Almost time to go back to work :/

Well the time has come for me to start gearing up to head back to work.  I am rather torn about this time.  I am excited about the new school and everything that a new year brings but I am sad to leave my baby.  I am so thankful that he will be home with his Grammy and doesn't have to go to a day care.  Aaron has grown and changed so much over these past two and a half months.  I have loved having the opportunity to watch him grow and develop.  We have been busy the last few weeks.

 Everyone has settled into Grammy's house.

 This was his first Sunday at the nursery.

 His first time to go to the driving range.

And working on holding his head up.

2 months already?!?!?!

Wow where does time go?  I can't believe it has already been two months since our little boy has joined the world.  It has been a fast changing 2 months with a rapidly growing little boy.  We went to the doctor today and he has grown to a whopping 10 pounds 12.7 ounces and 23 inches long.  In the last month he has gained about 5 pounds, that is a lot for a little boy.  In the last month we have struggled a lot to get his food situation settled and working.  We went through some bumps as we started to realize when he was nursing he was not getting full, this was after lots of screaming fits with no clue as to why he was crying.  We quickly adjusted that by giving him bottles of breast milk so at least we knew how much he was getting.  We quickly found out this was the problem because I did not have enough to give him in bottles for all of his feedings so we had to start supplementing him with one bottle of formula a day.  As the amount he ate went up, I was not able to keep up and had to increase him to two bottles of formula a day.  After many hours of contemplation and talking to my doctor I came to realize the already difficult task would appear to become almost impossible when I went back to work and was under more stress.  With that being said I decided to start backing off of the pumping and start moving him more and more toward formula.  We did this slowly because he really struggled with formula.  Over the course of about 3 weeks we switched him over to full formula and after 3 attempts we think we may have found a formula that will work.  Hooray!!!!

Although the start of the school year came and it was strange not to be there, I have enjoyed the time I have gotten to spend at home.  My parents have moved into their house and are very busy getting things settled in.  It has been exciting to go over there and watch the process of it all come together.  Since they have been busy bees working around their house Aaron and I have been spending a lot of quality time at the house with Luna.  Needless to say, by the time Jon gets home I am in desperate need of some adult conversation.  I love the time I spend with my two babies but neither of them answer me when I talk to them, I am sure this will QUICKLY change.  Aaron has gotten on a pretty good schedule and I have been surprised at how well I have adapted to it.  I will say, if there is one thing I have learned to do as a mom, that is how to do chores at warp speed.  Since my mom was around to help out so much when Aaron was first born I was really worried that I would not be able to shower and/or get things done around the house but I have fallen into a rhythm and all is going well.

I have about 3 and a half weeks until I go back to work and I plan to enjoy every minute of it.  I have enjoyed all of the smiles we have gotten this month and I look forward to what joys the next month has in store for us.

Here are some of my favorite moments from the last month:

 Big Smiles

 All three of my loves!

 We call this the baby burrito.

 Sweet sleeping baby

My other sweet sleeping baby

He looks so big in this picture, it kills me.

Big Smiles

It has been awhile so I have lots to update. Aaron is changing so much every day, I can hardly believe it. The biggest milestone we have hit recently is that he has learned to smile.

That has brought mommy great joy to see his cute smiles. We are finally at a point where he is on a more set schedule and we know what to expect from eating and sleeping which is great for everyone. I love picking in up in the mornings and being greeted by the sweet smile. He is definitely a morning baby.

Daddy often gets bummed out because by the time he gets home from work Aaron is worn out and not quite as smiley in the evenings. However, he has flashed the smile several times for daddy to see. Last Friday night we took Aaron to his first Astros game and he did so good. We put him in the baby carrier for the first time and it worked like a charm. I was a little nervous because we tried it out at home and he screamed the whole time he was in it. But, when daddy put it on, Aaron loved it and was content the whole time. He even snuck in a snooze.

We have started taking family walks at night and they are quite lovely. It has been a little bit cooler this summer which makes the evenings not too bad for walking.

 As we are slowly moving him over to be a formula baby, we have hit some speed bumps. We have tried several formulas and don't appear to have hit the jackpot yet. Several of them have made him scream for hours at a time...and that is NOT going to work. The one we keep going back to, doesn't make him scream but it makes him grunt with gas ALL NIGHT LONG. He will sleep through it, and so does daddy, but mommy does not. Needless to say we need to find one that works a little better than that. We are moving on to our 4th formula to try and see if we can figure something out. Luckily we have more good days than bad days and the smile makes it all better.

