, and she recommended I get an appointment with a particular breast surgeon in town who runs a high risk breast clinic. We're loosely on the books for a full hysterectomy as soon as I'm done having kids, because, as she put it, "no point in keeping your fibroids if we're already taking out the other stuff". We only had time to talk at this appointment, so I go back to see her next month for a full head to toe physical and trans-vag US to screen my ovaries. Obstetrically, she's on board with me getting pregnant ASAP if we want another baby before I do any surgery, but only after a clean MRI (a condition I wholeheartedly agree with). In my case, the timing and cancer risk pressures far outweigh any concerns about spacing pregnancies so closely.

Unfortunately, whether I decide baby or surgery comes first, it's looking like getting that MRI isn't going to be cut and dry. I called the high risk clinic on Monday and ended up with a next-day appointment with their nurse practitioner. The NP acts like a gatekeeper and refers patients to get genetic testing, orders screening based on individual risk, does breast exams (with ultrasound if needed), etc. (Turns out she's also a BRCA carrier and had a PBM and reconstruction with the team of doctors she works with. She can definitely relate and answer questions.) Anyway, the stock response they've been told by the radiologists is "wait 6 months after weaning before doing an MRI and/or mammogram" - if she sent me down without their prior authorization, radiology would send me packing. Waiting six months + however long it takes to wean before I can even find out if I'm in the clear and able to get pregnant or plan a PBM just feels like an eternity, and it's obviously not good if something is brewing that we can't yet feel. The NP did call to see if there's any wiggle room - whoever she spoke at the imaging center promised to get back to her... they want to consult with other centers to see if anybody has a track record to justify doing the MRI prior to or sooner than the 6 months after weaning. I've found women online saying they got them done, but it's impossible to know with what confidence or success.

In the meantime, the search for information continues. I have a consult with the actual breast surgeon tomorrow afternoon and another on June 8 with the plastic surgeon she works with. My goal for tomorrow is to get her take on timing of screening and/or surgery relative to weaning (they won't do surgery until X time has passed), what mastectomy type(s) I'd be a candidate for (not all women can have nipple sparing, for example), what would recovery look like, how long would I need to wait before TTC, and why she prefers the one plastic surgeon.
 
Does anyone have any advice for dealing w/ the emotions of weaning before either of you are ready? Do you just go through the stages of grief and do what you can to be kind to and forgive yourself?

I made the tough decision to begin weaning now so that I can get MRI/mammogram screening at the end of the year. It's going better than it could, for sure, but it still sucks. I've approached it by first switching Dorah to formula at daycare to get her and her tummy adjusted to it and then started cutting back on feeds at home. I started by pumping a couple of times a day, and I'm down to once before bed if I need to for comfort. At this point I think it's getting to be emotionally harder on me than her. We're down to only nursing for night wake-ups and first thing in the morning, and those are going to be the last to go simply because they're so convenient. Bedtime feeds were the biggest hurdle for her, not surprisingly. Thankfully, she hit a breakthrough with sleep in general this past week (especially naps), and as long as she has a full belly she doesn't fuss much. She wants me near her as she settles down, but she isn't desperate to be latched like she used to be.

I'm doing.... ok. I keep it together most of the time, but then I have moments like I did tonight. Dorah was so tired before bed that she didn't nearly finish her bottle, so she woke up a few hours later needing to eat. I nursed her, she made all of her contented baby sigh noises as she ate, and I ended up sobbing when I realized that one of these fast-approaching days I'm going to have to decide that we're ACTUALLY done. That some feed is going to be the last, and I'm going to know it. That she's going to baby bird dive bomb me the next day like she always does when she's hungry, and instead of it being cute and funny (and helpful - no wondering what she wants), it's going to be a knife in my gut.

Not helping is that she started vomiting profusely after bottles this weekend. We quickly figured out it's some kind of intolerance to the Enfamil I'd bought, despite her taking it fine last two weeks in the evenings and over the long holiday weekend. We gave her a few bottles of the ready-to-use Gerber Good Start they provide at daycare, and she kept those all down fine. Tried again with a small bottle of the Enfamil....and it came back up within minutes. I'm glad we sorted it out quickly, but I made the mistake of googling to try and figure out why she'd have that reaction. It got me a plausible answer (she probably needs the partially hydrolyzed milk proteins - regular Enfamil are intact), but mostly my searches just dredged up all the "10 reasons formula is the DEVIL and SOOO BAD for your baby and you're an awful and SELFISH mother for not breastfeeding" crap of the internet.

