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Kipton, Ethan (cousin) and Kylie

 

Last week Kipton had his two month checkup. As I've mentioned before he's such a little peanut! He weighed 9 lbs 5 oz and is now 21.5 inches long. He's in the 6% percentile for weight and height and 16% for head circumference. I know better than to say "grow boy grow" because they grow up WAY too fast. It doesn't help that the poor guy just can't keep much down. He throws up ALL. OF. THE. TIME. I remember that Kylie would yack up quite a bit but he's putting her to shame. He just can't keep much of his feedings down. He'll give a little burp and we know to run for a burp cloth because it's all coming up. Apparently he has reflux. I'm just glad he's hasn't been too fussy over the issue. He just yacks up and life goes on for all he's concerned. We are working on a few things to try to remedy the issue but we may have to resort to some meds. We shall see.

He's starting to look around more and recognizes my voice. It's crazy to see him hold his head up so well, put a little bit of weight on his legs (not much but still) and generally just starting to be aware of the surroundings. I think the sibling rivalry is starting because sometimes he'll start to cry when Kylie gets near him. Hahahaha!!! Generally she's been doing much better with him but every so often we have to re-address the issue. For example the "straw" incident this past Sunday. Let's just say it involved the two of them, a straw and lots of tears and a few red marks on his head. Someday he'll be big enough to return the favor I'm sure.

Kylie's been picking up on all sorts of new things. She's so smart and observant. We've been reading the book of mormon readers to her and she'll just pick up on all sorts of things... such as Jesus being baptized, Emma, the children being blessed by Jesus. And there's this one page that shows this ugly lady on it and she'll always point to it and say "mama!" (thanks sweets!). She's also been having fun decorating Easter eggs this week.

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of our biggest blessings

Kylie has been working on her potty training skills. Still having a hard time remembering to use the bathroom when she's wearing underwear. But she quickly mastered going #2 on the potty so I consider that a success! I have only attempted to take her to play group without a diaper. She still isn't quite ready to be able to hold it for any length of time. She's so proud of herself and likes to flush the toilet herself and occasionally she receives a m&.m for her hard work!

She's also been learning new words like a storm lately. I can really sense the wheels in her head turning at times. She still doesn't speak in sentences, but she'll say things all the time like "Kylie hard time sleeping" or "Daddy work" or "brother sleeping". Over the last week I've noticed that she's starting to be slightly more independent. Usually she won't leave my side all day no matter what I'm doing. But I've noticed over the last week or so she'll entertain herself with something for a short time. She'll even watch a short episode of Elmo by herself, which she would have never done before. She loves to read books and we read them by the dozens around this place lately.

Oh... funny story. A couple days ago after she had done the deed I was telling her how good of a job she was doing and she was so excited and so happy. She flushed the toilet, looked over it and her binky fell in and before I could even react it was gone. Poor Kylie just erupted in to hysterical tears. You'd have thought I just flushed her best friend down the loo. The rest of the day all I heard about was "Kylie Binky Toilet!" with an occasional "Mouse" thrown in there for good measure. I had told her maybe a mouse in the sewer could use her binky. She is doing so much better with Kipton now and loves to hold the little guy. She still has her moments, but has been doing heaps and bounds better now with him. She sure loves him a lot and is very concerned about him! She'll always ask about him after she wakes up from a nap or if he's not with us for some reason.


Kipton is our little peanut of a son! He's grown out of two of his newborn outfits but still fits in the rest. He looks so little to me. I think I'm continually amazed by how much they grow during those first two years. He is SUCH a cutie! I just love how he smells. Who knew sour milk could smell so good?! Today I broke down and cut a little of the long hairs that were on top of his head and put them away for his baby book.

He'll usually eat three ounces every 3-4 hours but sometimes it's just two ounces and sometimes its four. He is a great burper but is constantly spitting up milk. There are days I go through 5-6 outfits. I remember that Kylie spit up milk quite a bit at this age too. But I'm glad it doesn't seem to be bothering him. He's very content most of the time and for the most part I've been getting enough sleep. I think I'm so used to having interrupted sleep for the past 2+ years that it doesn't bother me anymore. He's been holding his head up and I'm starting to see the beginning glimpses of smiles. He likes to look around at what's going on but is still very wobbly and wiggly and will almost jump out of our arms when we are holding him. Just tonight he was sleeping in the bouncer and when he woke up we looked over and there was just a mess of a blankets and baby legs going everywhere!


What have I been up to lately? When I'm not feeding children, getting them down for naps or changing diapers/potty training I've been working on their baby books. A few weeks before Kipton was born we were shopping at Babi.es R Us and I found the most darling baby book that was in blues and greens... perfect for our soon-to-be-son. I then noticed they had a matching one for girls so that came home with me too. I had never gotten around to putting a baby book together of Kylie when she was born. Way too much other stuff to worry about at the time... or what felt like it at least. So I've been filling them both out and it's been quite the undertaking. Especially for Kylie since I'm having to have to adapt and edit some of the pages to accommodate her story. I just wish I had more time to work on them!

