Look What He Can Do…

Baby boy has been surprising the heck out of us lately.  He’s been rolling from his tummy onto his side for a while now, usually falling back onto his tummy.  At 7 weeks old, he finally rolled his from his tummy to his back, but I wasn’t able to get it on video.  This is way ahead of the game.  According to the books and websites I’ve read, he shouldn’t be able to roll from tummy to back until he’s 3 months old.  He’s done it here and there, but hadn’t done it consistently yet.  Yesterday during tummy time, however, he did it EVERY TIME I put him on his stomach.  I would put him on his tummy, he would lift his head 90 degrees (another thing he shouldn’t be able to do yet), waiver a bit, and then push off the floor with his hands and roll to his back.  I of course cheered for him every time he did this.  After praising him, I would lift him up and put him back on his tummy and within a minute, he’d do it all again.  This cycle literally happened about 10 times in a row.  He loves doing it now that he knows he can.  Because he did it so many times in a row, I was able to get it on video on my phone (excuse the bad quality).  Here’s my superstar:

He can now rollover!!!  The first of many milestones that I want to capture on video or photo, hence why I created a new label called “Carter’s Milestones”.  I can’t wait to watch him do more things.  I have one strong kid.  At the rate and intensity that he kicks his legs, he’ll be crawling in no time!

