A Gap Baby (Hopefully)

Last week we entered Anderson into the Gap Baby Casting Call for fun. We had our own little photo shoot and here are the pics we ended up sending in.

Jump Up Jump Up and Get Down!

We recently were lent this jumperoo for Anderson and it is his new favorite toy. He's still a little too small for it since his toes just touch the ground. So we help him jump. But sometimes he is having so much fun he jumps up by himself and I think he's learning how to do it himself! He's a little video of Anderson having fun in the jumperoo.

All By Myself...

Four full days and three long nights by myself and I survived. Wilson went to Minneapolis for work and I was left to hold down the fort myself. Needless to say, I was scared. I was nervous. I was scared for what Wilson would have to come back to. Would he come back to his wife, knocked out on the floor while Sammy held up Anderson's arms in victory, declaring him the winner? Sadly, this is what I imagined might happen.

Sorry to disappoint, but that scene never took place. Monday was fine. Felt like any other day. Then little by little, I started to fade. Tuesday, I was feeling a little tired but kept up my spirit. Wednesday, I started to count the hours that I had left till Wilson came back. By Thursday, I was waving the white flag. But I survived to live another day.

The best part of this story though is what Wilson did when he got home. As my reward for making it through the week, he treated me to a day at the spa. It was amazing and so relaxing. Definitely what I needed after a long week. Wilson definitely deserves extra brownie points for this. It was extremely thoughtful of him and is one of the many reasons why he's a truly great husband. And a truly great father. It wouldn't be so bad if Anderson turned out exactly like his dad.

Three Months!

It's hard to believe but our little guy is already 3 months old. Officially, he turned 3 months on Oct. 9 but I was so tired and exhausted I didn't get a chance to take his 3 month picture till today. In looking back at his 2 month picture, I can't believe how much he's grown!

As a refresher, here he is a 2 months:
And here he is at 3 months! (I really tried this time to get the same position and ratio so that you can actually see growth. I'm looking at it now and I still need to do a better job at cropping)
I'm not sure if you can really tell from these pictures, but trust me, he's grown!

We haven't officially weighed him at the doctor's office, but I have weighed him on a baby scale and he's around 12.5 lbs. It's always hard to measure his height/length since he's always squirming around but our best estimate (which is measuring him 5 different times and taking the average) is 23.5inches. He graduated out of his 0-3 month clothes about 2 weeks ago and is filling in his 3-6 month clothes quite nicely.

As far as developments/new habits/likes/dislikes, there's been a lot:

• One of the biggest changes is that he's now moved into our room to sleep at night. Not in our bed, but he sleeps the bassinet of his pack n play at night now. Before, he slept in his nursery, either in the swing/glider chair or crib. When my parents visited, he slept in our room due to sleeping arrangements and found that he slept better. We're guessing that he knows we're there and feels safer. So, he's been there ever since.
  
• He's even developed a nighttime schedule! He goes to bed around 8:30pm, wakes up for a feeding between 12:30-1:30am, then again around 5:30-6:30am. Then it's up to him if he wants to wake up for the day or go back to sleep. If he does go back to sleep, then he'll wake up between 7:00-7:30am. This also means that we're getting sleep! We're still tired each day because the sleep is still broken up, but it's a lot better than what we were getting before.
• A couple of weeks ago, we decided that he was old enough to start learning some things. Some people are lucky that they have babies that were born knowing how to soothe themselves and fall asleep themselves. Not us. Ever since birth, we've been rocking and holding Anderson to sleep for naps and during the night. Putting him to sleep was not a problem. It's just getting him to stay asleep. It would take 5-10 min. to put him to sleep but then we'd have to hold him for another 20-30min. before we could put him down or else he'd wake up and we'd have to start the whole process over again. Even after 20-30min, it wasn't a sure thing that he'd stay asleep. You can imagine how frustrating it is when it's 2am and you've spent the last hour trying to get him to sleep. Most of the time, one of us would just end up sleeping with him on our chest. Anyway, we decided that he should start learning to fall asleep on his own. To our surprise, he took to it right away! We wait to get the "sleep cues", put him down, give him a pacifier (which he only just started taking), put on his Jazz lullaby CD (which I love and would definitely recommend) and pretty soon, he's off to la la land. Naps are a little tougher and he doesn't stay asleep for too long. But at night, he's been sleeping longer because he knows how to put himself to sleep. And if he does wake up and needs help, a little shushing and a belly rub later, he's back asleep. This has seriously changed our lives. Half of my day would be spent either putting him to sleep, or holding him while he slept. Now that I rarely have to do this, I've had much more time to do other things around the house.
• He LOVES looking at himself in the mirror. LOVES it. He can go from an all out bloody murder wail to a smile once he catches a glimpse of himself. It's pretty cute. Then he'll turn away, bury his face in your chest, then turn back to the mirror to see if he's still there. And again, he'll smile and laugh at himself.
  
