The one with the even longer overdue update

Well, here we are for my semi-annual update. I certainly didn't intend for this blog to fall so far behind, but (no offense to my lovely readers) it's kind of low on the priority list. However, since I have a spare moment or two right now, I figured I would update! Hooray! Aren't you thrilled?

Life is busy and wonderful these days!
Charlotte turned 17 months on the 14th and she is beyond amazing.

















She has exploded with words since the last blog update and she's coming up with more and more of them every day. She probably has about 30-40 words, a couple of two-word utterances, and has added "thank you" to her sign repertoire. She recognizes all of her colours, can distinguish between shades, and will name them when asked (or when not asked - she LOVES pointing out colours). She can also recognize and say all of the letters in the alphabet. Right now, these are two of her favourite activities. If you want to keep her busy for a while, just ask her to go get all the blue magnets off the fridge or read her "LMNO Peas" by Keith Baker and she will be happy as a clam. It's gotten to the point now where she no longer cares about what things are but rather what colour they are.




















Oooh, letters!

She has 12 teeth now and is only missing her four canines and her two year molars. We had her weighed about a month and a half ago and she FINALLY hit 20lbs! She was 20lbs 4oz to be exact, haha (although she was wearing her clothes, so that most likely accounts for the 4oz). She's still a teeny little thing but she fits well into her 18 month clothing. She's in a size 4-4.5 shoe. She's graduated to a booster seat at the table and no longer eats off a high chair tray. Her hair has grown quite a bit in the last two months and we can now put it up into adorable little pigtails :)




















She still loves loves loves her books but has started to branch out into some new activities. She's discovered how awesome balls are and loves to throw them. She also enjoys playing with her kitchen set and her building blocks. She enjoys colouring and we keep a piece of paper taped to the coffee table with her little box of crayons so she can colour as she pleases. She's also started loving to dress up. She wants to wear her outdoor gear ALL THE TIME. If her hat is anywhere nearby, she wants it on. She wants to wear her coat around. She loves her scarf. She runs around wearing her shoes. I think it's time we invest in a tickle trunk!
















She's hit full-on toddlerhood but she doesn't really act like a toddler. She doesn't throw tantrums and if she does have an outburst, she's very easy to talk to and calm down. She really seems to get it and we're able to explain things to her and reason with her. She's kind, sweet, and very easy-going. She signs "thank you" without prompting. She pets Maggie softly and gently. She is so very pleasant and I adore her more and more every day. She has a great sense of humour and her little giggles are music to my ears! She's so funny and when I tell her she's a little turkey, she runs around saying "turkey turkey turkey turkey!"

Aside from Charlotte and her awesomeness, life has been good. We took a trip in January to go to Calgary to visit Rochelle, Paul, Lucas, and Isla for the babies' baptism and to Winnipeg to visit friends and family. It was a very short but wonderful trip. It was so nice to see everyone and it made me want to get back to Winnipeg as soon as possible! I wish we could have stayed longer (or, ya know, move back..........).






















I have also found myself a new job that I start on March 30! I am leaving the field of Early childhood education (somewhat) and am venturing in a new(ish) direction. I will be coordinating and facilitating child and family programs at the local Military Family Resource Centre. I will be making more money and working less hours which is SO unbelievably important to me so I have more time to spend with my daughter. I am terrified, nervous, and very very excited. It allows me to use my ECE diploma and skills but I will no longer be working as a front line ECE. I knew working directly on the floor was not something I wanted to do or could handle once I had my own children and spending the last six months working back in the field has solidified the conclusion that this is no longer the career for me. I love my work as an ECE but it's MUCH too physically and emotionally demanding for me at this point in my life. I know my limits. I'm very excited to start something new and see where it takes me! And, incidentally, my first day is my Daddy's birthday so it must be meant to be :)

That's all the news on our end these days! We're all really looking forward to summer coming and simply spending more time together as a growing family :)

The one with the LOOOOONG overdue update!

I know, I know! I swear I didn't intend for Charlotte to turn one and then the blog suddenly stops. Things have just been busy - nothing special, really, but just life.

