A Most Determined Flirt

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Are you female? Are you young? Are you pretty? Then allow me to introduce you to Eamon Wolfe, who is truly, madly, deeply in love with you.

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Eamon is a flirt of gigantic proportions. He’s friendly to everyone, but the kid totally loses his head for young, pretty girls. (And by young, I mean late teens, early twenties. He has no interest in women his own age.)

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Instance the first: Swim lessons Last Week

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Eamon usually looooves swimming, and nothing can distract him. When the other kids cry or scream, he just ignores them. He is there for a purpose, and that purpose is swimming. But last week? Last week, the lifeguard who stands on the side of the pool…she was a pretty young girl. It’s usually a guy, and Eamon never notices. But last Saturday, Eamon insisted that we swim to the side of the pool I don’t know how many times, over and over, and then he would point and smile at the young lady. She tried to dutifully ignore him at first, since her job is to watch all the babies, but after enough shrieks and award-winning smiles from him, she finally gave in and smiled back.

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Eamon was over the moon. But he wasn’t satisfied. He now wanted to get out of the pool. I thought he wanted to practice his jumps, but no—he wanted to walk over to her so that he could…I don’t know? Get her phone number? Ask if she was tired from running through his thoughts all morning? Propose?

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Instance the second: Olive Garden

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Everything was going fine for our Father’s Day lunch. Eamon was eating his chicken fingers, dipping his French fries in my chicken marsala sauce (why not?), and everything was quite pleasant. And then, two young ladies, barely in their twenties, sat at the table beside us.

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Eamon continued eating, but in a distracted way where he was actually turned towards the girls and absent-mindedly pulling food off his plate and putting it in his mouth without actually seeing the food. We probably could have fed him Brussels sprouts and he wouldn’t have noticed. He was instead smiling and waving constantly. The girls were not immune to his charms. At one point, one of them stuck her tongue out at Eamon and made a funny face, and so the rest of our meal was spent watching our child stick out his tongue and shriek at the young ladies to get their attention. I don’t think the girls talked to each other for the first 20 minutes of their meal, since they were far too busy being distracted by our girl-crazy son.

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These are not the only instances, by far. Anytime we go anywhere and see a pretty young girl, Eamon ratchets up the charm to the nth degree. The few times that he has been ignored (very few), he is completely befuddled. You can almost see it on his face—“But I’m cute. Why won’t you pay attention to me? All the other girls do!”

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The upshot of all this is that I get to meet many pretty young girls when I apologize for the ridiculous attention that my son pays them. It’s silly, really, because I’m not really in the market to meet pretty young girls, so all Eamon’s talents as the World’s Best Wingman are completely wasted.

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Of course, nothing really comes of these innocent flirtations, because, well, Eamon is 18 months old and most of these girls are about 18 years old. As I said earlier, Eamon really isn’t interested in girls his own age…but they are interested in him. At his gym class, there are a couple of toddler girls that chase him around all the time, trying to kiss him. Eamon finds them highly annoying, and runs away…straight into the arms of the gym class instructor…who happens to be about twenty, and you guessed it, quite pretty.

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Free Frenula

Everything went fine with the surgery. Turns out that Eamon's upper lip frenulum (the labial frenulum, also called the labial frenum) was also tied down. This can also cause speech problems and delays, as well as really significant orthodontic issues down the road. If you're really interested in frenula releases (and why wouldn't you be?) and you don't have issues with looking at mouths, you can learn a lot by visiting this website.

Here's some fun pics to document the surgery:


Eamon on the way to surgery, completely baffled as to why his mommy was so gosh darn mean and wouldn't give him any breakfast. Or water. What was up with that? Only Lion really understands his pain.



Eamon, the young Jedi, awaits surgery in possibly the most fabulous playroom ever.




I see London, I see France...

Eamon recovering from surgery by cuddling Bert and watching Sesame Street.

Eamon assuring us that really, he'll be fine.

