Ethan's 6 Week Update

Chunky monkey! A smiley chunky monkey! Our little man, is still little by newborn standards, but he has grown SO MUCH! I love that he still looks little and can snuggle into the nook of my shoulder on my chest so nicely...but, you guys....

ETHAN HAS GAINED ALMOST 5 POUNDS!!!

Here's what Ethan's growth looks like so far:

Birth: 6 lbs 5 oz
Discharge: 5 lbs 15 oz
2 weeks: 7 lbs 15 oz
1 month: 9 lbs 3 oz
6 weeks: 10 lbs 13 oz

The only thing I was concerned about at his 6 week appointment is that he's still jaundice. Sometimes I doubt myself....but clearly in these pictures he's still a tinge yellow. His color is slowly improving, but our doc is sending Ethan for blood work just to check things out (boo!) so I'm hoping that it's all well and that it will just clear up on it's own. He certainly doesn't act like a jaundice baby!

So from our discharge from the hospital at his lowest weight, he's gained almost 5 pounds in 6 weeks! Just unbelievable! This 100% makes me not worry about him being so spitty. I talked to my sweet friend Jac about Ethan's spitting, as her son was also very spitty too. We tried some of her tricks and they work! It's not 100%, but it helps and it varies day to day. Some days (or nights) it seems like he spits up everything...(but obviously he doesn't!), and other days he just has a quarter-sized spit. Mostly undigested milk just dribbles out the side of his mouth. I can live with having (another) healthy, spitty baby. It truly is just a laundry problem. (And also I hold my breath and pray that he won't throw up all over whoever is holding him!)

Back to the smiley part! This week, right when he turned 6 weeks on Tuesday he started smiling on purpose. My mother-in-law always says to Ethan "are you going to give Mommy some smiles now? She deserves it you know!" and he listened! Oh he's just so so sweet and him smiling on purpose is just the icing on the cake. He's also trying to coo....but he grunts SO much (as you have heard on Twitter if you follow me, surely!) that it's hard to distinguish anything other than a grunt!

He had his 6 week growth spurt right on time and I was up from 4:30 AM one day until 2:30 AM the next. Eat, eat, eat! No wonder why he's gaining so much weight! He also took a bottle for the first time yesterday, just a breeze! Guzzled 3 oz and then nursed on one side after. Can I get a "FREEEEEDOMMMMMM!!!!" and a "hallelujah!!" please!? Actually, Jay and I are planning a matinee date to celebrate Ethan's bottle-taking abilities! I'm not ready to sacrifice my sleep at night yet until he starts sleeping longer, so we'll go out in the afternoon.

Speaking of sleep, all is still fairly well in that department. He sleeps anywhere from 4-6 hours the first stretch, eats, and then sleeps another 2-3 hours. But since he turned 6 weeks this week, he had a growth spurt and it's thrown him off a bit, as he thinks it's cool to party in the middle of the high again, which I hate! It makes me feel like SUCH a mombie (that's zombie + mommy).

He naps really well too, but I can tell he's getting out of the "I'm-a-newborn-and-will-sleep-anywhere-anytime-through-anything" phase! Sometimes he will sleep while being passed around (when I want him to be awake, of course!) but other times he's up for hours because there's too much going on around him.

Breastfeeding is going really, really well. I love this instant bond that I've had with both of my babies because of this. My supply is abundant and as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, he goes though phases throughout the day of being really spitty and then not so much. Just praying that he outgrows this sooner than later! I think his latch could still be better, but it doesn't bug me and it doesn't bug him, other than potentially being spitty.

I'm starting to have to take a little more time to get him down for a nap too. He falls asleep nursing, but with his insane grunting (seriously, this baby is the loudest, gruntiest thing!) I have to rock him into a deep sleep or he'll be unsettled with his grunts and eventually spit himself awake. If I'm impatient (like I often am in the middle of the night), and try to lay him down too fast then he spits and I have to start over. It doesn't take long, and I'm soaking up all the snuggles I can!

