Noah's Favorite Time of Day, Part 2

How long can this sweet little guy scream???  One hour and forty minutes!  Our kitchen sink, microwave, and stove were immaculate by the time he finished.  He slept for about twenty minutes, then woke up screaming again.  However, since then, he has done much better.  I think the longest he has cried has been about 10-15 minutes.  He is still not sleeping very long, but I feel confident that this will improve.  I never thought that our laid-back, happy baby could be so stubborn!

Noah's Favorite Time of Day

What time of day is that, you ask.... Well it is Nap time. 

I started this post over a month ago, but never finished it because he started taking naps (Note Number 3 on Four Months entry) .  Well here I am one month later, sitting on the couch listening to my screaming child.  How did I get here you ask?...Vacation!  We recently went on a two week vacation.  We visited family and went to the beach.  Whereas, I loved the break and it was good to get away and be with family, I am still reaping the consequences.  Since our return, almost two weeks ago, Noah has taken three good naps.  Yes, that's right, three naps in two weeks!  You may say, "You're just not being tough enough," or "You just need to let him cry it out," but before you judge me, hear me out.  I have been putting him in his bed at designated nap times for almost two weeks, and for almost two weeks, he has cried for an hour at each of those times.  After an hour I would rescue him because it was time for a feed.  I took him to the doctor on Monday to have him weighed and mentioned his naps (or lack there of) and was told "You are just going to have to let him cry until he falls asleep."  Great, how long is that?!?!  Well Tuesday I was really dreading naptime, but was resolved to be strong.  I put him down and, low and behold, not a peep.  He slept for an hour and a half.  The afternoon nap was similar- only about eight minutes of crying.  Sweet!  He figured it out!-- Not quite.  Today I laid him down thinking, "No big deal. He's got this."  He was quiet for about ten minutes, and I began to celebrate another victory- maybe a little too soon.  All of a sudden I heard a noise, but it's okay, He's just talking.  Well talking turned into screaming and so here I am.  How long can he go?  To be continued...

It Must be an Acquired Taste

We celebrated a new milestone in the Hughes household last week.  We started cereal!  How did it go?  I will let you be the judge of that...

This is before the first time.  He looks pretty excited, right?  The rest are from the second feeding.  The reaction was about the same as the first, but the pictures were a little more telling the second time around.

Well, maybe he will learn to love it.  At least it gives him a few extra calories.

4 months

Our little boy is now four months old.  I can't believe that it has already been that long.  I thought I would copy my sister-in-law and write about what all he can do so that I would have it for later.  Here goes...

1.  He smiles a lot.  He will hand out big grins for me and others, but will only really laugh hard for his dad.  

2.  At night, he goes down without a fuss, wakes up once to feed and then goes right back down. 

3.  Not the same story during naptime...  He HATES naps.  I think he doesn't want to miss anything.  He takes after his mom in that regard.  Some may call it nosy, I prefer to call it inquisitive.  Anyway, it has been a battle to get him to take a nap during the day, but after many hours of me listening to him cry in bed over many weeks, I think he is finally getting it.  

4.  He can roll front to back (started at 9 weeks), but has not quite mastered back to front.  His Dad claims that he watched him do it, but once again I was not present.  I had just left to go the bathroom- what a little stinker.

5.  He is very long (75%), but on the skinny side (10% at his last visit).  We are actually having to supplement him a little with pumped breast milk right now.  

6.  He has discovered his feet and plays with them all the time.  It is really funny to see his confusion when I put socks on his feet.  Hasn't figured out where his toes go.

7.  He also loves his hands.  He chews and sucks on them all the time.  Occasionally he will gag himself when he puts his entire fist in, and again he can't quite figure out what has happened or that his fist is the culprit. 

8.  He coos quite a bit, especially when he is getting tired.  He really has a lot to say then.  

Noah you are such a joy!  You have blessed your Dad and me so much.  We have loved these last four months and can't wait to see you grow and develop in the coming months.  We love you!!!

