Happy 4 months, May-May!

Dear Macey,

I don't know why, but I've always looked at 4 months as such a milestone age. Maybe it's because we'll be starting baby food soon, or maybe it's because you're so alert and smiley and social now. Whatever the reason, 4 months seems like a big deal to me. But then again, I'm your mama. Most everything you do is a big deal to me.

At 4 months old, you:

• Are a really tiny girl. You're still not quite 12 lbs yet.
• Hold up your head so well. I don't need to support your neck when carrying you around anymore.
• Can roll from tummy to back, but haven't quite mastered back to tummy yet. I think you're getting close though!
• Love the sound of your voice. You still coo ("goooo") to us but you've also added in a lot of squealing and yelling. Camden and I call those sounds your "crazy bird" sounds.
• Are b-a-l-d. It'll be a long time before I can put any pigtails in that (non-existent) hair of yours!
• Are starting to drool a lot and want everything shoved into your mouth. Your brother didn't get his first tooth until he was 10 months old, so I'd be surprised if any of yours showed up this early.
• Will be starting oatmeal and homemade avocado soon.
• Nurse every 3 hours during the day and anywhere from 1-3 times at night.
• Speaking of nights, they're typically either really good (6-8 hour stretches) or really bad (2-3 hour stretches). There isn't a lot of middle ground with you.
• Are all over the place with napping. After I wrote about how challenging naps had become in your 3 month post, we got things under control. I started putting you down to nap on your back instead of constantly rolling you back to your belly at nap time. I also put you in your Merlin's Magic Sleep Suit (aka: your giant astronaut/banana suit). It took a few days, but you started taking at least one long nap a day again. This lasted about a month. Now, we're back to catnapping! So, I'm experimenting with some new techniques right now. We'll see what I have to say about your napping when I write your 5 month post!
• Are still sleeping in your Rock N Play at night, though you nap in your crib.
• Are SO, SO smiley. You give everyone you see a big, gummy grin. It's ridiculously adorable.
• Love being naked. As soon as I undress you to change your diaper, you start grinning and kicking.
• Love your Oball, Minnie Mouse dolls, your crib mobile, bath time, and your new Kick & Play piano.
• Stand in your jumperoo now. You look so tiny in it. Your legs don't reach the floor quite yet, so we have you standing on a box. It's really adorable.
• Do okay in the car as long as we're moving. You're not much for red lights. Can't say I blame you.
• Laugh, a lot. I used to have to work hard to make you laugh by blowing raspberries on your neck, but now you'll just laugh if Daddy smiles at you.

I tell you this every day, Macey, but I'm so completely crazy about you. You're so loving, sweet, and just such a good natured little girl. I'm so happy you're a part of our family.

I love you,
Mommy

 

 

A Christmas Recap

This year was the first (and probably last!) time that I hosted every holiday event (Thanksgiving and Christmas related) for both sides of the family at my house. It was by my request, just because I figured it made more sense to have people over instead of lugging along infant necessities everywhere we went. But man-- it was exhausting. And just to be clear, I use the term "host" loosely. I didn't do any of the cooking (because unless frozen chicken nuggets or mac & cheese is on the menu, you probably want me out of the kitchen), but just maintaining the level of cleanliness required to have a constant flow of company in and out of your house is no easy feat. Especially with a 3-year-old and 4-month-old.

Still, it was a great holiday season. We had my in-laws over for our Christmas dinner and gift exchange on the Saturday before Christmas. Then, we had everyone (my family and Matt's family) over for Christmas Eve dinner. This was the first Christmas in several years that we haven't spent the night at my parents' house on Christmas Eve and I knew they were a little bummed by the thought of missing out on seeing the kids coming down the stairs and discovering their Santa stuff on Christmas morning. So, we invited them over bright and early on Christmas morning so they could be a part of the Santa excitement again. Afterwards, my sister and her family headed down to our house and my dad cooked us our traditional Christmas breakfast of oyster stew (minus the oysters for most of us) and delicious omelets.

Once breakfast was eaten, the family gift exchange began. Let me tell you: having a family room full of five children (ranging in age from 4 months to 7-years-old) simultaneously opening gifts? And then, just for kicks, throw in 7 adults too? It was total and utter chaos. But it was the best kind of craziness: excited squeals, discarded wrapping paper everywhere, toys covering every square inch of the floor, and lots of, "Look what I got!"