ETA: I do know I'm not being selfish... I'm weaning to best take care of myself to be sure I'm here for her in the long run.
 
Lady C all I can suggest is checking out the "Fed is best" foundation. It really helped me when I was dealing with my inability to properly breastfeed (the emotional aspect of it). As far as formulas, we used either Honest with the separate DHA drops and eventually switched to Baby's Only since it had hexane free DHA. To keep air bubbles down I would prepare the bottles the night before so they had more time to settle, if they were particularly foamy I would just put a drop or two of simethicone, no more air bubbles. Hugs to you <3
 
Thank you, AHL, I will have to check out Fed is Best. Unfortunately, none of the organic formulas are partially or fully enzymatically hydrolyzed (you can't get organic enzymes), and the intact milk proteins are my best guess why Dorah is having so much trouble with anything but the Good Start. I will have to see if I can get my hands on a sample of Honest just to see, but I'm not hopeful. She was sensitive to dairy in my diet, so I suspect she just doesn't digest the milk proteins properly and/or is sensitive/allergic to them. I'm hesitant to do too much experimenting as long as the good start continues to sit well with her... the vomiting was pretty dramatic and paired with super runny, stinky, poops.

I'm confident that gas/bubbles aren't part of the problem. I've been using a Dr. Brown's formula mixing pitcher. It will make up to 32oz in one go, but I've mixed 6oz in it just as successfully. It doesn't add any air as long as you set the stop properly, and it makes quick work of dissolving the powder. A worthwhile investment!
 
LC_I just wanted to say I am sorry that you are going through this! Sending you huge hugs! If the Good Start works for her, then that's great. Go with what works. I have friends who also had success with Earths Best Sensative, HiPP, and Holle formulas (the last two are more expensive but worked wonders for my friends).
 
LC, does Dorah's poop smell sour? Or kind of vomit like? DS2 was dairy intolerant and had terrible poops that smelled awful and burned his little buns. This started after I stopped nursing and we started cow's milk though so we just switched him to almond and soy.

Formula can be expensive especially the fancy ones but there are lots of coupons. After I had each of my boys I got formula coupons almost daily. If you haven't already, just google and I think you'll find coupons.

And, not that you need the reassurance, but do you what you think is best for you and Dorah and ignore the creeps.
 
Congratulations on your healthy little man, April! Enjoy that skin to skin time - it goes by so fast!

Thank you for your assurances, Bella and Puppmom. Yes, the bad stinky poops were definitely along those lines, but they're back to smelling slightly sweet now that she's had nothing but the Good Start this week. They're stronger smelling, more spaced out and enormous compared to her BF poops, but that's to be expected. I'm going to give her through the weekend to make sure she's stable and doesn't go off into the other extreme and get constipated, and then we'll start reintroducing her solids. I stopped them when her tummy went haywire so we could be certain it was the formula.

I've gotten tons of formula coupons through the months, which I've been tucking away just in case, but of course none have been for the Gerber. I just signed up for marketing emails/mail through their website, so hopefully some good ones will show up soon. I was able to print a $5 off and use that for the first tub. Every bit helps. One nice thing is that we figured out the Good Start works for her because it's what's provided by daycare through their participation in the state's food program. All food, including formula, is included in the weekly fee whether or not you use it, so that significantly reduces our overall formula cost. They effectively supply half of her formula M-F. Also, whereas I used to stress about getting out of work early enough that she wouldn't drink her third bottle (meaning I'd have to pump again to replace it), the drive to pick her up has been a lot more relaxed. Yes, I want to see her ASAP, but if I get held up it at least saves us a bottle!
 
I've brought too much crummy to this thread lately, so I need to even things up and post an updated pic or two.
May 16th (6 months)
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Yesterday, rocking it out
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LadyC what a happy little face :) She looks like she's having a great time!
 
LC, heartbreaking to hear what you're going through with the early weaning as well as processing all the other stuff that comes along with your diagnosis, but Dorah is gorgeous, those CHEEKS, and you know in your heart that she will BE FINE (and probably more fine than you) with not nursing. Sudafed is also a good med to use to stop milk production if you want to move things along. It's not uncommon for moms to be able to express milk for months, even years, after completely weaning; I don't know what the implications of that would be for your MRI. (But trying to express also stimulates production, so...)

