Baby Owen- 5 months

Happy 5 months baby boy!!! You are just a chunky little delight!!!

Growing

-Weighs 16lbs even (according to my super accurate weigh myself, then hold him technique)

-Wears all 6 month clothes, but has grown out of that size jammies. The 6 month size is getting a little tight already too.

-No teeth yet, but he drools all the time and EVERYTHING is in his mouth. He loves to chew on my hands and fingers and arms and shoulder... I'm thinking it will be any day!!!

-Mastered rolling from his back to his tummy and does it all the time now!! 

"Whoa. I was just on my back!!"

-Is pushing up into a semi-crawling pose when he's on his tummy. He gets his knees under him, lifts his butt up in the air.... then flops back down and does the "swimming" move by moving his arms and legs. 

-Babbles all the time... chatty chatty, screech screech screech!! He is starting to make a few more consonant sounds... "Ah-ba" "bwa"... things like that. 

-Blows raspberries all the time! He was blowing raspberries back and forth with one of his teachers at school and was making another baby giggle and toot. I walk in and his teacher was in tears from laughing!

-He is a sensitive baby. He's very aware of where I am, and fusses if he sees me walk away, or hears my voice and I don't come to him. He does fine at school all day, but as soon as I walk in and he hears me, I have to immediately go to him or he'll get upset. He also will cry at school when other babies cry.. he gets upset for them. He likes to be with me and pulls my hair, pulls my face close, slobbers on me with his open mouth... he needs that physical touch a lot.

-He is a calm, chill baby though.. happy being held for long periods of time (unlike his tornado of an older brother who wanted down! down! down! all the time) and is easy to take places. He charms everyone!

Eating

-Starting solids! Such a big boy! He LOVES food. Oh man.. huge grin, grabs the spoon, shoves it in because apparently I'm not fast enough.. thumps his chest and squeals for more! We are starting simple.. cereal, banana... he's tried peas (didn't care for them) and sweet potato (it was ok).

-Sits in his chair at dinner with us and gets some food and some entertainment from Big Brother

-Nurses in the morning on my left side (I pump my right)... nurses at lunch (yeah for daycares at my work!!)... and in the evening when we get home. Then we nurse all weekend. 

-We upped his bottles at school and that has helped with the sleeping a lot. He is taking better naps and seems more content and settled during the day. He gets two 6oz breastmilk bottles at school. 

-Gets a 6oz formula bottle at bed, then I pump right before I go to bed. This has worked out awesome for us. He is WAY more settled at night and Neal and I take turns putting him to bed. Which is FANTASTIC because it means I can put Austin to bed on those nights! I haven't put my little man to bed since I was about 6 months pregnant. I missed it... 

-He is SUPER distracted while nursing now though. I can't talk or he pulls off and looks at me like "what??" Any noise distracts him.. or he just feels happy and unlatches and grins up at me like a fool in love. Last week he did this and I looked down at him and said "Mama. I'm Mama. Mama?" and every time I said "Mama?" he'd lay his head back on my boob and curl his body into mine like he was hugging me. MY HEART MELTED!!!!!

My view looking down all the time!!

Sleeping

-Nighttime is better. We are by no means getting 10 hours of straight sleep, but I'm not up every hour trying to nurse and get him settled. 

-We moved his bedtime earlier, so he is now down between 7-7:30 (before it was 8:30) and this has helped. He gets his bottle, settled in his crib, and he's usually out for about 4-5 hours. Then he is up to eat again and is settled until 5-6 am.. some days I have to wake him at 6 to nurse before school, sometimes he's up on his own at 5 and I nurse him while I'm pumping. 

-Sleeps with his arms unswaddled now! He seems to like it much better. 

-Still a cat napper and I think I have to just accept that. Weekends are tough because we do the whole "spend a lot of time for a little sleep" routine a lot. It can be really frustrating to spend 30 mins soothing him down to get a 15 minute nap. But he wakes up super happy and doesn't act cranky, so this just must be what he needs!

No sleep.. so let's take a selfie!!

-He will take a longer morning nap though.. usually an hour, maybe an hour and a half. So we get one good nap out of him!

-Naps better at school.. his naps there are usually about an hour, and he takes 3 of them a day.

Playing

-There are some great, wonderful, sweet things about the newborn days.. but I'm an "older baby" person for sure. Owen is getting to be so much more fun now! He giggles and laughs all the time. 

-Recognizes himself in mirrors and loves to play "who's that sweet baby???" with me (see mirror selfie pic above). So much fun!

-Likes his exer-saucer toy and hangs out in it.. laughing at Austin and Daddy wrestling or laughing at that silly little monkey that spins around. 

-Spends a lot of play time on his tummy now.. reaching for toys, grabbing and eating blankets.. being delighted with himself... 

-Still loves his butterfly toy in the car. I won't drive without that thing! He doesn't cry in the car very much anymore (thank goodness!).. he's pretty content playing with butterfly and chatting.. 