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And that concludes this portion of the blog.

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Now for the public service announcement for all those people contemplating having babies in the future. This PSA is not for the prudish, as it involves breastfeeding and words like "nip*le," so if that weirds you out, just go back, look at the pics one more time, and X out like nothing ever happened.

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Here's the thing everyone kept saying when I started asking about Eamon's frenulum: "Did you have any problems breastfeeding?" And I would answer "yes," and then all the doctors said, "Why didn't you say something?"

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And I took a deep breath and restrained myself.

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Because folks, I DID say something. I told the lacation consultants and nurses and probably even the custodians at the hospital that something was wrong, the baby couldn't latch, it wasn't working right, and everyone told me there, there, we'd get it, and it would all be fine. Well, Eamon and I tried and tried (and cried and cried) and eventually, we sort of got it. He latched, though only in one particular position.

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But it hurt. It always hurt.

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And when I mentioned it to doctors or lactation consultants, I got told that well, it was supposed to hurt. Try some nipple cream.

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So, okay, I tried the nipple cream. It still hurt, and Eamon had a lot of trouble with acid reflux, and it got to the point where neither of us particularly enjoyed the entire experience...so we went to bottles. I say that easily enough now, but at the time, it felt like a huge, massive failure. I pumped for awhile, but breastfeeding was over at about 6 weeks.

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I read the literature on tight frenula now, and I realize: yeah, that was the problem. Pretty much the entire problem. Everything fits. Eamon couldn't latch right, so he was compensating by tightening his jaw. This made him tired, so he kept stopping feeding in the middle to rest his poor jaw--which is why breastfeeding took forever. Because his latch wasn't right, he would gulp down too much air, and that gave him the acid reflux. When we went to bottles, latching was so much easier, and everything was more or less fixed.

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At the time, I didn't get it. He was my first baby, so I had no idea what breastfeeding was supposed to feel like. I just kept thinking that I was being a wimp and needed to toughen up. I was also terribly sleep-deprived, so I just wasn't coherant enough to put together the his tight frenulum with the breastfeeding. And moreover, I desperately wanted everything to just be okay, so I didn't push Eamon's regular pediatrician, who just keep telling us to wait and see.

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So, okay, there's some guilt about the breastfeeding. I don't care whether there should or shouldn't be--whether anyone thinks it's my fault or not--because I still feel like Eamon and I missed something pretty special no matter how much I logically tell myself that I did the best I could at the time.

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Which I think, maybe, accounts for my pushing the pediatrician this time for the surgery. Like, I had gone with the "wait and see" approach once, and while Eamon didn't actually suffer, this all could have been fixed awhile ago. Newborns recover so much more quickly from frenula releases than toddlers because the frenulum itself hasn't thickened yet. It's a 5 minute procedure and the kid can breastfeed immediately afterwards. There's no general anesthesia, and no stitches.

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I screwed up. I did the best I could, but it was a mistake not to push for the surgery right then and there.

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So when it became apparent that Eamon was having trouble talking...I couldn't do it again. We already missed out on breastfeeding because I wanted so much to just believe that everything was okay. I couldn't wait and see. It was time to finally make the right decision for my baby.

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The public service announcement is this: Ladies (and gentlemen), if breastfeeding hurts, and your doctor tells you to just use nipple cream, try it for 2 days. If it still hurts, then go back. Find a lactation consultant, and tell them. Tell them nipple cream doesn't cut it. Tell anyone and everything until someone finally does something about it.

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And if someone says your child has a tight frenulum, for heaven's sake, just get the thing snipped then. Bully your doctor if you have to, bully your insurance company. Because even though Eamon is okay and recovering, this surgery was still a lot more traumatic than it needed to be (though not nearly as traumatic as it would have been if we'd waited any longer).

I love you, kiddo. Sorry your mouth hurts.

