Six months, and so many changes.

I should have blogged everything that came before, but life got in the way. Funny how life does that.



Six months and ten days.

Two teeth - top left and bottom left, both just barely peeking through.

Rolling over.

Up on all fours, inch worming across the floor.

Twenty Three and some odd pounds.

I could wax poetic about a mother's love; tell you all about how I would die for him; go on and on about how my soul is complete now that he's here - but you already know all of that.

If I could find words to describe my love for these amazing children, I would be a rich woman indeed. I've yet to find those words. They don't exist in the English language. They only exist in our hearts.

A big milestone!!

I know, I haven't updated in almost a month, because, to be honest, three month old babies are only interesting to their parents.

Ean will be four months old on Feb. 27, and he has been working on all his three month milestones. He makes so much eye contact and laughs all the time now. He loves Itsy Bitsy Yoga - even when he's crying, I can always elicit a grin with a few yoga poses. He weighs about 19 pounds now and he wears size 12 months clothes.

He goes to sleep at 8pm every night, on the dot. He wakes up at 3am for a nurse, and then back to sleep until 6, which he thinks is the perfect time to get up for the day. We disagree on that.

He hates to be on his belly, which is why I was totally surprised by the amazing thing he did today - he rolled over!!

He was lying on my bed, on his back, watching me talk to The Hub. He started grunting and straining, so I looked down, and he was on his side. He worked so hard until finally, bloop! over on his belly he went. And then he started crying, because he hates to be on his belly. I can't blame him. There isn't much to look at down there.

I can't believe how quickly time has passed. It makes me a little sad to put away his 6 and 9 month clothes, knowing there will never be another baby wearing them. But, I am consoled by the fact that all those clothes will have squares cut from them and be made into a beautiful quilt for him to treasure forever. (I would give them to a needy family, but most are in pretty sad shape after all these kids.)

Three Whole Months

Ean is three months old. He weighs right around 18 pounds now, and wears size 6-9 months, and some 12 months. He is gigantic.

He loves to be held, and he loves to laugh at Momma. I wear him in the Ergo and he nurses, then looks up at me and laughs, and then falls asleep. He is ticklish on his thighs. And he loves to mimic - his big brother was crying and Ean copied his whine perfectly, except he wasn't crying, he was cooing! Same inflection and tone, different context.

He likes to reach out at things. He was lying on his tummy the other day and when I looked over to him, he had reached and gotten ahold of the television remote. He was running his fingers along the buttons like he couldn't quite believe what he was feeling.

He likes to suck his fists. Sometimes he wakes me up with his weird sucking noises.

He sleeps in bed with me, and I love that. I love to curl my body around his. I feel his little feet on my knees and his head on my chest. I feel empty if he isn't near me.

I love him more than words can say. I am sad because I had such terrible postpartum depression with all my other children, so I never felt this way. With all the others, day to day life was a struggle; I was just barely coping. I'm sad that I never experienced such unbelievable joy with my other children.

He's such a sweet little Booboo. I'm the luckiest Momma in the whole world.

Two Month Checkup

No pictures today, since my batteries won't hold a charge.

Ean had his two month checkup yesterday. Baby boy weighs 16 pounds, 5 ounces! He's in the 99th percentile. I knew he was big, but I didn't realize he was that big!

He got a rotavirus vaccine, and I got chewed out for not doing the other vaccines just yet. I have a feeling we're about to be discharged from the doctor's office, because every time we go there I get reamed for vaccines. It's not that my kids arne't vaccinated. They just aren't vaccinated on the doctor's schedule. I don't feel that it's safe to bombard their tiny systems with so many foreign substances at once. They end up having most of their vaccines by the time they're 5 (except Hepatitis and Chicken Pox, because we don't give those.) This is not good enough for the doctor, apparently.

So anyway, he seems to have no reaction to the rotavirus vaccine, which is good, and his spitting up is obviously not reflux since he's gaining so much weight. Momma's little chunky-butt. :D

2 months already!

With the holidays and all, I have been unable to update on my sweet Ean.

He is nine weeks and two days old as I'm typing this. He turned exactly 2 months on Sunday, the 27th.

At some point, right around the 8 week mark, Ean developed a personality! He now looks into my eyes, rather than looking through me, and he loves to be talked to. When I talk to him, his whole body moves. His trunk moves side to side, his arms flap, and his legs pedal up and down. He smiles with his whole face, and he giggles when he really gets smiling.

He looks up at me when he's nursing and gives me a big grin, which just melts my heart.

Ean loves to talk now. His mouth moves all over, like he's trying to form words, and then he'll finally let out a breathy "oooooh" or a "guuuuuu." He makes lots of little gurgly sounds. His breathing also has that classic two-month rattle, since he's starting to make more saliva.

He is in size 6-9 month clothes now, officially. He outgrew the last of the 3-6 months. When he's wearing certain diapers, he needs a size 12 month onesie because the diaper is huge.

My other babies were all summer babies, so Ean is the first kid to wear onesies all the time under clothes. It's chilly in our house, and he seems extra sensitive to temperature. Actually, he's extra sensitive to everything - he hates lots of noise and confusion, he hates lots of smells, he hates bright lights and big crowds. I guess he isn't headed to NYC anytime soon...

Ean still cries every night for no apparent reason. We are trying Gripe Water. It does seem to distract him for a little bit, so he stops crying for a couple minutes, then starts right back up.

Despite that, he is squishy and huggable and the sweetest thing ever. I think I'll keep him.

Seven weeks....

... plus one day.

He is crying, and doesn't sleep, and nurses 24/7, so no real update. Have not been able to put him down for days. He has slept a total of 45 minutes since 7 this morning.

Tired.

Six Weeks!

(Written Wednesday, December 9.)

Six weeks and one day, since I didn't have a chance to update yesterday.

Ean weighs around 13.5 pounds now, and wears mostly size 6-9 months. He is a chunky butt.

His diaper rash is completely gone. I switched to cloth. I hate it, because I don't have good covers (even the good ones I bought are crap) so they leak everywhere. But he doesn't have a rash, and that's the most important thing. None of the creams the doctor prescribed were working, but switching did, even though the doctor insisted that the rash wasn't due to a diaper allergy.

I know it was an allergy, because it's gone now, and because I have an allergy too. I am horribly allergic to feminine hygiene products (I have to use cloth) and the rash I get looks exactly like the rash Ean had.

Ean is spending a lot more time awake now. He likes to watch his brother and sisters playing, and he is starting to smile at everyone, not just me. He cries every night but I think I've found the solution - when he is crying because he's overtired, I set him down in his swing. He cries alone and it breaks my heart (I am a strictly "no-CIO" parent) but it only lasts a little bit. It feels like at least fifteen minutes but last night when I watched the clock, it wasn't even a whole minute. He then stops crying and looks around, and that's when I pick him up and he goes right to sleep. It's like he needs a second to cry, and get it out of his system, without any stimulation.

He looks exactly like his big sister. I wonder who he'll look like as he gets older?