We had a wonderful Christmas and even though I only had two days off work (four days total since Christmas was on a weekend) we still managed to see both of our families and have our own Christmas time. It was busy and a bit stressful but we made it work. Charlotte was very excited about Christmas morning. She didn't really know what was going on but she danced around and ate cinnamon buns in the living room and got new toys, so she was happy. She was absolutely enamored with snowmen and Christmas trees and I'm a bit sad that the season is over. Granted, she was the same way with pumpkins around Hallowe'en so I'm sure she'll find something new to obsess over ;)
























She turned 15 months yesterday and continues to amaze me. She still doesn't talk much but she understands so much and picks things up so quickly that it's almost scary. She points a lot and she'll point to something if you ask her (i.e. "Charlotte, where's your humidifier?"). She currently signs "more", "all done", "sing", "milk", "I love you", and "toilet". She knows what a horse, cow, sheep, cat, dog, duck, lion, and Santa say. When she asks to sing, she will choose songs herself (for example, she'll smack her lips together if she wants "Pop Goes The Weasel" or will say "E-I-O" if she wants "Old MacDonald"). She recognizes letters (has a fondness for "O" and will walk around, carrying her "O" magnets going "Ooooo") and can recognize some colours. Her comprehension is outstanding and I often forget just how young she actually is.

















She's still teeny and probably always will be. I'm not sure how big she is, but I imagine she's hit 20lbs by now. She just went through a growth spurt and finally fits into the 18month clothing she owns. She has 11 teeth - four front, three bottom, two top molars, and two bottom molars. Her hair is growing longer and her curls are adorable. She's started to change her looks and I get told she looks a lot more like me now. It's nice to hear :) I did birth her, after all...

















She still loves her books and reading is still one of her favourite activities. She got a kitchen for Christmas from Santa and has been enjoying "cooking" there and feeding us her concoctions. She also got a lion from Santa and LOVES it. She runs around the house, hugging it, and saying "roar!" She has a couple of dolls and enjoys feeding them, brushing their hair, and patting their backs. She just loves pointing at things and figuring out what things are. Right now her current obsessions are the ladybugs on her blanket and Maggie's toy mice. I can't quite tell if she likes the mice or hates the mice, but she'll walk around the house with a toy mouse in each hand, following Maggie, attempting to give them to the cat. If she sees a cat toy on the floor, she points at it and kind of yells. Maybe she's mad that Maggie doesn't clean up after herself.

She has little traits that make me chuckle. She likes to put her cup in the cup holder of her high chair tray when she's done taking a drink. If it doesn't fit, she puts it on the table. When she's eating snack, she'll put something (a cracker, a piece of fruit) back in the bowl before taking something else to nibble on. She's developing her little personality more and more every day and she's certainly a character!

























She's still doing great with her eating and sleeping habits. We've finally, FINALLY, rid ourselves of bottles! Hooray! She's doing perfectly fine without them and doesn't seem to miss them one bit. She's eating three meals and two snacks a day and, usually, sleeps 10-11 hours at night. She has one after-lunch nap that is usually 2 hours on average, but can sometimes be as short as an hour and a half or as long as today where she slept for FOUR hours. Nutty. It's usually 2, 2.5 hours though. She doesn't eat as much in one sitting as she used to (which makes sense, because she's not growing as rapidly as she was in her first year) but she still eats well. She still loves all her usual favourites: pasta, meats, potatoes, corn, peas, english muffins, toast, crackers, grapes, bananas, blueberries, waffles, etc. There's not really a whole lot she won't eat as a whole - somedays she'd rather have one thing over another, but as a whole she eats a really well-balanced diet and loves her healthy foods.
























She's just the light of our lives. She has a very sweet, caring, pleasant personality and is so very easy-going. Charlotte, we love you!

I promise to update again before she turns 2 ;)

The one with the one year update!

I know it's coming late, but it's been a busy week(ish)! With birthday parties to throw and attend and then Baby's First Stomach Bug, it's been hard for me to really get a chance to sit down and update the blog.

Can you even believe it's been a whole year? A whole year! It feels like just yesterday, I was sitting at my mother's kitchen table, updating about how I was going to have to be induced. And here we are - a whole year later and I have a sweet, loving, hilarious, brilliant little toddler girl.
























First, we'll start with some stats. She had her one year check up and vaccinations and she is now 19lbs 9.5oz and 29 inches long. Tiny little pixie! (To put that into perspective, my 4 month old nephew is 15lbs and 27 inches long, LOL!). She didn't triple her birth weight but hey - she's still growing and gaining and that's all that matters to me. Someone has to be on the lower end of the growth chart, right? Right. She's fitting into 12-18 month clothing a bit better now - they're not as baggy on her as they were last month.