Carter - Two Months

Carter at Month 2

• Diapers:  Still wore newborn’s most of month 2, but we transitioned to size 1 towards the end of the month when poop started coming out of his diapers and onto his back.
• Clothes:  Most of his newborn outfits are getting quite snug, therefore we’ve already broken out some of the smaller 3 month outfits. Strangely enough, he has some 0-3 month clothes that are still too big, yet some of his 3 month clothes already fit.  Different brands fit differently.  So far I’ve noticed that Gerber clothes run kind of small.  He’s already wearing 3-6 month clothes made by Gerber.  However Lamaze runs REALLY big.  He still can’t fit into his 0-3 month outfits by them.  Carter’s seems to be right on the  money.  I’ve already gone through his clothes and picked out the clothes that he can’t wear anymore and put them up in his closet.  Didn’t think I’d have to do that this soon!! 
• Sleep:  During month 1, Carter was having sleep issues at the beginning of the month, only getting between 10-12 hours of sleep each day.  Towards the end of month 1, he gradually increased this number to averaging 13-14 hours a day.  During month 2, Carter rarely got less than 14 hours of sleep a day, but frequently got over 15 hours a day.  The day before Carter turned 6 weeks old, he slept through the night for the first time.  I put him down at 10:15pm and he didn’t wake up until 6am.  At the end of the second month, he’s done excellent on his naps, usually sleeping for an hour and a half to two hours at each nap.  At night we usually feed him sometime between 10pm-11pm and then again around 4am before he finally wakes up for the day between 7am-8am.  He’s slept through the night (more than 6 hours without a feeding) three times so far.
• Stats:  At his 7 week appointment, Carter was 10lbs, 15 oz (75th percentile) and was 22 1/2 inches long (70th percentile).  His head circumference was 15 inches (50th percentile).  Justin and I weighed him again right before the two month mark and he was 11lbs, 6oz. 
• Waketime Activities:  We have made Carter’s daily schedule using Babywise.  This means that he has a 2 1/2 - 3 hour daily schedule that repeats.  He nurses, then has some waketime and then has a nap.  It takes 3 hours for this one cycle to occur and then we repeat it 5 times before putting him down for the night.  We do the same activities in the same order each day.  First he watches either a Baby Einstein DVD or a Praise Baby DVD (I absolutely LOVE the Praise Baby DVD’s.  I highly suggest them if you want your child to grow up listening to Christian music).  For the second waketime, he has a music mat where he plays on his back.  The third waketime is tummy time, which he is getting used to.  The fourth waketime is time in the mamaroo for him to explore his surroundings and the final waketime is bathtime.
• Other Milestones: 
• Carter met his great grandparents on my dad’s side of the family
• He started smiling on purpose, frequently copying my facial expressions
• He is ALWAYS laughing.  He must think mommy and daddy are hilarious because he really does laugh at us all the time.
• He rolled over for the first time!!!  It was totally not on purpose though.  Right around 7 weeks, we were having tummy time in his nursery and he rolled from his tummy onto his side.  This was nothing huge because he’s been doing this FOREVER it seems like.  He usually just rolls onto one of his sides and then falls back on his tummy.  Well, this time he fell on his back!!!  I was the only person that saw him rollover, Justin was at work when he did it.  He did it for me again when he was 8 weeks, and again Justin was at work.  He finally did it for Justin a few days after he did it for me the second time and since then he’s done it for me several times.  According to websites, he’s not really supposed to be rolling over just yet, at least not until he’s three months old. 
• We began the feed/wake/sleep schedule and strictly stayed on it (we technically started it during month 1, but we became very strict and actually stuck to the schedule in month 2).  He loves routine, that’s for sure.  He sometimes gets fussy when he gets off his schedule (i.e. missing his nap because he was at a doctor appointment).
• At the beginning of month 2, we started forcing him to take one nap a day in the nursery instead of downstairs in his pack n’ play.  He wasn’t loving it for a while.  I actually started worrying that he would never be okay with sleeping upstairs.  Finally, around the end of month 2, I just decided to go “all or nothing” and make him sleep all of his naps upstairs.  I figured repetition was key.  It apparently worked.  The first day of all 4 naps was rough, but he got the hang of it.  The bassinet in his pack n’ play that he sleeps in has a 15 pound weight limit and since he’s over11 pounds now, we need to rapidly get him used to the crib!
• While at his pediatrician checkup, Dr. Dudgeon heard a slight murmur in his heart.  He wanted us to set up an appointment with a pediatric cardiologist to get it checked out, which we did later that week.  Carter is had an EKG and it showed that the murmur was an innocent murmur, meaning that it would probably heal as he grows up or even if it doesn’t, it wouldn’t affect his daily life.  This made us very happy obviously.  I was so worried and expected the worst case scenario of there being a hole in his heart.  Thank God it was just a valve issue!
• I took Carter to my work to meet all my employees.  Everyone loved him and thought he was adorable. 
• Carter made his first appearance at Saint Mark United Methodist Hillside service (contemporary service).  I was waiting for him to get his shots to take him around so many people.  He was LOVING the music and the lights.
• A couple of days before he turned two months old, Carter gave mommy a slight heart attack.  When he started crying one morning because he was ready to get up for the day I went to go get him only to realize that he had managed to rollover in his bassinet and was facing downwards.  All I saw was the back of his head and his back.  I immediately freaked out.  I know lots of kids sleep on their stomachs but he wasn’t on a flat surface where he could just turn his head to breathe.  He was at an incline and there was a comfy fluffy pillow that outlined his head that would have prevented him from breathing if he turned to one side or another.  He was totally fine of course, but this momma about died of shock.  Needless to say, I removed the bassinet from his pack n’ play that day and he’s slept on his back the last several nights.  He didn’t do great the first night of sleeping like normal in the pack n’ play, but he did great the second night.  I’m hoping he keeps doing well and will eventually forget the comfort of the bassinet.  Here’s what the bassinet looked like:

This picture is actually when Carter was only a few weeks old, but it’s the best one I have of what he was sleeping in.  See that pillow?   His head was face down in that thing.  I hate to think of what could have happened had I not gotten there when I did.

• Because of the above situation, I decided it’s time to transition from the original woombie to the convertible woombie.  Carter loves his woombie and it helps him fall asleep, but since his arms are zipped up in the woombie, if he rolls over, he won’t be able to roll back over because he won’t have his hands to use to lift him up and roll him over.  The original woombie zips up his entire body.  The convertible woombie is just like the original woombie, but there are buttons where the arms go so that his entire body is still all zipped up and tight, but his arms can be out so that he can rollover if he needs to.
• Finally, the hair on little man’s head is finally growing back.  It’s hard to see in his two month picture because his hair is blonde.  Some people think this is shocking because Justin’s hair is so dark.  Well, my hair from birth to probably 10 or 11 years old was bright bright blonde.  My hair didn’t turn to a dirty blonde/light brown until I was in my pre-teens which was when I started highlighting my hair to get the blonde back.  Been doing it ever since (minus a few experiments during my college years).  So really, I’m not that surprised his hair is blonde.  He lost a lot of hair during the first month, but it has really started growing back in month 2.

