Happy Birthday Jennifer!

Another birthday- also a blog I've been reading FOREVER- since my blogging days started.  Meet Jennifer, at More than a Mommy.  She's the mother of 3 little ones, one who just started Kindergarten and one who is not yet a year old!  Her blog makes me laugh and she's so spontaneous.  She also loves to photograph her kids and you can always count on some great shots!  Did I mention she's funny??  Head on over to her neck of the woods and wish her a happy day!  Happy  Birthday Jennifer!

Project 52: Week 8

I was a piss poor picture taker this week, at best.  I got pictures maybe 4 days??  Next week should be better, with family coming in town, they'll be lots to document.  I didn't even get enough good pictures this week to share 7!  boo!

Tower building

More blocks-as you can see, we build a lot of towers around here.

5 month old with a sippy cup....what??

Squash

5 months!

Trumpet

Happy Birthday Jamie!

Head on over to Party of Five:  Him + Me + Our Three to wish Momma Jamie a very Happy Birthday!  I've been reading Jamie's blog for a long time and let me tell you, she's like Super Mom!  She is great at web design, always has awesome pictures of her kids, always has some kind of yummy dessert recipe posted, spends tons of time with her extended family and always manages to sneak in super cool outings with her kids.  I'm pretty sure she has a job somewhere in all of that as well.  Jamie is a Mom of 2 with another on the way!  I can't wait to see pictures of the newest addition to her family in just a few short weeks!  So what are you waiting for?  Happy Birthday Jamie!

Solid Foods!

The time has finally come when we dug out the old dusty high chair and cleaned it off in anticipation to feed our 2nd born solid foods!  I remember how excited I was to start foods with Gage and it was definitely the highlight of our night.  We started right around 4 months with rice cereal and Gage was an expert from the beginning.  He hated green beans and peas, much like he does now, but would cry between bites when I wasn't shoveling it in fast enough.  We didn't start right away with Ezra because of the alleged allergy and then I had to remember how to start, how much, when, etc.  Then I had to find the time.  Because when you have two, it's not quite as convenient as it was the first time around.  I know, the poor 2nd child- always getting the shaft. 

I almost even considered letting day care do it since I would prefer him to drink less at school and it was one less thing I had to worry about.  Then I decided that was silly and how I couldn't let this baby milestone be something that I didn't share with my child on purpose.  Then I started to get excited- excited about Ezra too, meeting this milestone and eating cereal and  moving on to veggies and fruit.  So here we are- just a few days short of 5 months starting with oatmeal this time instead of rice cereal.  Unfortunately I had to mix it with formula and not breast milk though because I'm just not producing enough and I can't bear to potentially waste it if he doesn't eat it.  Plus I don't want him to have a bottle of formula if I can help it.  He wasn't nearly the fan that Gage was and the 1st night he barely ate any at all. He got better the 2nd and 3rd nights and finished the whole T. the 3rd night.  He still made a face like it was the most disgusting thing ever, but nevertheless he's learning to eat.  He doesn't seem to swallow as well as Gage and a lot came back up, but I'm sure he'll get the hang of it soon enough.  We'll see how the rest of the week goes and with any luck we'll start veggies this weekend.  Here's a few pictures of my little E in his high chair and eating his 1st bites.  I can't believe he's growing up so fast!

1st time in the high chair- he looks so much bigger than Gage did.

Would you look at this face?

Clearly not so sure

Dear Ezra- 5 months

Dear Ezra

Yesterday you were 5 months old and I just can’t believe how fast time is going.  I know that’s what they all say, but my golly, with the second child it seems like it’s even more true.  You are becoming such a big boy with your brand new tooth (make that 2, since starting this post 3 hours ago) and everything!  Ezra- at 5 months, you don’t quite sit up yet, we joke that you’re too chunky to have many stomach muscles.  You weigh about 16.5 pounds and wear mostly 6 month clothes, some of which you have already grown out of.  You have to stop growing until it gets warm, we don’t have many weather appropriate clothes after 6 months!  Ezra, you love tummy time and playing with all of your toys- your favorite are the baby piano that Gage loved so much as well and your music turtle you got from Aunt Annie and Uncle Mark. 