He's become very very active this week. Well...for a 6 week old! He loves his play mat and has really found his kicks! He also does this in the bath and Braden loves to have a bath "to-gey-er" with Ethan, so we do that a few times a week now.

Have I mentioned how much I still love my camera, tripod, and remote? Love that I have been able to take all of his photos, they mean all the much more to me! Phew! That was a long post, hey!?

A Canadian Milestone

Imagine this: a beautiful, crisp winter day. Temperatures above freezing. A frozen slough, in the river valley just begging to be skated on. Oh! You don't even have to imagine...just take a look!

Beautiful, isn't it? This is the hamlet of Rosebud. It's very near and dear to my heart. It's where I got married and where we go to church every Sunday. And now to add to that list? The place where we first took Braden skating!

He was just overjoyed to be going skating! He's been talking about it all winter and we've just been waiting for the time to do it, and I'm glad that we did wait!


Braden was so excited and he loved it. Like LOVED it! This is just making me beam because I grew up on the ice, in an arena. I used to competitively figure skate and also teach skating, so I am so happy about Braden reaching this milestone - he's not even 3 yet!

It didn't take him long at all to find his balance. He can stand still and stand on his own and he can even get up when he falls down. By the end of his first little session, he could hold on to the hockey stick while Jay pulled him around. He fell straight onto his knees and on his bum many times, but he never cried. Not even once. He just had a big smile on his face and kept getting up and trying again. Wow.

We also brought the dog and even let her go off leash...we all had a wonderful family afternoon!

I know what you might be thinking, or at least what I know my mom is thinking, it was really nice out and Ethan was boiling in his little Winnie the Pooh suit and even his head was warm! In fact, he had the biggest blow out of his little life shortly after that picture - oh the memories!

The Nap Dilemma

Say it isn't so. I'm not ready to cut this proverbial cord. The weaning of the one and only afternoon nap. So Braden is 2 years and 4.5 months old, if we want to be exact. Normally he naps from about 1-3 every afternoon still. Sometimes after a lot of hullabalu in our life, he'll go on a 3 day nap strike but then happily get back into the napping cycle. Well, the problem now isn't the napping. In fact, he's been napping great. He had two 2.5 hour naps last week. BUT....(and it is a big but)....that meant not falling asleep until after 9 o'clock both those nights. I know that is *the* tell tale sign that most kids are ready to give up their afternoon nap. Both of those days he did have later naps and woke up at 4:15 and 4:30...so I think I will try to put him down between 12-1 to see if that helps so he's up between 2-3, but if not, I think it's so long and farewell, my dear 2-hours-of-toddler-free-time in the afternoon.



It is nice that on a day like Friday, when we went to the mall, that he can tolerate being up and about all day without *needing* to have a nap every.single.day. Not only that, but tolerating it as well. Not getting 100% cranky pants on us, only about 30% cranky pants! I know it won't be a cold-turkey nap stopping, there will probably still be 2 or 3 days a week where he will nap, and boy will I cherish those days. He's a great, great kid...but man do I ever enjoy my free time in the afternoon...I think we all do! I do plan on having Quiet Time though, after lunch still. I'll tell him he has to stay in his room until Mommy comes to get him. He can have a nap, read his books, or play with his trains. Yup, his train table is in his room and he does fabulously with it in there.

So, I guess we'll see how this next week pans out. Wish us luck. I'm not ready for this milestone. Someone hold me!

Potty Training Day #3

What a great day, day #3 was. I had my doubts in the mid-afternoon, but in true Braden fashion, he proved his mama wrong and that he handles pretty much everything like a champ. Here's a run down on day 3:

• 7:00 up for the day with Daddy, Mommy up shortly after
• 9:00 - 11:00 multiple "tell Mommy when you have to go pee!" and "are your underwear dry?" reminders and conversations...and a few "why hasn't he peed yet?" tweets from me.
• I have to break 2 rules today
• #1 I had long ago promised Laura I would pick Luke from play school and have him for an hour or two until she got back from her hair appointment (not supposed to leave the house)
• #2 We needed to leave our house to go to town shortly after 11:30, so at 11:20ish I had to say to him "you need to pee on the potty before we go get Luke". You're not supposed to remind them or tell them to "try", they need to learn to recognize the signs to go, BUT he did listen and went right before we left. 4.5 HOURS after he got up! And he had 2 little drinkable yogurts, 1.5 sippies of milk too! I had gone 5 times already!
• 12:15 the boys have lunch
• 1:00 I get Braden ready for his nap, and he's tired...but I kinda assume he won't settle as Luke is over and he's too excited
• 2:00 Laura & Luke go home and I get Braden up from his quiet time
• His diaper was very wet...so I told him that that's his "sleepy time bum" and if he needs to go potty when he's awake to please tell mommy
• I feared that this might be a big regression in training...but we had to see how the day would progress
• I pulled out the big guns and gave him a full cup of full strength apple juice to get the pee a flowing
• I did tell myself at this point that I wanted him STOP going to the BR simply because I was doing it. Any time he did go when I did, he decided on his own accord "I pee potty" but I didn't want him to associate going to the BR with someone else going too
• I wanted him to have some accidents so that his brain would recognize the signs and that he has to get to the potty before he has the accident
• 3:30 he has a teeny tiny accident, about the size of a golf ball on his undies, good thing I kept asking and checking if his underwear was dry! We ran to the potty, I told him "yucky! Your underwear are wet! You need to pee in the potty!" all the while being very positive and upbeat, and guided him to sit down and finish peeing. He immediately got up and ran to his closet to get new undies
• 3:45 another tiny accident, repeat above - would NOT sit down on the potty to finish
• 4:15 yet another tiny accident, but this time he shouts "Need new bum!" ran to the BR all by himself, I helped him get his underwear down, he sat down by himself and had a massive pee! YAY! It "clicked!" I don't know how he had those little dribble accidents, but it took 3 of those for it to click and he finally ran to the BR to finish the job!
• 6:00 I hear another "Need new bum!" as I'm looking at a recipe to cook for tomorrow so I ran behind him, got him on the potty, he looks down to see the results with the BIGGEST and proudest grin you've ever seen - Mommy! Look! I DID IT!
• 6:15 this time a very loud "Need new bum! Pee on potty!" I thought it was odd since he had just gone, but he loves his instant potty treats so I figured if he could squeeze out a few drops - good for him! But...he had a massive POOP on the potty all by himself! 
• Then right before bath he had another tiny poop by himself - yay!

I'm overjoyed that he recognizes the urge to pee and poop. I so feared that he would have major poop issues, but he proved mama wrong yet again. For now we are still using the little green Ikea potty, he really likes to see his results and dispose of the same in the big potty. He really knows the routine of dumping, flushing, washing hands with his special Elmo soap, drying his hands and then potty treats!

He got a BRAND NEW talking Gordon for the big poop on the potty!

I know he might have some regressions and that it's not all figured out yet, but I am so so so pleased with this 3 day potty training method recommended to me by Katie V & Frazzalicious, I am eternally grateful to you both! I will be doing a blog post more in depth on the method itself in the future!


My little sidekick for the last 2 days. He's been very snuggly and I can tell he appreciates all the 1 on 1 time with me. It's nice to be 100% dedicated to him for the last 2 days. No, or very little, house cleaning to worry about...and to tell you the truth he's not as whiny and annoying when I'm available to him! I know why, and I can't do this every day, but it's been really nice...he's just as sweet as apple pie!

An example of how sweet he is! About 30 minutes of staying in his bed and babbling to himself, I told him over the monitor he could go read his books now. He then turned on his lamp, grabbed a few books, climbed up in the rocking chair and read. The sweetest boy alive, I tell ya!

Thanks for following along on our journey, as always, this potty training adventure in particular!

