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Thanksgiving

I had every intention of snapping tons of photos of this day and I just didn't. But my niece loves taking pictures and had us posing for photos in no time. Here are a few from Thanksgiving which we spend at B's parent's house along with my family as well. Caleb is not looking very happy in his turkey bib photo here, but I assure you this was mid blink, nobody call pull of that and look good!

15 weeks

Things that Caleb can do at 15 weeks are:

mimic sounds like "ooooo"
reaches for things
tries to pull himself up when playing in his bouncy(he grabs hold of his fave toy, "Henrietta the Hippo" and tries to give her a "Kiss"
chomps on his fingers so hard that he makes himself cry
stick tongue out a lot
almost roll over
tries to stand when we pull him up
holds onto his teether, and pulls paci out of his mouth

when I'm at work

my wonderful sitter sends me pictures like these. Kristine is so wonderful and I look forward to her picture texts all day. I receive about 2 texts a day including pictures of what my angel is up to at her house while I am at work. Let me say that it has made the transition back to work sooo much easier on me. I am truly so lucky that I have found such an amazing person to care for my little guy.

ready

Snug as a bug. I bought these new teddy wraps that go over his seat straps and I think they are sooo cute and Caleb loves to eat them.

Life in pictures 14 weeks

apparently I can't write

So I wake up to my husband telling me that he read my blog post from yesterday and I sound drunk. Yikes!! I reread it, and what the hell was I thinking that it was grammatically correct!?! For heaven's sake I'm a teacher and I can't even use proper grammar!

Lesson learned: I guess I better have my husband read my posts over before I publish them.

Letter to Caleb

Dear Caleb,

I am still in such wonder at how amazingly perfect and beautiful you are and what I did to deserve to raise you.

I was rocking you in my arms as you nursed like I do every night, picturing you as a grown man. I envisioned you being as tall as your daddy, and how I will then no longer be able to rock you in my arms like I am doing now. I sat and wondered what kind of man you will grow up to be. I can only dream that you will be as kind and loving as Daddy.

I will look back and cherish this very exact moment where I am holding your entire body close to mine as I watch you nurse and sleep so peacefully with no care in the world. This moment will be tucked away in a special place in my heart where I can retrieve it at any moment that I feel the desire to be reminded about the most precious time in my life.

I love you Caleb, more than I have ever loved anything in my life. You will always be that little boy that I can snuggle close to me.

Love,
Mama

pull

Caleb pulled down his music maker on his bouncy down all by himself yesterday! I will post a video shortly!!

I'm gonna eat you!!!!!!!!!!!

Bouncy

Caleb enjoying his newest toy that we are trying out

3 months

My baby boy is 3 months old today and time is just flying by. He was pretending to be an airplane today. Caleb "talks" all the time now, he found his thumb and chews on it like it's a piece of candy, we're still not getting the rolling over, he just cries when he's flat on his tummy, he loves to sit up with mama's help and look around.

tears again

Another day filled with tears as I do not spend enough time with my baby anymore. My sitter is an angel and brought him to me again today at work. I love her!

12 weeks

Caleb decided to dress up today fancy for his sitter. Isn't he soo cute? Bri said that he looks like he was going into the office. He is 12 weeks old this week and is working on rolling over, he hasn't done it yet, but he will.

So day one

was good! I cried a little bit of course when I dropped Caleb off at the sitter's and on the way there but I made it through my first day back at work without falling apart. My sitter was so wonderful and brought him to see me at work on my lunch hour, she is a blessing and I love her. I spend my time with him rocking him and nursing him behind my desk until he fell asleep and then I had to say good-bye until after work when I raced home to him.

Tomorrow is a new day and this could all change.

hats

I just love putting hats on Caleb. Here he is modeling a skullcap with doggies.

Got milk!?!

I sure do! I have been a pumping machine and have managed to pump 21 bags of milk with 5 ounces in each bag for a total of 105 oz. I'm quite proud of myself actually. The second shelf has now been cleared and has one bag on it. So, I pump if Caleb does not nurse on the other side or also before I go to bed. This not include the 3 bottles that are in the fridge ready to go. We have been giving Caleb a bottle a few times a week since he was 3 weeks old to get him accustomed to drinking out of it so this mama can go out places without having to worry about timing of meals. Daddy has been doing an incredible job feeding him while I'm away so I have full confidence that Caleb will be a-ok taking bottles from the sitter next week.

inadequate

Today I have major feelings of failure for whatever reason. Last night we tried the do the cry it out method to see if C would fall back asleep and sleep through the night. Big fat fail, I lasted 3 minutes before the guilt set in of what if he's starving and I'm not feeding my baby?, or what if he is laying in pee or is cold? or whatever else my mind conjures up at 1 am. I then fed him and put him back to bed, turned the monitor back to where it was ( or so I thought) and went to bed myself. So 4:30 rolls around and I wake to my baby crying hard not on the monitor but I could hear him from his room. I felt so awful and I wondered how long that was going on before I woke. My hubs and I had a deal that he would get up for the second one and try giving him a paci first or a bottle if it was 3 hours or more since the last feeding. Well I didn't want to throw him to the trenches with a screaming baby so I just told him to go back to bed and I nursed Caleb. He slept til 8.

Today I feel inadequate. It seems every mom that I talk to that has a baby in the age range of Caleb tells me their baby sleeps 8-10 hours straight. Some did the cry it out method and some said that the baby just did it on their own. From what I am reading it says that at 6 months babies should be able to go through the night without a feeding, so am I expecting this too soon? Should I not try to "sleep train" until he is 6 months old in Feb? I just don't know what is right. I have so many questions about nursing and time in between and consistency and I don't know where to turn. Do I offer a feeding if it's before 3 hours but he's fussy or do I let him fuss or give him a pacifier? If he eats at 5:30PM do I still try to nurse him at 6:30 or 7:00 and put him to bed? Or do I rock with him using a paci and risk that he wakes up earlier like 11 or 12 because he didn't get enough milk before bed? I'm so lost!

Our current bedtime routine is this: he gets a bath anywhere from 6:15-6:45 pm, then we go into his room, and sit in the glider while I nurse him. He usually falls asleep and I put him to bed anywhere between 7:00-7:30. I can't keep him up longer because his cues tell me he's tired and ready for bed, red eyes, crying, etc...we used to put him to bed at 9 or 9:30 and couldn't figure out why he was so fussy until we tried putting him to bed then and now we know he was tired. Last night I put him to bed awake after nursing and he was fine. I think I went in once to give him a paci and then didn't hear a peep until 1:00 this morning. I think this routine is good and we stick to it every night pretty much except we will skip the bath sometimes (like last night) and just put on jammies. Every blog, magazine, website, or book that I read have different advice and what works for them that I feel I get no answers anywhere so I just do what I feel is right. But I still hope that Caleb will sleep through the night each night that I go to bed and the longest was 8 hours from 7:15pm to 3:15am and that was fabulous! I just wish I didn't blame myself for feeling inadequate when things don't work out like I want them to.