God Bless you- you have just started sleeping through the night in the last week and aside from your tooth, it’s been pretty consistent.   You’re now in your own room from the time you go down ‘til the morning aside from eating.  You still don’t like to nap and only take very short naps at school- however, one day this week you did take a 2 hour one!  You go to bed between 630pm-730pm and don’t have too many problems falling asleep.  You usually sleep well until you get up to eat around 1am, but then it’s hit or miss if you’ll sleep until morning.  You eat 6 oz. bottles at daycare, which is CRAZY apparently, compare to your peers.  You have just started oatmeal this week and weren’t digging it at first, but have caught on quickly.  We will start veggies this weekend.  As mentioned in your last letter, we took you to get allergy tested and you fortunately were not allergic to anything!  Yay!  We have no idea why you were red and you’ve mostly outgrown it.  You usually eat your last meal at 5-6pm and then sleep for about 8 hours before needing to eat again.  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to next month when you can have your dinner, we can all sleep and you don’t have to eat again until the next am. 

Ezra, you are such a happy baby and the teachers at daycare all seem to adore you.  They say that as long as you’re not very sleepy or hungry, you’re all smiles.  You do grin a lot, but like your brother you’re a hard audience when it comes to giggling and we’ve only heard more than a snicker a couple of times.   In the last few weeks you have been taking more notice of Gage and watching him as he plays.  I can’t wait for you guys to be the best of friends!

In the last month, you have successfully rolled over in both directions, although you don’t do either too frequently.   You do like to sleep on your side sometimes.   You helped celebrate Nana’s birthday and in just one week you will get to meet your cousin, Sloane, for the first time, who is exactly a week younger than you.  Cousin Amber came to visit and you got to snuggle her.  You also watched your 1^st Super Bowl and saw your 1st snow (all quarter of an inch of it).

We really are blessed to be the parents of you and Gage and realize how lucky we are each and every day.  We love you more every day and I think Gage secretly does too.  It is unbelievable that the next letter I write you will be your half year letter!  Where has the time gone?  It is seriously February already.  We love you, Ezzy, to the moon and back. 

Love you always, Mommy

Wordless Wednesday: Another Side by Side

Gage, 5 months

Ezra, 5 months

And then he slept...

I haven't posted too much on here about Ezra's sleeping habits, or lack thereof.  Probably b/c I'm too busy trying to get him to sleep that I don't have time.  In fact, I don't really post much of what Ezra's up to these days on here and I'm really going to start trying to make a better effort.  Not because you guys really care, but because one day, I will.  I've enjoyed looking back and reading up on what Gage was doing at this same point in his life and some of it I had completely forgotten about.  I can see that he wasn't as good a sleeper as I remember and that he's hated green beans from the beginning.  I posted each and every little thing about Gage because I could and because everything was that much cooler the first time around.

So prior to this last week Ezra has been 'that baby'.  The baby who doesn't like to sleep unless you hold him.  I guess Gage was that baby early on but he never had a rough transition to sleeping in his crib.  We put him there and he liked it and that was it.  Sure we had to do a little sleep training here and there but that was mostly to get him to fall asleep, not all.night.long. We knew E was high maintenance from the beginning but it had gotten to a ridiculous point.  He no longer wanted to sleep AT ALL, even at night unless one of us was holding him. This made me nervous to sleep with him, but sometimes it was the only way.  I asked around at school, thinking I had forgotten something from Gage and all of the other girls that had babies 2 months before Ezra happily reported their babies were sleeping perfectly and mostly through the night.  We had gone through several rounds of putting him down and letting him cry over the last few weeks but I think that lack of consistency was the key.  We had been lazy with a bedtime routine but had tried hard over the last week.  After the weekend at Nana's last week, things just seemed to have gotten worse.  In any case, something happened Monday night (after being up every 45 mins. the night before) and he slept.  Sure, it took him about a half hour to go down and he woke up once, but HE slept.  Better than he had ever slept before. It was glorious.  Tuesday night it happened again- I swore I wouldn't get too excited but on Wed. night, I figured 3 in a row could no longer be a fluke.  So there you have it, the week that Ezra started sleeping....2/11/13.  He was just shy of 5 months old..........