Tongue Tied

Eamon and I have this game. It’s a strange kind of game, but one that suits us perfectly. We take the entire stuffed animal menagerie out of his crib (which currently consists of Lion, Elephant, Giraffe, Dog, Elmo, Cookie Monster, and Blanket) and we put them on the floor. I get a pillow and he gets a pillow and we lay them side by side. He takes off my glasses and then I lie down on the floor while he artfully arranges his stuffed animals around me. He then selects two or three stuffed animals for himself (and Lion is always one of them), and then we lie down and pretend to nap.

We pretend for about a minute, then he gets bored, and we have to sit up. We have to choose a new spot in the room and move the menagerie, the blanket, and the pillows over there. I put my glasses back on so that he can take them back off, and the entire process repeats. He finds this game hilarious, and I like it because it allows me to lie down while playing.

So this morning when we were in his room, Eamon really wanted to play this game. Communicating this was not an issue—he just bumped his fists together (it’s supposed to be “more,” but he interprets the sign as “I want”) then slid his hand across his chest (“please”) then growled (“Lion”). I asked, “Do you want me to get Lion out of your crib?” He ran to the crib and excitedly wagged his fists in the air (“Yes, yes, yes!”).



So that’s why I’m not really worried about his language, even though up to this point, the only words he can say without fail are “Mimi” (for Mommy, which I think I actually prefer; we will certainly never have that problem at a party where he called for his mother and twenty moms turn around), “Da!” for Dad, “Ma” for Grandma, and a weird sort of puckering noise that means “Grandpa” (I think he’s trying to do the “p” sound, but instead it comes out like a really exaggerated kissing sound). Occasionally he says other words, but even his “No” comes out most of the time like a weird D-J-M hybrid.

Well, I say that I’m not worried. I am worried, but not about his ability to understand and use language. I know that other kids Eamon’s age talk, talk, talk, and Eamon says very few words. But he understands almost everything that you tell him (even when he’s pretending that he doesn’t because he doesn’t feel like doing it), and he signs about 30 different words.

What I am worried about is his physical ability to talk. Eamon was born with a frenulum that was very far forward—the frenulum being the little piece that holds the tongue to the bottom of your mouth. The doctor who examined him two days after he was born noticed it and told us it could possibly be a problem later…but then we met with our regular pediatrician and he said that it didn’t look that bad and we should just wait and see. So we decided we would go along with his opinion.



Until recently. As soon as Eamon was old enough to be interactive, we noticed something peculiar. We would stick our tongues out at him, and he would stick his tongue back out at us—and it didn’t go past his lips. It made this weird little heart shape where his frenulum was holding his tongue down. And we noticed that he couldn’t make a ton of different syllables—especially not the ones that involve moving your tongue a lot. Vowels, he has down, and he’s pretty good with the sounds that you just use your lips for (“mmmm”, “buh”, etc.)

So we went back to the pediatrician. He looked at Eamon’s tongue, poked around in his mouth, and said that it should be fine and we should continue to wait and see until Eamon was about two. At least, that was his professional opinion, but he would give us a surgical consultation if we really wanted one.

Well, I’m not usually one to push for things. My mother was a pediatric nurse practitioner, so I’m pretty good about believing doctors most of the time…but a kid should be able to stick his tongue out past his lips, right? And this “wait and see” attitude…I asked what would happen if it turned out that his tongue really was a problem, and the doctor said that we might be able to try surgery at a later date…or speech therapy.



Whoa…speech therapy? I’m an elementary school teacher, so I know how much kids love to get pulled out of class for speech therapy. They love it this much: not at all. In fact, most of them hate it, and one of the happiest days of their lives is the day they “graduate” from speech therapy.

I asked for the surgical consult. Just to see what the surgeon would say.

