Thursday Thoughts - Tongue Tie

Let's talk, guys. Let's talk about tongue tie. A little weird for a food blog, but hopefully not too weird. I'm going to share some of my experience with my daughter and tongue tie just because I'm hoping it might help out some other mom reading this, and partially to explain my very long absence from posting. So let's talk, guys, in five thoughts.

1. Tongue tie isn't just forgetting your words when you are flustered. It's a real condition, officially called ankyloglossia. It is when there is an unusually short or thick membrane under the tongue that restricts its movement. There are varying degrees of severity, but basically it affects how far a tongue can stick out or up. I don't have the space, pictures or knowledge to fully explain the condition here and I don't even want to pretend to be an expert, so I will direct you to http://www.tonguetie.net if you want to find more info on the condition.

2. Tongue tie runs in families. I had tongue tie. And lo and behold, my second daughter was born with it. And chances are, she got her mommy and daddy's nearsightedness, too, poor thing. Ahhh, genetics. Let's hope she forgives me one day for not being Giselle Bundchen.

3.  Tongue tie can really mess with breastfeeding. Nursing requires a baby to use their tongue to get milk from mama, and with a restricted tongue it either means they can't get much milk or they often have a tight, not deep latch that is painful for mama. Because of this, it used to be a fairly routine procedure to clip the thick membrane under the tongue right after birth if a baby was born with tongue tie. When bottle feeding became more common than breastfeeding, this practice stopped, since a restricted tongue doesn't cause as many problems with bottle feeding. Today, the general feeling is that leaving things alone unless they are causing problems with nursing is the best practice.

4. Problem is, tongue tie can affect more than just nursing. This is where my story comes in. Clara nursed great. I knew she was tongue tied since she had been diagnosed at the hospital, but things went great feeding-wise. She gained weight like a champ. She was and is a chubby, big baby, with kissable cheeks and lovely fat rolls on her legs. So obviously she is getting the nutrition she needs. Months 1-4ish were fairly normal as far as babies go. Clara has a very happy disposition, so I didn't really notice that much that she also was fairly gassy as far as babies go. (For those that haven't had kids - gassy means fussy a lot of the time. Trapped gas is painful, and very much so for a baby who is just getting used to their little body and how everything works.) Fast forward to about 4 months old and Clara starts to get fussier. The gas problems become more evident and as she consolidates her sleep patterns it becomes more obvious that gas is making it so she can't sleep at times. Or wakes her up from sleep. She starts to protest sleep when she is gassy. This is most of the day and several times at night. Clara also starts to be clingy and only wants to be with mom because most of the time, she feels pretty miserable. All these observations have been made in retrospect because sometimes when you are in the thick of things, its hard to figure out what is going on. I tried every baby gas relief product out there, but nothing worked. By six months Clara was waking up at least once a night, often twice, screaming in pain for an hour or so and naps were 30 minute cat naps when she got so exhausted during the day that she couldn't keep her eyes open anymore. She wanted to be held most of the day and seemed scared of going to other people.

It was when we tried to start solids that I started to suspect that tongue tie might be causing some of these problems. I knew my first daughter had been unusually easy to spoon feed, so I thought the fact that Clara seemed to drool food all over her face and couldn't swallow food down was just normal baby behavior. Then I started watching her try to eat more closely and realized that she couldn't physically swallow the baby food. Her tongue couldn't touch the roof of her mouth so to get any food down she would slurp it. This also introduced more air into her system, which meant more gas. And more pain and fussiness. I stopped the solids, toughed it out with a baby that was now waking up to eat at night as well as waking up with gas pains.

Out of desperation, I decided to look up tongue tie to see if it could be affecting Clara's eating and it was like a light went on. For one, I found out that it can affect more than just the ability of a baby to latch and get milk. It can affect how they swallow and a lot of times, a tied baby will swallow more air when they are nursing. Swallowed air = more gassy. I think for Clara this showed up more when she was older because she was eating faster.

