Two Months Old

You had your two month check up today. You weigh 11 pounds, which is average, and are 22 1/8 inches long, which is a little below average. All this time we thought you were so long. Your head circumference is slightly above average. We know that's because you're so smart. :) You got five shots today. You cried, of course. I didn't get upset until we got into the car and you had the saddest little wimper of a cry still. I teared up a little. You've been sleeping all afternoon. If you're moved at all you'll cry. I gave you some tylenol. I hope it helps you. Daddy took a nap with you on the couch when he got home. Watch the video and listen closely.

Sleeping at Night

We're still waiting on a good sleep pattern to arrive at night. You've been working your arms out of the swaddler and it's ending up around your neck or face. You can imagine when I get into your room and see that!! This was, of course, waking you up several times at night. I thought, well maybe it's time to stop swaddling. So, we bought a sleep positioner. If you don't know, it's kind of like two speed bumps that you put the baby between so he can't roll from side to side. We put you in a sleep gown and into the positioner. You slept for a little bit, but you started waking up again. Your arms are still free to involuntarily flail about. So...I had one last idea. Swaddle and position!! I swaddled you up as tight as I could the next night and put you in the positioner. You slept from 10-2. It was fantastico!!

Friday night Grandma and Pops stayed the night with us. We have a split floorplan so the guest room is closer to your room than ours is. I was afraid you would wake up a lot and cry and wake them up. Of course, that's what happened. (We usually let you cry a little and you're fine.) Well, the crying, not waking up the grandparents. In fact, Grandma said she only heard him once. I was probably in your room 5-6 times feeding/consoling him back to sleep. It was rough.

But, of course, last night we did the same swaddling and positioning and you slept from 10-3!!! You're getting good at this. I think you woke up so much the night before because you knew I would come to comfort you . You're a smart kid you know!! Anyway, hopefully you're getting into a good pattern at night. I like getting up only once to feed you at night.

Feeding Frustrations and Smiles

Well, it's been a little while since I've entered anything on the blog. Things are starting to settle down around here, so hopefully I'll be able to at least post something once a week now. I say that and I'm sure some other fiasco will show up. God will bring us through...

It turns out that while I thought you were becoming a better eater (which you may have been) I was not providing enough for you. At six weeks I could just tell that you weren't gaining enough weight. I took you to the doctor to have you weighed and sure enough, you had only gained 13 ounces since birth. Stick a knife in my heart!! No wonder you were so fussy lately...you were hungry and I was the one starving you!

The doctor told me that I now had to feed you every two hours what I had (only two ounces) and supplement formula for the rest (about 2-3 ounces). In between the feedings I had to pump to try to get my milk supply up. That meant that I as sitting down with something attached to me every hour of the day!! I did it for 4-5 days and about lost my mind literally. I couldn't do it any more. I called my friend, Amy, who is a pediatrician and she gave me some advice to get my sanity back.

We took you back to the doctor a week later. When we were taking off your clothes to have you weighed the nurse said "OH NO!" We look and you had a huge diaper explosion. It was all the way up you back! It took a long time and a lot of wipes to get you cleaned up. We took you to the scale and were so excited to see that the nurse kept pushing it further along. You had gone from 7lb 13oz the week before to 9lb 8oz. In one week!! Dr. Harmon came in and asked what we had been feeding you. I told her that we had followed her instructions and fed you every two hours. It was so hard, because most of the time we had to struggle to wake you up. The formula really knocked you out. Thankfully she then said that we could just wait for you to tell us when you were hungry. I didn't realize it, but David said afterward that I kept asking if that was really okay. I told him it was hard to grasp because for the first six weeks of your life I had to make sure I fed you every 2-3 hours. Now I wait for you to tell me? How does that work?

Well, you do tell me, just like you used to. But, now it's every 3-4 hours at a time. It's so fantastic. I can get out of the house and do things again. We don't have to come rushing home after only being out for an hour. Our little boy is growing so big. God is blessing us more and more every day!!



You've started smiling!! You've got the cutest smile. If you're tired or not really interested it's kind of a half smirk, but if you really are happy or think something is funny you have the BIGGEST smile. I think you might have dimples. You started smiling at me and then a couple days later at Daddy. You'll smile at our parents and occasionally at people who are holding you at church.

You've also started cooing. I'll lay on the floor with you after your first morning feeding. We'll play and talk and sing and read books. You're such a happy baby. The only time you really cry is when you're hungry. Sometimes you'll cry because you're not being held or payed attention to. (Only slightly spoiled.)

Mother's Day

This is us on our way to church on Mother's Day. I was so very proud. You might notice I'm wearing a sock on my hand. That's because your body not only is not your own any more when you give birth it's never the same. I've apparently developed exczema and got huge blisters on my hand. It was not fun. They're going away now, though.


Ryan is getting better and better at eating which is a relief. I don't know what I would have done if it continued to take him an hour just to eat. I'm convinced he's smiled at me already. He will look me in the eye for longer periods of time now, and there have been a couple of times he's smiled back at me. This has to be true even though babies don't usually smile socially until they're six or eight weeks old. Ryan is advanced, don't you know? :)

First Time to Church

We went to church for the first time when Ryan was two weeks old. I was actually really nervous because one, I hadn't been in two months myself, and two, now I had this little human that I had to take care of and make sure nobody got germs on!! It was really fun seeing everyone though. What a blessing we have in Park Plaza.

I made a onesie with a tie for Ryan to wear on his first Sunday at church and David decided that this once he could wear a tie to church too. They we both very handsome.

Cutest Baby

One Week Old

Okay, so he's 3 1/2 weeks old now, but this is a cute picture. :)

The Truth About the Tooth

Okay, so in the hospital we were told that Ryan's tooth was something that all babies have and that it just didn't fall out and he'll have his normal set of baby and adult teeth. Well...we went to a pediatric dentist to have it removed so he wouldn't swallow it and the dentist told us that indeed that tooth was his baby tooth and he would not have another in that spot until his adult tooth came in. I cried. My poor baby is going to have a big gap in his smile until he's like 8 years old!! The dentist actuall said that the other teeth will probably crowd in around and he'll have to get braces. THEN we joke with a friend of ours who is an orthodontist that we'll be coming to see him in a few years, and he tells us that he may still have a baby tooth in that spot. So we have NO IDEA what's going to happen with our son's dental health. Only God knows, and that's okay with me.