Patrick Turns Two

Another year, another two year old! How is it even possible?

He...
[+] weighs 28#3oz (53rd%) and is 36" tall (88th%) according to his well child check just the other day. I have a feeling they over measured him because he doesn't seem that tall to us but I haven't gotten around to remeasuring him at home.

[+] wears all things 2T and it's been so fun to see him wearing hand-me-down items that Mark used to wear. Granted we are conscious about buying him his own things, plus we just don't have enough right now, but seeing pictures of the two of them in the same outfit, two years apart, sure is sweet. He's in size 4 diapers and size 8 shoes. He's obsessed with socks and never wants to take his jammers off in the morning.

[+] is starting to have quite the attitude lately. I think part of it is possible new teeth and a yucky cold most recently, but overall he's starting to figure out the best way of getting his way. Ha. Sometimes the two boys will be playing together and Pat will just start screaming, for no reason at all. It's like he's used to us "running to his side" when Mark was previously just mean to him and that he'd get what he wanted. We've had to start consciously going into one of their feuds without instantly blaming Mark because now Pat's often equally to blame!

[+] is seriously talking up a storm! He strings together 5-7 word sentences and uses the silliest phrases sometimes. He willingly answers our questions and the best part has been his conversations with Mark. It seriously makes me well up with tears when I hear their little conversations in the other room as they're playing so nicely together.

[+] is starting to sing familiar songs, speaking of word growth, and it's so fun. I forgot how sweet it is to start hearing that little voice. His favorite songs are Hello by Adele, Cruise and Get Your Shine On by FGL, Happy by Pharrell and Red Ragtop by Tim McGraw. He constantly wants to "pick" the song off my phone and knows the album pictures for his favorites.

[+] goes to bed around 7:30pm (previously closer to 8pm but we noticed he wouldn't sleep as long in the AM) and wakes between 6&7am. The best part though is that we never have to get him before 7 because he's content talking and singing and rolling around in his crib until then. He takes a nap at the same time as Mark at 12:30 and sleeps 2-3hrs most days. He sleeps in a sleep sac still with his minky blanket, his silk blanket, his "baby" which is an elephant head on a mini blanket. His duck is also always in his crib and most of the time his panda too. Our boys sure love their lovies!

[+] still battles with constipation issues and is still getting daily Miralax to help fight it. This kid just does not like to drink anything so I have a feeling hydration is a huge part of it. Plus that makes it hard to know if he's really getting his full dose of medicine or not. Recently I've started giving him dried prunes as a "treat" and he already knows "them make Pat poop!".

[+] is totally into imaginative play and it's the cutest! He holds his hand or some rectangle shaped item to his head and says "Hew-oo, hew-oo momma!". He's constantly pretending to eat and drink and offering the same to Mark, us, his stuffed animals, etc. He makes the silliest chomping and slurping sounds to go with it. Any time he rides on a truck or bike he's always saying "beep beep, honk honk" if something's in his way.

[+] absolutely loves his brother Mark and is still the biggest momma's boy around. He's always wanting to be with Mark, looking for Mark when they're not together, telling Mark night night and love you. He throws the biggest fits when Daddy tries to take him to bed yelling "momma take you" which I know is devastating to J but I love it at the same time. He "nuggles" when we're watching movies and refuses to walk down the stairs himself if I'm there to carry him.

Things Pat says...
- What color is it... "green, no purple, no blue, black!"
- Everything is double. "Chippy chip. Drinky drink. Snacky snack."
- "I do it mine self"
- "Hurry up Ma-key! Eat it all up!"
- Unprompted sometimes as he's eating a meal "tank you cookin, momma/daddy."
- When he doesn't want a diaper change "still more poop is coming."
- "Give it to me right now"

Baby H: Newborn Photos (times two)

Photos that capture perfect details, brand-new life, sweet moments in time and lots of love are basically my favorite thing ever. And we were blown away yet again by the images of our sweet Patrick and life as a family of four. 

It is so special to me to not only have these photos to look back on of a moment when our life changed forever but also to have them in the same room where big brother Mark's were taken. The nursery has changed a bit for our newest boy but there are just enough similarities for me to love. Not to mention all the extra moments of love between brothers that Amber so perfectly captured. 

Take a look and you'll understand why I'm so obsessed... 

Baby H: Two Months of Patrick

He...

[+] weighs 11#15.5oz (41%) and is 22 in (10%) long with a head of 39cm (45%). It's very baffling to J and I why both our boys are shorties since neither of us are "short" (I'm 5'4") or come from short families.

[+] has a little bit of a flat spot on one side of his head we need to keep an eye on. He prefers to lay looking right and the way J and I both holds him promotes him laying on that same spot too but luckily it's nothing too bad. He also has a bit of an umbilical hernia which I noticed even before our doctor confirmed it (and you can see it in the above picture). Again, thankfully, it's nothing to be concerned about now and we'll discuss it if it doesn't close by the time he's 4 years old.

