Week 9: Hands, Shots and Birthdays!

This little boy steals my heart about 50 times a day:

He’s officially over 2 months old now, and/or 9 weeks, and was quite the little trooper at his doctor’s appointment earlier this week.  Wes is now over 2 feet long and weighed in at a little over 12.5 lbs!  He’s obviously growing since he’s quickly OUTgrowing many of his 3-month onsies, but it’s always nice to know that he’s gaining weight by seeing the actual number.  I just can’t believe he’s grown 5 lbs in a matter of 8 weeks!  I mean it’s easy enough for ME to put on that kind of weight, but with a baby that makes a huge difference!

P.S. Check out the awesome onsie my friend Emma made for him – it says “baby on board” 🙂  Too cute!  I’m kind of obsessed with it…

So I’m guessing that earlier this week I was a little caught up in the close-up pictures.  His little face is just so cute and expressive, not to mention that I didn’t feel like changing lenses and just stuck with the 50mm.  Cuteness and laziness go hand in hand, right?

 

Right!

Something new this week is that Wes has started to find his hands.  At first I thought it was the universal sign that he was hungry, but even after full feedings he would start bringing his hands to his face and chewing or sucking on them.  It cracks me up when he’s pushing his face around and gets a little frustrated, and last night he made this sour face but couldn’t stop chewing his fingers.  I was doubled over!

Tuesday we had his 2-month check-up and as I said before, he was so strong.  The hardest part was the first round of vaccinations, and honestly the hardest part was me crying.  Nate held him and it was over and done with in just a few seconds.  The rest of the day he pretty much ate and then slept and didn’t really want to have any sort of playtime at all.  I figured that was fine since the shots were fairly traumatic for him, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hovering over him all.day.long.

Other than the grumpiness the biggest change has been in the color of his poop, which is slowly going back to normal.  Since this is a food blog I won’t go into details on this, but I was terrified at first until I re-read the potential changes that would come in the first few days after his first round of immunizations.

 

Tuesday night (after the vaccinations) Wes was super cranky and then smiled at Nate and I totally lost it.  It felt like it had been forever since I saw that little grin!

Sleep these days is getting better and better, easier and easier to come by, which I love.  We’ve been doing a 2.5-3 hour feeding schedule when he’s awake and putting him down for bed at around 8 every night.  He’ll usually sleep til around 3 and wake up for a feeding, then go back to bed for another 3-4 hours.  I can’t even begin to say what a blessing it is to feel rested and ready to take on the day with a decent amount of sleep!

Another great thing that just keeps getting better and better is watching Nate and Wes together.  I feel like it was hard initially because I’m the one with the milk and Wes knows that, which made it hard for Nate to help when he was upset or hungry.  However, we’ve been trying to feed him one bottle a day to both give me a break and to make sure he actually takes a bottle when needed.

 

It’s seriously the cutest thing in the world to see him light up when he sees his daddy’s face!

The dogs are doing well, especially now that we’re hitting up the dog park a couple times a week and allowing them to blow off steam by sprinting.  That, and it helps to carry Wes around in the Ergo as much as possible so that he will get used to it.  He’s still a little resistant to it but he gets used to it more and more every day.

 

Last night we gave the pups some empty peanut butter jars to ease their pain…

Only their very favorite thing in the world next to snuggles and walks.  You should have seen the joy in their eyes when we pulled out the empty jars!

Things are continuing to go well for me in postpartum land.  The hardest/coolest/weirdest thing is just trying to figure out who I am in this new stage of life.  For the first few weeks it was just me trying to get hold of what the heck just happened to me physically and emotionally.  The next few weeks were me trying to get back in shape and grow stronger physically and emotionally.  And now I am stronger and more confident in who I am as a mother, but am still searching for the balance between the woman that I was and the mother that I now am.

 

I’ll end with this though:  last night I told Nate through tears that I never in a million years would have imagined that I would love being a mom as much as I do.  The changes in my life and my body are 100% worth it, and I truly can’t wait to see how our lives continue to change!