A Third of a Year

Happy Four Months to Liam today! Time flies when you're having fun, and he has become a lot of fun.

His four month check up won't be until next week, so I don't have his official stats yet. I started volunteering teaching ESL at church on Wednesday mornings, and had to reschedule today's appointment because of that.

At four months, he has become an excellent tummy-timer, but does eventually start protesting. He is pushing up all the way on his arms some now and kicking those legs. I don't think it will be too long before he accidentally rolls himself over. He will occasionally roll over from his back to his front, but he usually prefers to roll up on his side and stay there...and nom on toys. Speaking of nomming on toys...teething has come upon him, and it is no fun. No fun at all. He went from sleeping 8-9 hours at night to waking up screeching every 2.5 to 3 hours during the night. And then of course, there's the random crying out in pain throughout the day.  Thankfully, it doesn't happen every day. And last night, he slept from 10 pm until 5:30 am, woke up and ate, and went back to sleep until almost 8 am. Maybe there is hope after all! So far frozen pacifiers rubbed over his gums and biting on my finger wrapped in a cold, wet washcloth have helped. We've also used teething tablets, and I've found they work better if I dissolve it in water and rub it on his gums with a q-tip. I've ordered an amber teething necklace, and I'm really hoping that will help a lot. He also has a Sophie the Giraffe teething toy. This is just the beginning of our teething adventure!

Liam is a strong baby; he always has been. He's really good at standing and putting weight on his legs. We love to pull him from a laying on his back position to standing up by holding his hands. I'm hoping to get an exersaucer or maybe one he can jump with soon. I think he would like that. I work with him on sitting up just holding on to his hands. His body is still a little wobbly, but he has excellent head control. One of his favorite things to do now is arch his back up. He has almost flung himself out of his bouncy seat doing that. I'm hoping to phase out the bouncy seat soon. Perhaps we'll start using the Bumbo more.

He's also a happy baby (when his mouth isn't hurting). He loves to give us big grins and he's giggling more and more.You wouldn't know it by looking at pictures of him, though, because he still stops smiling as soon as he sees the camera!

This rattle ball is not good for nomming, but I will try.

I love my Sophie!

Look at those cheeks! And the flat head...gonna talk to the pedi about a helmet at his appointment.

Drooling on daddy.

Yeah, I'm four months old..so what?

I can't believe that camera is in my face yet again.

I am amused.

Liam Giggling

 

Caught this little video on my phone yesterday, which explains the sideways-ness. Liam adores Will, and in this video, he's doing whatever it takes to keep him giggling. So cute!

Someone's Growing Up Way Too Fast

I figure that will be my sentiment until he hits college. I can't believe I'll one day be the parent of an adult! Now I'm just getting way ahead of myself. Sometimes it's hard to believe that he won't be a baby forever, and it's hard to imagine him at different ages. I wonder what he'll be like? I have no idea, so let's focus on what I do know: what he's like at this current age.

That current age is 14 weeks and 6 days to be specific. Hitting the 15 week mark tomorrow. I love that he was born on a Saturday. It makes figuring out how many weeks old he is easier for me since it's not some day in the middle of the week. Digressing again...focus.

Ok, Liam has been up to all kinds of things recently. Last Sunday, he spent his first hour in the nursery at church. I wasn't really apprehensive since I know the ladies who would be taking care of him, and I knew they'd do a great job. When I picked him up, they said he did awesome! No crying or fussing. Baby high five Liam! Sunday was really just a warm-up for Tuesday. I joined Mom's Connection at church, so Liam went to the nursery during it. Only this time it wasn't just one hour, it was three. I had no idea how he would do for that long. About halfway into the meeting, I started feeling really anxious about being away from him for so long. But I suppressed the anxious feelings, and I was successful at doing that for awhile. However, I was watching the clock towards the end of the meeting. I couldn't wait to see him again! Finally the time came to go get him. The ladies told me he was a really good baby. He apparently didn't eat much while in there, but they said he only started fussing a little bit about 5 minutes before I picked him up. He even took a nap in there. So leaving him in the nursery has been a huge success this week!