So a few weeks later, we went. The surgeon was very nice, and even though we couldn’t get Eamon to stick out his tongue, the surgeon poked around his Eamon’s mouth with a tongue depressor and said that yes, his frenulum was way too far forward, and yes, it was going to cause problems with speech. If we decided to wait until Eamon was two or three, just to see, Eamon would learn to compensate, but there would be some sounds that he just wouldn’t be able to make. He could probably learn to be more or less effective after having speech therapy for awhile. Then again, he might not learn to make those sounds with therapy, and then he might have to have the surgery anyway, and then we would really have to have lots of speech therapy because he would have to learn to talk all over again.

The surgery itself is an out-patient procedure. It takes 20 minutes, though Eamon would have to be put under general anesthesia. It would make it hard for him to eat really hot things for a couple of days, but he would be able to eat and drink within an hour after the surgery.

So…20 minutes…or an indeterminate amount of time in speech therapy? That might end up with him having to have the surgery anyway? When he’s older and will definitely remember it? And will end up with more speech therapy afterwards, too?



Well, this is definitely one of those times when you just have to make the best decision that you can with the information that you have at the time. It’s possible, of course, that if we played the “wait and see” game, Eamon would learn to compensate and mostly speak okay with just a few odd sounds here and there, and maybe he’s so personable that the other kids wouldn’t make fun of him for it, or maybe it could be fixed with just a small amount of speech therapy.

That seems like a lot of maybes.

As the surgeon said, “I can’t guarantee that he won’t have speech therapy in the future, but I can guarantee that it won’t be because of his tongue.”

So we finally came to the decision that a 20 minute procedure that would definitely rule out his tongue being his problem with language—yes, that was worth it. We have a surgical appointment on Monday, July 12. Until then, we’re just going to watch a lot of sign language videos.

Hair Splitting

NOTE: I know! Two posts in one day! But I actually wrote the other post a week ago. This is this week's post.

There’s a story in the Wolfe Family Lore about Aaron that goes like this:

One day, when he was about five or six, Aaron looked at his superhero action figures and decided that it would be really cool if they could fly. So, he threw one and off it went through the air like a bird or an airplane—at least until it came across an archenemy known as The Mirror. Well, this made a loud thumping noise, which to a six year old is a fabulous, terrific, fantastic sound. He therefore did what any young boy would do, which was to throw the superhero again and again. THUMP! THUMP!

To the adult (Aaron’s dad) working in the next room, this was not such a fabulous noise. In fact, it was downright irritating. So his dad went into the room and told Aaron, “Stop throwing your action figures against the mirror.” Pretty clear instructions, right?

So imagine his surprise when not a few minutes later, he hears another THUMP! He runs back into the room and says, “I told you to stop throwing your action figures against the mirror!”

“But I didn’t,” Aaron protested innocently. “I threw them against the wall.”

There’s also another story about his mom telling him not to draw on the wall, so Aaron came across the lovely idea of using Chapstick to draw on the walls, because it was clear and therefore couldn’t be seen and therefore wasn’t really drawing (until the sun hit it and then it was clear as day, and also almost impossible to get off the walls).

I used to laugh at these stories, but lately they are starting to worry me. They are worrying me because Eamon Wolfe is his father’s son through and through. I’ve already told you the story about Eamon and the Elmo Phone, and his belief that taking a toy from another child is okay if you convince that child that you’re actually just trading.

Well, today at the gym, Eamon had another Incident. It was free play at his gym for kids, and there was a bunch of other toddlers there. Eamon started a game of holding two small balls, running them over to the small basketball hoop, and putting them through one at a time. The other toddlers saw, and quickly joined in for some good old-fashioned parallel play.

Everything was going fine until Eamon decided that he wanted another ball. He figured out how to hold two balls under one arm and then had his other hand free for another ball. A boy about his age also had two balls, so Eamon tried to take the ball away from the child with his free hand. My mother jumped right in and told Eamon that he could not take away toys from other children. Eamon looked at her, sighed in frustration, and then apparently hatched a plan.

Here’s what he did: he went over to the basketball hoop and pretended to throw his balls through. PRETENDED. When the other little boy saw, he also went to throw his own balls into the hoop, and as soon as he dropped the ball, Eamon snatched it up.

