New Adventures, New Milestones, Same Pacifier

Last weekend I told Chris I wanted to go to a pumpkin patch and take fall pictures of our little monkey.  I don't know what I was thinking...that Mason was going to miraculously love having his picture taken and pose effortlessly for me while I took his picture in the bright sunlight?  He was not a fan. We tried to do the whole "OK, I'm going to get ready with the camera, then you put him down and on the count of 3 yank out the pacifier and we'll get some good shots" routine.  Nope.  He screamed.  And you can see it in the pictures.  So then I decided to give up, he's a baby, he's allowed to have his pacifier (see more on this below) in pictures we are capturing in order to track his childhood.  At least I'd get it while he was awake and see those big beautiful eyes of his.  Nope.  He closed them...bright sunny days are not as fun for babies as they are for us. Below are a couple of shots we did end up getting.  I must admit, the family shots were actually great considering he had just had a bottle and the chances of spit up on his "My 1st Halloween" onesie were inevitable.  We actually got away pretty lucky!

And then there was Saturday afternoon.  After we got home from the pumpkin patch and a couple other errands we had to run at that point (all of which he slept through amazingly, thank goodness considering it was right smack in the middle of his normal nap time), Mason woke up one of the happiest boys we'd ever seen.  He was just "chatting" away, smiling, having a great afternoon.  He was doing a great job holding his head up that afternoon so I quickly ran into his room and grabbed his Bumpo out of the closet, just to see.  We weren't planning on him being able to use it yet, but the kid has been looking around like a pro for a couple of weeks, so what would it hurt to see if he could sit in it for a second or two.  OMG, he sat in it with his head up for a good 5 minutes!  His head would bobble down once in awhile but we'd help him lift it back up and there it would stay.  Long enough for us to get this picture!  Yep, our little monkey is already starting to be an overachiever!  Someone get me the number to Mensa.

So before Mason was born and I thought I'd be breast feeding (excessive medication during labor stopped that option dead in its tracks), I was totally opposed to pacifiers. I kept telling Chris they supposedly caused it to be harder to breast feed so I wanted no pacifiers around him until I started to pump and he was good on the breast.  Break to day 2 in the hospital and Chris goes to the nursery to tell them we are awake and ready for Mason to come back into our room. In wheels our precious 2 day old beautiful baby boy with a giant pacifier in his mouth.  I was livid!  Chris wasn't too thrilled either.  We had a plan!  They didn't ask us if this was okay!  This was NOT ok!  We quickly yanked the pacifier and didn't give it back to him all day...he was fine, no need for the silly nursery nurses to stick it in his mouth any more. We didn't even put it back in his cart when he left that night.  Morning number 3, in wheels our ball of perfection and BAM...pacifier next to him in the crib screaming "I've been used." Once again...neither of us are happy.  Then it happens.  We realize he's not taking to the breast (once I'm finally allowed to feed) because there's no milk coming out.  After hours (and hours and hours) of him screaming and us throwing in the towel and giving him a bottle again, the nurse says those magical words "sucking soothes babies."  You don't have to say those three words twice to two overly exhausted, completely emotional, absolutely stressed out parents.  Plop goes the pacifier into his mouth.  And there it has stayed.  He starts whimpering after a great hour or so of happiness...pacifier.  He starts crying and cries for the 5-10 minutes we let him cry it out at night....pacifier.  He starts whining after a bottle and burp while we rock him to sleep at night...pacifier.  Hating his diaper being changed?  Yep, pacifier. And of course...screaming in the bathtub...pacifier.  He's got that sucker morning noon and night and we can't thank that nurse enough. It does calm him.  He even smiles with it in.  And the "daily" pictures below show just how a part of his life it has become.  Rather than get rid of it, we're looking for better ways to keep it in (see: My Baby Sleep Guide ).

Just for the record - when he spits it out, we don't automatically stick it back in. No, we're not insane. We know one day we're going to have to ween him off of it, so if he doesn't want it, neither do we.  But when he wants it, we don't put up a fight!  If he's awake and happy, the pacifier sits nicely within arms reach just in case!

Enjoy the pictures!

 October 19th - Off to Ganny's with the pacifier!

 October 20th - Hanging out at home with the pacifier

 October 21 - Willing the Cowboys to a win on Saba & Safta's anniversary with a pacifier! (For the record, the Cowboys always win when he is wearing his gear!)

October 22nd - Curled up with Mommy with the pacifier!

October 23rd - Sitting in the swing while Mommy and Daddy get ready for work.  Pacifier was sitting on his lap, but I'm sure it was used very soon there after this photo was taken!

Growing Way Too Fast

Maybe it's just me.  Maybe it's just the fact that I've been back at work for 3 days and am not seeing Mason 16 hours a day like I was before Tuesday.  But I must say, I think he's growing...way too fast.  Chris sent me a picture this morning since he is the lucky one who gets to wake the sleeping beauty every morning, dress him, and drop him off at Ganny's house for the day, and Mason just looked so big!  Don't get me wrong, the kid has yet to fill out (see picture below dated October 16th...silly skinny legs), but he looks really big.  He doesn't look like my tiny little newborn. 