Potty Training Day #2

Dearest friend Katie V forwarded me the 3 day method in a PDF file yesterday. It was super easy to read through, and asides from the nap and night training, I'm totally doing this. Following it to almost a tea. Here's our day in bullet form:

• 6:45 AM wake-up, Daddy gets Braden up and Braden is commando with jammie pants on
• 7:15 AM Mommy's out of bed and gets Braden in his underwear and jammie shirt stays on for the day
• I am 100% devoted to sticking to him like glue all day, so he's happy to snuggle on the couch, loving all the mommy attention (he usually plays in the AM by himself and watches shows while I do a few things)
• 8:45 AM after a Danino drinkable yogurt, 1 full sippy cup of milk, and about 50 million "Braden, tell Mommy when you have to go pee in the potty"'s and "Braden are your underwear dry? Good for you!"'s (very important element to the 3 day method) I pull out the big guns and give him 1/2 apple juice and 1/2 water to try to avoid yesterday's poosplosions
• 9:45 AM, 3 hours and a lot more "tell Mommy when you have to go" reminders still nothing
• Hawk-watching continues, he never leaves my side
• 10:25 AM still no pee - wow my child has remarkable bladder control! Reading books in his room, my pregnant self HAS to pee. Since, according to the method, I cannot take my eyes of my child, he comes into the BR with me, and on his own accord wants to "pee on potty". He happened to bring a book ("Are You My Mother?") with him. 
• 10:30 AM I am on the big potty, he's on his little green one, I read about 5 pages and he stops....looks down....and pees! YAY, BRADEN!
• He actually loved seeing his "results" in the little potty and really loved dumping said results in the toilet and flushing it away. Follow hand-washing, 2 potty treats, and time at the train table
• I gave him another glass of 1:1 apple juice:water, and was interested to see that now that the big morning pee was out of the way, what he would do.
• 11:45 I have to pee again, Braden did NOT want to come in the BR with me as I was watching him play outside on the deck. I told him "you don't have to sit on the potty unless you want to, but you have to stay with Mommy so I can pee!" Again, he says "pee on potty" and we repeat reading a bit and then him peeing again!
• 12:15 we eat some lunch and I am constantly reminding him to tell me if he has to go and praising him for having dry underwear. All.the.live.long.day!
• 12:30 watching the very end of a Thomas episode before nap time he suddenly looks up at me and says "need new bum!" I could see his light grey boxer briefs turning darker grey so "I said, let's go to the potty!" as we ran there.
• I sat him down on his little potty showed him that his underwear was not wet, not dry, and said "yucky! Your underwear is wet!" He took them to his hamper and then I let him run around just a little bit more before nap time, as I didn't want to associate accident = diaper
• 12:45 he's out cold. In the meantime I do some Pilates watching Ellen, have a much needed shower, even have time to give myself a mini-pedi minus the polish (yet!)
• 3:45 epic 3 hour toddler nap!!! This never happens! I guess potty training is wearing him out as much as it is me!! BUT, he wakes up in a flood...AGAIN. So frustrating and it makes him SO upset. He was drenched from diaper half way up his chest. I don't know how he slept through, it but it's like he's traumatized when he wakes up. He just would not pee, like have a really good pee before nap
• 5:15 he'd had a bit of water and another drinkable yogurt and so I had to pee (as per usual) I didn't say anything to him other than to come to the BR because I had to go potty, took off his underwear, he sat down for 2.5 seconds, left, turned off the light in the BR leaving me peeing in the dark! Told him to please come back and turn the light on, he did, sat down on the potty and peed! With the biggest grin on his face!
• 5:55 we did a "no no" of the 3 day training and left the house to go for supper at my in-laws. It was a quick supper and we were home by 6:30.
• 6:30 time for a bath, and he happily peed on the potty AGAIN (that's #4 if you've lost count!) and had his bath. 
• Lately he's liked to stall after bed time, but I figure I can use this to my advantage now. He DESPERATELY wanted another potty treat before bed, he was clean and naked, so he sat down to pee again. He grunted/strained for 15 seconds or so...nothing. Paced a bit, tried to convince me to give him a treat for trying, sits back down on the potty and has a fart...."good toot, Braden!".....has another, bigger fart...

He pooped on the potty!!! 