[+] switched to size 1 diapers around 6 weeks because he was consistently blowing them up and it seemed like they were getting too tight around his belly. We're definitely a Huggies family around here. He also moved into 0-3 month clothing right around the same time and it seemed like both transitions literally happened overnight. This boy is definitely getting big fast it seems!

[+] has started social smiling and it's the best thing ever! And he's not stingy with those gummy grins either. Momma, Daddy, Mark, both grandmas.... it doesn't take much to get some good ones from this happy boy. He's also started to find his voice and Grammy said she heard him giggle in his sleep once!

[+] had a bout of what I think was foremilk-hindmilk imbalance for a few days. He was seeming extra fussy and extra gassy for a few days and hadn't had a good dirty diaper. Then when he finally did it was way more green than it had ever been and seemed almost watery. A quick google search lead me to believe that's what we were dealing with and it made sense after looking back at our feeding logs. I made a conscious effort to change our feedings slightly and within two days he was back to normal!

[+] went on his first plane rides this month to celebrate Auntie's graduation in California and was a great traveler. I wore him in the ring sling through the airport, nursed him when and where I needed to, he took naps on the plane and didn't make much of a peep the whole time. The place we stayed had pack-n-plays for both boys to sleep in and he did surprisingly well in it. He went to the beach, toured the college campus, sat in many restaurants and was such a perfect boy.

[+] got his first sunburn on our trip to CA and I felt horrible about it. Graduation was outside and it was a cloudy, perfectly warm day and he napped soundly in my arms through a big portion of it without trouble. Until we woke up the next morning and realized one half of his face was red. #momfail

[+] still sleeps in our room at night and I'm honestly not sure when we'll move him which is so much different than with big brother Mark. After our vacation and him doing so well in the pack-n-play I decided to get ours out and give it a try instead of the rock-n-play. So far he isn't sleeping any worse (or better) in it so we'll stick to it for now. He still naps in the rock-n-play in his room and is still swaddled anytime he sleeps (except in the carseat/wrap/etc obviously).

[+] he goes to bed around 9pm, wakes twice in the night to eat, usually around 2am and 5am, and we start our day somewhere between 7 & 7:30am. We stopped doing the 10/10:30pm feed before we went to bed because it wasn't making a difference with how long he'd sleep but I'm wondering if we should start doing it again. He still eats every 2.5hrs during the day and is such a good nurser which I am loving. Occasionally I'll do weighted-feeds with him just to see how much volume he's taking and it varies between 2.5 and 4.5oz depending on the feed.

[+] officially has blue eyes for now and they are both gorgeous and shocking. Never in my life would I have imagined I'd have a blue eyed baby boy! The pedi told us that most of the time, eyes his color blue stay that color so we shall see.

[+] nicknames: Pat Pat, baby brother, buddy, little love

[+] likes: baths, nursing, his swing, big brother, being held upright

[+] dislikes: when we make him stay awake, initially being swaddled, getting dressed

I...

[+] am still loving nursing my little boy which brings me so much joy especially how things ended up with Mark. Patrick is a great nurser and I'm definitely experiencing "the bond" I desperately longed for the first time around. And in even better news, we've officially been shield free the last month (except for a rare few feedings where I used it to help slow my milk down). The only trouble we've dealt with in the last month has been managing my fast let-downs causing him lots of gas issues but with some different positioning and him getting bigger and stronger every day I think the issue is behind us now.

[+] unfortunately ended up with a whole slew of new stretch marks from this baby boy that I'm really not happy about. I knew a few of them where there while I was pregnant but they have definitely made their (dark, purple, wiggly) appearance since he's been here. They're all below my belly button which makes sense since he was so stinking low for so long and means I'm the proud new owner of a one piece swim suit for the summer. Thankfully my girlfriends all told me I was like a pin-up girl in it because it definitely makes me feel like I have a total mom-bod! Here's hoping I'll someday get back in better shape and the marks fade with time.

[+] went out of town to Philadelphia for an exam for school and was away from my baby (and my big boy and husband) for two nights and it was so much harder than I anticipated it being. One reason being I don't even remember the last time I was alone for as long of a stretch as that. Maybe before Mark was born? And the second reason being that leaving my baby was so, so tough. Sure I missed J and Mark but I literally cried in my hotel room looking at pictures of Patrick because I missed him so much. I said it in his last update but I feel so much more connected to this boy, he's definitely turning into a mommas boy, and leaving him was such a struggle.

[+] have TONS of milk in the freezer and it's such an awesome feeling seeing it all in there. In relation to my trip out of town I knew I needed to have a ton of milk stored for when I was gone with the assumption that I'd be replacing what he ate with what I pumped. Well, not only did I exceed my goal for what I "needed" for the time I'd be away but I also pumped more than he ate leaving us with a surplus. Having the extra in the freezer eases so much stress about my upcoming return to med school & pumping life.