My mother, of course, immediately took the ball away from him, told him it still wasn’t okay even though the other boy had officially dropped it, and gave the ball back to the other boy.

But still. Do you realize what this means? Eamon is processing things just like his father. It wasn’t stealing when he took the Elmo phone—it was trading. This latest gym incident wasn’t snatching, either, because the other boy dropped his ball on purpose. (Never mind that Eamon specifically manipulated the situation each time to induce the child to voluntarily give up his toy. How long before we have kids ringing our doorbell, begging to whitewash our fences?)

My other big worry? I can’t live without chapstick. Maybe I should just go ahead and cover all the walls in clear plastic contact paper?

Kid Philosophy 102: This I Know

Preface: Our desktop computer had a temporary period where it was "mostly dead," and was therefore holding all our pictures hostage, so that's why it took a little while to post this blog.

After everything that I said about almost everything being a belief, I’m happy to tell you that there’s at least one thing that I know we have done right with Eamon: swim lessons. Okay, it’s a little thing in comparison to discipline, eating, sleeping habits, etc., but I’ll take certainty where I can get it.

Eamon Wolfe LOVES the water. There’s no cosmic reason for this. I didn’t go swimming a lot when he was in the womb, he wasn’t born on a boat or in a water birth, and he isn’t a Pisces. The reason is terribly mundane: he loves the water because almost every Saturday since he was 7 months old, Aaron and I have taken him to the pool for “swim” lessons (parentheses added because there’s only so much swimming they do at that age).



I won’t say it’s been easy. Swim lessons start at 9:00 which means that we need to be out the door by 8:40, which comes earlier and earlier every Saturday. Both Aaron and I go because it’s nearly impossible to corral Eamon while you change out of your own wet swim clothes. There are no doors on the changing rooms (just curtains), and he runs away the second you set him down, leaving you with this terrible choice of running after him while you’re half-naked or…well, there really isn’t another choice. So the whole family goes.



Aaron usually gets in the pool. I have gotten in the pool before when Aaron absolutely cannot make it (he needs to be out of town or on his death bed), but I generally prefer sitting on the sidelines. I tell myself that it’s because Aaron used to be a lifeguard so he’s really better suited (ha! get it?) for being in the pool, but really I just don’t like getting wet.



Eamon, on the other hand, thinks the pool is the greatest thing ever. As we walk into the locker room, he usually starts cheering and clapping. He beams smiles at everyone at the gym. When he gets into the water, he happily splashes and screams in absolute joy. This might be his favorite part of each week.



And in the past couple of weeks, you can tell that it’s really paying off. Eamon is only 17 months old, but already can blow bubbles in the water, and doesn’t mind going under the water at all. He hates being on his back (even on dry land), but will do it, even putting his ears in the water (which most kids protest violently at this age). He kicks with his legs, and he reaches and pulls with his arms. He does not, however, have any buoyancy, so if you let him go he just sort of sinks despite his best efforts.

Two weeks ago, however, we discovered a way around this: the pool noodle. Eamon held on to the noodle, and suddenly—life was great. It gave him enough buoyancy that Aaron was even able to let go briefly. Eamon would kick his legs, and move forward—he was actually swimming! I don’t know who was more excited, us or Eamon.


Whew. And, I'm spent.

Kid Philosophy 101: I'm a Believer

There’s a difference between believing something and knowing something. To believe implies a level of faith; in other words, you’re pretty certain, but admit that maybe, just maybe, you might be wrong. When you know something, you know it. There’s no faith involved. You’re certain.

For instance, I don’t believe in gravity. When I jump into the air, I don’t ponder whether I’m going to come down. I’m not reasonably sure—I’m certain. I know that gravity exists, so I don’t have to believe in it.