The one good thing about him growing is the sleeping that goes along with growth spurts.  I'm no doctor, I have no idea if he actually is going through a growth spurt but his sleep patterns are suggesting it. Last night he went down at 9 (actually fell asleep with us around 7 but we kept forcing him awake for fear of him not sleeping well), woke up at 2 for a feeding and was back asleep by 3.  Chris WOKE HIM at 7:30 and he was back asleep by 9:15am according to Ganny.  His normal nap time is 10am, so you can see why we think something might be making him a little sleepy.  But again, I'm no doctor and the idea that he looks so big could easily be a camera angle or even the cute little cow outfit he is donning today!

This weekend we are headed to a pumpkin patch for some great fall "first Halloween" pictures.  I guess we'll see how he measures up to a pumpkin to tell how big he really is :).

 October 16 - Look at those skinny legs!!

October 17 - A little dark, but taken mid-feeding, obviously. Mouth is still poised for a bottle.

October 18 - My little monkey is getting so big! 

Dreading Tomorrow

It's here...tomorrow is the day I have been dreading since the day Mason was born.  Tomorrow I go back to work.  I know what you're thinking...but its so soon!  Trust me, I'm thinking the same thing.  Unfortunately, my office did away with FMLA before I got pregnant and because of circumstances that were put into place when it was removed, I was only able to take 6 weeks for maternity leave.  Not my ideal, not what I had always pictured when I thought about maternity leave, but unfortunately, it's the cards I've been dealt.  To make matters worse, I feel like the 6 weeks I have had with our little monkey has flown by WAY too quickly.

Unfortunately, this is one of those times where everything is out of my control, like so many other things about raising a baby. We are lucky though.  Since Mason hasn't had his shots yet, we are not ready to put him in daycare.  So for the next six weeks my mother in law is watching him during the day.  I am requesting to work from home one day a week to both give my mother in law a day to get things done, and also to help me ease into being away from him so much.  Starting in December he will be attending day care at a great facility two days a week.  I know that he will be the most popular guy in school once that happens!

Here's to my survival tomorrow.  I actually have a really early morning so not only am I leaving my little monkey, but I am leaving him before he even wakes up in the morning...it's going to be a long day....

 October 12 - Definitely Most Wanted!

 October 13 - In the words of his Saba after seeing the onesie "Not for long!"

 October 14 - A little delayed in finding out the news about the Braves. This was his reaction to the bad call!

October 15 - A wonderfully happy baby on his last full day with Mommy

A Small Delay

So I apologize for the multiple days in a row without a post.  Mason's Safta (my mom) was in town this weekend and we were having so much fun I never took the time to stop and post.  And I apologize because I am missing a couple days worth of pictures, but Safta has some so I will get her to send them to me and post soon.

So remember my previous post regarding Mason's "colic" and fussiness at night? Yeah, as soon as Safta got here, that stopped.  We quickly realized that our little monkey was growing faster than we could keep up with and his fussiness had a lot to do with it being hungry.  According to the American Association of Pediatrics, he should get 2.5 times his body weight in ounces every day. Well, we were still going off his weight at his 2 week appointment when he weighed 8lbs 4oz.  We had rounded up to 8 1/2 lbs and were giving him the equivalent amount of food.  Needless to say, our "little" monkey has been chunking up and with a little unscientific weighing (weigh dad, then put Mason in his arms and subtract) we realized he is actually 9 1/2 lbs!  So we've upped his formula and what do you know...much less crankiness at night. We've also changed his feeding to once every 4 hours instead of every 3. Let me tell you how great this is.  Not only do we use less bottles which means less bottle cleaning, but the little guy has started sleeping much more!  Last night, he went to bed at 10, woke up at 2 and slept until just after 7. We will take that any day!  Actually, on Monday night, we woke him to feed him at 2 because we were worried he'd go too long without food if he slept much more.  We've since learned that isn't necessary and next time he wants to sleep even longer through the night, we won't stop him!

This past weekend while Safta was here, he also started cooing a lot more.  Nothing is cuter and makes everyone around the baby happier than hearing that little sound.  He even surprised himself a couple of times, cooing and then looking around to see where the heck that noise came from!  We've also watched him start to hold his head up for a couple minutes at a time.  He's starting to see a little bit more (still not much) but he loves following lights.  Its so great watching him learn and explore already just by looking around.

Its amazing how much he is changing every day.  We are just taking advantage of these days while he's still so little, because we know one day we'll wake up and he'll be rolling over and crawling and we won't know where the time went!

 October 10 - Big smiles!