Oh we have both never been so happy to see poop in our life! I did not anticipate this happening on day 2, especially at the end of the day, but I am so happy and so proud of him! 

Thank you, thank you, thank you Katie V for sending me the 3 day method! I am 100% sold! He only had 1 accident, 4 pees, and 1 poop today! His accident wasn't even that big. Here are my thoughts about PT so far, things that will eventually have to change:

• all but the last time he peed, I also was peeing on the toilet beside him
• I read him a book 2 of the 4 times he peed....but I think he does need to sit and "think" about it a bit and won't pee the minute his butt hits the potty
• I LOVE how excited he is when he sees his results in the little potty - Mom, you were right!
• He loves calling Daddy to tell him how good he is doing!
• The trains are fun to play with, but he is LOVING the M&M/Smartie potty treats he gets immediately after he does his business
• I'm hoping in the next few days he'll just run to the potty or tell me that he needs to go, all on his own
• He asked on his own accord to watch "The Potty Movie" 4 times today. I can tell he's paying attention because in the movie the character Henry can put his own slippers on...so Braden took me to his closet and requested to wear his Thomas slippers...just like Henry! He also chose for me to read to him "The Potty Book" all by himself!

Thank you again for reading and for your kind words of encouragement!

Also, I just wanted to note that all of my trains for Braden as rewards are 50% off from mamabargains.com, up to 70% off from eBay, or ones that he already has but thinks are new because I took them away a month ago! So he's not reeeeeally a spoiled brat. For those non-Thomas mommies out there, brand new wooden trains in the store cost anywhere from $12-$30 depending on if you hit a sale!

Potty Training Day #1

Well, we started the day by saying "bye bye, diapers!" He has been very happy to "hep you, Mommy" lately, so he packed away all his medium cloth diapers (minus nap and bedtime diapers)...and happily bid adieu to them.

Then he used his big, strong muscles to help me get rid of his change table. We moved it next door for baby Abby to use and eventually for his baby sister/brother to use. I didn't explain all that to him, he wouldn't have cared anyway. He doesn't seem to get emotionally attached to objects much.

Then, the fun began. Braden rarely gets juice. If I'm grabbing lunch on the go from McD's he'll get an apple juice or chocolate milk. I also have a new tradition that he gets an apple juice box after swimming to keep him entertained while I change. Other than that, I never have juice in our house for him, he loves his water or milk just fine. SO, I knew he would be thrilled to be drinking apple juice all day.

He probably gulped down 2 half glasses instantly then I stopped him before things got out of control!

Braden has been going diaper-less in the mornings for a few weeks now. It airs out his bum and he can hold his urine for 2-4 hours. He even asked me on the weekend for "new bum" just so he could have his first AM pee in his diaper! That's how I know he's ready for potty training.

One of his rewards is getting to play with his new train table! I assembled the table last night, but thought it would be fun for us to do the tracks together this AM.

Enter accident #1. It was about 2 hours after Jay got him up, so I figured I had a teensie bit more time...but I *should* have just taken him to the potty. Peed in his underwear on the area rug, looked so sad and said "Mommy! Need new bum!" So I whisked him away to the potty, took his wet undies off on the potty and said "it's okay, Braden! Pee goes in the potty! Next time!" He took his wet undies to the hamper, picked out new ones, and came to help me clean up his accident and threw away the paper towels in the trash.

Accident #2. Maybe I should have made him sit on the potty longer when he had his accident...but very shortly after he had his new undies on he had a tiny spot on his undies, just enough to wet the front. I explained to him that they were "wet" and needed to stay dry. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Success #1! At 11:30 on that fine Tuesday morning, my boy peed on the potty! We are using our big toilet, with a toddler seat built into the toilet lid, if that makes any sense at all. I used the iPad and Caillou on Netflix to get him to stay - otherwise he won't. I'll deal with "weaning" him from the iPad a bit later. I hooted and hollered, he happily said "bye bye, pee!" as he flushed the toilet, he was so happy to wash his hands, receive 2 Smarties as instant rewards, and THEN he got to go get a brand new train to play with on his train table. He picked James.