The Joys of Motherhood

  Today was just one of those days...It began with waking up to Noah screaming at 7:00 after I had fed him and put him back down at 6:00.  I was just hoping for 30 more minutes of slumber.  I fed him, we had our morning time, and I put him down for a nap.  He initially went down without a fight (which used to be rare for him, but in recent days he has improved), but about 10 minutes into it, the crying ensued.  I did not rush to his bed thinking that he would settle himself.  After about 20 minutes, I went to check on him.  Upon seeing me, he stopped crying and proceeded to laugh.  Great!  He won!  I made sure he was okay, then left again.  Immediately he began crying again.  I left and went to take a shower so that I could be ready to go to his doctor's appointment.  After I finished getting ready, I went to rescue the napless wonder.  I nursed him and as I was starting to give him a bottle (he has had weight issues so is doing both now)  I discovered that he had poop up to his shoulder blades.  So glad that I let him cry it out!  All he wanted was to get out of his poop soaked clothes, and Mom gave him some tough love.  We immediately put the feed on hold and retreated to his room to strip him down.  As I was wiping the poop off, he proceeded to pee all over himself.  At that point, I gave up and headed for the bathtub.  He got cleaned up and then I had to go change my poop clothes.  After we were both changed, it was time to race to his appointment.  The appointment went well, but he was exhausted thanks to his mother not changing his diaper during his morning nap.  He fell asleep on the way home.  I thought, finally he is sleeping!!  I carefully pulled his seat out of the car so as not to wake him up.  I walked into the house to find my 7lb Yorkie sneaking into his bed and about 10 dirty diapers and wipes scattered all over the living room floor.  RUDY!!!!  I had emptied the trash can in Noah's room into our big trash can right before I left.  I remember checking to make sure the pantry door was closed, but apparently I didn't check very well.  As you can imagine, Noah's was now awake after my yelling at the dog.  I left him in his car seat while I cleaned up the diapers and carpet.  He didn't last very long because at this point he was both tired and hungry.  I finished up and rescued him once again.  I thought I smelled a hint of poop again so I pulled his shorts off to check his diaper, not wanting to make the same mistake again.  As I grabbed them, I felt the poop running down my hand.  Lovely.  We again spent some quality time on the changing table.  

Shortly after all this Brian came home.  The rest of the day was not nearly as eventful.  He ate again and went to sleep for the night.  Hopefully he will sleep well since he successfully went the entire day without a real nap.  It is days like this where I think, "What in the world am I doing?!?!?," but then I see my sweet baby boy smiling up at me and know that I  wouldn't have it any other way. 

My First Mother's Day!

So again, it's a little late...My first Mother's Day was a few weeks ago, and I have had these pictures loaded in for some time, but am just now writing about it.  We spent the weekend at Gram and Grampa's house.  

I think Noah enjoyed the attention, and judging by that expression, I am pretty sure he loves the new hat that they gave him.  It will come in handy this summer.

We all spent Sunday afternoon at my Grandmother's house. 

Gram with her Grandkids

Dallas made Gram T-shirts for the girls and a Onesie for Noah.  I don't have a picture of Noah with his, but here are the girls.

Nora and GiGi

Elyn on the phone

Noah's onesie has a lightning bolt instead of a heart per Brian's request.

My brother and sister-in-law brought their Baby Bjorn for us to borrow.  What a wonderful invention.  Noah loves it!  It has made shopping so much easier.  No more carrying the car seat into the store and trying to fit it and my groceries into the cart.

Our little family.

 

Afterward, Brian gave me a Wii Fit for Mother's Day.  I am loving it.  It is a little upsetting to watch my Mii grow, but quite motivating.  What a great First Mother's Day!

Car Seats

Guess who graduated out of his infant insert on the car seat?!?!  This boy!

Brian and I got the ol' car seat manual out this past weekend to look something up and discovered that the infant insert is supposed to be removed when they reach 11 pounds.  Oops, he's over 12.  Guess we should have read that earlier.  I went ahead and read the rest of the manual so that there would be no more surprises.  Here is a picture of one of his first ventures in the seat.

Think he's bigger?  I guess that hour of feeding every three hours is doing something.  Glad to know I am not wasting my time.  One insert gone, one to go.  I think we'll keep the head insert at least until he has better head control.