Kiptons Birth... part 2

You can read part one here.

After laboring most of the day Jared and I headed to the hospital around 8:30 that night. We arrived at labor and delivery and they quickly had me put on a gown, inserted and IV and placed a few monitors on my belly. I had been worried that I had spent all that time at home laboring and that I wouldn't be that far dilated. They checked me and found out that I was a good 4.5 almost 5. AWESOME!!! I was so happy to hear that. I had been worried that I'd gone through all that work at home and that they'd tell me I was 2+ or something! We then learned that I most likely had been leaking amniotic fluid all day and that we should have come in and had it checked. Oops. The book I had been reading throughout our pregnancy mentioned that amniotic fluid has a slightly sweet smell and this didn't smell like urine, but it didn't smell sweet either. We tell this to the nurse and she's like "uhhhhh... NO!" and explained to us while that's sometimes the case in her experience it can either smell fishy or like nothing at all. She was pretty certain I had a slow amniotic fluid leak all day. She did a quick test and it immediately came back positive. After that the nurses became anxious to get things rolling so our munchkin could be born within the 24 hour time frame so infection doesn't happen.

The anesthesiologist appeared right away and was able to insert the epidural. Jared is very squeamish about needles so he opted to turn around while they inserted it. Oddly enough when they rubbed iodine on my back it REALLY burned and was the most painful part of the whole epidural I thought the epidural was HEAVEN!!! It was literally the most comfortable I had been in weeks. I've noticed a re-occurring theme with myself and medicine. So far I haven't met a medicine that my body hasn't responded well to or had a bad reaction with. The epidural worked out perfectly. My legs were slightly tingly but I could still move them and the pain was gone. It worked exactly as it should. Loved it and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. It really did make those final hours special for us and dare I say enjoyable?

Apparently for a first time pregnancy patient I progressed pretty rapidly. Or at least more so than the others that were laboring there that night. The nurses seemed eager to let me know this for some reason. I don't know why they bring that up... not like it matters or that anyone is in a competition! We were just happy that by laboring at home as long as we did and by how things were progressing that we avoided being put on pit.ocin. By one pm, four hours after I was admitted they had me start pushing. I pushed for about an hour later and our little boy was born!!! That was amazing! Seeing his precious little face brought back so many memories of when Kylie was born. It was crazy how similar and familiar it felt. The same love and the instant adoration for that precious little life. He really never cried much. Just whimpered and whimpered when he was placed on my chest. We were just so happy that he had made it here safely and looked so healthy and pink. We had decided ahead of time to do delayed cord clamping. I don't know if it really does much good, but it couldn't hurt (it allows some of the cord blood to drain into the baby). So we drank in every inch of him for several minutes and then the cord went limp and it was clamped off. I ended up tearing a little bit, but not by much.

to be continued...

Sneak peak

just boring stuff

What have we been up to lately?

We've started the process of potty training Kylie. I put her on the toilet yesterday, just like we have numerous times before and she went! YES!!!!! We layed on the praise THICK and she earned some m&.m's by doing that. We are still in the beginning stages but so far she's doing great... she went 6-7 times today! So she's been running around the house without a diaper lately while we get the process down.

Kipton is doing his job by being a great baby. I've been feeding him right before bedtime and he gets up about twice a night. Kylie's doing so much better with him. He's such a cutie! We are so blessed to have him with us. Jared found out that we would have received $1700 more in our tax return if he had been born three weeks earlier! Oh well :).

Unfortunately I've been frustrated with the breastfeeding the last week or two. Around week five it seemed like everything went downhill. Things had been going so great before, so I'm not happy with how the last two weeks have gone. It seems like no matter what I do my supply just isn't increasing. I would spend a good hour nursing him and then he'd still act as if he was starving after so we'd top him off with an ounce to so of formula. After a few days of this I decided to pump a bit to see what was going on. I'll pump for an hour and barely get one ounce of milk. Since he'll eat about three ounces at a feeding that's a problem. So I took a two day break from nursing, just pumping to see if that would help increase things. Big mistake. Now I wish I would have just gotten a supplemental nursing system. I swear that pump has been my downfall and I want to throw it off the side of a cliff. So now I'm STILL not getting more than an ounce at one pumping session and I've got a baby that wants nothing to do with nursing anymore... he just thrashes at me. No wonder. When I'm pumping it's like I'm practically willing the droplets out. So I'm still pumping, but it literally takes me three different sessions (2.5-3 hours) to get enough for one feeding. It's ridiculous.

Its like the endless downward cycle. If I could get my supply up to snuff I'm pretty sure I could get him to nurse again. But I need him to nurse in order to get my supply going better. That probably wouldn't have solved my problems completely knowing what I know now. But pumping hasn't been kind to me. Not happy about that.

So that's been my life lately.