2 Month Dr Appointment!

Today we had Sam's two month appointment, he did really well and Dr. Leubbert says he's a really healthy boy, he did confirm that he has some mild eczema and to just keep using the baby Aveeno for his skin and he should be fine. I forgot to ask about the rice cereal, but I called the nurse about it later and they said it would be okay for me to put a little in his night-time bottles. He is a big boy and weighs 11 lbs 13 oz and he's 25 inches long, he's in the 50th percentile for weight and the 93rd percentile for height! So he's a long baby! He did get his first shots today and he did pretty good, he was pissed for the first five minutes but once he calmed down he was fine again. He's doing pretty good now, but I got some baby tylenol just in case he starts to feel bad later. All in all it was a great appointment and everything is looking great for him right now!

10 Weeks!

AHHH my Sam is getting so big, I just can't believe it's been 10 weeks since he was born. It feels like just yesterday, and he has changed so much in those 10 weeks, it's just amazing. He can now hold his head up about 90% of the time and he usually holds it up for like 3-5 minutes before he gets too tired. He's also at the point where he wants to stand all the time, all I have to do is put a little bit of pressure on his feet and he just pushes back, it's so cute!

Another thing he has started doing lately is sucking on his hands, I don't think it's going to become a habit, I really just think it's because he found his hands and just loves to taste them and use them now. It makes me laugh cause he's so enthusiastic about it.

Not much else going on right now, I'm back at work and it's going okay, though he is going to be so spoiled by all these people who love on him while I'm at work. I am just so happy that I have family who is willing and loves to watch him. They don't even know how much I appreciate it!

Back to Work!

Well it has been two days since I have been back at work, it hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be. I really miss my little man, but it has been nice to get out of the house and have some adult time. I realized yesterday that this is something that I can do and will be better for us in the long run, not just financially but for several reasons... It will give AJ some time to bond with Sam and form a strong relationship, which is really good for them both. It will give Sam a chance to bond with the rest of the family too since he will be with family on the days AJ and I are working. I think it will make me a better Mom too, I get to go to work and be with other adults and then when my shift ends, I'm so excited to get home and be with my son, and I think that makes me put in about 150% of my effort and time. I just wish that I could cut my schedule by like 8 hours, that would be ideal, but I don't know whether I will be able to do that without a medical reason. So I am looking at a 4 am shift right now, I know that it is early, but it is a ten hour shift, (not sure what the days would be yet, and that might be a deal breaker.) so I would be working 4 am -3 pm and that means I'll get 3 days off a week and be off by midafternoon so I still get to spend lots of time with Sam, I figure I will be able to get him on a schedule where he takes a nap from like 4-5 so that I can get a little sleep and we'll be awake when AJ get home. I'm not sure about it yet though, I'm going to see what 5 am and 6 am shifts are available before I make any decisions, and we won't know the shifts for a few weeks.

All in all it hasn't been too bad being at work. Of course I'd love to be home with Sam, but since I have to be here, I'm making the best of the situation. Now I just have to be a little impatient until my shift ends.

9 weeks old! Or 2 months and 1 day!

My little man is getting so big! I've really enjoyed this last week with him. Only 3 more days till I have to wake up and go back to work. :-( Well I guess life had to come back and make things real again, lol. It's okay though, I am sad about going back but starting to get excited too, I get to see all my co-workers again and not only that, but I get to give AJ his time with Sam too. Sunday is officially the day I'm going back, yesterday was supposed to be it, but things happened and it got pushed off till Sunday. I'm glad for the extra few days, and plus it sort of makes it a little easier to know that the first day he is without me AJ has him. Going back to work is going to be a good thing, not just monetarily, but it will also be good for me as a Mother I think. Though I would love to give Sam 100% of my love and attention, I think that working will help me not to take him for granted and I will make the most out of the time I have with him. It will allow me to get some adult time and also allow AJ to get to know his son on a one on one level and that will be great for their relationship. I just wish I could work like 3 or 4 days a week instead of 5... I am going try and see about getting on a ten hour shift, I probably won't be able to until shift bid, but we'll see.

In other news, Sam is thriving! He is smiling more and more every day, he smiles at everybody now, all you have to do is sit and talk to him and he'll grin for you... I also think he is close to laughing, a few times I thought he had but I'm not sure. It's almost like he wants to laugh but he can't figure out how to make the sound. He'll breathe real fast like he's trying to laugh with this huge grin on his face, but no sound comes out, it's cute.