Fast forward to Clara's 6 month check up. Thank goodness for good pediatricians. For one, my pediatrician listens to me. At that point I was tired beyond tired and utterly overwhelmed. Earlier that week I had a meltdown on the phone just trying to have a normal conversation with someone from church. I went through our problems with him and he listened. I laid out why I thought it might be related to tongue tie. He listened. Now, let me say that my pediatrician in general is the type that wants to leave things alone. He would rather not revise (clip) a tie tongue unless necessary. But he listened to me and when I said I wanted it done, he agreed to do it. I'm grateful that he didn't get on a high horse on principal and tell me I was imagining things.

Within two weeks, Clara was a different baby. Within a few days she figured out how to use her newly freed tongue to swallow baby food. She loves, loves, loves eating solid food. It's like she can't imagine where this wonderful stuff has been all her life. (Yep, she probably inherited that from me as well.) She stopped getting up at night to eat. The gas pains also gradually went away. We started probiotics under the advice of our pediatrician, and that helped, and as she learned to use her tongue better she stopped swallowing as much air while she was nursing. She stopped getting up at night with gas pains, and let me tell you, sleeping through the night feels. so. good. She also started taking naps during the day, real 1-2 hour naps and not the sad 30 minute cat naps she took when she wasn't feeling well. She's no longer super clingy and lets other people hold her and play with her. She is happy beyond happy and smiles at everyone around her. In fact, I just noticed the other day that she has her first tooth. I had no idea she was even teething. She wasn't fussy and never even woke up at night. It's like life is amazing without gas pain, and I have to agree with her.

5. I'm in favor of getting tongue ties revised. This is probably no surprise after reading the experience I had with Clara. It made a world of difference for us. For the record for those of you who are thinking it is a little barbaric, revising a tongue tie means cutting the membrane under the tongue. Usually there are very few nerves or veins so it isn't that painful for the baby or even that traumatic. Clara cried as much getting her shots as she did after her revision, which was about three minutes. She smiled at the nurse on our way out. Tongue tie revision is not cutting a tongue. It's freeing an overly restricted tongue so it can work like it is supposed to. If you are a mom who thinks their baby has a tongue tie, get it checked out! And if your doctor doesn't listen to you, find someone who will. Pediatric dentists and ENTs can revise tongue ties, too.

If you want to know more about tongue tie, here are some excellent resources:

Diagnosing tongue tie in babies:  http://www.drghaheri.com/blog/2014/2/15/how-to-examine-a-baby-for-tongue-tie-or-lip-tie

General advice from moms who have been there, seen everything, as well as a list of preferred providers that are experienced in diagnosing and revising tongue tie: https://www.facebook.com/groups/tonguetiebabies/ (Closed group, just ask to join.)


So that's it for my tongue tie post. I'll be back tomorrow with a regular food post. Sorry for such a long post on a non-food subject, but I'm hoping someone can benefit from this information and my experiences. And I hope you all can forgive me for such a long break from posting. We were in survival mode for quite a while so blogging was put on the back burner.

Thursday Thoughts - One Month with Two Kiddos

Some random thoughts for your Thursday:

1. It has already been a month since Clara was born! Time flies, and I know according to what other parents have told me that next thing I know she will be graduating from high school. In the meantime, our house has been adjusting more to having two little girls.

2. Amelia paid almost zero attention to her doll before Clara was born. Now she can't get enough of playing with her and pretending she is real. It's pretty much adorable to watch her feed her doll "mac n' cheese" and buckle her up in her car seat for a trip. Though watching her throw the doll around by one foot is not convincing me to let her babysit any time soon.

3. We've slowly been getting Amelia's new room ready for when baby sister takes over the nursery from Amelia. Since she loves to read we put up some picture ledges from Ikea as bookshelves and Amelia loves being able to see so many of her books at once. She actually arranges them on the shelf - true story. Something tells me this is the last room we are going to be able to put together without her having a say in the decor. 

4. I bought lace almost a year ago because it was 10 cents a yard at a going out of business sale and I had visions of using it as a border in the nursery. I had no idea how that was going to happen but finally researched it online and did you know you can stick fabric on the wall with liquid starch? It works really well and is a great non-permanent way to decorate a room. And of course this is what I chose to do with my time this week when necessary things like laundry and grocery shopping seem to be difficult to find time for. Priorities. 

