The Terrible 2s

No, you didn’t fall asleep for 20 months and not know it. Tyler is still only 4 months old, however he is now wearing size 2 diapers! Yikes. To be fair, he was in size 1 diapers for a good 3 months, but still, this is evidence of him growing up too fast for my liking!

I thought he was going to stay in the ones for awhile, but we started having some leaking issues. One morning, I woke up and Tyler’s back was all damp. I thought maybe he had sweat in his sleep because Jordon and I both do that way too often (on the up side, I wash our sheets all the time because of it, so we have the cleanest sheets on the block!). But then another day I was playing with him on his playmat, went into the kitchen for something for only 2 minutes, and came back and he was wet up the back again! So I realized it must be pee. How it got up the BACK of his diaper is beyond me, but once I tried the 2s on him, this problem seemed to vanish. Less laundry for mommy, yay!

And now for the “terrible” part. My little Tyler has become “that” baby… you know, the one crying away in the restaurant and you’re not sure whether to feel bad for the parents or be angry because you can’t have a quiet meal in peace. Yup, my kid. When we went to Williamsburg for Jordon’s recruiting trip, we went out to dinner at Olive Garden. Tyler hadn’t been eating too great that day and he’s been starting to teethe, so he just decided to fuss, fuss, fuss during dinner. Oh how I miss the days when he was a newborn and would sleep through dinner! The waitress kind of made a joke about it saying “that’s why you bring Grandma to dinner too!” because she was a grandma herself. And another table of women walked by ours on their way out and said “He’s so cute” and we said ”And fussy tonight!” and one of them said “I was thinking about asking if you needed me to hold him so you could actually eat your dinner!” Ah, embarrassing.

But it was good to hear from his pediatrician, at his 4 month appointment, that yes, he was starting to teethe! An actual reason for the fussiness thank goodness. No actual teeth sticking out yet, but the doctor said he could see the gum flattening out and the teeth making their way up! In addition to fussing, Tyler is drooling a TON, biting anything and everything in sight (and all I can think it GERMS!) and being a fussy nurser. Oh, parenthood. But, he did do SO well on our trip to Woodstock for Thanksgiving. He was such a chill baby and just cuddled up to whoever held him, so we can complain too much.

It is just amazing how much this little man has grown in the past 4 months. Four months for me seems to make no difference, but for him, it has meant learning to smile, starting to “talk,” rolling over and over and over, laughing and starting solids! We’ve been giving the little man (organic) brown rice cereal (yes, I’m one of those mommas) and he’s eating it like a champ! Opens that mouth wide open and eats it right up! Well, occasionally he’ll get it in his mouth, smile, then drool it all out, but most of the time the majority gets in that little belly! Per the pediatrician’s advice, we’re going to wait another 4-5+ weeks to start other solids.

At his appointment we also found out Tyler is 13 lb 14 oz (20-25^th percentile) and just under 27 inches long (95^th percentile). Where he gets those height genes from is beyond me, but it looks like we may have a tall, skinny boy on our hands! And his head circumference was in the 50^th percentile, so any worries we had about his brain issue in utero are of the past. He had also reached ALL of his 4 month milestone and almost all of the 5 month ones as well. Gifted.

And lastly, our poor man is just doing SO much traveling but has been a champ about it. We can definitely tell he is discontent, as anytime we put him in his car seat these days he fusses (I understand though… I’m sure the last thing you want to do when you’re learning to romp and roll is to sit still for hours). As much as I LOVE the holidays, I’m almost looking forward to them being over so we can have some family time at HOME and not in a car! This week we are diving into the adventure of decorating for the holidays! This proves a lot more difficult when you’re also juggling a baby on your hip! And we’re getting our Christmas photos taken, getting a tree, and maybe getting some baking done (have to make my famous cookies for the Ferrum College Athletics staff!). Wish us luck!

It Ain't The Real Thing

Ah, the Battle of the Bottle continues! For the record we have tried Medela, Dr. Brown's, Platex Drop Ins, Breastflow, and Gerber's latex nipples. Tyler actually thought about taking the latex nipple a bit, but no cigar. I even tried putting a little bit of VERY watered down apple juice (I know, bad mommy!), but he didn't want anything to do with it. He KNOWS it ain't the real thing.

So we tried moving onto sippy cups. I bought two types, a Gerber Graduates by NUK (recommended for ages 6 mo+) and a Playtex starter (recommended for ages 4 mo+). Surprisingly, my little 3.5 month old liked the NUK one! Well, I'm getting ahead of myself. He took it a little bit, and it was pretty hilarious seeing a baby drinking from a sippy cup, but he didn't really drink enough for it to be considered a success. I think we are going to take a break for a few days, then try again.

I just love that Tyler loves nursing... we have such a precious bond and there is nothing sweeter than snuggling up to my little one, but boy am I tired!! He is either going through a growth spurt (which isn't uncommon between 3-4 months of age) or he is just reverting back to his newborn sleeping ways, because he is waking up about 3 times a night compared to the 1 time we had weaned down to earlier. It would be awesome if Jordon could give that boy a bottle so momma could sleep! I do have to give props to my wonderful hubby though... the other morning Tyler woke up fussing around 6am, so we decided to change his diaper (we normally don't do this during the night because it makes him wake wide up!) and of course, he became bright eyed and bushy tailed! Jordon took him downstairs and sat with him on the couch so I could get some sleep. Best present ever.