He was really thrilled to use his train table, as I've taken away ALL his trains and he also has time to play on the train table as a reward after he pees.


Accident #3. I should have known better, but it was so nice out and he really wanted to play outside, so I let him...and he had a big pee accident. I didn't keep track of my times as much as I should have, but it seemed really early to take him to the potty! I gave him another 1/2 glass of apple juice, and made us a gourmet lunch of Zoodles and right after lunch....

Success #2! Pretty much the same as success #1. He sure doesn't pee RIGHT AWAY when he sits down, I'd say maybe 5-10 minutes?? Normal? No? But it was a big pee and this time he got to play with Kevin the crane!

Since we were right on the heels of nap time, I let him go nude. He enjoyed playing with the train table a bit more, then suddenly ran to the potty saying "new bum!" Before I could even get up, get came back with his James underwear, so I just assumed he didn't want to be naked and needed his "new bum" on....which formerly was his term for new diaper.

He farted. Boys fart. Braden farts all the time. Whatever.

1 minute later....he had a BIG, wet, fart.... poop.

Poop Accident #1. Was totally not anticipating this today. He is a every 3-4 day pooper and he just pooped 2 days ago. The poor guy was SO devastated! He did NOT like having his underwear full of poop. Took him to the potty, dumped his poop in the potty and told him that's where his poop goes, although he does know this from multiple times of me cleaning his cloth diapers. P.S. Thank GOODNESS for diaper sprayers to clean messy underwear!

Nap time. Put on his usual nap diaper and told him it was his "sleepy bum" only for when he goes to sleep. He slept 1.5 hours and woke up screaming. Poor guy was SOAKED from head to toe. Oops, mommy fail. Too much juice. My boy pees like a race horse (whatever does that mean anyway!?) when he has "crap" sugary drinks...which is one of the reasons why I did want to use apple juice!

Success #3! I did put him on the potty once, about an hour after he got up...I figured he probably didn't have that much urine left after the big flood at nap time, and he didn't do anything. Took him awhile later (time is a blur) and he did it! He didn't seem to actually know he was peeing, or he certainly didn't care anyway, but he LOVED getting a brand new Alfie as a reward.


It was by far his favorite prize of the day. He actually switched from watching Caillou to watching old episodes of Thomas with the construction characters in it.

Then by my mommy fail and too much apple juice...he had 2 "poop smear" accidents...really embellished wet farts, if you will stand my disgustingness in talking all that is poop and potty. APPLE JUICE IS A LAXATIVE FOR YOUR TODDLER, SARAH! SMARTEN UP!!! I just clued into that after the 2nd smear. What have I done to my poor kid. I felt so bad, I felt like I failed him! Those little accidents didn't really seem to bother him, but he DID tell me that he was wet so we did the change, clean, new underwear routine and he was really getting it.

Then he had no.more.accidents all afternoon! Mind you, he did only pee that once. I swear we were off and on the potty for an hour, and delayed bedtime by 45 minutes to try and get that last pee out, with no success.

Overall...pretty happy with day #1! I'm not reeeeeeally following a method. Just pointers that I've learned from Laura and my friend Katie. Laura did "less than a day" and Katie did "3 day". Going to review both and pick the points that I like. The thing I don't like about "less than a day" is that Braden has to undress and take himself to the potty. I totally see the benefit and reward...but Braden can't undress himself. He just can't. Not yet.

I feel like I am doing something wrong? I am so proud of him and I know he'll "get it"...I just feel like I should be/could be doing something better for him? I guess children have been potty trained since the beginning of time and I should just stop stressing so much! Also, today I did 4 loads of laundry (not all folded), cleaned my kitchen, vacuumed & washed my floors, and made dinner for everyone...and rotated my sprinklers 3 times. I did a LOT of that stuff during his nap and right after he did have a success...but I need to dedicate myself 100% to him tomorrow and I don't have to worry because my house is CLEAN and I don't have to cook supper!

Well, here's to you...day #2!