Yesterday, Liam rolled over for the first time. He rolled from his back to his front. He has shown tremendous improvement with tummy time recently, but he still doesn't like being there. So while he's on his stomach, he's too busy protesting to think about rolling from his belly to his back, which I think is what normally happens first. He is starting to hold his head up for much longer periods of time now and starting to push up on those arms more and more. I'm sure he'll be really happy once he figures out how to roll from his belly to back because it will mean he won't have to put up with tummy time too much! He'll just roll over once he gets tired of it. So the rolling from his back to his belly came about gradually. He's been rolling from his back to his side for awhile now, and just staying there. He will occasionally take a nap lying on his side. Even if he doesn't sleep the whole time on his side, just putting him on his side makes those eyes droopy fast. It's crazy how fast it makes him sleep. Alright, back to the rolling...So he's been rolling to his side lately, but not really going further until this past week. Then if I had put him on his side, he would roll over to the front and face plant. He couldn't get his arm out from under him, though, so I always had to roll him back over pretty quickly for breathing and such. So now he could do both halves of rolling over, but he never put it all together into one motion...until yesterday morning. Yay Liam! Of course, that arm still stayed under him so I had to roll him back over. He hasn't rolled completely again since, just back to doing the two halves separately. However, yesterday when he rolled from his side to his front (face plant), he did start lifting his head and working on getting his arm out from under him. So now when he does that, we just do a tummy time, and he seems to handle it much longer that way.

He is a very strong little boy, and we've found that when we do challenge him on physical stuff he will try and try until he does it. We also recently started not swaddling his arms down at night, and now he sleeps in a sleep sack. He did fine the first few nights, but then had a rough couple of nights of waking up every three hours starving. I don't think it had anything to do with his arms, though. I think maybe it was somewhat of a growth spurt. He still hasn't gone back to his 8-9 hour stretches of sleep yet, though. And getting him to sleep has been tougher the past few days. We had gotten used to him falling asleep easily around 8:30 and sleeping a long time. I think he might have started having some pre-teething pain this week also. So the combination of that, growth spurting, and free arms have messed up sleeping at night this week. It hasn't been absolutely horrible or anything, but I'm hoping he returns to is normal pattern soon. I can hope, right?

Giggles and Grins

I feel like someone hit the fast forward button on my little man. He is growing up oh so fast. Sunday, August 14th, was his official 3 month birthday. Yesterday, I took him to get his other two vaccinations, so now he has had the full round of his two-month shots spaced out over a month. I'm comfortable with that decision because he had zero side effects both times. He even smiled big grins at the nurse while she gave him his rototeq vaccine. It's oral, and it must have been tasty.

Liam is developing right along at a fairly good pace, I think. He's very alert (he always has been). He loves to give me the stare down and follows my movements around the room. He will also move his eyes when I move a toy around. He's really good now at grasping his toys. He's recently started holding his hands together like he's plotting and scheming.

We are still working on tummy time, but even though he hates it, he's not behind on what he can do during it, he just protests while doing it! He's really good at lifting and turning his head, and he has just recently started trying to push up on his arms a little bit. Once he starts really using those arms, he'll be good to go!

In the past week or so, he's been pulling his legs up a ton when he's lying on his back. It won't be too long before he starts grabbing those toes. Since he's started doing the leg thing, he's figured out how to roll from his back to his side. Today he was on the floor rolling on to his side, and he was trying so hard to roll all the way to his tummy. He hasn't made it yet, though. He won't like being on his tummy once he gets there, though!

He has also made great improvements on holding his head up on his on. Unless he's really tired, he will hold it good and steady if we hold him in a sitting position or are holding him in our arms. Yesterday, I sat him in my lap for 15 minutes while I was on the computer, and he held his head up on his own the whole time. We are still working on sitting up in the Bumbo. He can go a few second on his own, and he doesn't really get floppy-headed in it anymore, but he always leans forward and then can't support his head on his own for very long. I'm not sure why he won't lean back in it.

His brand new skill that he just unveiled last night is laughing! He's been making a sort of grunting noise that we could tell was the precursor to laughing for awhile, but no real giggles. Last night, we were getting him ready for his bath and Will was getting him undressed while he was on his changing pad (which is on the floor). Will walked away for a minute or two, and when he came back he lifted Liam's onesie over his head, and he gave Will a really big laugh! We both heard it, and it was so sweet and funny! Then he laughed again, so we knew it wasn't a fluke. Then when we sat him in his tub, he got a giggling fit and laughed for several minutes. Then he wee wee'd in the tub. It was a fun bathtime! We were so happy to hear those giggles. I've been trying all day to get him to do it again, though, and I guess he's not in the laughing mood today. No luck. Hopefully he will starting laughing all the time soon. For now, we'll just have to do with his big open mouth grins he gives us!

Three months old

He still will not smile when a camera is in his face.

A pleasant face, at least.

Attempting the roll over.

Twelve Weeks and Two Days

Liam is just precious. That's all there is to it. He somehow gets cuter and cuter everyday. He's now 12 weeks and two days into his life outside the womb, and learning more everyday.

