Danny is Three Months Old!

If you've been following along (which, I'm sure my once-monthly posts are more than enough to keep you interested) you'll notice that I totally skipped month two.  No apologies here - I just very recently started getting some actual sleep and not just a series of 45-minute naps at night (love you buddy!).

I've decided to switch up these monthly "birthday" posts and just do more of an update of what's been going on.  I'm still writing letters to my boy, but I've decided to just do those in a little journal for him to keep them more intimate.  But I definitely want to keep track of everything else he's doing.  This post will cover the past two months, or at least what I can still remember.

We have had quite the eventful couple of months!  Christmas, New Year's, winter storms, the Super Bowl, and lots in between.  Danny is a completely different baby than he was at one month (all you moms out there are doing a collective "DUH" but this is news-worthy to me).  He's now smiling all the time, "talking" like crazy, and having hours of active alert at a time.  It is so much fun!

We had a truly amazing Christmas, celebrating with our sweet little boy for the first time.  My family came in the day before Christmas Eve, including my brother who was weeks from deploying to Afghanistan at the time.   Seeing Danny meet his Uncle Benjie for the first time ranks up there for me in Best. Moments. Ever.

We spent the next few days just hanging out, laughing, and playing Pass the Baby.  Christmas morning everyone came to our house for presents and brunch, including my BFF Amy and her sweet family.  It was really casual, and we just spent time enjoying being together and oohing and aahing over our sweet baby.  To me, there is nothing better in life than being with my family.  In fact, that really is life.  

I am absolutely loving staying at home.  I don't miss work at all.  I won't lie and say that it isn't a bit tough right now, which is just regular new-mom stuff, trying to figure it all out, along with what has been the worst winter we've had here in recent memory.  There have been weeks when we haven't been really been able to leave the house at all, so I'm definitely looking forward to spring when we can start getting out more.  We have started doing Stroller Strides at a mall not far from our house, and have LOVED it (on the days when we've actually been able to go and not been snowed/iced in).  It's a surprisingly great workout and Danny either sleeps through it or just kicks back and enjoys hanging out in his fancy new stroller that mommy got for Christmas.  This moves from the mall to a park once the weather warms up, so just one more reason we are looking forward to spring.

My other BFF Heidi had her second beautiful boy in mid-December.  Danny loved meeting his new best friend Tate!

Lock up your daughters!

Last weekend, Dan and I had our first big date night since Danny's arrival.  We headed down to The Chase on Friday night for our very favorite annual wine event.  My parents came up and stayed with Danny overnight and we stayed at the hotel.  It was a great time (I think my parents enjoyed it the most!) but I was definitely ready to get back to my little boy on Saturday morning.  

Also?  PUMP & DUMP is an awesome thing for wine-loving mommies.  Just, you know, FYI.

The cats have REALLY taken to Danny, especially Henry (please excuse my very unmade bed; the duvet was in the wash).  Henry is pretty much obsessed with Dan, so once he saw that Dan loved Danny (are these names confusing you?) he was on board.

I'm going to also try and have a few consistent categories that I update each month with these posts, starting um, now.

Eating

Boobies, boobies, boobies!  This kid loves to nurse!  We have really hit our stride with nursing and luckily don't really have any issues here.  The only maybe "issue" is that he doesn't like to go more than 1.5 - 2 hours without nursing, which I don't mind at all except it does affect the next category...