Competing with that, you could also think about trying to dissociate feeding from comfort while nursing, and continue to "dry nurse." You'd have to have the sort of body that stops lactating pretty firmly, since that nipple stimulation can (re-)induce lactation, but a lot of women do let their babies continue to dry nurs when e.g. they get pregnant before planning to wean. The milk goes away but the baby still enjoys nursing snuggles. I don't know if that's a realistic option, since pregnancy is obviously a situation where active glandular tissue doesn't matter, but I've also heard of formula-fed/fully-weaned babies and toddlers going months and months without nursing, then seeing mom's nipples in the bath and going for it, satisfied to recapture the snuggles without needing the milk. So... even weaning might not really be a full-stop never-again thing for you.

Congratulations, April!! <3 Hope you and Dashiell are settling in well. 8#4oz isn't *little,* though, chica. ;)

I'm down to nursing Alec once a day (overnight feed only). His teeth just stinkin' hurt me if I do more than that, he refuses to modify his latch so that his tongue protects my nipple from his little razor-sharp bottom teeth, so... we're both OK with it. Pumping the rest of the time. I feel like his upper teeth are going to come in at any time and at that point I don't know if I'll keep going. :( Bites take all my relaxing/happy feelings out of nursing him... I'm constantly vigilant. He's biting a lot less now that he's used to his lower teeth but I'm worried he'll go back to biting once his upper teeth come in, and REALLY be able to do some damage. When contrasted with the anxiety of nursing and possibly getting bitten, bottle feeding feels pretty nice for us both. Would I do exclusive pumping? Probably not. Because, despite a lot of *looking* for evidence, there just aren't many well-designed studies that show benefit to BFing beyond 6 months. (And if you know of some studies, I'd love to see them. Those People On The Internet always give the most ridiculous references, if they give them at all, so I ignore them.) I'm giving myself permission, I guess, and getting prepared.

Every month, though, he gets more awesome. I thought 4 months was great because he had really woken up from the whole 4th trimester thing and his needs were predictable and easily managed... I thought 5 was awesome because he was really starting to play and interact... I was pretty much traveling for his 6th month so, well, I don't really remember that one (solid momming work there, me), but this month is CLEARLY the best because he's moving around and really expressing preferences and able to learn and retain information... Here's hoping the trend continues. :D

First time outside splashing in an inflatable pool...
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First exposure to mayonnaise (potato salad). Very successful. Kid loves mayonnaise. We got him to eat the rest of his green beans and beef by dipping them in the leftover potato salad dregs.
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How is everyone? I find it hard to believe D is 8 months already. She's fully weaned (last time nursing was on her 7 month bday) and, thank goodness, doing really well on formula. She's put on TONS of weight, almost enough to make me worry, but she's finally leveling off instead of skyrocketing off the growth curve. I miss nursing her, but I'm in a much better place emotionally now that the crazy hormones have subsided. 5 more months until I can get screened, and then hopefully I'll be over in TTC for round 2.

As for D, she's pulling up on EVERYTHING. Still no teeth. Says ba ba and ma ma - babbling, not as words yet - and definitely understands the word and ASL sign for milk. She doesn't do the sign back, but if she's at all hungry and hears the word or sees the sign... utter meltdown until that bottle is in her hands.:lol:
 
Yay! Glad to hear such a happy update, LC. :) Dorah is adorable and I'm glad you and she are doing so well with the new normal. We're transitioning to formula because it just got too professionally and personally difficult to be an exclusive pumper to this Bitey McBiterson -- must have been just a couple days after my last post when he bit the heck out of me on an overnight feed and I just couldn't take it any more. I'm down to pumping before bed and once in the morning (so, not enough for his needs) and we tried formula a couple of times last week... he wasn't a fan and pushed it away immediately. We're going to try mixing it with breast milk to see if we can sneak the change by him... and, eventually, he'll just have to get over it! I'm also encouraging my MIL to feed him more, y'know, food when he's hungry, instead of a bottle. It's a lot more work, though!

He's pulling to stand on everything, too, and a lot of ba ba ba ma ma ma (it's quite a competition between DH and me because "ba" is Dad in Vietnamese) but not in a directed way, either. About a week ago he started to get good at standing unsupported for 3-5 seconds at a time, which makes me think walking probably won't be far behind (at least, he's not gonna be one of those 15-month walkers :( ) so babyproofing has to happen ASAP. Our house is a total death trap.