5. All it took were a couple big grins from Clara and Amelia is now okay with her existence. She still is totally jealous when mom is holding her and sometimes walks around using Clara's pacifier, but she is paying more and more attention to her now. She doesn't seem to understand that Clara can't do much at this point, but once Clara figures out the use of her limbs more, Amelia is read with games and toys. Until then she "helps" Clara swing, brings her burp cloths and spends time trying to get her to smile. It's adorable.

Welcome, Clara!

As you might had guessed from my last post, I've taken a couple weeks from posting to welcome this little one to our family:

 We're pretty smitten with her and I'm loving being home with her and Amelia right now. I'll be back next week with some recipes for you!

Thursday Thoughts - Feb 27, 2014

Some random thoughts for your Thursday:

1. Just so you know, a toddler has no idea whether they are decorating sugar cookies before Valentine's Day, or if you got a sugar cookie decorating kit on clearance on Feb. 17. She will make a mess and lick the frosting off all the cookies just as if it weren't a few days late. And that is good, because nothing seems to be happening on time at our house lately. 

2. A great idea right before you are about to have a baby is to start refinishing a couple nightstands. My husband and I have done some furniture refinishing in the past and we've always used the real nasty, wear-special-gloves-and-work-outside-with-long-sleeves-for-protection stripper but being pregnant, I decided to use the electric sander route. For the record - nasty stripper is faster and more effective, in my opinion, but after a couple weeks of working sporadically on them, the nightstands are almost done.

 3. Sick-mageddon hit our house this past weekend, the same weekend my husband and I decided to bite the bullet and finish off Amelia's kitchen set that we've been working on the the past couple months. This meant that not only did we have an inconsolable toddler, but we were also were tripping over all the tools, screws, paint rollers, and random wood pieces we had brought in the house Friday night to finish things off. My husband calls this project, "the dumbest thing we've ever done." Needless to say, he's a little tired of working on it at this point. Hopefully I'll have finished pictures of it in the next couple weeks.

 4. Less than 4 weeks to go, and I'm calling it. My jacket has officially made it through the winter. We're into the 40s and 50s now, so it won't be so bad if I stop being able to zip it up at this point. I'm debating writing a letter to Patagonia to tell them to market their coat as maternity coat, too.

 5. The best way I've found to let dough rise is to heat your oven to 200 degrees, turn it off and put the dough in there to rise in the nice, warm environment. Unless, of course, you forget you have dough rising in the oven and accidentally start to bake it while you heat up the oven to make lunch for your toddler. I'm chalking this one up to pregnancy brain.

Have a great week!

Thursday Thoughts - January 30, 2014

1. Ugh. It looks like Disqus isn't working right now on my site, so if you have tried to comment and couldn't, I'm sorry. I'm working on it. Hopefully it will be up and running soon. 

2. Have you ever tried using frozen fresh basil cubes? I think they are kind of awesome. They taste like fresh basil but require no chopping and have a long shelf life in the freezer, which is something I can't say for the fresh bunches in my fridge. Dorot is one brand I've seen around at natural food stores, and Walmart has some from a different brand. I highly recommend perusing the frozen section of your local grocery store for some next time you are shopping. 

3. Speaking of basil cubes, I just used them the other day to make chicken basil cream pasta that was to die for. My little taste tester and I couldn't stop eating it. I was afraid she wouldn't let me get ANY pictures of it, but luckily she had to take a break from stealing noodles to actually chew and swallow them. 

4. I know it is weird, but I have a strange dislike of paper towels. I love them at times, like for patting dry raw chicken pieces or squeezing excess liquid from cooked spinach, but most of the time I feel like a regular towel just works better. Problem is, regular towels aren't nearly as convenient as paper towels. Enter my solution - a countertop towel holder. Officially it was sold as a grocery bag holder, but we've been using it for the past week or so for regular ol' towels and it seems to work pretty well. As you can see from the picture, we still haven't given up on paper towels entirely, but for tasks like drying off hands, wiping up spills, etc. the cotton towels are doing a great job and having them so convenient has really cut down on our paper towel usage. My husband rolls his eyes a little about my paper towels quirk, but he's been a supporter of the new towel system so far. We're going to test some microfiber towels in there next week and see if we like them better than the plain cotton ones. I'll keep you posted.