Sleeping 

So, knock on wood, we are just starting to do better here...  Up until a few weeks ago, our regular pattern was basically waking up every hour or two at night to nurse.  And change diapers.  This kid is not fussy about anything except his diaper - he HATES a wet diaper and refuses to nurse unless it's immaculate.  I get where he's coming from!  Anyway, as you can imagine this has been BRUTAL.  He's still for the most part sleeping in our room, which has basically been a necessity since the nursery is on a different floor in our house and there's no way I could go back and forth, half-asleep, up and down slippery wooden stairs all night.  When Danny was a newborn he really didn't like to be swaddled and seemed to sleep better without it, so we skipped it.  A couple of weeks ago, we had the worst night we'd ever had.  He woke up every hour, on the hour.  All night long.  I knew something had to change.  I had noticed his arms flailing around more than usual, so the next night we tried swaddling again and he slept for 6.5 hours straight.  SUPER MOM!!  I was ecstatic; it is such a great feeling to know that you are responding to your child's needs.  Since then our regular pattern has been 4 hours of sleep followed by three 2-hour chunks, depending on the night.  He wakes up at 7am every day, almost to the minute, so that means we're getting up usually about 3 times at night.  I know this will continue to get better.  We're also getting a more regular bedtime routine of bath, books, nurse.  Danny has been wanting to go to bed earlier and earlier, which is fine with me, so we generally start this at about 8:00 with him in bed and asleep by about 8:45.  We're also working on transiting him to his crib now that he doesn't wake as often.  He's done a couple of nights up there and so far so good.  Last night was the best night we've ever had, which funny enough consisted of him sleeping in his carseat.  We went to a Super Bowl party and he zonked out on the way home and didn't wake even as we brought him inside.  The cardinal rule in our house is NEVER WAKE A SLEEPING BABY so I put the carseat next to our bed and we went to sleep.  Fast forward eight hours, and he was finally waking up.  Wait, back up.  Let me repeat that.  EIGHT HOURS.  THANK YOU BABY JESUS!!!!!  AND BABY DANNY!!!!!!!

Nicknames

This is a silly category, but nicknames are a big deal in our family and are ever-changing.  We all have them, and in fact, Dan and I almost never call each other by name.  So Danny's nicknames over the past two months:

Poppy - this started when I was pregnant, as the books said he was the size of a poppy seed when we got the big news

Christmas Jammies - used throughout out the month of December when he was constantly in his various, um, Christmas jammies

Snorts - our favorite!  When he cries, he snorts.  It's funny.  Simple as that.  My mother-in-law despises this one but Dan and I think it's genius.

Other nicknames, not as commonly used, include:  buzz cut, cue ball, jungle jammies, spaceship jammies (we have a theme going here) and diaper slayer.

Other Milestones

Danny can now reach for certain toys and even hold them for a bit.  He can follow us with his eyes as we walk around a room.  He's not quite rolled over, but is almost there.  He's talking and cooing like crazy and adores looking at himself in the mirror (narcissistic much?  I kid, I kid).  He has found his hands and loves to suck on them.  Thank God he has no teeth or they would be a mess!  He has almost complete control of his head.  And he's thisclose to curing cancer.  

He loves his nightly bath and squeals with delight when I pour water over his head.  Also, he loves to poop in his tub.  Which is pretty hilarious.  And, when you become a mom you lose all concept of TMI so you'll have to humor/forgive me here.

These three months have been amazing in every way.  Exhausting and exhilarating.  Filled with more joy than I ever thought my heart could hold.  

 

 

Comments

[Amy R.]

It's so fun to see how in love you are with him! I have to admit, it's pretty easy because he is ADORABLE. I love him too. :) And you are a rockstar mom!

[Amanda]

I'm glad your posts are kind of erratic. Makes me feel like I could actually jump back on the blogging bandwagon.

What a fun time! Monroe is 10 months old now and I can hardly believe the milestones you describe were so long ago. Soak it up. It goes too fast. I'm sure you already know that though.

He's adorable!

[julia]

yay for Danny being an excellent nurser! And his pattern for waking up often is TOTALLY normal right now. Don't listen to the moms out there who claim their babes slept through the night at 2 days old....hang in there and keep doing what you are doing mama!

[Heather]

He is so cute! :) I am glad you are doing well.

[Kim]

Great recap & good luck to the little guy with the cure for cancer! Don't worry, just when you feel like you're getting a handle on things, Danny will hit a new milestone that throws you all into chaos again. It's awesome! I love being at home with the kids, too. It's tough, but it so beats the corporate world! Wish we were closer so we could hang out during the (long) days. Love the update!