It Takes a Village... And a Glass of WIne

I can officially say that I understand what the term, it takes a village means...  It truly takes a village to raise a child.  As the last of our family leave, I look back and realize that each of them have helped us tremendously when it came to figuring out our babe.

Landon is becoming more and more alert every day.  It's so much fun watching him develop a personality, explore his surroundings and start to reach developmental milestones.  Watching him discover his mobile for the first time, or seeing him smile more and more each day erases the sleepless night, the fussiness that never seemed as if it would end, and makes being a parent amazing.

We thought surely this child would NEVER get into a sleeping pattern and a routine, everyone told us to hold on hope, that when Landon got to be 6 weeks things would improve.  Well when you're working on 5 hours of sleep, (not straight, we're talking puzzle pieced together here folks) you think they're lying to you.  Well, they were not lying to us thankfully.  As I write this I am surely going to jinx things.  As of recently Landon has gone down at 8:30 and slept straight through until 2:00.  He then sleeps until 5:30.  After his 5:30 feeding the little man doesn't really ever seem to fall back into a deep sleep.  Mostly, if you watch the monitor he lays in his crib and stares at his mobile, looks around, escapes from his swaddle.  As I tattle on him, I will say, that he is perfectly content in his crib entertaining himself until about 8:00.  This morning when I went in, I unswaddled him and he smiled and giggled stretching his arms and legs.

We've gotten ourselves on a good feeding routine, other than at night when we feed him on demand.  It's been nice feeding him on a routine during the day, at about 8:00, 11:30, 3:30 and 7:30.  It makes knowing what to expect and planning your day a lot easier.  I know the time frame it's good to run errands and I can plan ahead of time.  And boy, this child can eat.  We're up to 5-6 ounces each feeding, which for a baby of his age is a lot!

I went to the doctor for my 6 week check up yesterday.  Everything healed beautifully and I was given the green light to start exercise again.  I'm not sure if it makes me happy or if I'm sad I no longer have an excuse to be lazy.  I will be happy to lose this extra weight I'm still carrying around from a certain someone... As I've found out from running my half marathons, I'm a goal oriented exerciser.  Losing the weight just isn't enough motivation for me.  My current game plan is to sign up for the Publix Thanksgiving Half Marathon, as did the other half's I've run it'll give me an end goal and hopefully but Thanksgiving I'll be close to being back to my prebaby weight!  

My feeding companion. 

A little smile! 

Why good morning mommy!

I like to think of Jesus as wearin' a Tuxedo T-shirt, 'cause it says, like, "I want to be formal, but I'm here to party too." I like to party, so I like my Jesus to party.

Slumber partttttaaaa

Please, no autographs now.  

I think I'll hitch a ride.  

The infamous bottle of Napa wine was opened, on our first date night! 

A little adventure to Piedmont Park

Family photo.

I swear, in this picture he's say "Are you sure you wanna change this diaper mom?  I'm warning you..."

This morning's wake up, big smiles at our mobile. 

One Month Old!

I think Mom forgot my sticker Landon, can I have yours?

Happy one month Landon!!  I can hardly believe a month has gone by with this little man. Time is flying by, and seeing all of my friends who are celebrating their little one's first birthdays really make me stop to think that the next 11 months are going to be gone before we know it.  We really need to stop and enjoy these days with this little guy because it'll all go by so fast and we'll be wistfully looking back at these days wishing we could relive them.   

Our child loves to be on the go. I couldn't imagine where he gets that from... If he's in the car, his stroller, or his Bjorn he's a happy camper. I have figured out that the Bjorn is not only amazing when you're out in public and you don't want the burden of the stroller but its also amazing when you have a fussy baby and need to do things around the house. I plop him in the Bjorn and after we happily look around for 15 minutes, he's zonked out and both mommy and baby are happy.  

My days of wearing dangling earrings are officially over.  Landon has developed a serious iron grip.  Hair, neck skin, your nose, they are all in the line of fire and he will grab and pull and it can be rather painful for a baby of his size!  Poor Vedder experienced his iron grip after getting dangerously close to Landon, a hand flew out and grabbed a chunk of Vedder's face fur.  The poor pup just looked at me wide eyed, screaming for help.  After freeing his fur from the iron clasp I gave Vedder so much praise for not lashing out at Landon.    

My sister is currently here and it's been fantastic having someone here with me all the time helping with the little man.  Being the obsessed aunt that she is, she's wanted to do a lot of the feedings and diaper changes which I am very happy to hand over.  It's allowed me to catch up with a few things around the house which makes me feel a lot better.  Grandma Freaney will be here tomorrow which means we can enjoy another 10 days of help, and we will lap it up while we have it!   

I am feeling great!  I'm ready to get back to running and exercise, and to get this baby weight off.  It's time to pack up this maternity gear and pull back out my regular clothes.  I'm hoping that at my 6 week check the doctor gives me the ok to start exercising again! 

I finally downloaded some of the photos off the good camera so I thought I'd share.  I've seriously loaded up on the photos for you so enjoy! 

Right after he was born!

Our first family photo!

He loves to sleep with his left hand out of his swaddle.  

A little morning snuggle time with Aunt Katie and Mom. 

Passed out in his swing. 

Morning snuggle time. 

Chunky cheeks! 

Everyone wants to play with Daddy! 

Thunder buddies for life!!! 