5. Have you ever been so proud that you bought chicken breasts on sale, with a coupon, making them the deal of the century? And then cooked them in your pressure cooker to have them ready for meals that use already cooked chicken breasts and left them in overnight by accident so you wake up to ruined chicken in the morning? Anyone? Yeah, um, me neither. 

Have a great week! 

Thursday Thoughts - Jan 16, 2014

 Some random thoughts for your Thursday:

1. If you've ever wondered what the "behind the scenes" of food photography at my house looks like, here is a good taste of it. I have a very "helpful" toddler.

2. Is there anything cuter that a kid all dressed up in snow gear? 

3. My daughter rejects homemade chocolate chip cookies but eats hummus straight from the container. Yes, she is a weirdo.

4. My sister sent me a sourdough starter and a sourdough crock for Christmas! I've always been nervous about keeping sourdough alive but so far it has been easy. 

This recipe for sourdough pizza dough from King Arthur is reason alone to get a starter. It is delicious, and uses the unfed starter that you usually throw away each week when you feed it. We've had pizza every week since Christmas and our whole family couldn't be happier about that. 

Hope you have a great week!

Thursday Thoughts - Christmas Projects, Fall Baking and Ear Infections

Some random thoughts for your Thursday:

1. Amelia made it to nearly 18 months without getting an ear infection, and now she has one that just won't go away. Poor thing has been tired and cranky and sleep has been a little more erratic at our house than normal. Have I ever mentioned how much I love sleep? I love it. Hopefully things clear up soon. 

2. I can't tell you how excited my husband and I were for Amelia to play in the leaves this year. Last year she just watched from her stroller, covered with many blankets, while we raked the lawn. This year we were sure she'd be running through the piles and jumping in them. Turns out she hates being in a pile of leaves. She cried every time we plopped her in one, and being the wonderful parents that we are, we definitely plopped her in a pile more than once. When she didn't cry, she just crawled out of there as fast as she could. Maybe next year. 

 3. Have you all see the incredible kitchen sets that people have made from old entertainment centers. Here are some examples of my favorites.

Image Source: http://entirelysmitten.typepad.com/entirelysmitten/2011/08/diy-play-kitchen-set-for-kids-hack.html

Image Source: http://caroline-frei.blogspot.com/2012/08/kids-kitchen-habitat-for-humanity.html

Image Source: http://3krazychics.blogspot.com/2012/01/diy-play-kitchen-from-old-entertainment.html

My husband and I have been talking about buying a kitchen set for Amelia for Christmas but they are either insanely expensive or look like they would break easily. We decided to try our hand at one of the entertainment center kitchens so we bought these beauties last night: 

I'm fairly certain we were the only ones at the thrift store getting excited about the entertainment centers there but we couldn't help opening and closing the doors on each one and imagining the possibilities. We decided to get two pieces in the end because one looked perfect for a stand-alone fridge and we wanted Amelia's kitchen to have a pantry and place for dishes. Obviously. Given that we have precious little free time between now and Christmas we might be in over our heads but we're going to try our hardest to finish it in time. I'll post updates as it progresses.

4. Our local grocery stores do sales where whatever you can fit from a list of specified produce into a shopping bag costs a flat fee. Usually this doesn't excite me too much because the produce on the list to choose from aren't things I need that week, but when they put squash on the list I ran down there and filled up two bags. Squash keeps for a long time and can be expensive to buy by the pound. I think I fit five butternut squash in one bag and goodness knows how many acorn, kabocha and spaghetti squash in the other one. Expect more squash recipes in the near future. :)

Hope you all have a great week!

Thursday Thoughts - It's a Girl!