-Still loves bathtime... sometimes we have family bathtime with Austin in the tub, Owen in his tub, me and Neal squeezed in the bathroom.. music playing. We rock out. Ha. He is a major splasher and gets everything around him soaked!

Austin likes to come supervise baths

Chatting and chewing on washcloths and soaking the bathroom!

Well... there you go.. 5 months have gone by already! This is the stage I really enjoy, like I said. I'm looking forward to the next 7 months.. seeing Owen grown and change and learn and start to move.. and probably continue to never nap.... but oh well. He's a happy, healthy, chunky little love!!! 

Baby Owen- 4 months

Four months!! We've made it through a third of the year already!! Let's see how Owen is doing..

Growing

-Weighs 14.6lbs (23%)

-Height 25" (34%)

-Wears all 6 month sized clothes, and some onesies are a bit too short on him. I think he is long torso/short legs body type. His 6 month pants sometimes cover his feet! 

-He works really hard on rolling from his back to his tummy and has made it a few times! His one arm gets stuck underneath him though. He can roll from his tummy to his back but won't do it very often. 

-Is grabbing everything! My hair, my face, the remote, Sophie the Giraffe, toys, blankets, his seat belt.. he gets so happy when he gets to grab something!

Geez.. its always on sports around here.. enough already, guys!

So they got porkchops for dinner.. whatev. I got Sophie!! Yum

-Can grab his binkie and take it out of his mouth. If he doesn't move it too far away from his mouth, he can get it back in too. 

-Isn't the best at tummy time.. he doesn't get his hands under him in order to push up into a scorpion position. His arms go out to the side and he kinda "swims" on his tummy while kicking and moving his arms. He is working on pushing himself up!

-He is my Mommy's Boy for sure.. sometimes he's fussy and the only thing that calms him down is me. I'll pick him up and he nuzzles into my neck and chest and grabs my hair. 

Eating

-Like my post about the red labels, we are still 100% breastmilk at this point. Yeah! I have a whole shelf in the freezer full of milk too.. double yeah!!

-Nurses first thing in the morning, and nurses on my lunch break, then twice at home in the evenings. He has two 4oz bottles at school and takes his bottles fine... grabbing them, of course. 

Lunch with Mom!!

-Much prefers my left boob, for whatever reason. He nuzzles in and calms and falls asleep on that side, every time. 

-Eats every 3 hours, but sometimes will stretch to 3.5-4 hours. 

-Gets so happy when he knows he's going to nurse... big smiles, wiggles around and latches right on like "oh yess!!!!!! this is what I wanted!!!" His enthusiasm is cute. 

Sleeping

-Still a cat napper. It's so funny how he can be so tired, fall asleep hard for about 20 mins, and then pop awake so refreshed and happy. 

-He naps ok at school... some days it's little cat naps, but his best naps have been there. One day he had two naps that were over 2 hours long each!! That rarely happens at home. 

-Weekend and evening naps are a challenge. He doesn't really like to be held, but doesn't settle down in his crib easily either. So it's a crap shoot. We try everything and just hope we get a little sleep out of him. He's still very difficult to soothe to sleep.

-Is sleeping pretty good at night. Some nights are more sound than others, but normally he's in bed at 8:30, wakes at 2:30 to nurse, then is up again at 6:00. A few times he's slept completely through, and some nights he's restless and is up multiple times to be soothed. 

-He always needs a pre-bed snooze. It's usually 15-20 mins, but it happens every night. Then he wakes up and gets into jammies, kicks it out for a bit and plays and gets really tired and then is ready for bed. 

Playing

-Has started to SCREECH in excitement. He can hit some high notes! I'll hear him in the backseat of the car playing with his little butterfly toy, just screeching away!

-Speaking of the butterfly... we don't leave home without it! It's his BFF. It crinkles, it squeaks, it moves around.. oh the joys!!!

-Is all about his toes too... he chews on them, plays with them, and gets kinda mad if he's wearing footed jammies or socks because he can't get at them the way he wants!

-Likes his little gym and jabbers and screeches and grabs at things and scoots out from under it (he's quite the scooter.. he made it almost clear across the living room last night while I was making dinner!!)

-Loves his bath too. Just like Austin, the bath will always calm him down and get him happy again, even if he's being cranky. He kicks and kicks and slams his arms down and gets the bathroom and me SOAKED. Water goes everywhere.. he's an animal in there!

-Is very happy and smiles a lot.. but gets SO. SERIOUS for pictures (see above). Ha. It cracks me up. He has even started giggling!!! 

-His little tongue is always out. Chewing and licking on things, or when he's smiling. His tongue is so cute!

I love the age of 4 months.. he's changed so much and has really "come alive"... smiling, giggling, being chubby and more interactive. Overall he's a very mellow, jolly little guy. He has rough days and gets fussy, don't get me wrong... but he's usually quickly over whatever is bothering him and back to being happy. 

Owen has been a happy, fun little addition to our family!

Project 857- November 1

This was not my favorite Saturday.