• I am sure that we, his parents, are the only ones that find this funny, but he's now developed a "poop face." It's kinda this sneer and is sometimes, but not always, accompanied by a little grunt. Ahh...boys will be boys.
  
• He loves looking at lights, which is why I sometimes find him staring at the TV if I'm not careful.
  
• He loves music. Sometimes we'll just sit together in the morning and listen to songs on my ipod.
  
• The one thing I think he hates the most, is his car seat. Sometimes he's fine in it, but most times, he's not. We've tried almost everything. We have a mirror that plays music in front of him for entertainment, we've put a blanket to block out extra stimulation (some kids get overstimulated and can't handle it), loud white noise. We've ordered a convertible car seat and will see if that does the trick. Cross your fingers for us!

I'll end with some pictures we've taken of him recently:

All in the Family

Blogging takes a lot of work. There's taking pictures, uploading them, thinking about what to write about, and thinking of a clever title. At first, I thought it would be fun to have a theme with the titles, like sitcoms. Every episode of "Friends" is titled "The One..." and every episode of "Grey's Anatomy" is a song title. (By the way, the best "Friends" episodes are "The One with all the embyros" and "The One where Ross got high." Trust me. Watch them.) Since I couldn't think of a theme, I just decided to title the posts to whatever struck my fancy.

I know I'm a little behind here on updating and I'm going to try to take advantage of some down time to catch up. Here are some pictures of the both our families when my family was here to visit. We all went out for a big dinner.



Last weekend, Anderson had his first official playdate with his cousin. (It's actually Wilson's cousin's son. I'm not sure if that makes him his first cousin once removed?) Matthew (the baby cousin) is 6 months. Unfortunately, they didn't really play since they are too young. The most interaction they had was to size each other up. Here are pics from the playdate.

I-L-L! I-N-I!

My family came into town this past weekend and they came bearing enough Illinois gear for the next two years. It's all pretty cute and he'll be wearing it this Saturday to support his #22 Illinois football team. And since Illinois and the Chicago Bears are the same colors, he'll probably be wearing some outfits on Sundays too. Here is the little guy rocking some of his new gear. (That's a football wrist rattle on his arm)



With his uncle.

With his grandma.
For those of you not from Illinois, I-L-L, I-N-I is our school's cheer.

Just One of Those Days....

Once you have a child, it seems as though very few things gross you out. You can be puked on (or massive spit up. It's really the same thing), pooped on, peed on and it won't phase you. You'll notice a huge buger in his nose and you'll be dying to get it out, only to realize that his nostrils are too small and your fingers are too big. So you'll just have to wait for that thing to inch it's way out through sneezes. And just for the record, today I received the trifecta. Except that I got thrown up on twice. Yup. Twice. And I had to clean the carpet of puke, and we had to wash the couch cushions because of the poop. Fun times. That's why this post is aptly titled "Just One of Those Days." Did I also mention the meltdown he had before we left the house this morning? And the one in the car on our way home? Yup. Fun times.

Even though I am completely spent and told Wilson after that second episode of throw up that I had had it and he just had to take over for the rest of the night, I still really love being a parent. You realize that your child could do all these things and you're about to pull your hair out at the end of the day, you're covered in someone else's poop, pee and puke, but he smiles at you and everything's okay.

They say that a social smile is a baby's first real milestone and I can understand why. It's when you finally feel like your baby is responding to you and interacting with you for the first time. It's his way of showing emotion and love towards you and quite frankly, it's pretty amazing. It's like one smile and a flash of his one dimple (that he got from me) that makes much of the frustration from today disappear.

Parenthood is tough. There's no sugar coating it. It'll be the hardest thing I'll ever do in my entire life. But it sure is pretty amazing.

On a side note, before we had a baby, Wilson and I only did laundry once a week. And we usually only did one load of whites, one load of colors, and one load of linens. Now, with the addition of one child, whose clothes are very little, it seems as though our laundry demands have tripled! I really had no idea coming in that this little guy would have so much laundry to do.

And on another side note, kids are pretty amazing. Did you know that they can poop so that they get virtually no poop in their diaper, but it's all over their back? (This happened last week.) Or that they can poop sideways so that it shoots out the sides of their diaper? (This happened today.)