Learning Curve

Wow, no one ever tells you that having a baby starts off as a giant game of trial and error.  Oh.  My.  Goodness.  Just when you think that you have things all figured out... you get a curve ball that puts you back at square one.

Thankfully we had my Mom here for the past 10 days to help us through this giant learning curve, but sadly she left on Saturday and we're back to being on our own.  It was so nice to not only have the extra set of hands to help with dishes, cleaning and feeding but our favorite was having someone who picked up a feeding shift at night.  

So, what is this learning curve I talk about?  What have we tried to mess with trial and error?  The other day I asked Kevin, if you could give anyone going home with a newborn a piece of advice what would it be.  He said it would be that you can't put a baby on a schedule, as we quickly (maybe not as quickly as we should have) learned.

They tell you that babies should eat every 2-3 hours, and between 2-4 ounces of milk at each feeding.  We thought clearly we should force this child to wait 3 hours to eat and then we'd have this babe on a schedule in no time.  Nope, not unless you want to listen to blood curdling screams for an entire hour while you make your child starve.  Not only did we learn to feed on demand, but we learned that this boy can eat and just because they say they should be eating 2-4 ounces doesn't mean that it's the case with every baby.  You feed until they are full and sometimes that's 3 ounces and sometimes that's 6 ounces.  Lesson learned.

When Kev and I registered for Landon we had no earthly idea what we were doing, so we heavily relied on the help of the people at Babie's-R-Us and when the sales associate told us most babies prefer the vibrating chair over the swing, we listened and we didn't register for one.  After several failed attempts of getting him to calm down in the vibrating chair (maybe he was hungry though?) we realized that maybe our baby would prefer the swing.  So, thanks to Grandma Holly we trekked off to Babies-R-Us and bought him a swing, which he loves.  Now mom and dad can happily get things done around the house as he coos happily in his Snug-A-Puppy.  Lesson learned.

A little known fact (at least it is now) is that 3/4 of babies have issues with gas.  What happens when you have a gassy baby?  They scream as if someone stole their puppy, and then they scream some more. This is where the wonderful invention of Gripe water has come into our lives.  A few drops of Gripe water and all is well in the world again.  This miracle product was purchased late one Sunday night when no one could console this babe and we needed something, anything to get him to calm down.  I could just kiss whoever came up with that goodness.  Lesson learned.

I have decided that for our family, it works best when I pump milk, store it in the fridge and then I am not the sole person responsible for feeding this baby (which is wonderful when we have help and there are three people that can feed him a bottle.) Landon seems to have breast feeding ADHD and cannot focus when I try to feed him from the breast.  He does so much better when feeding from the bottle.  Because we're feeding him this way we have learned that not all bottles are created equal.  A regular ol' Medela bottle was seemingly creating more gas, spitting up, and once again a screaming baby.  So last night we headed to our new "favorite" store, Babies-R-Us and got Tommee Tippee bottles that help with gas, spitting up and colic.  They seem to be helping so lets hope they continue!

We had our two week check up last Wednesday, and we got a great bill of health!  Since Landon was born he's grown 3/4 of an inch, which makes him 21.75 inches long and in the 83% percentile.  He's gained a pound so we're now 8.6 pounds, and puts him in the 37% percentile.  The doctor said we seem to have things all figured out, and to keep up the good work. (He clearly isn't at our house during melt downs from both baby and parents.)

Sleep at night is getting better.  Thankfully I think that my mom was here to help with the brunt end of it.  (Knock on wood.) Since she's left we seem to be on a (sorta) sleep schedule.  Kev wakes up and does the 10:30/11:30 feeding, I wake up and the 2:30/3:30, and then Kev gets up and does the 6:00/6:30 feeding.  Last night to seem to go extremely smoothly, I say this now, however tonight will probably be a terror.

We've been really bad about where Landon sleeps for naps.  He LOVES to sleep on Kevin's chest and in the swing.  Today's goal has been to get him to nap in his crib.  It went okay the one time I tried it today, we'll work on it little by little.  He's currently napping on Kev as he takes work calls, which happily gives mommy some free time to do what she'd like :)

Landon's had some adventures out and about in Atlanta.  Thankfully he loves to ride in the car and by the time we get to where we need to go he's either happily looking around with his big blue eyes, or he's zonked out and sleeping peacefully.  So far he's ventured out to trips to the grocery, Target, Babies-r-Us and to dinner twice.  Lets hope we have a child who continues to cooperate when we go out in public.

Puppy Brother, Vedder, has been such an amazing pup.  He continues to check on Landon in the night, and sometimes will even come in during my feeding shift and sits with me in the chair.  He's given Landon kisses twice on his feet, which we have deemed the seal of approval.  He does try and put his toy next to Landon when we have tummy time or we're playing wit him on the floor.  He doesn't quite seem to understand that he can't throw his toy for him.

Okay, now that I've officially written a novel I will get to the good part... pictures!  Enjoy!    

Sucking our thumb after a night time feeding. 

Getting ready to go on an adventure.  I think he looks like Kevin in this picture!

Landon's first play date with Grant!  

Puppy brother love.

His first, rainy, 4th of July.

Vedder keeping me company at 3:30 am.

It's seriously tough work being a puppy brother. 

I mustache you where you got your shirt.

We will save this picture for their wedding day.  Arranged marriages are normal these days, right?

Tummy time!

Landon was screaming bloody murder in this picture, as you can tell from Vedder's face.

Milk drunk.