Still no progress on the sleeping through the night home front. My Mom thinks we should try rice cereal, I'm going to ask his Pedi at the next appointment on Thursday. He does seem like he's hungry all the time, I feel like I'm feeding him constantly. I've tried giving him more in one sitting, but it's like he gets distracted and will eat a few ounces then about 20 mins later be hungry again. His naps I've kind of given up on forcing him to take a nap at a certain time, his bouncy chair is my friend though because when he does fall asleep I put him down in that and he sleeps just fine. I'm hoping he starts sleeping through the night soon. These next three days I've got to at least practice the whole getting ready in the morning thing before work so I'm not struggling on Sunday. We'll see how it goes though.

All in all, he's a happy happy baby. I love my little family so very very much!

8 Weeks Old!

Well Sam is 8 weeks old... A month old on Tuesday... Things this week have been bittersweet, the reality of going back to work is really starting to hit me, and whenever I think about it I get teary eyed... The only consolation about going back to work is that I know that I'm leaving him in the hands of people who I know care about him and so I know he will be taken care of and loved.

Sam's doing really really great developmentally, he smiles at me constantly now, sometimes when I'm up with him at night I will talk to him and he just has to stop every once in a while to give me a huge grin, lol. He also is starting to respond to me when I make funny faces and noises at him. Before he would look at me like I'm stupid (he still does sometimes, lol.) But now he will give me smiles and sometimes it looks like he really wants to laugh. He's also cooing a lot more now and he talks to me constantly, and he holds his own head up about 90% of the time now, so carrying him is a lot easier.

The rough part of this week is that it seems he's taken a step back when it comes to naptime. He used to go down for about 3 hours a day around 3 pm. Well I tried moving his nap time up a little, but he just won't have it, and now I can't seem to get him back on the old schedule! So I'm back to square one trying to figure out naps.

All in all I'm living on borrowed time right now, so I'm trying to enjoy every second I get, so even though he doesn't seem to want to nap for me anymore, it's okay, I get to spend that much more time with him!

7 Weeks Old!

Well the last week has been pretty great, I was able to capture one of Sam's smiles on camera! And just in time for Nana's birthday, he cooperated so well with me when he smiled! His smiles are much more frequent now, though they aren't consistent yet and it takes a ton of work to get him to smile. But I don't care, I'll do as much work as I need to to get that grin on his face!

We went apple picking on Sunday and that was really fun. We went with Sarah and Lance and the girls and it was so cool to be able to start doing those things with Sam. He seemed like he had a lot of fun, even though he obviously isn't big enough to pick the apples yet. Daddy held him while they picked the apples. It is going to become a tradition and something we do every year so next year when we go he will actually be picking them himself, I can't wait for that!

We also found out yesterday that my sister Heather is expecting a boy, I think it's so neat that they will be close in age, and I'm sure they will get into lots of trouble together. Sam and Jake and now Jude too. Michelle doesn't know what she is having just yet, but boy or girl, he or she will get in on the fun too. I just remember having a blast with my cousins when I was a kid, and he already loves Maddy and Ali, and I know they love him too. I am so lucky that I have a wonderful family on both sides and that we are all close. Sam will grow up playing and having fun with all his cousins!

Sam's really focusing on things now and AJ found out that he likes a lot of movement and color yesterday when he sat him in his bouncy seat in front of the tv and Sam sat and watched tv for 15 minutes without making a peep, lol. Then today I put on Sword in the Stone and he watched about 30 minutes of it before he started fussing. Obviously I'm not going to use the TV as a baby sitter, but it is nice to know that I can put him in front of it for a little while, so we eat dinner or something like that.

