Three Months!

Ah...three months!!!  I love three months!  Babies become...well babies...and not just little lumps of newborn.  Smiling, talking, playing, exploring and little personalities that start to show.  I do get just the teensiest bit sad thinking how this is the last three months I'll see.  Every day he's closer to growing up and becoming all boy instead of cute and chubby and non-tantrum-y.

But with the "last trimester" over and done we get sleep.  For his three month birthday he so kindly gave me almost 12 freakishly long hours of sleep!!  And nope, I did not check on him a billion times to make sure he was still breathing.  That's the second baby for you. Though I disagree with most that the second baby is easier because you are more prepared, there are some perks to already having been on this merry go round once before.  Likesuchas not going into your baby's room every 15 minutes and standing oh so quietly over the swing, your head moving back and forth in time, squinting at a little face in the dark trying to see if you can see the tiniest bit of movement that signals breathing.   Noooooo...that doesn't happen.

And over the past week we have gotten about 10 1/2 hours of sleep at night, several 1 hour naps and a longer 2-3 hour nap during the day.  So that part is much better, but he's back to fighting sleep like it's his mission in life.  He has already cried himself to sleep numerous times because I've used up all my mommy tricks and there is nothing left to do.  I've been down this road before with Ella.  Though it started much later with her, around 4 months, when it's much more acceptable to do sleep training.  After many months of listening to her cry for hours, no matter how I helped her, then finally falling asleep I learned, and accepted (the hardest part), that my baby just had to work it out when it came to falling asleep.  And work it out she did, Ella is a great sleeper and can put herself to sleep no matter what.  I guess both our kids are like that.  And it's just as hard the second time around.  But nothing about teaching your kids to sleep on their own and raising them in general is easy really. 

But when he's awake....he's all smiles!

At three months he moves his head all around to see his world.  It kinda reminds me of the exorcist, a super cute exorcist.  His little hands aren't balled up in fists all the time anymore and he will lay very still while checking out his toys or the fan.  He can pull himself up from laying to sitting and does it quite often when you aren't expecting it and you have to be quick to save him from toppling over forward.  Although he totally knows how to roll over, he just won't do it anymore.  Instead he gets mad, mad, mad!  Screaming mad.  He'd much rather lay on his back and practice rolling onto his stomach.  He still loves his lovie, especially since Sassy made him his very own!  I have an app for babies on my phone that has all these animals in black and white that make noise.  His eyes get wide and he makes an "o" with his mouth when he watches it.  His favorite toy by far though, is people.  He just wants to stare at your face and laugh and talk.  He likes to stare at his sister for a good while and watch her eat or sing.  She's so entertaining!

Every single time we take pictures he pulls this face out.  Cracks me up.  I guess it's the flash?

Mr. Chubby Cheeks.  He weighs a whopping 14 pounds.  I checked and Ella was five months before she hit 14 pounds.  I look at him and think he has such a big head but it's really that he has a square face.  His head is only in the 50th percentile.   I don't know where he gets the face shape from.  I still don't know who he looks like, but a lot of people say it's Poppy.  Which is fitting given they both have the same middle name!

So little boy, here's to 3 months down and a lifetime ahead.  A lifetime of good sleeping and perfect behavior cuz Mom's done with the toddler stage.  So feel free to skip that one.

Skull Man

My little tough guy....

Sup ya'll?

I just died when I saw these.

I should have known the shoes would get his attention.  He loves anything black and white.  I stopped taking pictures after this one because he refused to look at me.  I got shafted for shoes.

Lovie, Smiles and Toes

I know it's pink.  I know he's a boy, but hey, he loves this thing!  And I can't find a blue-ish one just yet.  I had originally bought this for Ella when she was a baby but she was all, pshhh...I don't play with those.  When you hold it in front of him he gets a smile on his face and reaches for it, all while kicking excitedly.

And I have found that once again I have an obsession with baby toes,  http://sweetellabella.blogspot.com/2010/06/few-of-my-favorite-things.html  I just don't know why but babies have the cutest little toes!! 

Pretty Nails

Being the girly girl that Ella is I have always been surprised that she won't let me paint her nails.  I got her some Piggy Paint when she was a year old and all this time she has refused to let me get near her nails.  Yet she will demand certain bows and ask to look at how pretty she is in the mirror after I've brushed her hair.  And she always wants to tell Daddy "I'm a princess!" Ironic, no?