We've been making some progress with tummy time lately. He has always hated it, and I hated to hear him scream during it. He is totally capable of lifting his head up while on his stomach (he has done it at least once every tummy time), he would just rather not do it. The only time he likes being on his tummy is if he's laying on top of one of us. Well now I recently became concerned that he was "behind" in that skill, so I've been more diligent with tummy time. He's making good progress and goes for longer periods each time. He still doesn't like it, though. He also still doesn't push up on his arms while on his tummy, but I'm not really sure when babies do that. He will push off me if I'm holding him upright, though. I've also been working with him on steadying his head when he's in an upright position, and he's made a ton of progress in that area lately. I didn't have a Bumbo until I bought one on craigslist a couple weeks ago, but now we have Bumbo time everyday where I work on getting him to keep his head steady. He can now sit in the Bumbo for several seconds all by himself without getting all floppy-headed. He can last much longer if I keep his body steady and he just has to keep his head steady. He does really well with holding his head steady while I hold him in an upright seated position.

Chunkasaurus sitting up like a big boy

He hasn't shown any interest in rolling over, but if I put him on his side, he will roll to either the front or the back and use his legs to do so. He does have really strong legs and will put his weight on them when held up. Will gets him to kind of take steps, and it looks like a froggy trying to walk!

He's starting to use his hands more and more. He will grab and touch toys now. He usually puts one hand up on his bottle when I'm feeding him. He loves to suck on the fingers on his left hand. It's always the left hand. When he does that, the right hand is usually behind his right ear twirling what little hair he has there. He will touch toys with both hands, though. The bad thing about using his hands so much is that those hands make their way up to his eyes too much. He will rub his eyes if he's sleepy.

Nommin' those fingers

Sleepy Boy

He's very vocal now usually, but he does have quiet moods. He makes a noise that totally sounds like he's trying to laugh. He'll get there soon, I think! He grins all the time now! However, he usually stops smiling or doing whatever cute thing he was doing when the camera comes out. Then I usually get this face:

Ahhh...still cute, though!

Last week, he slept all the way through the night for the first time! I know "experts" consider sleeping through the night to be a 6 hour stretch or more (and he's been doing that for awhile), but this time, he didn't wake up until the sun was up! I consider that sleeping through the night. He hasn't gone that long since then, but he always sleeps somewhere between a 6 and 9 hour stretch at a time. Then he eats and goes back to sleep for a few more hours.

Liam's grandparents (my parents) came to visit him this weekend. I think they had a lot of fun with him. They watched him yesterday so Will and I could finally go see Harry Potter. It was only the second time neither one of us was with him since he's been here. The other time was when my mom babysat him when he was 3 weeks old. We definitely missed him while we were out, and I teared up a little bit when I saw baby Harry Potter on screen about to lose his mum. I'm such the mommy now.

He does really well in public now, with nary a meltdown. He has for sure mellowed out some in the last few weeks. I like taking him places now, and he even does well in restaurants.

We're still working on the looking to the left thing and trying to get him to sleep with his head to the right. Hopefully the flat spot is getting better. It seems to me like it's a little better. I'm working on holding him more in my right arm so he turns his head out to the right. Also, his doctor said we could try giving him milk-based formula this week to see if his stomach is ready for it. I hope it is!

Here's a video of Liam in his bouncy chair playing with the activity bar on it. He loves the noises it makes! I added the ribbon because he can't reach the green handle yet. He usually will only pull the ribbon if I put it on his hand, but in this video, he grabs it himself for a moment.

As for me, I will be 30 this Friday! It's not really a big deal for me. I figure the day will come and go without a party, presents, or cake, and I will drift uneventfully into my fourth decade just hanging out with Liam! Sounds good to me!

Saturday Morning Sun

Liam is 11 weeks old today! He's getting to be such the big boy. I estimate he weighs a little over 13 pounds now. He's "talking" a lot (which is so amazingly cute!). I love having conversations with him. I read books to him every day, and now he's gotten to where he will listen and even look at the pictures in the book. His favorites are "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" and "Little Blue Truck." I think I've got those memorized. I read the same 6 books over and over. I need more books! With big, colorful pictures!

Anyway, he's so much fun these days. His favorite "word" to say is "agoo." He loves smiling at his mama and daddy. I get paid in grins now! He loves playing on his mat and to always be moving. If he's awake, he's moving at least one part of his body.