Happy thoughts for this week - 

1. First and foremost, we're having a baby girl at the end of March! We're very excited for Amelia to have a younger sister. I feel blessed to have great sisters of my own and I hope my girls will love and treasure (and steal shoes from) each other the same way I do my sisters. 

I've been feeling sick but not nearly as bad as my first pregnancy. Though the morning sickness is clearing up, the number of posts will probably remain on the same minimal schedule it has been for the past few months as I spend my time preparing for the baby, getting sleep and putting my feet up as much as possible. And also buying more insanely cute baby girl clothes, because who can resist those little baby dresses? 

2. My sweet husband bought me a new phone this week. This is big news for me because the last time I had a brand new phone was nine years ago. The company my husband interns at gave their employees a fairly hefty gift card for meeting a sales goal and my  husband bought me a new phone with it. Isn't that so sweet? I've bought/taken used phones from family for the past few years and with abuse from a toddler some of the buttons on my old phone were breaking. My husband reasoned that most of our pictures and videos are shot from my phone, so it made sense for me to have the new phone. It was a very happy surprise. 

3. The World Series is here! The Red Sox are undefeated in post-season games when Amelia wears her little cheerleader dress that day. Obviously there is a correlation. Looks like I'll be doing a lot of laundry in the next week!

Have a great, happy week!

Thursday Thoughts - Toddler Quiet Toys

Today's Thursday thoughts are about toddler quiet toys. Our family just got back from a cross country plane trip and I spent a few weeks before our trip finding new quiet toys keep Amelia entertained on the flights. I thought other people might benefit from our learning experience in case you need to fly with a toddler or need to keep a toddler quiet during church or in a waiting room or anywhere that running around and making noise isn't an option. 

Here are the things we brought that worked well for us with a 16 month old: 

Coloring books and triangular crayons (so they don't roll off the tray)

This toddler activity set by Lauri. Amelia loves the simple puzzles and stacking together those pegs. She was a little young for this so I imagine it would work well for older toddlers.

New books - especially lift-the-flap books like this one or Where's Spot.

Textured toys, especially new ones or ones he/she doesn't see very often. Those mesh bags that a lot of toys come in are great to store little toys. Amelia loves getting the toys in and out of the bag and the mesh makes the difficulty level just enough that it is interesting and not frustrating. 

This isn't a separate toy, but one thing that worked well for us was organizing things in their own zipper bags. Pencil cases were on clearance at Walmart so I bought a bunch and used one for crayons, one for new toys, one for stickers, etc. The zipper case itself is a toy because Amelia loved opening and closing the zipper. 

Photo albums. Amelia loves looking at pictures of herself and her family. Mostly of herself. Bonus that she can cover them in stickers and move those stickers around easily.

Snacks. Lots and lots of snacks. And suckers for the landing/takeoff to help with ear pressure.

Amelia is a little young to use this by herself, but this stringing activity toy by Alex toys was great. She loved making the animal noises as we put each piece on the string. This will be great as she gets older, too. 

I saw this activity online somewhere and thought it was a great idea. Amelia loves putting things in containers, and smooshing the pom poms through holes I cut in a clean butter container was very satisfying for her. And me, I have to admit.

Stickers. Stickers, stickers and more stickers. On paper, on clothing, on our faces - nothing beats a sheet of stickers.

These things did not work so well for us:

This Melissa and Doug Hide and Seek game. I think it will be a great home toy, but as far as quiet time goes, it's not good. Amelia learned quickly that the wood doors make a satisfyingly loud noise if you slam them. So she did. Over and over.

I thought since music calms Amelia at home that playing some for her over headphones would work great. Little did I think about the challenges of keeping a headset on a wiggly toddler. 

This game is similar to the pom pom game in that you push pipe cleaners through holes in an empty container's lid. Amelia loved this for a few pipe cleaners before she demanded the top off so she could put them all in at once. I admire her efficiency but it ruined the game because the pipe cleaners got bent and it was hard for her to get them in and out. Maybe once she gets older this will work better.

Anyone else have toys that work/worked great for them with a toddler?