Here's my husband giving my MIL a heart attack.
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And a glamour shot from my friend's baby shower (she hired a professional photographer, so we got some lovely pictures from that!).
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Despite chewing on everything, he still has only the two bottom teeth at 9 months. We love the silicone teething necklaces though they do scream "choking hazard" a bit.

OK, one more picture; I call this his "palliative care physician" expression. Actively listening, a little concerned or at least thoughtful about what's being said. ;) (Not totally random, my research mentor is a palliative care doc, and I have often mused that if I were to pursue further training it would be in palliative. :) )
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He's a great baby. If we could request 3 more just like him, I would be totally down with the 4 kids my husband (thinks he) wants. LC, my timing is a lot like yours, hope to see you in TTC in the winter! ;)
 
A month later, he's got two more teeth and has taken 4 unsupported steps... and is developing an increasingly toddlerish insistence on doing what HE wants to do. I get the feeling he's going to be one of the kids who focuses on physical development rather than communication development, although we do have one sign ("all done") so far. He loves "wa wa wa" best now, shouting it loudly and with varied pitch and intonation to the world... we call it "singing the song of his people," inspired by Sad Cat Diary (which, if you're a cat person and haven't seen, you must!). @ladyciel , @April20 , how's it going? :)

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Oh my goodness Evergreen, his teeth are too cute!

We're surviving over here. Dashiell turned 3 months old on the 8th. He's so long- at his 2 month appt he was nearly as long as DD was at 4 months. His skinny though- he's tracking nearly a pound less than she was at the same age. So different! He still has dark blue eyes and I think he'll keep them. DD did and they're my eyes. He has super light blonde hair. We'll see if that sticks. DD's is getting darker, but is still blonde. He basically only wants me right now and it's exhausting. He'll be perfectly happy and then as soon as someone else has him, he's pissed. It doesn't help that my 2 year old also wants me almost exclusively. She will at least go with Daddy for a while, but when she wants me, there's no soothing her. She's a mess and a half these days. She learned the concept of "mine" a couple weeks ago and it's a doozy.

Here's a recent pic of my sweet boy. IMG_4138.JPG
 
Gah, your boys are so cute, Evergreen and April! Love their big grins.

April, I can't believe D is already 3 months. How is big sis handling her new role? Has her new sense of "mine" been directed at him much? By that I mean is she feeling like he's invading her space/attention/things?

Evergreen, did he ever take any better to the formula? How's the walking coming along? Dorah is right behind him - she can stand unsupported for at least a few seconds but is typically too busy wanting to go somewhere to actually hold it for longer. More and more I see her eyeing up the distance from one standing support to another, trying to decide if she can make it or has to crawl, so I'm certain she'll be attempting to walk unsupported pretty darn soon. She also treats her walker toy as a tool to get from point A to B - she's much more purposeful with it, not just working to keep up with it.

Dorah hit 10 months on Saturday, and, no exaggeration, she went from 0 teeth to 4.5 in the last 2 weeks. Her bottom 2 were just visible below the gum on the 6th, and she cut both within a few days of that. Her uppers have shown up opposite of the typical order - both lateral incisors cut in the past week, and one of the central incisors is in the middle of cutting. Its mate is right behind, I'm sure, so I'm guessing within a few days she'll have the bragging rights of having cut 6 teeth over <3 weeks. Add on top of that that she's currently home from daycare with hand foot & mouth (a mild case, thankfully), and altogether she's had a rough go of it recently. I should buy stock in baby Motrin - it's the only thing that's allowed her to sleep this past week. Thankfully, she's a happy, smiley kid even when she doesn't feel well. This was the 9th, in the middle of cutting those first 2 teeth:
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Her cheeeeeeeks, LC!! :D April, also hoping to hear about how things are going with DD... my friend had her 2nd when her first child turned 3 and that has gone really well, but I don't think we're going to wait til 3 before Alec gets a sibling (hopefully!). Hope she's adjusting, as is Dashiell -- that's tough, figuring out how to balance when both want you 100% of the time. :eh:

I'm probably done pumping. (Ha, I say that, but still am doing it once before bed... maybe last night was the last time, though.) He's FINE on formula, haha, we mixed it 50/50 for a bit and now he doesn't care. I'm sure it was just a, "This is the way stuff from bottles tastes -- WAIT, NO, NOW IT'S WRONG" hiccup and now that he expects the whole spectrum of formula-to-breast-milk from a bottle, we're good.
He's formally a walker. We have a little house, so the total distance he could potentially walk before having to turn around is limited, but he's gone up to 15 feet (and achieved his destination, didn't just plop down accidentally) so I guess that's it. More baby gates are arriving today from Amazon, thankfully, because he is a climber and an explorer and remembers what he's not supposed to play with (then tries to play with it). Lamps, power cables, cats... We've actually had to teach our cat to run away when he comes near... he's a perfectly nice cat but Alec is grabby (obviously) and has no concept of "gentle" (obviously). I'm just worried that the cat will feel cornered and freak out and scratch or bite in the face of SEVERE infantile provocation.

What are you guys doing about brushing these teeth? We have to start. I bought the stuff, I'm just... lazy? Worried it's going to torpedo our bedtime routine? Worried he'll hate it? (I brushed the cats' teeth for about 6 months, til I got pregnant & used the fatigue as an excuse not to do it, so I have memories of brushing unwilling critters' teeth... not happy memories.)

Nappin' like a rockstar.
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Haha, love Alec's super-chill pose! I gotta say, while I miss nursing, I do NOT miss pumping. Nope. Not one bit. And I hear ya, your poor kitty is in for it now that A's mobile! We have 3 kitties, and Dorah LOVES them. Her attempt at saying cat has become her excited "look-at-that!" word for pointing at pretty much anything. I'm sure it's a result of her pointing at the cats far more often than anything else , and us saying "yes! that's the kitty cat! Cat! Can Dorah say CAT?" just as frequently. One of the three likes her but is careful about staying just out of reach unless we're holding her. The other two keep their distance.

And yes, her cheeks just won't quit. :mrgreen2: They're the first thing everybody comments on, from the lady at the grocery store to new teachers at daycare to family when they get a new photo. Case in point:
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She was feeding herself cottage cheese and kept going back for more, despite this face.

Less fun news, I had my first experience today going to get a suspicious lump checked. I've had a sore area/lump for about a month, and it felt like it could maybe be a blocked duct with residual milk. It showed up well after I weaned, it wasn't getting better even as my girls have continued to shrink, expressing wasn't helping, so I called the clinic yesterday and they had me come in today. She looked at it with US and said it looks like a cluster of small cysts, but she couldn't get a clear enough view to feel safe leaving it at that (i.e. thanks, BRCA). I go to the imaging center tomorrow for a better look. Just another US, but with a better system and a radiologist's opinion. I feel fairly ok about it now that I have confirmation it's "probably" just cysts, but my blood pressure was unsurprisingly a few ticks above my normal when she took it before the scan today.
 
Update on my 2nd US last week - she pretty quickly squashed my hopes and determined it's not just a cluster of simple cysts. The radiologist classified it as low suspicion, maybe a fibroadenoma, but nonetheless I'm scheduled for an US-guided needle biopsy scheduled this Thursday. We won't get results until next week.
 
Sorry for the delay in response, I'm not around much these days. The kids are crimping my style.

DD has actually done really well with her brother. She hasn't really been jealous and she seems to like to share. I'm sure that will change once he's old enough to start taking her things, but for now, it's good over here. She still regularly asks to hold him, which lasts for about five seconds before she's over it, but it's sweet to see. She calls him Dashy, but more often she just calls him "Boy", which I find hilarious.

And speaking of boy, he's four months old today. I really think the poor kid has reflux. We have a ped appt on Wednesday and I'm going to talk to her about it. He's always spit up more than DD did, but in the last couple weeks, it's gotten so much worse. I'm talking I can hear it splat on the floor when he spits up. I feel so bad for him. He has good days and bad days. Yesterday was a bad day. He's also been arching his back when he nurses. I've been googling and he doesn't fit all the classic symptoms, but I can't imagine this is anything else.

He started rolling over this past week. He's probably been able to do it for a while, but it's hard to put him on the floor without DD manhandling him. He rolled off the couch though! It scared him, but it's not far and he landed on the rug. I felt terrible!

Hope everyone else is doing well!
 
@ladyciel I hope your results are favorable :hugs:
 
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