Mom, I only have eyes for you (and by you, I mean your boobs)

Ollie is 12 weeks now, decked out in a
shirt crafted by our friend Kate Coventry.

Well, we have encountered a new hurdle in our efforts to feed baby Ollie - he's started to refuse a bottle.  In the first weeks of life, we got the okay to start bottle feeding Ollie to give my breasts a break.  I was pumping anyway to get my supply up.  So, a couple of times a day, Ollie would get a bottle.  It was great because Logan and grandmas all got to feed Ollie.  By 8 weeks though, I could handle all the feedings, so we cut way back on bottle feeding.  I know now that this was a mistake.

Because then it happened.  Ollie just said no to the bottle.

After a few tries & rejections, we went to the internet & our lactation consultant to get some help.  The frustrating thing is that the most frequent & stressed suggestion is that Mom needs to absent herself.  Spending my days with Ollie, I feel like I'm best placed to work with him, but I did it.

And it helped.  Ollie took a bottle from my mom.  We thought that we were in business.  And then he rejected it from us (me and Logan).

So, we spent the week working with Ollie.  This stuff is really hard because the last thing in the world anyone wants to do is see their baby cry.  And that bottle could really make him cry.  I would try and give it to him, not pushing it for feeding, but just trying to get him to take it.  There was lots of cooing and cajoling and congratulations every time he would take it.  Logan continued to try and do feedings, but didn't have great success.

We were working hard because Logan's parents were coming to visit and Logan and I had planned a night out for our anniversary.  I was so reluctant to leave Ollie if he wouldn't take a bottle -- I didn't want my little guy to go hungry -- that I cried on the way to meet my husband.  It was purely emotional.  Intellectually, I knew Ollie would be fine, but apparently, my brain doesn't win in every situation.

Needless to say, I was so relieved to get the text that Ollie took a bottle from Logan's mom and was snoozing away.  In fact, he bottle fed a few times during their visit!  Since, he's done a couple of short feedings with his dad.  Not major eating, but it's progress.  Hopefully, in a few weeks, he'll be a bottle feeding pro again.  It's important because we're hoping to start daycare part-time in the next couple of months.  I've been told that tenacity is the name of the game.  Let's hope we can keep it up!

Always beating the odds

At 2 months, Ollie is 11 lb. 14 oz & 23.5"

You know that woman at the pharmacy?  The one with the crying baby, the ponytail coming loose, and the bags under her eyes.  You kind of feel sorry for her, but maybe you're annoyed by her too?  No one likes to hear a crying baby.  Yeah, today that was me.  You see, Ollie got his first round of vaccinations.

I sat in the doctor's office listening as the doctor gave me dosing instructions for children's tylenol, just in case we needed to use it.  She went on to say that only 20% of babies run a fever in response to the shots.  That should have been my first cue.

You see in this house, we're really good at beating the odds.  Everyone told us Ollie would be late.  The doctor started prepping me for an induction well before our due date.  Yet, little Ollie came early.  All the books and classes stressed that a woman's water does not usually break in advance of contractions -- Hollywood had it wrong, they said -- and then my water broke in advance of the contractions.

So, I really should have listened more carefully when the doctor said, "That means most babies don't run a fever.  Hopefully, that's Oliver."  Oh, and note to self: next time the doctor is giving you instructions for meds your child might need, GO BUY THE MEDS.  For some reason, it didn't occur to me that we'd really need them, or maybe I thought that I'd have some kind of notice.  Ollie would text me, "OMG! Starting to feel bad. Go get meds!"  But he didn't and I didn't.

Instead, he woke up from a nap screeching in pain - he had a low grade fever and the vaccination site was red and swollen.  And I wasn't prepared.  After comforting him for a while, I realized we were going to need the meds, packed him up and off we went.  Luckily, he found the car soothing and there wasn't much crying until we got into the store.  I raced off to the pharmacy, located the pain relievers and found that they don't keep kid meds with adult meds.  I yelled questions at the poor guy behind the counter until I found what I needed and headed up front.  Of course, there was a long line and lots of people there to hear and see me bouncing my child in a car seat, chatting with him, and when those things didn't work, starting to recite, "Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?" from memory.

And as if there wasn't enough for me to be embarrassed about, as I left the store, I stepped in a big puddle, a big, gross puddle of warm liquid in the parking lot of the CVS.  Ugh!

On the bright side, Ollie is doing well - he's putting on weight like a champ (11 lb. 14 oz.) and keeps growing taller (23.5"); it looks like he's going to be tall and thin like his dad.  And after 2 doses of tylenol, lots of cuddling, and a couple of readings of "Mr. Brown," he's finally asleep.