He's still a really good sleeper at night. He goes to bed between 8 and 9 every night and will usually sleep a 7-8 hour stretch, although occasionally it will only be 5 or 6. But he always goes right back to sleep after I feed him. We moved his crib into our room today (boy was that an ordeal!), and he's sleeping soundly in it right now. I want to get him used to his crib, and we both still like having him close by in our room. We will transition him (and the crib) to his room in a month or so or whenever we feel ready to do so. So while he sleeps well at night, sleeping during the day is hit or miss. For a few weeks there, I could lay him down when he was sleepy but not asleep and he'd go to sleep on his own. That is no longer the case. He barely sleeps during the day, and he only wants to sleep in my arms. I know it's just a phase, and he actually took a really long nap in his swing today. As frustrating as it can be to not be able to get anything done since he's asleep on me, I know he's still super young and he will only be this young once...therefore I should hold him while I can because a day will come when he won't want to be held anymore.

This morning, we spent a little bit of time with Liam on our balcony and got some cute pictures of little man. It's still pretty hard to catch him grinning on camera, though. He's in his diaper because at 9:00 am it was already over 90 degrees. I'm tired of this Texas heat! Enjoy the pictures!

Two Months Old

Today is July 14th, which means Liam was born exactly two months ago today. It's gone by so fast, yet it feels like he's been here forever! I love him so much and he's becoming much more funner (is that a word?)!

He smiles a lot more now, and they're the sweetest grins. It's hard to get him to do it on command, though, so no pictures yet. He loves to smile for his mama.

I think he's figured out that his hands are attached to his body and he can make them do stuff. He has started sucking on his hand when he's hungry now. He also sometimes sucks on a pacifier, and he will sometimes use his hand to hold it in. Last week, he was in his bouncy seat sucking on the paci like it was going out of style. Of course it fell out (they always do), but he used his hand to push it back in his mouth several times. Now of course, it didn't fall very far for him to be able to do this, but we were still impressed.

He loves faces, and I think he really likes seeing new faces. He enjoys looking at himself in a mirror and making faces at it. He's still not very interested in toys, though. I dangle noisy toys in front of him and try to get him to hold them, but he never wants to yet. On his play mat, he enjoys kicking one of the toys with his foot over and over. He looks at me while I read and sing to him now. Sometimes he makes sweet noises and smiles when I do that. He's becoming quite vocal and makes a lot of different noises now.

This past weekend was an eventful one for Liam. He went to our favorite restaurant for the first time, The Spiral Diner. We only go a few times a year. There's one in Fort Worth and one in Oak Cliff. The drive to Oak Cliff can be harrowing, so it was a big deal to us to make that drive with our precious little one. Thankfully, we got there safely! He did really well there and let us enjoy our meal.

On Sunday, we all went to Flower Mound to my aunt and uncle's house. My grandparents were in town, so Liam got to meet his great-grandparents and great aunt and uncle for the first time! They loved on him so much! Liam enjoyed meeting them and he was so good all night.

Liam and his great-grandmother

 

Liam and his great-grandfather: Liam's face looks so fat here!

Liam and his great aunt

Fun times!

Today Liam had his two-month check up at the pediatrician. He's a big growing boy! His stats:
Length: 24 inches (80th percentile)
Weight: 12 pounds, 7 ounces (75th percentile)
Head: 15 inches (10th percentile) No one can ever call him a big head, I suppose.

He's gained 5 pounds and grown 3 inches since his two week appointment! The doctor wants to still keep him on soy formula (although I would prefer to try milk-based again, but his stomach may still not be able to handle it yet). He obviously doesn't mind eating it since he's chunked up so much.

One of Liam's favorite things to do is look to the left. Well, because of that, he has some flattening on the left side of his head. So now when we lay him down to sleep, we have to prop him up so that he turns his head to the right. He's totally capable of turning his head to the right and does so often, but I guess maybe not when he's sleeping. The doctor stood him up on his legs and said he was really strong. He said Liam was doing a great job of focusing on faces and that he was super alert.

One thing I was not looking forward to was Liam getting a shot for his first vaccinations. I know he needs to be vaccinated, but you always hear horror stories of babies having bad reactions to the vaccines or even never being the same again. Vaccinations aren't something I take lightly, but after doing research, I've decided it's better for him to be vaccinated. I am spacing them out, though, so he doesn't get 5 at once. Today he got just one shot, the Pentacel vaccine. It's a 3-in-1 vaccine, so that was certainly plenty for one day. He will get the other two at 3 months. I was nervous for him since he obviously had no idea what was coming. The nurse did it so fast, before I had time to mentally prepare for it. Liam screamed for about 2 seconds, and then he was fine. He fell asleep in the car. So far he hasn't acted differently and doesn't seem to mind if I press on the injection spot. There's no welp or redness, and no fever. Hopefully it'll stay that way. I don't know if it's possible to have a delayed reaction, but so far he's taking it well and I'm relieved.