She continues to amaze me every day with the things she learns and the things she knows. Every so often, she will do something that shocks me. Yesterday, for example, her pants were falling down a bit (stomach flu = disposable diapers = her pants don't fit anymore) and I said "Charlotte, come here and let me fix your pants". She tugged at the waistband of her pants, snapped it a couple of times, and giggled. Now when I ask her "where are your pants?" she grabs at the waistband. I had no idea she knew what pants were! She will also stick out her tongue if you ask "where's your tongue" and will point to eyes and hair if you ask where those are. Today I asked her if she wanted some water and told her to go to the fridge and I would get her some. Up she went and walked right over to the fridge. Smarty pants.

















She's been learning a bit of turn-taking as well. If she has something in her hand and you ask "can I see?" she will gently give it to you. We've been encouraging this and will go back and forth with the same item doing the whole "my turn/your turn" thing. She's still too young, I think, to really get it but there's no reason we can't expose her to it now! She's gotten back into signing "all done" consistently after having a bit of a signing stand-off recently. She still won't sign "more" for us, even though she knows how. She'll just point at whatever she wants. Silly goose. Lately, she'll sign "all done" in the bath tub when I drain the water - last night she even signed "all done" before I drained it and started to pull the plug herself!

She's moving from the "baby" toys to more "toddler" toys now. She still adores her books, of course. Her current favourite items right now are her books, her Peek-a-Block train, her wooden xylophone, balls, her Sock Monkey, and balloons (left over from her birthday party!). And, of course, walking around, playing peek-a-boo, and pointing at things saying "da". I'm pretty sure she's asking "what's that" when she does it. In fact, we had a pretty funny "conversation" last night:

Charlotte: *thrusts a shape at me from her shape sorter* "Da!"
Me: "You found a shape!"
Charlotte: *gently places it in my hand* "Da."
Me: "Mommy's turn? Thank you."
Charlotte: *points at it repeatedly* "Da!"
Me: "It's a shape!"
Charlotte: *continues pointing* "Da!"
Me: *counts the sides* Uh, it's a hexagon!"
Charlotte: *removes it from my hand and walks away*

Apparently, "shape" wasn't a good enough answer for her!









































She has recently upgraded from eating food off her highchair tray to eating food out of dishes. She was starting to protest at mealtimes and kept pointing to our plates/bowls. It only took two nights of gentle reminders, but she no longer attempts to lift her plate or bowl up or throw it or anything like that. We have a couple of "baby" dishes for her, but otherwise she just eats off of one of our smaller plates. We're still attempting to transition her onto whole milk but she's not overly enthusiastic about it. At this point, we're just trying to get her to drink ANYTHING that isn't water out of her cup. If it's not water, she looks at the cup with a puzzled look on her face and just lets the milk dribble out of her mouth. We're working on it. I'm really looking forward to getting rid of bottles. Right now, she's down to one - maybe two - bottles a day. She has one when she wakes up from her nap and one at bedtime, depending on how much dinner she ate and when she ate. Most times she hardly drinks any from her bedtime bottle anyway.
























She is also, on normal days, down to one after-lunch nap a day and sleeps for a good few hours (right now, for example, she's been asleep for almost 2.5 hours - she should be up soon!). She goes to bed a bit later now that I'm back at work but also sleeps in a touch later as well. She goes to bed around 7:30 and usually sleeps until 7-7:30.

I still can't believe she's a year old. What a whirlwind of a year it has been! I am so lucky to have my beautiful little baby girl. She is the light of my life, my everything. My best little friend. I can't wait to see what the future brings for us. I love watching her grow and learn. She is my entire world. I love you, Charlotte!!
(...and she's awake, I just heard her turn her music on! Ha! My kid!)

The one with the first birthday

Happy birthday my love!

The one with the eleven month update!

Well, eleven months and a week... oops. Things have been extra busy around here as I started back to work on Tuesday and just hadn't had the chance to sit down and update the blog. But now it's Friday evening and I'm sitting with my Pepsi and GSN and figured now was the time!

I can't believe it but my baby girl turned 11 months old on the 14th. 11 months. She's going to be a year old in the blink of an eye. Wowzers!
























So what is new in the life of 11-month-old Charlotte? Well, this kid is mobile!! She's not only walking now but she's practically running. I'd say she's walking about 90% of the time. She really only crawls now if she falls down and has to pull herself back up to be able to walk. She's still not able to just stand back up without assistance but she'll get there in time. She's a walking pro and it makes her SO happy! She was born wanting to walk and now she's finally achieved her goal :) Thankfully she's not the type of kid (right now) to get into everything so her walking isn't a big deal. She loves walking around the corner and playing peekaboo with whoever she finds on the other side. She just likes to walk around, usually carrying a pompom or a puzzle piece, and is just happy to be moving - she doesn't care about destroying the house! She also LOVES to climb the stairs and is really good at it. She likes opening and closing cupboards but hasn't really shown any interest to what's inside.
























