Rebecca

“Everyone should have kids. They are the greatest joy in the world. But they are also terrorists. You’ll realize this as soon as they are born, and they start using sleep deprivation to break you.”
— Ray Romano

Thankfully, Spencer is getting the hang of falling back to sleep in the night after eating.  However, the lack of sleep is taking its toll.

I was talking to a friend who asked about Spencer’s birth.  She thought my water had broken on its own.  I said that it hadn’t, and I was induced.  She said something like, “I know you were going to be induced on Tuesday, but you had Spencer on Monday!”

Her certainty over Spencer’s birth story caused my foggy brain to start second guessing everything I thought I knew about his birth.  Did my water in fact break on its own?  Was I induced?  Did I show up at the hospital on the wrong day?  Why didn’t anyone tell me?  Maybe I didn’t even give birth at all and the past three weeks have all been an elaborate exercise in delusions and imaginations!

Then I realized my friend had a baby two months ago meaning she is probably feeling the effects of no sleep just as much or more so than I am.   Thus, I’m pretty sure I was induced and I did have a baby, and he was born on a Tuesday as we had planned all along.

Anyone want to back me up on this?

Spencer had his two-week checkup on Wednesday.

He weighed 7 pounds 10 ounces putting him in the 18th percentile for weight.

He was a whopping 19 inches long which translates to the third percentile for height.

At two-weeks old he is almost exactly the size of Brooke and Caroline when they were born.

This kid’s got some growing to do!

Spencer hasn’t been the greatest eater.  I was getting so frustrated with him.  One day I happened to notice that Spencer takes after his uncle, Ben.  Unfortunately, Spencer had a butt tongue meaning he had a tight frenulum (the tissue that connects the underside of your tongue to the bottom of your mouth) which was restricting how far he could move his tongue.  I suspected this was making it difficult for him to properly latch on during feedings.

You may have noticed I used the past tense in that paragraph.  Yes, Spencer had a butt tongue…but doesn’t anymore.  I reported my suspicions to the pediatrician and he confirmed that Spencer’s frenulum did seem a little tight.  He said he could clip it in the hopes that that would solve our feeding troubles.  I gave the okay and the next thing we knew Spencer was pinned down to the table with hands and instruments invading his mouth.

The procedure was no big deal.  The doctor took scissors and snipped the little tissue back a bit.  Spencer screamed for a second but was fine once I got to hold him again.  Tough kid.  Then Spencer started moving his tongue in ways I’d never seen before.  I mean, he licked his lips!  Hooray for tongue range of motion!

Preliminary results are showing that this procedure has helped Spencer eat more efficiently.  Hooray again!

Good-bye butt tongue and good riddance.