What does this have to do with Eamon? Well, before I had a baby, I Knew how to be a good parent. I knew that there was a Right Way and a Wrong Way, and I was going to do things the Right Way. Whenever I saw a parent with a screaming child out in public, I knew that they were doing things the Wrong Way, and if they just thought about it a little more, or tried a little bit harder, they could do things the Right Way. They just needed to apply themselves.

And then I gave birth, and every second since then, I believe I’ve been a good parent, but it’s hard to know for sure. In fact, almost every decision is suddenly based on belief.

Because here’s the thing: for “kids” in general—there are plenty of guide books out there. But there’s no book specifically entitled, “Eamon Wolfe for Dummies.” (Is there?)

For instance: I theoretically know that Eamon should be sleeping through the night. And he does, almost every night. But then he gets sick with the stomach flu, pretty sick, fever and everything, and doesn’t eat much beyond crackers and cereal for about a week. (I was pretty sure we didn’t need to take him to the doctor, but that one was a bit of nail-biter, too). Eventually he got better (yay! I guessed right), but he had lost at least a pound, and when you only weigh about 25 pounds, that’s a lot. Add that on to the fact that he grows like a weed, and once his appetite came back, it came back in force.

He started waking up in the middle of the night, desperately hungry. Well, what do we do? The books say not to feed a kid in the middle of the night, because it’s a bad habit, but they also don’t say anything about purposefully starving your children. So, okay, we feed him in the middle of the night, because he was just sick and he needs more calories to make up for it. He goes right back to sleep, problem solved.

Then it happens the next night. Well, he’s still looking thin, so okay, feed him again. He goes back to sleep relatively quickly.

But at some point, this goes from being necessary to just being a bad habit. When is that day? There’s nothing in any of the books that says, “If your child has had the stomach flu for a week and has lost a pound, it is permissible to feed him in the middle of the night for 3-4 days but after that you’re just a sleepy sucker who needs to let the kid cry a bit because he’s getting spoiled.”

As they tell us in my administration classes, “You just have to make the best decision with the information that you have at the time.” And you have to believe that you made the right decision.

This isn’t the only example. In fact, as I said, almost every decision with Eamon is what we believe is the right thing to do. It’s impossible not to wonder if you’re being too firm, and other times if you’re being too soft; if you spoil him with too many toys or if you don’t provide enough sensory experiences for him; if taking occasional naps with him in your bed is a great way to bond or instead promotes a dependency that keeps him from wanting to sleep in his own crib. Do we bathe him enough if we only bathe him every other day, or would bathing him more just dry out his already dry-skin? Is he not talking much because he knows some sign language, or because his frenulum is too tight, or because he just isn’t ready yet? Should I just chill out, or at what point do I worry?

I’m not trying to make it sound like I spend all my time in a nervous, hand-wringing huddle, because I’ve mostly accepted the fact that sometimes you just have to take a deep breath, make a decision, and hope for the best.

Sometimes, you just have to believe.

Perspective

One magical morning, Eamon crawled into his mystical Laundry Basket of Teleportation, threw out the carefully folded underwear and socks in just the right combination, and ended up at...

The Virginia Living Museum!

The Living Museum has lots of things that live in Virginia!

Our Intrepid Explorer put on his Exploring Hat, and along with his faithful companion Elmo and a sherpa guide named "Dahdee," braved the outdoors.

He saw things like "Flowers" (That is so the sign for flower. Sort of. What do you want? Our Intrepid Explorer is only 1 and a half.)

Other sights were awe-inspiring. Like this sign.

And the fences! Oh, the fences! You would have to see them to believe them!

There was digging galore! Our Intrepid Explorer will do doubt be world-renowned for this great discovery of fake plastic dinosaur bones.

Also discovered were shiny hot things that beamed light! (and big roaring things in the background, but they weren't very interesting).

Here our Intrepid Explorer pretends to be interested in the giant, roaring model dinosaur, but that is only a diversion so that he can once again sneak up on those beaming things he has started to call "lights."

What an exciting adventure! Who knows where the mystical Laundry Basket of Teleportation will take us next?