Happy First Birthday Alex

Later will come the 12 month stats post. This is just for me to gush and babble on about my feelings over the last year.

365 days have passed since you joined us, that fact is both incredibly hard to believe and totally doesn't seem high enough.  To say adding a second kid to your family is a big change is an understatement.  You feel like you have this kid thing nailed once you've had 3.5 years with your first under your belt.  What you can't prepare for is the chaos that comes with adding a second kids with needs to take care of in that mix.

 From the second that you were born the love for you has been huge.  There was no learning how to mother curve like there was with the first just big, huge love.  From the very first day I just wanted to enjoy every second of your newness and never let you grow!  The kind of love that makes you tear up when you think 'this is the last time I will ever have a baby that does X thing of the day, or wears this piece of clothing', or how sad it was to think or even talk about having to go back to work.   The things that I found incredibly frustrating the first time around in this parenting game came easy this time.  In the newborn stage I didn't let the late sleepless nights get to me as much as they did with Addison, it's all just part of being a new baby after all.  I didn't stress about doing things 'right' or how everyone else was doing it.  I just did my own thing and let you do yours.  My only concerns were that you were breastfed and happy.

Big sister did amazing with taking on her new role as NOT the only child.  It took months for her to start in on the real jealousy, mostly we couldn't keep her hands and kisses off of you.  We still have trouble with that some days!  She adores you to no end.  Most days she still loves to help get things like your clothes, a diaper, a bottle.  Only once in a while do I get "why do I always have to do everything" as a response.

While I was off work on maternity leave, things were good!  My days went like they should have, I had so much time to enjoy you, watch you grow and give undivided attention to your sister.  Then came the dreaded back to work days and life has never been the same (except that nice little break I got at Christmas time).  Our days are nothing short of hectic and crazy.  It's bothers me to no end that you and your sister spend the majority of Monday-Thursday with the baby sitter, who thankfully you both love.  I leave bright and early in the morning and arrive home late at night.  Once I returned to work you quickly became very momma clingy.  When I walk in the door you want nothing to do with anything but me holding you or feeding you.  While it's a great feeling to be loved that much it's also incredibly exhausting to be the only one that you want.  I feel like my nights happen in a blur of chaos, I'm constantly trying to multi-task to accomplish everything that needs done at night in about a two hour frame.  I don't remember it being so crazy with just one kid, somehow a baby throws that all off and I'm not sure when I find the rhythm again!  So I apologize to both you kids and my husband for any yelling, screaming, or general frustration that I pass on to you.   I've felt a lot like I'm drowning Monday through Thursday for the past 9ish months and I have hated every second of the rush, rush, rush.  I wish nothing more than to have more time to see my kids in a work day and to not feel like I have to constantly rush everyone around like a drill sargent.  The good news is we've successfully reached our one year breastfeeding goals so I have just started not having to drag my pump and bottle back and forth to work everyday so it makes my life just that much less stressful.  I'm also fairly certain that those hormones you keep around when you breastfeed, make me crazy stressed, you know that on top of everything else.  They surely don't do good things for my body!!

Luckily, for my sanity, I have three days a week off from that chaos.  My three days usually allow for some time to calm down and chill out and catch up on as much as I can at home that I have no time for during the week . I try to keep my own business afloat during those three days along with spending as much time as possible with you two.   I love taking you kids places, but between the wildebeest that your sister is and having my hands full with baby and baby things it's not been as easy or as enjoyable for me to take two kids out anywhere as I would like it to be.  Luckily sister is getting better and winter has to be just about over so hopefully we can start getting out more again!  Momma need's outta the house!  I haven't let you go stay at Grandma's other than once because, Momma guilt,  I feel like I miss out on enough already of your baby stage and quite honestly, like your sister, you refuse to sleep well at night.  I mean hello you are one now, its time to sleep an 8 hour stretch.  Please, for moms sanity.