She has four teeth (bottom two and top two) and her eye teeth seem to be coming in. Her hair is getting longer and curlier at the bottom. She's sort-of talking - mostly things that only we understand. She knows what sound a duck makes and will "quack" (cough) when we ask her what the ducky says. She also likes to wave at us when we ask "where's the baby?" or "where's Charlotte?". She says "dad" ALL the freakin' time, "mum" occasionally (sounds more like "ma'am" haha), "duh" for dog sometimes, and is working really hard on saying "fan" and "fish". She can make the "f" sound but that's as far as she gets. Boyd heard her say "bird" this morning as they were watching the birds out the window. I love love love hearing all the new things that come out of her mouth! I can't wait for the "I love you, Mummy" :)

She's outgrown all her 6-12 and 9 month clothing and is now in 12-18 even though it's slightly too big. I'm not sure her stats as we don't have another doctor's appointment until October but I think she's close to 20lbs now and people tell us that she's tall.
























Charlotte is ALL about the social games lately. She adores peekaboo, pattycake, and anything that we can do and giggle together. She's still loving her books and will sit quietly and look through them ALL. She empties out her whole bookshelf and then picks through them. She loves the pompoms, her space puzzle, and her PeekaBlock train. She's also started kicking her ball and will chase it all around the house, giggling.

















She's still eating and sleeping extremely well. Her bottle intake is going down pretty significantly. She's down to three bottles a day and quite often she doesn't finish it - she'll pull it out, look at it, say "da", point at it, etc. We're hoping that the transition off bottles will be an easy one since she really doesn't care about them much at all. There's definitely no bottle attachment! She's a pro with her sippy cup so it should be an easy switch.

I still can't believe the next Charlotte update will be her birthday update. Where did this year go?! Wow...

The one with the ten month update!

Well, this is it - double digits! Eep! Charlotte turned 10 months yesterday!

















Days here are certainly not wasted when it comes to her learning and growing lately. She took her first steps on Tuesday and she was so proud of herself. She's continued to take steps and she really just wants to run! I think as soon as she realizes that she needs to hold her body up straight and slow down a bit, she'll be walking everywhere. She looks so adorable walking around! She has also learned how to climb stairs which is certainly a lot of fun when we're visiting Gram and Grampie's house - all she wants to do is climb the stairs from the family room up to the kitchen. She hasn't been overly interested in toys lately because she's too busy exploring the world. We have had some success with homemade toys like pompoms in an empty cream cheese container :)
































We are still signing with her. She signed "more" a couple of times and will still sign "all done". However, in typical Charlotte form, she'll only do it when she feels like it. She waves if we have to her. She claps. I think she may have said some words but I'm not totally sure. What amazes me most lately is that she appears to have quite a bit of self-control. I've watched her at least three or four times already start to do something that I've told her not to and stop herself (i.e. I told her to keep her hands away from the fan and she reached for it again but stopped herself mid-reach). She's a surprisingly good listener for being a baby.

She still absolutely adores books. She will crawl over to her bookshelf and pull out books to happily sit and read by herself. We read a TON throughout the day. Her favourites right now are "Kisses Kisses Baby-O", "Peas and Thank you", "I Like Fruit", "The Ways I Will Love You" and any of her first word type books that have faces to look at. She even notices if certain books are upside-down and will turn them right-side-up before she continues on with the book. So cute!
























She has no new teeth yet but her top two are on their way. Her top right looks like it is going to pop through any day now and the top left isn't going to be far behind. She's officially on three meals a day of solids and still takes four bottles. She's been drinking less and less from her bottles lately, though. She's still a GREAT eater and is all business when there's food in front of her. She really loves grapes and mango lately. Fruit, pasta, and meat are definitely her favourite foods.

















And that's ten-month-old Charlotte in a nutshell!

The one with the overwhelming feeling of relief and closure

As most followers of this blog know, Charlotte and I were never able to sustain a breastfeeding relationship. As outlined in this post, we struggled with severe pain and damage on my end and latching problems on her end. She was evaluated for tongue-tie a couple of times and it was found that she was fine. We had no real explanation for why she had such a poor latch, why she would jerk her head around until she had a shallow latch, why she couldn't latch onto a nipple shield, why she drank from bottles and left the nipple bent when she was through.