And even though it took me over 2 hours to clean up the aftermath of the tornado that took place in my house that morning, it was completely and totally worth it. I'd say Christmas 2012 was a success. But I'll go ahead and formally relinquish all hosting duties for Christmas 2013 right now.

Excited about Santa (or: excited about Minnie Mouse that Mommy is holding up over her head!)

 

Sprinkling (dumping) the reindeer food he made with friends & cousins on Christmas Eve.

 

Working hard on Santa's cookies.

 

My parents took Camden to church on Christmas Eve, where he dressed as an Angel for the telling of the Christmas Story.

 

Camden's gifts from Santa. And no- we do not wrap presents from Santa. My parents never did it for us growing up, either. I think it's a southern thing? I'm not sure. Only presents to and from family members are wrapped because duh- Santa doesn't have time for wrapping gifts.

 

Macey's gifts. She also got Camden's old jumperoo handed down as a Santa gift.

 

Macey and Daddy on Christmas morning.

 

Camden & Will playing with one of Camden's favorite gifts: Hungry Hungry Hippos.

 

Macey was just a little bit excited about her new Minnie Mouse.

 

Dr. Will performing a procedure on Camden with Camden's new doctor kit.

 

Pop (my dad) told Jacob & Alex (my nephews) that he'd pay them each $20 if they ate an oyster. Believe it or not, they were able to stomach those nasty little creatures. (For the record, my dad also offered my sister and me $100 to eat an oyster and neither of us could do it.)

 

The omelet chef hard at work.

 

Macey modeling one of her new outfits.

 

Like father, like son: relaxing at the end of a fun but exhausting day.

 

Merry Christmas

There is much to be thankful for this Christmas. Camden is at such a great age for enjoying the holidays, and I can't wait to see his face when he sees his gifts from Santa tomorrow morning. We've started new traditions with him this year (Elf on the Shelf was a big hit, and I have to admit I'm a little sad that our elf will be returning to the North Pole tonight) and I can't wait until Macey can start enjoying these traditions too.

Speaking of Miss Macey, it was exactly one year ago today when I found out I was pregnant. As I sat on the bathroom floor at 2am, I was in total disbelief as the second line appeared on that home pregnancy test. It was the best Christmas present I could've asked for. And now, our sweet girl is here and our little family is complete. Yes, there is much to be thankful for.

However, there are a lot of families out there that are hurting right now and my heart hurts for them too. I haven't mentioned the Sandy Hook tragedy on this blog, mostly because I felt like my words could never adequately express how devastated I am for the families who lost loved ones that Friday morning. They still can't; there truly are no words for that kind of heartwrenching loss. But you can bet that tomorrow morning, in the midst of the laughter and the hugs and the flying wrapping paper, I will remember each of those families. I hope you do, too.

Merry Christmas, from our family to yours.

From the mouth of Camden

Camden is still learning how to grasp time. We talk about days of the week quite often now, and he understands when something happened in the past or when something is going to happen in the future. But, his concept of time is still a bit abstract.

One evening after dinner, Camden looked thoughtful and asked, "Is it 3 days until bedtime?" You wish, buddy!

Referring to his Play-Doh escapades: "I played that all day last night." (And, for the record, "last night" might be referring to the previous night, but he also may be referencing last week, or even two months ago. Right now, "last night" simply means "in the past" to Camden.)

**

Currently, we do not go to church. There are a few different reasons for this, but I grew up in the church and would like to find a church home for us again in the near future. I've made a real effort to start talking to Camden about God lately. We've discussed relatives of ours that now live with God and during one of our conversations, I mentioned that these relatives went to live with God when they were very old. Camden got a far off, thoughtful expression on his face and was quiet for several moments. Then, he asked softly, "Are we new, Mommy?"

**

I had Macey in the bathtub and the space heater running on nearly full blast in the bathroom. Camden walked in, made a face, and exclaimed, "It's hotter than a summer day in here!" (Disclaimer: I have never, EVER used that expression. It sounds better suited to an 80-year-old woman than a 3-year-old boy. Weeks later, I'm still totally baffled about where he heard that line!)