 Last night in the midst of a screaming formula trial he stopped and smiled at me. I told a friend I wasn't sure if that was a little piece of heaven or just straight cruel after hours of screaming to just flash a smile.

 As for our other child, Luna she is a wound up crazy dog. Well actually she is a very good dog but every bit of a puppy. She has found the pool, and the hot tub and we can not keep her out of them. Her and Aaron are becoming fast friends and she loves all the smells he brings.

 Monday is the first day of school and there has been a lot of work put into my classroom this year, unfortunately it wasn't by me. This year is an exciting year for Wolfe Elementary because we will be starting the year off in our new building with all kinds of fun toys, teacher toys. My mom and Rick both but many hours into getting my classroom ready and I can't wait to see it. Since I am taking the first few weeks off of school to spend with Aaron, I was not able to go up and get things set up. Since the closing day on their house was quickly approaching, there was a push to finish the classroom before then. With many hours of work, it was completed before meet the teacher night.


And then, the next exciting news is.....my parents have closed on their house. The long awaited day has come. Thursday evening they became home owners again and are very excited about that. They have spent the weekend over there working on some things they wanted to do before their furniture came. Jon and a friend of ours helped them do a pretty cool tile back splash in their kitchen. Aaron and I have been able to come over and visit some this weekend and he is the only one who has a bed there currently so he is all set up.

I am so thankful for this time I get to spend with Aaron and even on the tough days I wouldn't trade it for the world.  He is growing so fast and I am sad that I had to bag up all of his newborn clothes and put them away because they just didn't fit anymore :(.  I guess at 8 weeks it is time he move into the 0-3 month clothes.  I am sure this is just the start of the sadness as he grows up.  I am not looking forward to the day we have to go and get his 2 month shots but that all comes with the territory.

1 month, already?!?!

I can't believe how time flies by. I have always heard people who have kids say that time flies and boy is that the truth. Well, I think time has always gone quickly but you really realize it when you have children and/or pets that you are watching grow. We are fortunate enough to have both!

We have had Luna now for about 6 weeks and she is 3 months old. She has come so far since we brought her home, it is amazing. Two days after we brought her home I took our tiny puppy to the vet and they said she weighed 4.6 pounds and she had some skin issues. I took her to the vet on Monday and am happy to report our chunky monkey now weighs 16.6 pounds. This is a great thing because the fist time we took her in the vet said the poor thing looked malnourished, not anymore. She is such a sweet puppy and turning into a wonderful dog. Of course, she has her moments of total chaos but a lot of the day she just lays around the house with us. I am happy to say at this point in her life, we have not lost anything to the puppy chewing. I understand, this may change but we are hoping to keep a healthy supply of chew bones around and minimize that. She is house trained now and LOVES to go outside and explore, this makes things so much easier. Jon introduced her to the pool soon after we brought Aaron home and she loved that too. She is ready for us to be in the pool more so she can swim too.

As for our other little one, he is a month old today and continues to change and keep us on our toes. We went to the doctor today and he is measuring at 7 pounds 2.3 ounces, he has gained a pound since his 2 week check up, grow little man grow. He has grown one inch since he was born and this puts him in the 50 percentile. The doctor was pleased with his color and said he is no longer jaundice which is great news. We are so excited to be out of the clear on the weight and jaundice, Much to mommy's dismay, we are not really on a regular eating or sleeping schedule but he is eating so much better. When we first got home it was quite a production to get him to eat, now he is a champ. As much as I would love to be on a schedule, everywhere I read and everyone I talk to says that around 2-3 months that will all fall into place, so I am going to let it go for now. I am so glad that I have the time to be home with him and just get to know him and most importantly cuddle with him. We have had some great visitors come over and spend some time with us and we love to see everyone. Throughout the last month we have battled a week or two of bad gas, a heartbreaking thing to struggle with because he would scream in pain and there was little I could do. Then we thought for awhile he may have colic, still not sure on that one. As it is with all people he has good days and bad days, we just like to soak in the good days and push the bad ones on. We have managed to capture lots of cute pictures and put together a slide show of the first month of Aaron's life, we hope you enjoy it.