We were down at my parent's for Halloween, and I brought my work laptop with me to go through my work emails and delete ones I didn't need so I wouldn't have to face an Inbox of 2,000 emails (seriously, I get about 500 every 3 weeks!!) when I went back to work.

I was not expecting an email from my HR department letting me know that I was out of paid time off, and that any time I took after Halloween was going to be unpaid.

Ummm... what??

I was scheduled to be on maternity leave until December 3rd.. and I had talked to HR before I had Owen and the explanation I was given made it sound like that whole time off would be covered.

Well, long story short.. there was a big mis-communication, I interpreted what they told me wrong, they didn't break down my leave very clearly.. and BAM.

I was out of time, and Neal and I were facing six more weeks of no paycheck from me if I chose to stay off work until December like planned.

We just couldn't do that, so I made the choice to go back to work 3 weeks earlier than planned.

I spent Saturday crying.

I knew work was inevitable. I wasn't sad I had to go back.. I was sad it was a shock, that the mis-communication happened in the first place.. I felt dumb for not asking HR more questions before my leave, and mad at them for mis-leading me.

I nursed Owen in bed and laid with him for most of the afternoon while he napped.

Even though I went through this with Austin, it's never easy to know you are about to send your baby to daycare. You worry they are going to be scared without you. Or not sleep or eat well.

Owen seemed too young, too small to go to school. It wasn't until I realized he would be the exact same age Austin was when he started school that I started to feel a bit better.

So we had a lazy day at my parent's...

Naps.

Hanging out with the boys out by my Dad's firepit.. in Batman jammies, no less.

Austin also "read" a story to everyone.. this book is simple and he has heard it so many times, he has memorized what line goes with what picture.

Baby Owen- 3 months

Now that we have Owen's reflux under control... he's become a very sweet, relaxed baby and we all had a great third month!

Growing

-Weighs about 13lbs, 3ozs. This is from another one of my super accurate weigh-myself-then-weigh-myself-with-baby moments. 

-He's getting adorable baby chunk.. on his wrists, his double chin... and his little butt is all dimples!

-He's in 6 month sized pajamas, 3 month onesies and 6 month pants. 

Eating

-Is still exclusively breastfed and I am so proud of us for making it 3 months! Sure, that's not long in the grand scheme.. but it is to me, and it means the world to me. Since I didn't have a very good experience with Austin, I so wanted nursing to work out for us. 

-Nurses every 2-4 hours.. it depends on the day, and how sleepy he is. Sometimes he goes a long stretch, other times he's on the dot every 2 hours. 

-Still is a Baby Dragon and thrashes about, bites me, tugs my nipple all around, It's painful sometimes. The sweet moments when he is calm and puts his hand on me and strokes me make it all better though.. so sweet...  

Sleeping

-We started having him sleep in his crib... because he was sleeping in his swing and was pushing his legs out and grunting.. trying to straighten his body, so we thought maybe he wanted to be flat to sleep. He sleeps just like Austin did... swaddled, with his head in the curve of a Boppy. He likes to feel surrounded. 

-Some nights he does end up in the swing though. We start him in the crib and then see how it goes. I think he just likes the swinging motion still. 

-Still doesn't really like to be held for naps. He's too restless, and does better swaddled in a dark room with a noise machine. The rare times I do get to hold him or cuddle him while he sleeps is just heart-melting. 

-Cat naps still. I kid you not, sometimes he is SO TIRED gets swaddled, put down.. and BING!!! He'as awake after 10 mins and is totally awake and happy. Any nap longer than 20 mins during the day is rare. 

-He is sleeping well at night though, so maybe that is the trade-off. We do a bath, then massage with lotion, pajamas, a story, nurse, then bed. He's down around 8;30pm, wakes up around 2-3am to eat, then is down again until I get him up at 6am to get out the door. I know this can change at any moment and sleep regression periods are still ahead of us, so I'm grateful for the sleep for right now. 

Playing

-He likes his swing and hangs out in there, chatting to the moving parts and kicking his little heart out. 

-Just like his big brother.. he is so expressive and vocal all the time. Constant chatter, noises, grunts, arm and leg movements, smiles.. He loves to be talked to and will reward you with coos and grins.

-Loves to look around and stare at the TV, lights, the ceiling, Austin... 

-Is starting to enjoy toys and chew on things! He can grab his rattles and hold on and get them to his mouth. He has a better grip in his left hand than his right.. maybe he'll be left-handed like his Daddy!

-He startles easily and will cry really hard... so unfortunately Big Brother has made him cry several times.. being loud, or getting too close to him too quickly. Overall, he likes to be around Austin though, and vice versa. 

-We still call him mostly Baby Owen and Bo.

I'm so glad we are through the dreaded 4th Trimester and now we are on to smiles, happy times and a little more sleep. Having two kids is still tough, and exhausting and there are days I feel drained and covered in urine and spit up and all I want to do is crawl in bed.. but each day gets a little better... and  we are adjusting and coping... and drinking a lot of wine. :-)