But finally, finally....she let me paint her nails. I was touching up my toenails with Dulce de Leche and out of nowhere she asked if I could paint hers.  Well that color is pretty much nude so it barely showed.  But I proudly exclaimed to family and her teachers that her nails were painted!!  And then the next day she made my heart swell with joy when she asked to paint her nails pink....PINK!

And she sat sort of patiently, while I painted each fingernail and toenail a diva shade of pink.

But then...then...she asked if I could paint Daddy's nails too.  And lordy I did.

"Just hold still for just a minute Daddy, just hold still for me"

My little beauties.

Little Mama

My oh my, it's so funny how little girls pick up on the traditional girl things to do...taking care of babies and cleaning.  However I'm not so sure that's actually how it goes down in our house.  You have to wonder if it's just an inherent ability for girls to be the nurturing ones.  E sure is, I often hear how empathetic and caring she is.

We found her reading to her baby in the kitchen the other day.

She was so focused and spent a good 10 minutes doing it.  She didn't even notice me taking pictures!

She likes to help Vivi clean the house, whether it's mopping or dusting.  Vivi caved and gave her a spray bottle of water to wash the windows after Ella begged for the Clorox bottle.

Who wouldn't wonder how the water actually sprayed out?  

And who wouldn't point the nozzle at your face and squirt away?  Even more fun to squirt it in your mouth.

They Say He's a Strong Baby

At one of my OB checkups while pregnant with Sawyer I laugh-snorted when my doctor asked if I was feeling baby move.  Um...you could say that.  The kid was never still.  I had always heard women talk about hard kicks and babies that were active all the time, even at night, but Ella was never like that.  She actually started sleeping through the night while in utero.  The boy, however was having a 24 hour a day party in there.  So when I tell my doctor this she says, "That's a good sign, he's a really strong baby!"  I then joked that what did that mean, that Ella wasn't?  Because she skipped crawling and went straight to walking by 9 months.

And so far, I guess she was right.  I thought Ella was a strong, active baby but Sawyer is ready to go...like now.

Sitting in the "Taco", aka Hugabebe, so he'll fit in the Jumperoo.

As big as he is for his age he still needs a box under his feet to help him jump.

Here he is sitting with Daddy watching TV.  He will fight you to sit up on his own and tries to sit up in the swing and bouncer, which I am so not ready for.

Mid roll

Preppy truck boy

I love this face...so many possible captions.

So he officially became proficient at rolling over on July 7th, when I would put him down on his tummy and he would immediately flip, over and over again.  So he decided he needs to get good at rolling back to front.  Which means soon there will be no swaddle, no swing, no nada...just flat in the crib.  Which means he won't sleep.  Which means I will need to drink more than I already do.

He was trying so darn hard and just about had it except for his arms.

This picture is really funny looking if you don't know what he's doing.

The 4th

The days of my bigger little smiling so pretty for the picture are just about gone.  She's full of attitude and her own little personality.  So our 4th of July photo shoot = FAIL.  And the littler little?  Yeah, he just flat out doesn't care.

Here are the casual 4th outfits (because you know we have lots of wardrobe changes for holidays around here)

And we are done.  The girl only sat still for about 3 pictures, the rest are of her imitating a deranged spider monkey on that chair.  This was after, of course, she demanded to sit on the pink chair after I told her the yellow chair was it, and then when I caved and brought over the pink chair she insisted on the yellow one.

And here is our first family photo.  I'm always scared to try for posed photos with Ella because you just never know what personality of hers will come out.  It's not really that she was tantrum-y for these photos, just easily distracted.

And she wanted to hold baby brother.  Ok, if it will make you smile, whatevs.

And then there was an airplane.  We spent a good 5 minutes talking about that.

And we're done.  Or more like she's done and Sawyer is about to pass out.

So this was Ella's first year to watch the fireworks.  She absolutely loves them on TV so I figured it would be so special for her.  We talked about them all day and hyped it up.  She wanted to sit on Daddy's shoulders to get the best view.

Then the first firework went off....

And this is apparently how she really feels about that.

Baby girl lost it.  As Shaun is taking her off, screaming as if  a clown with a bloody knife was chasing her I just said, "Oh she'll be fine, just leave her here and she'll get used to it."  Sometimes I shock myself when I'm the tougher (aka: mean) parent.  Shaun ended up putting her in the car with the radio turned way up, while she watched the show but really just kept honking the horn and playing with the buttons.