A few weeks ago, I came across a blog posted in one of my formula-friendly Facebook pages from a breastfeeding mother desperately seeking help. Her blog brought me to something that I had never ever heard of before: abnormal attachment of the maxillary frenum. I read about it, looked at the photos, and a light bulb went off in my head. In the very early months of Charlotte's life, I clearly remember looking at her smiling and asking Boyd "do you think she's going to have a gap between her front teeth because of that bump there?" That "bump there" is where her maxillary frenulum connects to her gums and goes all the way back to her soft palate. We all have upper and lower frenulums, but it's how they're attached that makes a difference. Just like some babies are tongue-tied (i.e. their lower frenulums are too tightly attached) there are some babies who have an upper lip tie (their upper frenulums are too tightly attached). And I was positive my baby was one of them.

I immediately made a dentist appointment for her to have her checked out. I brought her in, the dentist and nurses oohed and ahhed over the cute baby, stuck a finger in her mouth, and proclaimed her fine. "See you when she's three!" Mother's intuition kicked in and I really just didn't think she was "fine". Perhaps if they had spent more time examining her rather than cooing over her, I might have been able to accept their diagnosis. But I didn't. I didn't really know what else to do until I came across a "Contact Us" form on Dr. Lawrence Kotlow's website. Might as well go directly to the source, right? This is exactly what Dr. Kotlow specializes in. I sent him a request to have a look at Charlotte's mouth and hoped that he might take the time to do it.

I sent him this photo that I was able to quickly snap one day:














and I immediately got the following reply:

"Without a doubt according to my criteria a class 4 lip tie which can cause breastfeeding problems due to a poor latch. Dr.K"

The emotions that I'm feeling right now are overwhelming. A strong mix of relief and anger all at once. Until you're a mother who has "failed" at breastfeeding, you can never understand the feelings that come along with that. Thankfully, I've done my own research these last nine months and I have a very different outlook now regarding infant feeding, but it's still very difficult to hear things like "everything about your baby is unnatural" or "you're too selfish to give your baby the best" and not feel bad about yourself and your ability to be a good parent. Even though I know that we made the best decision we could, I would still often wonder in the back of my mind whether or not we had "given up" too quickly, would it have gotten better as time went on, would we have been successful had I stuck through the pain?

The answer, as I know now, is no. No. Unless someone had discovered this when Charlotte was a newborn and we had had it fixed, no. Her latch would not have improved. Every feed would still have been torturous. She would still have been ripping my nipples to shreds every time she ate.

There's nothing that can be done now. Had I known about this nine months ago, things would have been very different. The thing is, I had no idea this was even a thing. Upper lip tie? Not even on my radar. No doctor, nurse, midwife, public health nurse, or lactation consultant ever made mention of it. Googling it brings up a handful of results. Even kellymom.com, one of the best breastfeeding resources online, makes ONE mention of it in the "tongue-tie" section ("This story is about a child who had a tight upper (labial) frenulum, which can also cause problems.") It's not well-known as a possible breastfeeding issue but it is a very real issue. So even though I sought help in the early weeks of Charlotte's life, no one helped me because it seems no one knew.

I'm just happy that I have some closure now. I know, without a doubt now, that we did what we could. I know that there was a very REAL, physical reason that my daughter could not breastfeed. It wasn't because I was "lazy" or "selfish" or too stupid to not fall for some "booby trap" like some lactivists like to believe of all formula feeding mothers. I recently posted my story to one of my favourite blogs, the Fearless Formula Feeder, and what the author wrote of my story is so very very true. She wrote:

"Lisa's FFF Friday submission is superbly written (her last paragraph is one of the most beautiful things I've read about formula feeding), but beyond that, I think it speaks powerfully to the common misconception that women who "fail" at breastfeeding were simply lacking support, motivation or information. However, there's a caveat to Lisa's story, which I have included, and this suggests that the biggest booby trap might be a refusal of the medical profession to acknowledge rare, but very real, breastfeeding difficulties."

Our breastfeeding struggles boil down to a mother that wanted to but a baby that couldn't. I'm happy to finally put an end to the emotional turmoil this whole thing has caused and I really wish that, in the future, all babies have their whole mouths examined when breastfeeding issues are present. I'm sure it would save some women out there a whole lot of heartache.