[+] have been at home on board study month the last few weeks and while it's been so nice not having to actually GO anywhere, it's also been hard too. It's hard to make myself sit at the table and study. It's hard to be motivated to get work done when Patrick has a particularly tough night. It's hard to not want to snuggle him when he wakes early from his nap. It's hard not getting to play and go on adventures with my big boy. But I guess I should have known having two babies in med school was going to be hard, right?

Baby Pat-Pat, you are such a dream baby and I couldn't imagine loving you more. You are the perfect missing piece to our family puzzle and I can't imagine our life without you in it. Thank you for making me a momma for the second time, thank you for flashing me gummy grins on my worst days and thank you in advance for putting up with all your big brother's shenanigans. Life with you, sweet boy, has already been so grand, I can't wait to see what's in store in your life. xoxo, Momma

Mother's Day 2016

Being a momma to these two boys has been one of the best things in my life and it was such a celebration to be with all three of my boys on Mother's Day this year, celebrating the joy of our family. 

We started early with a day trip to the Denver Zoo on Thursday afternoon. The weather was supposed to be crummy on actual Mother's Day so we decided to go early when the forecast was better. And boy was that a good decision. The weather was perfect, 80* with a touch of cloudy to keep the sun slightly at bay, and since it was during the week there was basically no one there. We laughed that Mark wanted to hold all the animals, got to see the baby gorilla without having to fight a hundred people at the glass, enjoyed a few beers (daddy) and a twist ice cream cone (momma & Mark) and toted around our super chill three-week old who only fussed the tiniest bit when it was time to eat. We left the zoo and headed to a near-by park so I could nurse the baby and Mark could run on a playground before getting in the car and heading home a bit sun kissed and absolutely exhausted but oh so happy.

On actual Mother's Day we spent the morning at home enjoying a venti Starbucks picked up by the two biggest boys before I even got out of bed. J and the boys gifted me my coordinating ring with Patrick's birthstone to go with my wedding set and Mark's sapphire band. After Mark's nap we decided to hit the aquarium for the afternoon. The weather was a bit crummy like we anticipated and even though there were tons of people who had the same idea as we did, it was still a great afternoon. Mark loved running up to the glass to see the fish, called all the sharks "daddy" from one of his favorite songs and wanted to go in all the tanks with open tops. And just like we expected, our Patrick went along for the ride without a fuss proving he's just meant to be in our family!

While this year I didn't get out to the spa, still smelt like old milk and had to calm many a toddler tantrum it was the perfect celebration. Motherhood to two-under-two isn't easy or glamorous but this is exactly where I'm meant to be right now and I couldn't dream of anything else. Mother's day was technically for me but it was because of my boys and that's what truly matters. 

To Mark, my first born and the one who made me a momma. To Patrick, my baby and the one who grew my heart double the size. I'm forever grateful to have you as my sons, to get to hear the word momma from your tiny lips, to know what it's like to be willing to give everything for someone else. I'm a lucky lady getting to be your momma and I cherish it every single day.

Baby H: Two Weeks (times two)

I need to remember this season of life because goodness is it grand and among other things I've learned since becoming a momma 19 months ago is that this time is truly fleeting. It seems like yesterday that we were bringing home our first born and now we are a family of four and I want to remember it all. 

I need to remember how my heart grew in size (just like I thought it would) when I first laid eyes on my second son. I need to remember how it grew again when my first born met my baby. I need to remember how instantly connected I felt to this little boy.

I need to remember Mark's sweet voice saying "hold" and how he points out Patrick's tiny features. I need to remember how truly tiny these boys are in the beginning. I need to remember how Patrick's first spring was filled with more snow than sunshine.

I need to remember how much he doesn't look like his big brother. I need to remember how easy he is, just going with the flow of our family. I need to remember how he looks into my face with his grey eyes and how I feel like I already know him so well.

I need to remember how calm he is, content looking at the lights or out the window. I need to remember how sweet his snuggles are. I need to remember that it's okay to hold him all day and never put him down.

I need to remember that he was an early little bird but that he's absolutely perfect. I need to remember to push away shreds of stress because things are going to great this time. I need to remember how he hated the bath more than anything. I need to remember his sweet little face.

I need to remember the feeling of his little body tucked up against mine like it never left. I need to remember how amazing it is to be a boy momma to these two littles. I need to remember how handsome he is, perfect in his own way. I need to remember the ease that becoming a family of four really has been. 

It seems crazy that Patrick's only been in our lives for two weeks because I already can't imagine what life was like without him. He checked out perfectly at his two week doctors appointment and we are so proud of him. Our tiny one weighed in at 7# even and 19 3/4 inches which is quite a lot of growth! Breastfeeding is going the total opposite this time around... I've been so much less stressed about it, seems like I'm making plenty for our growing boy and remembering to give myself grace when things do have a hiccup now and then. It's amazing what a good nursing relationship can do for both momma and baby. I am so grateful to have all these boys to call mine. Life sure is grand.