**

A few days ago, we were wrapping Christmas presents and Camden was being my helper. His job was to pick a little sticky name tag and stick it on each gift after I wrapped them. Camden, however, really wanted his job to be playing with tape. As I stuck tape on the carefully folded corners of my gifts, Camden asked why he couldn't be in charge of the tape. I told him that putting tape on the presents was too hard and that I'd have to handle it. He replied, "Putting tape on is hard...but putting the name stickers on is squishy?" (I have to admit, I was initially confused by this statement, until I realized that Camden was thinking about hard in the physical sense of the word-- so squishy made the perfect antonym.)

**

A couple of nights ago, Matt was putting Camden to bed when he had this epiphany:

"I don't think spiders have hands, Daddy. Because if they did, they would open the door." There's just no arguing with that kind of logic.

And then we got the plague.

Oh my goodness, we've been so sick in this house. It all started almost 2 weeks ago-- right after Camden's 3 year check-up appointment. Since he got the flu shot at that appointment, I initially chalked his high fever the next day up to a fairly common vaccination side effect. But when it persisted and turned into a nasty case of diarrhea and then culminated with a hacking cough and runny nose, I knew we were likely dealing with a pretty powerful and long lasting virus that has been going around our neighborhood.

Camden was pretty miserable for about a week, and I was so thankful when he was obviously on the rebound. It was very hard seeing my sweet boy so sick that he didn't want to leave the couch. Since the rest of us seemed to make it through that week unscathed, I thought we were in the clear. Ha-- not so much. A few days ago, what started as a small, annoying cough for me turned into a high fever, vomiting, body aches, a sore throat, and a much more violent (and persistent) cough. And then? Macey started coughing, which led to a particularly scary incident yesterday morning.

The previous night, I had been up for hours, alternately vomiting and wallowing in my misery. I finally was able to fall into a restless sleep around 5am. About an hour later, Macey started coughing and was having a hard time catching her breath. I didn't freak out right away; she was flat on her back, so I simply rolled her to her side and patted her back firmly several times. When the coughing continued, I picked her up and patted her back harder, feeling the panic start to rise. She was turning bright red and having great difficulty catching her breath in between coughing fits. When she did take a breath, it sounded labored and shallow and there was a lot of excess saliva coming out of her mouth. I suctioned her mouth immediately and ran to get Matt. I also called my mom because I figured if we were going to head to the ER, someone would need to stay home with Camden, who had been woken by my frantic yelling.

By the time my mom arrived at our house a few minutes later, Macey's eyes were red rimmed and she still had a lot of excess saliva, but she was grinning ear to ear. I swear, this is the happiest girl ever. She smiles through it all-- coughing fits, choking incidents, it doesn't matter. She's always got a grin on that adorable little face. Since her breathing had returned to normal and she wasn't running a fever, we decided to wait until her pediatrician's office opened instead of taking her to the ER and exposing her to countless more germs. We made sure she fell back asleep in an upright position instead of flat on her back to avoid another choking episode. A few hours later, I spoke to the advice nurse at the pediatrician's office and was told to run a humidifier (already had been doing that), elevate her while she's sleeping (back into the Rock N Play she went), and watch her carefully for a fever and/or shallow breathing. Thankfully (and knocking on wood as I type this), she has been fine since that incident. She's still coughing, but it's a dry cough and she's not struggling to catch her breath like she was yesterday morning. I was told that since I'm breastfeeding, the version of this virus that Macey gets will probably be milder, since she's already taking in the antibodies my body has been working overtime to make to fight this thing off. I pray that's the case.

And, speaking of breastfeeding, my supply has taken a big hit due to this illness. I lost 2 pounds in one day and wasn't able to eat anything more than soup yesterday, so you can imagine the toll that took on my milk production. Macey has been trying her best to make up for it by nursing much more frequently, so I'm hoping it will rebound soon. I've done my best to drink as much as I could today and have been eating a little bit more, so I'm hopeful. I'd really hate to have to start supplementing because of this pesky virus.

Hopefully this means that we've gotten our sickness for the season out of the way and our Christmas can be illness-free!