Happy 6/3 Month Birthday Sam!

So today is a BIG day!  Sam turned 6 months today and he turns 3 months old tomorrow.  We are happy to also announce that we have a very healthy normal baby!  Last Tuesday (after driving back from Fort Wayne on Monday) we went in to have a post NICU developmental check.  He checked out great!  Nothing too unusual came up, which I count as a win.  The one thing we have to watch out for is how he holds his head.  He does a fantastic job at holding his head up... tilted to the left.  They found that he has some tight muscles on that side of his neck because of it, so now we get to do some stretches to help him fix that.

They weren't really worried about it though.  They said that babies that tend to favor one side like that (in Sam's case the left side) tend to also have issues turning their heads completely both directions, which is something Samuel did just fine with.  So as long as we are stretching him and encouraging him to hold his head straight, it should be something that corrects fairly quickly.  If it's not working we might have to explore different avenues to correct it.

We have not seen any rolling over as of yet and no, he's not crawling.  But that's fine!  I'm sure before we know it we'll be chasing him around the house and wishing he weren't doing any of those things!  At this point, neither of those are reasons to think he's behind developmentally, he's doing just fine, and I'm sure he'll start them both soon enough.

He has started to enjoy standing on his feet when you're holding him.  Normally he only ever did it when he's angry (what baby does when they're angry?).  Now he's starting to do it from time to time when he's not angry!

They told us Samuel will probably start squealing more and sure enough I think we've heard him squeal more this week than ever before!  It's like he was waiting for permission!  ;-)

To celebrate Samuel's birthday my Mom is coming out for a visit!  Ok, maybe she just happens to be coming now...  Regardless she's driving out here.  We're going to have someone watch Sam while we go get massages.  Something I practically never do, but there was a groupon for a really good price!

I think he's decided to nap really well today to celebrate.  He hasn't seemed to nap well in the last few weeks, but his night sleep has been fantastic!

We'll take a photo with the bunny today, then you'll really be able to see the difference!

Sam at less than a week old and at just over 6 months.  I promise you it's the same bunny!

Weddings!

So last weekend was the weekend of weddings!  We have been invited to 8 weddings this summer and 3 of them happened last weekend.  Of course they also happened in 3 different states:  Iowa, Missouri and Indiana.  So how do we decide whose wedding to go to?  How about my cousin's and the only relative getting married?  We spent 3 nights and 4 days in Fort Wayne last weekend to help my cousin celebrate her marriage.

Before we went to Fort Wayne I was thinking I would start doing things after coming home to encourage Sam to drop his middle of the night feeding.  Well, Sam had different ideas and last week Wednesday he did it all on his own!  Everything I was going to do to encourage it he simply did and then proceeded to sleep through the night!  It was a glorious 8.5 hours!  Although he started waking a little in the middle, so I got things ready to feed him (like glass of water, use the restroom, things like that) and in the couple of minutes it took me, he fell back asleep.  When he awoke again at 6am, I was somewhat annoyed he was waking early (normally wake up is around 7am), but then realized he slept through the night and all my annoyance was gone!

I assumed that with the trip that meant we'd take a step back from sleeping through the night, but it didn't.  The first night there he woke up every 3 hours like he used to, but the second and third night he managed 6+ hour stretches, so that was good.  The first night home he also didn't sleep well, but since then he's been doing about 9 hour stretches.  My body is finally adjusted to the fact that I don't have to wake up in the middle of the night and I am also finally sleeping as well!

Anyways, during our trip to Fort Wayne we were able to relax a little about Sam.  First of all, we knew we would have more than a tiny bit of time to see these relatives, so we were stricter about making sure he got his naps in and stayed on his routine a little closer.  Then every time he needed to eat, I took him off somewhere quiet to nurse him.  Between that and him being a little older I think that helped him not get over stimulated.  All these things together made a very happy baby overall and helped him remain a good sleeper at night!

It was really exciting at the wedding though because my whole Dad's side of the family was there!  My Dad has one sister who has three children.  It used to be family gatherings on that side were really tiny, there are 5 of us in my immediate family and 5 in my aunts family, then add my Grandma and that made a whopping 11 people.  This time, however, there were several more!  With 3 of us married and 2 with kids our numbers are growing!  We had 16 of us!!  Plus one in utero (not me, my cousin who already has one) so that would actually be 17!  It's quite exciting to me that our family is now growing.

It was really good to see everyone and for everyone to meet Sam.  Now some of the family did get the opportunity to meet him already, but some hadn't.  My parents and brothers pretty much had a monopoly on Sam's time the day of the wedding.  Which was fine because my parents had to go home the next day and the rest of us would be still around for at least another day.  The next day we went to my Aunt and Uncles for gift opening, then I hung around for a while.  The cool thing was we had an opportunity to get a photo of Grandma with her 2 great-grandkids!

Busy Summer!

Summer is seriously flying past!  I can't believe that it's already AFTER the 4th of July!  Which I should because I did the fifth seasons race again (5K) and it was blistering hot when it started at 8:15 that morning.  It was probably the worst I felt after the race too, between the heat and my asthma deciding to act up a little).  One of my former Regina students came in 1st at the race, I was so proud!  I do miss those students!

At the end of June we made a quick trip to NE to visit Ben's Grandma.  She hasn't been doing as well lately (prayers are asked for) and so we wanted to make sure she met her Great-Grandson sooner than later!  Overall it was really a good trip.  We stayed the first night at my parents, then drove the rest of the way into Nebraska.  Spent the afternoon with her and then went to one of Ben's Aunt's houses for supper.  The plan was to stay there the rest of the evening, but other things came up.  Another one of Ben's Aunt's had the whole family in town and on of the cousins and his wife needed to leave sooner than later because of the fires out west, so they ended up going in to visit Grandma yet that night.  As this was going to be the only opportunity to see some of them we made the trip into town after feeding Sam.

This unfortunately put Sam over the top.  He was doing well up until then, but going back into town and seeing all those people was just a little too much for the poor baby.  We did have fun talking with the relatives and letting them see Sam for the first time however.

That night we paid for our actions by the 3 of us all getting little sleep.  Morning came way too quickly and we reluctantly started the day.  We started by driving into town to visit Grandma again before going home.  After a nice visit with Grandma we headed to have lunch with another Aunt and Uncle and cousin of Ben's then started the trek home.

Thankfully Sam does really well in the car!  The drive with him wasn't such a big deal (of course it takes longer because you have to stop, feed and burp him!), but then we ran into construction on I-80 and it sounded like maybe a few accidents down the road as well.  We bailed and took the scenic route before we could find out.  I think all the stuff on 80 added at least an hour to our drive, which meant we had to stop again to feed Sam on the way home (one more time than we should have needed to because of 80).

We've been home for a week and a half now and Sam is finally getting back on routine.  Now before anyone thinks I am only blaming the trip to NE, let me add this little bit.  It seems pretty clear that shortly after we returned Sam started teething!!  Yup, he's only 2 months adjusted and teething!  Now it could be another month before we see teeth, but he's definitely teething.  That HAD to have contributed to his extra grumpiness over the last week...

Now we are looking forward to Sam being he's happy content self again.  Ben is at guard all week, so we look forward to having him home again (though life will not be slowing down by no means when he does get home).  This week, I plan on enjoying a fairly relaxing week with my son.  :-)