And Jordon and I have started to *think* about solid foods. The recommendation for starting those is 4-6 months, but really, babies don't need them until 6 months (when baby's iron needs start to surpass what is in breast milk). However, Tyler always eyes our foods and will open up his mouth if I put my spoon up to it! Cutest thing ever, by the way. So we'll see what happens, but we definitely won't be starting before 4 months. Plus, they recommend waiting until baby double their birth weight, and Tyler is only about 13lbs now, so we still have to wait for a little more growth! And after we start with cereal, I'm definitely going to make my own baby food. It seems like it would be fun and then Tyler won't get any of those added preservatives or what not from the jarred kind (of course, I grew up on the jarred kind and ended up fine, but I have the time and will make my own!). I hate having Tyler grow up and not be a baby anymore, but I am so excited for these milestones like eating solid foods, crawling, talking, etc.

Speaking of growing, Tyler is doing it like a weed! Mostly vertically to be honest. I feel like every time I do laundry, I am putting something else away in the big tub of "Clothes that are too small for Tyler, but will be perfect for our next son!" Watch us have 3 girls next haha. But between hand-me-downs from Lucas jr., hand-me-downs from our neighbor who has a 1 year old son, and the uninhibited shopping trips by my mother and Jordon's mom, we have more than enough clothes.

We are getting so excited for Christmas around our house! Normally, I don't get excited this early, but maybe having a kid has made me more anxious for the holidays. Tyler has Christmas pj's all ready thanks to my mom, so I am so ready for the red and green holiday! I'm trying to figure out what to get Tyler for Christmas. I mean, what in the world do you get a 5 month old baby? He definitely does not need any clothes, that's for sure! I'm thinking about getting a wooden toy chest from Michael's and painting it for him. He probably won't care much about the gift, but hopefully he'll enjoy unwrapping it!

Anyways, wish us luck on our bottle adventures... hopefully I'll have some good news to report next time!

Baby's First Halloween

So this weekend we took Tyler up to Woodstock to celebrate his very first Halloween. Now some people would ask, "Why would you buy a Halloween costume for a baby?" but once you take a look at Tyler's pea-in-the-pod costume, you can see why we couldn't resist!

Originally, I was planning on getting Tyler a pumpkin costume, but then the thought of a little pea-in-the-pod, with a little baby face sticking out, popped into my head and my mind was set! We searched high and low for the costume, and even considered ordering one online and paying the ridiculous $20 shipping to get it here in time for Halloween, but then we found one at a local party shop in Salem. Plus, all children's costumes were 40% off there, so we ended up getting the costume for 6 dollars and some change. Talk about bargain shopping!

On the Saturday before Halloween, we were supposed to go to Woodstock's Fall Festival, where all the kids dress up and trick-or-treat at the local businesses, but it SNOWED. Snow in October? Who thought that would be a good idea? So it got canceled, bummer. But we did find out that there was going to be "trunk-or-treating" in Mt. Jackson on Sunday! So we dressed up our little pea-in-the-pod and took him and his tiger baby cousin and Blueberry Muffin big cousin to get some treats! About 15-20 local businesses had set up shop, so we left with a nice load of candy!

We had so much fun there that we decided we had to stay and go trick-or-treating on Halloween night. And it was a blast! I think I may have had more fun than any of the kids! I'm not sure how traditional it is for a baby as small as Tyler to go trick-or-treating, but the heck with tradition. It was pretty funny because people kept giving us suckers because they thought babies could eat those... I wanted to say "You know I'm going to be eating all of this candy, so give me a few Crunch bars and a Twix please." But I refrained haha. If you think about it, Tyler will be getting all of that delicious sugar through my breast milk eventually, so the candy was really for him... right?

And on the life of our baby front, we are still incredibly unsuccessful with getting our dear son to take a bottle. I didn't know I'd have to deal with the problem of my son being addicted to breasts so early haha. We tried our FIFTH type of bottle last night, a Gerber one with a latex (brown) nipple, and he thought about taking it, but never fully committed. I guess we'll try again today! As much as I LOVE exclusively breastfeeding him, it would be nice to be able to leave him for a few hours without the fear that he is going to starve without me there.

In other news, Tyler and I have started RUNNING! Yay! I read that you can start babies in running strollers earlier if the stroller lies/lays (yes, my grammar sucks), back, and thankfully my wonderful BOB does! And I put maybe 7 blankets around his head to keep it steady too haha. Well we went running for the first time last week and Tyler LOVED it! Okay, he slept the whole time, but in baby world, that is a good thing! It is definitely challenging running while pushing your 12 lb child + a stroller, but it was a great workout and I loved being about to get out and run!

Lastly, Tyler is still a little sniffle-y from his cold. We took him to the pediatrician because it had been lingering so long, but the doctor said he didn't have an ear infection or sinus infection and that all the suctioning of his nose was probably just making his airway more inflamed causing congestion. So long story short he told us to do NOTHING and just let it run its course. But, the good news was when I asked about how he got sick so early, despite my breastfeeding efforts, he told me that if I get a sickness first, my breastfeeding would prevent him from getting sick, but if he is exposed first, breastfeeding isn't going to protect him as much. So I felt a little less guilty for my boy getting sick. And he's definitely been feeling much better these days, and slowly getting back to the good sleeping schedule he was on pre-sickness, so hopefully he will be back to normal soon!

That's all on our front, will check back in later!