Shockingly the infant in the wrap couldn't have been happier to be chillin outside, watching the bright, loud noise in the sky and being blinded by the flash from Mommy taking about a thousand pictures in the pitch black of night.  I actually stopped and wondered if I was harming his eyesight.  And then I kept taking pictures.  Kids...they're so resilient.



Two Months!

Well better late than never, right?  Next week it will be time for his three months photos.  I'll get those up around Christmas.  Le sigh.

I know I am supposed to say one of the same old adages...'Time flies when your having fun' or 'I can't believe he's two months old already!'.   But time really flies because I'm exhausted.  And I can believe he's already two months because I am very familiar with how fast babies grow.  And I tell myself everyday that I'm gonna miss this {cue sappy country song}.

Neither one of us was super stoked about taking his pictures that day.  I think we were just plain tired.  But there were some peeps of a smile.

At two months our little man weighs 13.5 pounds and is 23 7/8 inches long.  His doctor proclaimed he was growing like a weed...and she wasn't just saying it the way knowing parents and grandparents say it about their wee ones.  Seriously, kid's growing like a tree.

He is getting better at rolling over onto his back and is trying desperately to roll onto his tummy (gasp!)  And he's starting to reach out for things and shows a love for his lovie (er...Ella's old lovie that she hated and that's actually pink and orange...I know, I know...I'll get him his very own as soon as I get around to it on my mile long to do list).  He loves black and white and these little hanging toys that are bright colors.  All you have to do is look at him and say hi and he gets a huge gummy grin on his face.  He will coo and grunt if you talk to him and try to repeat the noises you make.  He is very strong and holds his head up like a champ.  We even got a comment at Target because he was holding his head up while facing out in the Baby Bjorn, he apparently doesn't like to be any other direction than looking out at the world.  We've already put him in the jumperoo a bit early, just like Ella.  He gets strapped into the "Taco" that helps fill the extra space since he's technically too small for it.  And we have to put a box under his feet but he is so strong and already loves to jump and sway.  I can't help but wonder if he will be an early walker like Ella.  In which case I may run away.  We still get pretty long stretches of sleep at night but if anything, he is consistently inconsistent.  One night it's 5 hours, the next it's 9.  And let's not even talk about naps...nothing has changed there.

It was the big shots time at his check up and I came super prepared.  His doctor had given me a handout on sugar water to help ease the pain.  So the night before, I packed every last detail of his diaper bag.  Diapers..check.  Blankets...check.  Tylenol...check.  Tylenol dropper with a bottle of 1 ounce of water to mix with sugar...check.  Sugar packet (cuz ya know it's supposed to be measured out in grams, duh, no teaspoon business here)...ummmm...Babe, where's the sugar packets?  Oh wait..we don't have sugar in our house.  Splenda, Stevia, Truvia?  Got tons of that, but not a sugar packet in sight.  I was too tired to go get some so I just thought I'd run and get some in the morning.  Um, no.  Who has time in the morning with multiple children?  In a panicked mess I drop off Ella at school and fearing that without the precious miracle of sugar water surely my son is going to lose his mind and be in the worst pain imaginable (have I mentioned my epidural didn't work during labor?  That is the actually worst pain imaginable).  I almost tearfully asked her teachers "Do ya'll have any spare sugar packets around?"  They are used to me and my frantic-ness so they didn't skip a beat when answering my odd request.  I left as the proud owner of 5 sugar packets.  Have I made it clear the anxiety I had about this whole thing?  If not, just picture "those" moms without makeup, wearing clothes from another century that don't stand a chance of matching, in the store with 8 kids clinging to their legs and hanging out of the cart, all screaming and pleading for toys, snacks, something.  And the look on her face says it all.  Yeah that was me, well I'm not sure whose kids those other 6 were.

Turns out my son has the same pain tolerance as my daughter.  Those shots ain't got nothin on him.  Except in the few seconds after they stuck him he silent screamed and stopped breathing long enough to turn blue.  A new experience for me that had even the nurse looking worried.  But seconds later he was all chill and smiling, like two scary big needles hadn't just punctured his tiny, chubby little leg.  And once we got home?  I was expecting the worst, lots of fussiness and lots of sleeping.  Nope, I got neither.  Even modified, killer diseases in a syringe can't make my kids sleep better.

By the end we were both done.  Pooped, really.