 So before it sounds like this first year has been all crazy nuts insane, other than the lack of sleep at night and the crazy clinger, you have been amazing.  You are one of the happiest, sweetest easy going babies.  You make me smile with your crazy hair and sucked in lower lip.  You learned to roll, to sit up, to crawl, to walk all too soon.  You were supposed to be my second child who wasn't as much of a go-getter as the first and take your sweet time to learn those milestones yet you surpassed her with each and every one of them.  Now you toddle along following people around the house like a lost puppy, just tagging along behind going along with whatever.  We've nicknamed you destructo baby because in true boy fashion, if you can break it or smash it, you will and do.  If it can be thrown you will throw it and if it can be made into a weapon to hit with you can believe you will do it.  If I put you in the Tula and carry you, you are the happiest most content baby in the world, you barely ever make a peep in there (unless I stop moving!)  You add to your vocabulary new words all the time now, perfecting "ouch" this past weekend and Grandpa insists he heard a "thank you".   We figured out this weekend that you are not as fearless as your sister was when you threw an absolute shit fit over not wanting to sit on the Sandy pony at the store, we should have already sensed this seeing how sister was never one to cling or care where momma was in relation to her exploring!  You love to dance anything that has a beat gets you smiling and moving, the washing machine running, a commercial on tv, a toy or the radio.

I don't want it to happen but inevitably it will, so I cannot wait to watch you grow into the little person that you are and watch your personality develop. I hope that you continue to be the easy going, go-with-the-flow kid that you are right now.  If you choose to not be the wild maniac that your sister is that would be cool, (Momma can only handle so much anyway) but if you are a wild maniac I'll at least already have learned the skills to cope with the crazy.  I hope you keep up those killer dance moves too little dude cause your Momma don't dance so there will be no lessons later in life!!

And, I promise you this: No matter who enters your life, I will love you more than any of them.

Happy First Birthday Alex!

Alex is Eleven Months Old!!!

GAH!  STOP IT!  Seriously how are we already here?  This year has been crazy.  It's happened too
 fast, where is my rewind button?  Unbelievable that in a month my baby will be one.  Time goes by way too fast.   I feel like I needed more time to enjoy all the things baby for the last time.  I mean I'm completely over some of the stuff don't get me wrong babies are all fun and joy, they are a mess of blow out diapers, never sleeping a solid night of sleep for the first year (oh, that's just my kids?  Sleep deprivation is real and also why I have zero bull shit tolerance these days.), and they bite the boob that feeds them.  Those things I'm over but the cuddly little baby stuff, oh how I could handle that forever.

Anyhow, Eleven Months!

I have no clue how much the little monster man weighs right now and no clue how long he is.  I won't have a good stat update until after his first birthday provided we don't have any sick doctor appointments.

What I do know is that he's quickly becoming a walking fool.  Trading his crawling for walking a lot of the time, but he still saves his speed crawl for when he's gotta get somewhere fast!!!

He's attempting more words but still is mostly a man of few I think.  I think he's got his version of "dog" down pretty well.  What he is REALY FRICKING GOOD at is screeching.  Wholly hell the boy can hit the high notes!!!  Ear piercing shrieking is just too much for me!  He also is doing more dexterity things like he's improved his wave, he high fives when he wants to and he pretty much never stops pointing at things.

He's still in 12 month clothing but I've also added in his 18 month stuff and he wears that just fine.  He still has big old fat feet and tears his socks off the first chance he gets.  Not uncommon to see him rockin' the one sock look.

Still eating anything and everything that you put in front of him.  Let hope he continues to not be a picky eater for the rest of his life.

While I'm slightly sad that he's almost one I cannot wait to quit the breast pump, as a matter of fact if I quit breast feeding all together I wouldn't mind that either.  I'm over it.  But so far we're hanging in there and he will get to 12 months on breast milk for sure at this point.

I'm trying to remember if we did anything exciting to remember this month but I'm drawing a big fat blank.  Because January's are for holiday recovery and when you live in Michigan - Hibernation.  That and I was rather busy with my photography business for the middle of the winter.

I'm debating on whether to join the Tula Momma's of Michigan (facebook group) in their trip to the new Aquarium in Auburn Hills at the beginning of March...I won't know a soul but it would be fun for the kids and I wanted to take them anyway!

Let the birthday party planning chaos take over!!

Alex is Ten Months Old!

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I’m totally late with the pictures and the update this month!  Time is flying by and I’m struggling to keep up!  Trying to get a head start on First birthday planning because I know as soon as I blink it’s going to be March 6^th! 