FFwd to Fri. night.  The sleeping ceased.....the 'hold me' reappeared.  Sat. night, it was bad- he went from sleeping a stretch of 6-7 hours early in the week to 2.5 hrs.  It was exhausting again, at least we could be happy that during the week when we had to work he slept.  Then today, I found the culprit.  My sweet 2 days short of 5 month old baby is sprouting his 1st little tooth- 5.5 months earlier than Gage did.  It might be a long road....

Project 52: Week 7

Back to normal business around here, I think I only got pics 6 out of 7 days again.  Boo!  Either way, I'm still taking more pictures and that's what's important.

Excuse the red eye- it's my only pic from Sun.

Squishy baby



Not of my family, but super cute nonetheless

Lollipop

Happy Baby

Oatmeal

Eligible bachelor

Project 52: Week 6

That's right! I did it- it took me 6 weeks but I got a picture every day! Yay!

Snow 2013- Ezzy's 1st snow

Drool beard

Skunk

New Haircuts

Mustache

Chocolate for breakfast

Chillin' at Nana's

Wordless Wednesday- A Side by Side

Gage- 3 months, 3 weeks

Ezra- 4 months, 2 weeks

Project 52: Week 5

I was a big slacker this week and only got pictures on 4 days...boo!  Does it count that I got several pictures on those days?  Yeah, I didn't think so...   Without further ado......



Such posture



Allergy Testing

Yo Gabba Gabba Live

My sweet baby

Handsome

The food allergy that never was

Last Wednesday I was able to get Ezra in to see the allergist.  I was a little annoyed, after making the 1st appt. after lunch that I still had to wait 20 minutes, but regardless we were able to get in and that was the important part.  I sat down and talked to the allergist, showed him pictures and discussed my diet.  He agreed that we should test for just about everything that was regularly in my diet- I eat all the high allergen foods just about every day.  I had discussed RAST testing (a blood test) with my pediatrician.  I guess it's the first step in most allergy testing; however, it has been proven lately that it's not super effective and often comes back with tons of false positives.  I was a little nervous about the standard allergy testing and I had talked to so many people that said I shouldn't put my infant through it if I didn't have to.  But clearly, I chose that I'd rather know if my kid was highly allergic to anything than taking a chance later on.   The doctor promised me that babies were the easiest to do this testing on.  I was skeptical.  Ezra was tested for dairy, peanuts, soy, wheat, tree nuts, 2 or 3 other things and even cats.  He didn't even flinch.  I was ready to sing and gave him his Nuk and everything in preparation for a screaming child that I'd have to hold down while he was 'scratched' 13 times.  But nothing. He looked at me like nothing was happening and he was none the wiser.  It was awesome knowing that I hadn't tortured him to figure out what he was allergic to. 

When you get allergy testing done this way, you have to way 15 mins. for any reaction to occur, so during this time I fed Ezra.  As if planned, he broke out with a pretty impressive rash to show the doctor.  The doctor took pictures and was kind of surprised, I think, to see how red he was.  He then checked his arm to look for the culprit and..............drumroll.............................................................
NOTHING!  My little baby is allergic to nothing!  woo hoo!  At least not the big, life threatening ones!  A huge relief.  Still doesn't really explain why he turns red when he eats but the doctor says that he's not worried, especially if it only stays on his face.  So, hopefully all this allergy talk was for nothing and that'll be our final experience with food allergies.  Hard to believe it was that easy.  Of course, we'll keep an eye on things if the rash persists or it gets worse, but I can really breathe easier knowing that everything I'm eating isn't affecting Ezra.  Makes my days a little easier.  Now that we know he's not allergic to anything, we'll be starting solid foods soon! I can hardly believe that he's ready for such a milestone! 

Allergies be gone!