Still alive
It didn’t really occur to me until I started getting email that I haven’t been around here for a while. When I looked at the date of my last post, I was shocked at how long I’ve been gone. Very neglectful blogger, but I guess something has to give when you’re working 110 hours in a week.
No big news around here to report. Oscar is turning into a full-fledged toddler. If you don’t have one yet, that means tantrums. Big ones. In our case, exacerbated by the fact he can’t talk and only has about 35 signs that he uses so far. So, if he wants something other than a cookie, ice cream, candy, apple, cracker, bread, banana, cheese, milk, juice or a bath, we’re kind of out of luck. I used to wonder, though, how parents could deal with their kids screaming their little heads off. They’d always just say you don’t notice it. I get it now. You just ignore it. It’s one of those parenting skills that must naturally be imparted to us, I guess.
The only major thing that has changed around here is that we switched to soy milk (earth-shattering, huh). I cannot tell you the difference it has made in Oscar. I feel HORRIBLE for not making the switch earlier. The poor kid has had some intestinal “issues,” shall we say. I so dearly want to tell you the story of one of these issues, but because of the nature of cyberspace, I simply cannot. Anyway, let me say that soy has changed our lives around here. I actually think Oscar’s temperament has changed, too. He’s just happier all the time (you know, other than when he’s screaming about not getting whatever it is that he wants that he can’t tell me that he wants). He also “talks” a lot more. Just babbling, but more of it. I really think the discomfort he was in permeated his daily life. I can’t believe I let this go on for so long. I have been wondering whether he had issues with cows milk since we were in Vietnam, but having changed his formula to soy once and hearing a lot of negative stories about the hormones in it, I switched back and didn’t go back. Probably a mistake.
So that’s pretty much all that’s been going on here. Sad, really. We managed to get to the Children’s Museum yesterday to see some friends and meet a new US citizen from Vietnam (the gorgeous young Ella, sister of Billy, the most hilariously active 2 year old in the world). Oscar ran around like a crazy child chasing a bird, managed to get soaked twice in the splashing pools and enjoyed the train room, and was so wiped out from our time there that he was asleep within in 2 minutes of being in the car. If only today were more like yesterday…
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Having a 2 year old means that I am very familiar with the toddler tantrums.
Glad to hear the switch to soy formula did the trick.
When I complained about the terrible two’s and people left comments telling me that the 3′s were worse, I thought those were the meanest comments in the world. Sadly, I’ve discovered that they were right. The 3′s seem to bring much more whining, and the dreaded “Why? Why? Why?” Now that I have a two-year-old AND a three-year-old, I’m ready to tear my hair out.
At what age are they cute little well-behaved angels 100% of the time?
Never?
Oh.
That stinks.
So glad the soy thing has helped. We had the same experience with gluten – a had an INSANE child on my hands until she was 2 and we tried eliminating most of it – by 2.5 we cut it all out and at 3 we had a TOTALLY different child on our hands. Her behavior did a 180. Her teacher at “school” told me that she was one of the best behaved kids in the class…after I cannot believe she didn’t get kicked out the year before and they did class and teacher assignments just based around who could handle her. I felt awful. Whatever the gluten was doing to short circuit her little brain must have made her feel pretty crummy – but she had no way of telling us so she just acted out. I hope that Oscar continues to improve!!
Glad to hear soy helped. From the beginning we could tell our little one didn’t do well on milk formulas. We tried lactose free which helped and then went to soy which worked best. We too were worried about all you hear about hormones, but what are you gonna do. You want your child to be comfortable. Anyway, just to let you know. After about a year of avoiding milk products we did slowly start to integrate them back in. She is now on lactose free whole milk and will do some cheese (small quantities) and of course yogurt has always seemed to be OK. You may be able to eventually integrate these back into his diet…just my two cents!
After having Khai a few months he was such a terror at night,waking up a million times screaming and so miserable during the day I thought it was his formula. I had read so many things about so many Asians being lactose intolerant.I went to lactose-free and things improved a little bit. Then we went to soy formula and I noticed a huge difference. Because it was hard to keep track of different formulas and two babies I asked the DR if in any way it was less superior or would hurt Meliah in any way if I switched her too( She was always constipated and I thought it might also help). He said nutrition wise they were exactly the same and it was no way inferior to regular formula. They are still on soy formula to this day. Neither seem to have a problem with cheese and small quantities of regular milk.
Glad Oscar is feeling better!! Khai has actually improved since turning two and but not Meliah. I personally think toddlerhood is so much easier then babyhood. Especially with twins.I love this age because it is so much easier and we have so much fun. I can not believe how much easier things are now then when I look back at my life a year ago.