So Alex turned ten months old, we had his 9 month well baby visit just Friday.  He weighed in at 23lbs 13oz.  He is 29 ½ inches long and his melon is 18” around.  He definitely falls at the other side of the percentile chart as Addison did. 

Our pediatrician asked about what he eats and I told her “anything and everything that you offer him”.  She asked if I feed baby foods and I told her the only things he gets that are technically baby food since we started solids were the pureed food pouches and those were mostly just for convenience factor.  The rest of the time he eats what we eat.  She surprised me by saying “good, that’s how we should do it!”  So many pediatricians and their old ways suggesting baby cereal and things when it’s not necessary, I was glad to hear her say that.  BLW for the win!

Alex continues to have that “boy” appetite; he eats anything and everything that you put in front of him.  I made fish for the first time for him the other day and he devoured it like he hadn’t eaten in weeks.  Not a picky kid, at this point anyway!

Still in a size 4 diaper and officially moved on to his 12 month clothing, though he can definitely wear his 18 month clothing too at this point.  I kind of just put him in whatever of the two sizes.

This month was huge for Alex by way of developmental milestones.  He finally decided that he could clap and wave in the same day.  Once he figured out his hands worked how he wanted them to it was on! 

On New Year’s Eve with a full audience he decided that he would just take a few steps, he managed 4 before falling and then repeated it for me to get a video with just to steps.  After that he was so excited from all of our oohing and ahhhing that he couldn’t do much but hop and fall on his butt.  He hasn’t been excited about taking more than a step her or there since.  So not a full-fledged walker yet but he knows how to do it!

Alex is saying “da-da” and “Maaaam!” I’m pretty sure that he’s trying to say “yay!” when he claps; it sure sounds like it anyway.  He’s possibly trying to say “sissy” also though it’s hard to tell if that’s actually it from the “diss-dee” sound that comes out

Alex is still exclusively breastfed, outside of the real food that he eats.  He has cut back on how much milk he drinks though only nursing or taking a bottle of breast milk about 3 times during the day.  Which means I’ve cut down to only having to pump twice at work instead of three times, I think at 11 months I’ll try and cut back to just once a day.  As much as I am an advocate for breastfeeding I also cannot wait to break up with my breast pump and quit lugging my life back and forth to work every day!

Alex celebrated his first Christmas this month, nine months was a good age for a first Christmas.   Old enough to kind of rip apart some presents and big enough to actually play with some of them.  It was a good Christmas and both the kids were of course spoiled beyond belief.  Both kids went on their first Train ride when we did the “ride with Santa” in Coldwater this month.  Addison really enjoyed it, Alex was pretty indifferent J

Alex is Nine Months Old!

I swear I blinked and another month happened...sheesh.

No clue on the actual length/weight of this guy right now but stepping on a scale with him puts him between 24-26lbs depending on the scale.  I don't know how accurate that is at all, but lets just say that Addison was only 17lbs at 9 months.  Busting out of the seams of most of his 6-9 month clothing, Perhaps if I find the time this weekend we can make a switch over to 12 month clothing...or not, I mean some if it still fits fine. Still in size 4 diapers and still impossible to put shoes on his chubby, curled up toes feet.

Alex now has FOUR teeth, cut both of his top front teeth this month and is definitely working on some others as we speak.  He's been super momma clingy (if it was possible to be even more clingy than he previously was) this month, I'm assuming it's been due to the teething.

He's mastered crawling and is working on his couch surfing/deciding which day he's going to decide to take off running.  He's got the best balance I've ever seen in a baby and will just stand somewhere for minutes without using anything to support himself before plopping to his bottom.  It's kind of the weirdest thing I've seen.  He's also started "dancing" when music comes on which is really just him sitting down and rocking back and forth, but it's adorable.  He refuses to clap, he refuses to wave.

Still nothing I will consider a real first word yet.  He babbles a Da-Da, Ba-ba, and Mama sound but I refuse to accept it as a word until he says it directed to the thing/person he's babbling ;)  Is that high standards for the second baby or just me?

His hair is starting to calm down, it's still got a mind of its own but we've gone from flipping up straight into the sky to wavy and curly and looking like something out of the 70's.

Eating like a champ has only turned his nose up to some pre-made oatmeal thing I bought him from Gerber.  Everything else he eats like he's not had a meal in days.