He is still doing pretty good at nap time and bed time and he consistently goes down for a nap every day now and naps for a good two or three hours. It is nice to be able to get some stuff done during that time. Today we are working on a few things though. I'm trying to work on getting him to finish a bottle in one sitting instead of over the course of a few hours. He's such a grazer and that's frustrating since it feels like I'm feeding him constantly, so I'm trying to break him of that habit. In working on his grazing problem, I am also trying to work on getting him to take a binky. Today he did pretty good and I fed him at 8:30 and in the interest of waiting till he was hungry enough to eat in one sitting I gave him the binky at 11:30 when he started acting hungry. He finally took it, but not for more than a few minutes at a time, he kept spitting it out, but by the time 12:30 came around he had taken it and kept in in his mouth for a good 20 minutes. (Yay!) Then I gave him a 5 oz bottle (usually he takes a 4 oz bottle.) It took him an hour to eat the whole thing, but I'm glad he ate it all. I'm going to work on this for the next few days and hopefully by the time I go back to work he'll be more consistent with all of this. Next thing I'm working on is sleeping through the night. I am trying to get his feedings on a schedule so that he eats a 5 oz bottle by 9:00 pm, since I did that last night, and I realized that he wasn't even hungry when he woke up at 1:00 am, so he ate 1 oz and went right back to sleep. At 5:00 am I was able to get him to finish all 4 oz in 15 minutes, so tonight when he gets up at one or two I'm going to give him the binky instead of his bottle and hope that he goes back to sleep.

In other news I found out my return to work date is actually 9/21 instead of 9/17, so I have a couple of extra days that I thought I didn't have. I have to go to the Dr's office sometime and get a return to work release, then I can bring it to my work and get everything started on going back. I am probably going to handle that tomorrow. Then the countdown starts as I only have a few precious days left at home with my sweet little boy so I'm going to try and make the most out of them!

Getting Easier!

Well things have started to get easier and we are slowly but surely getting into somewhat of a routine. It's not rock solid yet, but most days we are sticking with it. The last two days have been really great, Sam has started learning how to soothe himself and how to know when naptime is and when bedtime is. I put him down the last three days while he was still awake (barely, but he was still awake.) and within 30 minutes he had put himself to sleep. He's apparently likes to be swaddled, because once I started doing that, things fell into place pretty quickly, (he's my little burrito.) Once I swaddle him up and turn his lullabye's on, he starts to get droopy eyed immediately. He hasn't started sleeping through the whole night yet, but according to my books he technically does sleep through the night, since they define that as a 5 hr stretch of sleeping, and he usually sleeps from about 9:00 pm-2:00 am and then from 2:30 am-6:30 am then from 6:30 am-8:00 am. It is nice that he is sleeping more now, I just wish he wasn't such a noisy sleeper, lol, he talks in his sleep and makes noises all night so trying to train my body not to wake up unless it's an actual cry, not just a whimper, is rough. But all in all things are going really great and it's all getting a little easier. I'm definitely learning at least!

Six Weeks Old Today!

Well it has officially been six weeks since my little man came into this world. I can't believe how fast the time is going now that he is here... officially I have two weeks till my return to work date. I am a little excited about going back to work, but I'm extremely sad at the same time. I will be happy to get some adult time where I'm interacting with other adults, but I really don't want to leave my little man...

In anticipation of going back to work, AJ and I went car shopping and got a new car, we bought a 2007 Chevy Impala, I really didn't want to have to go to a car, since I prefer an SUV, but since I will have to be driving Sam out to Falcon twice a week for a little while, the gas in the Yukon just wasn't going to work. I would have ended up with 2x the gas bill!! So this Impala is actually pretty sweet, I love it! It's a bigger car so it's very comfortable and the trunk is roomy enough for us to get groceries in it. Plus our payments went down a little bit. All in all it was a great deal, a newer car with a lot less miles on it and better gas mileage.

Sam has been thriving and he's doing so great, unfortunately still not sleeping through the night technically, though he does have some good nights. So I think we are getting there, slowly but surely. He's also starting to look at his hands and cooing a lot more now, I love it when he talks to me! I also have been getting lots and lots of smiles so I'm hoping that he'll start to smile at everyone else soon too. His head control is also really awesome and he can hold his own head up for at least 30 seconds but probably more. He's just doing soo good! I can't wait till his well baby check up to see how much he's grown!

Other than that, not much going on, Fall is in the air, though the temperatures aren't showing it, I can just feel it though, I'm excited because I have a ton of cute clothes for Sam to wear, but he's so hot blooded, that I don't want to put him in them until the weather cools down a little bit. Fall is my favorite time of year and this year will be a whole new experience for me since I have a little one. I'm sooo excited, this year really marks the year of big changes for us, and every year from now on is going to be more and more fun. I get to take Sam apple picking and pumpkin picking and dress him up for Halloween, and who knows, he may even be able to eat a little bit of Thanksgiving dinner if he is allowed to eat other types of food at that point, and by Christmas he's going to be at the age where he'll be fascinated by the Christmas lights and be able to play with toys a little more... ohh this year is going to be so fun!