 October 6 - Picking Safta up from the airport in my awesome shoes

October 9 - Dressed like a little man for Daddy's birthday

The Long and Skinny of It

As if the pictures haven't given it away, Mason was built like his daddy...long and skinny.  I am extremely happy about this, as I was crossing my fingers that the little guy would be getting his Daddy's metabolism and build. So far, we're off to a good start.  But I'm starting to see the problems with that.

We have officially outgrown his newborn clothing, only in length.  Our little monkey still fits it in the width, which means his 0-3 month clothes are still a little big.  Luckily, some of the pants (especially the overalls, thank goodness for those) "fit" well enough around the waist that he can get away with wearing them...and of course onesies fit just fine.  But we have a whole stack of pants that are 0-3 month that just swallow the guy whole.  Here's to custom made baby clothes (kidding...seriously)!

So our little string bean may look a little baggy in some of these pictures....you can blame his daddy for that :).

October 5th - I'm in between sizes, sorry my clothes look too big!

He smiles!

Up until today, most of Mason's smiles have been when he is sleeping.  More like a twitch in his cheek than a smile.  But today..today I caught a real one!  I know its real because it happened multiple times when I was playing with him on the swing.  And this time, he was wide awake. As soon as it happened the first time I grabbed my phone and snapped a picture of it happening again. That one came out blurred so I kept talking to him hoping to get it to happen again..and it did!  Its still a bit blurry, and he's not really looking at me, but I caught it and I'll take it.  Just hoping he'll do it again like that soon so his Daddy can see it in person and his Safta can see it this weekend when she's in town!  Our first mark in the baby book...first smile, October 4!

October 4 - Mason's first real smiles caught on camera!

1 Month! And Payback...

Happy 1 month to our little monkey!!  I can't believe a month has already passed since Mason came into our lives.  The days have flown by.  Good and bad, I wouldn't trade a single one of them and just hope they slow down just a bit.  No need for time to go thaaat quickly! 

In the past month, though, the little guy has given me (Allyson) what many people may call payback on behalf of my parents. Last night was no exception.  You see, for as long as I can remember, my parents have pointed out that I was a colicky baby.  I mean, I was a good kid...never did drugs, didn't get into trouble, never came home super late even when there was no curfew, just a good "afraid to get in too much trouble" kid. The one thing they had to hang over my head was that my baby could be colicky. When I was a baby I would scream from about 6 or 7 every night until 11 until about 3 months old.  I'm not a doctor, and our doctor hasn't actually diagnosed Mason has having colic, but last night he screamed from about 5:30pm (about the exact time his daddy got home from work) until 11, and this isn't the first time this has happened, although it has yet to be a nightly occurance.  At that point, I got out of bed and went and sat up with him (we were hoping he would fall asleep if we put him down, he seemed exhausted, but no such luck) until his midnight bottle.  So much for yesterday's post about his great schedule! The ironic part, we booked our tickets to Atlanta for Thanksgiving at 7pm at night.  Let's hope this isn't colic or else there will be a crowded Airtran flight from Branson to Atlanta in November that is not going to be very fond of our adorable little boy!

Now, to give you an idea of how loud his cries are, the kid has a set of lungs, Chris downloaded an app to his Iphone to check decibel levels.  His decibel level averaged about 100, which is equivelant to a DC10 at 300 feet on approach, a normal car or house stereo on maximum volume, or a snowmobile.  Another comparison - 120 decibels is considered "deafening."  Needless to say, this isn't a cute cry.  Good thing it's a cute baby who we know will outgrow this.  But there is nothing worse than your baby screaming and you can't figure out anything that will make him happy.  Here's to hoping its not colic and instead is a fussy baby who has had a few bad nights!

October 3 - 1 month old!  Getting so big so fast!

Thank Goodness for Books...and Schedules

When we first brought Mason home, the first two nights were miserable. He was up, what felt like, all night, and between us and Allyson's parents who were staying with us, none of us were sleeping. Instead, we were rotating being up with the Little Monkey.  Enter our saving grace...a book.

They say there is no book to know how to raise a child, but let me tell you a secret...we've found one that comes pretty darn close! Thanks to some family friends who used the book before, they gave it to us before Mason arrived, but we hadn't taken the time to really read it cover to cover yet.  Chris used his ability to read quickly and remember a lot to find out what we were doing wrong...not letting him cry it out. We quickly put the plan into action and within just a couple of nights, Mason was sleeping so much better and was on a schedule.

Here we are, just a month after he was born and the little guy is only waking up twice a night, going to sleep at around 9:30pm, sleeping until about 8am, and napping for about 5 consistent hours during the day.  He's on a great eating schedule and with my having to go back to work in just a couple of short weeks, I'm so happy to know that day care or Ganny's house, and anywhere else he might be while we are working, he's on a great schedule.

Even today, he didn't let our lunch out with some ladies stop him from sleeping during his usual nap time.  Thank you Mason, for letting Mommy enjoy an afternoon of adult conversation while you slept peacefully. 

 October 1 - Hanging out with Daddy

October 2 - Still sleeping after an afternoon lunch with the ladies!