Continues to have a mostly great attitude, super cute, super sweet, just getting a little bit of feisty.  As in, I scream like a banshee when things aren't going my way.

He loves to wrestle and rough house with his sister but the boy is seriously a biter.  Comes straight in with the teeth.  Is this something that he's going to outgrow, or am I going to have a kid with a biting problem on my hands.  Seriously, he does it ALOT!  He also puts everything in his mouth, look like he's sucking on something?  Probably a piece of: dog food, capri-sun straw wrapper, chunk of plastic shrink wrap from god knows what, dirt, anything else he can find to shove in there.  It's funny that Addison never was much of a mouthy (as in shoving EVERYTHING in her mouth) baby like he is.  Seriously, everything.

This month we went to Ohio for Thanksgiving and Alex got to meet some of his family that he hadn't gotten to meet yet.  He did great with everything, hotel stays and strange house naps.
We also got to see Santa this past weekend and while there were no tears or hysterics he definitely give the fat man a good "who the hell are you stare" but overall did great with him.

Alex Is Eight Months Old!

Let's hope that the 4th time I attempt this post I can make it work.  I'm determined to not suck at recording child #2's life.

I had a wonderful post all typed up all ready, and blogger lost it between the hours of 7am and 9pm..le sigh.  

Anyway, Alex is eight months old.  How.  How am I already making plans for a first birthday party?  I've tried to reason with myself that I don't need to be the pinterest party mom, but, lets be real here, I don't know how to do small.  Birthday's should be a big deal, surviving your first year on earth deserves to be a big party with cake in your face!!  So I'll be doing it, over the top, way too much time and money invested.  Consider it done.

I have no idea how much Alex weighs or how long is is right now.  What I do know is that the kid can EAT.   And eat, and eat, and eat.  He LOVES, LOVES, LOVES food.  I swear I offer him just about anything that we are eating minus the too hard to eat/spicy foods or just plain junk that I shouldn't eat myself and the kid is yet to turn his nose up to anything or not want another bite.  Just tonight I'm certain he ate a full grown man sized serving of peas and a serving of apple sauce.  

This month Alex mastered the crawl.  He has the cutest little no extension leg movements I've ever seen.  It's kind of like a shuffle across the room on his hands and knees. All he really cares about right now is his pink hanger which is his absolute favorite thing to carry around and chew on.  (Hey second kids, they totally get to do/play with whatever they want.)

Alex is probably going to be running by nine months, he is constantly trying to stand.  Not the couch surfing type of standing either, he wants you to help him stand in the middle of the room then when he gets balanced he'll scream at you and try to push your hands off him so he can stand on his own.  For an eight month old who isn't into couch surfing the boy has some serious balance.  He can stand there for way longer than I would expect without toppling over.  

Alex is still in 6-9 month clothing but he can fit most things 12 months these days too.  But you know me, I'm squeezing him in the clothes for as long as I can!  He's in a size 4 diaper which blows my mind since Addison never went over a size four before she was in regular underwear and potty trained.  (no she wasn't potty trained at 8 months either, the kid was/is tiny)

Alex has been a teething monster this month, still only two teeth but those top teeth are working their way down.  We spent the majority of last week being fussy as all hell at night, not sleeping, running fevers and chewing on everything in sight.  Luckily that seems to have ceased but those teeth are still not though. 

He continues to get more and more vocal but he is still content to sit and watch the world.  Mostly when his crazy, loud, center of attention sister is in the room I think he's too enthralled with watching her to have much to say about anything.  Or as the doctor said, maybe she scares him.  Lol, he thinks shes about the best thing in the world, and giggles like crazy when she catches his eyes.  So cute.

  I love this age, I just wish it would just slow down and last a little longer.  He's still such a mellow man.  Just don't come between him and a boob when he's been at the sitter all day and I have been at work.  Wholly clinger.  

This month Alex's first Halloween trick or treat was ruined with bad weather so we sat it out at Grandma's while Addison went out with Daddy & Poppa Larry.  We also celebrated Uncle Nick and Aunt Joey's birthday at the bowling ally where Alex got to be my lucky charm as I bowled two strikes to start out my first game all the while I was wearing Alex in the Tula.  (Don't worry it was all down hill from there.)