#74 - CHECK

Number 74 on my list of 101 things to do in 1,001 days was for Justin and I to finally take Carter to church.  Carter is now 7 1/2 weeks old and we haven’t been to church since he was born.  This is mainly because we were waiting for him to have his first round of shots.  Most pediatricians say to not take newborns around large groups of people who will all want to hold them and give them germs until after they have had their shots.  Since Carter had his shots on Tuesday, I was very anxious to get back to church.  We didn’t want to take him to Sunday school, we were only going to take him to the contemporary service.  But we did want some of our Sunday school class to meet him, so we decided to leave the house a little early and drop by the class towards the end so they can meet Carter.  But apparently they didn’t have class today because no one was in there when we stopped by.  Oh well, they’ll see him next week hopefully!

We went to the gym for the contemporary service and lots of people stopped and adored him.  Gordon (Justin’s dad) got there and asked if he could take him to the choir room to see some more of the women that were in the choir and wouldn’t be coming to the contemporary service.  So Gordon took him for a few minutes.  He came back in time for the praise music, which I think Carter really liked.  But more than anything, my kid LOVES LOVES LOVES to stare at lights.  He was mesmerized by the lights in the gym.  He loves looking at lights and ceiling fixtures at home too so we kinda knew he loved lights already, but he stared at the lights the majority of the service.

Waiting for the service to start.  Excuse his face….he’s just taking it all in!  He hasn’t been around that many people and that much noise in his life!

This is what little man did for half the service.  Yes, he smiles when he sleeps.

After church we headed to the Morris’ house for lunch and Jen and Aeron brought the twins.  For those of you that remember, the twins were born in August and around 6 months old now.  They were born at 34 weeks, so they were already premature, not to mention they were naturally going to be underweight because they were twins!  Anyway, the three kids all see the same pediatrician and Carter’s appointment was Tuesday and the twins appointment was Thursday.  We found out that Carter, at 7 1/2 weeks old, has already surpassed Celia, who is 6 months old, in weight.  He was 10 lbs, 15 oz and Celia was 10 lbs, 2 oz.  It kinda makes my son look like a fattie, but really the twins are just small.  They still aren’t on the charts for weight and height yet.  Cynthia is 11 lbs, 5 oz so I’m pretty sure Carter will pass her soon.

Justin was trying to get Cynthia to go to sleep

Baby girl is OUT!!

I love him more than life!!

Me and baby boy.  Excuse his tongue sticking out.  This is a new talent he learned from his daddy.  Seriously, no one can make him laugh like Justin can.  Watching Carter laugh for the first time is also on my list, and I’ve already done that, but I just haven’t been able to capture it on video or photo yet so I’m not marking it off until I can properly document it.  

Something else Carter has been doing a lot lately is babbling.  I love watching him in waketime these days because he loves to talk talk talk!!  Of course he’s not actually talking, but he thinks he is. I  got a great video of it (excuse the not so great quality – this video was taken from my blackberry):

My sweet baby LOVES to smile at us these days!!!

My Poor Sweet Baby…

So like I said in my previous blog, we had Carter’s 7 week checkup with his pediatrician on Tuesday.  We found out that he has a slight heart murmur and the pediatrician wanted us to set up an appointment with a pediatric cardiologist to have an EKG done to see the severity of the murmur.  Apparently lots of newborns have murmurs that heal themselves as they grow up and even if it doesn’t heal itself, lots of adults have murmurs that are “innocent”.  My sister and mom both have one and it doesn’t affect their daily lives.  But to be certain it was an innocent heart murmur and nothing to worry about, they wanted to do an EKG.  So today, we headed to Children’s Hospital downtown to get Carter’s heart checked out. 

Dad took this picture while mom was holding his hand to keep him from getting fussy.

He didn’t get shots, thank God (he doesn’t do well with those as we figured out on Tuesday), but it wasn’t easy seeing him all hooked up to stuff like this!  But he took it like a champ and never even cried while he was having things done to him.  He was actually really interested in the ultrasound screen and watching the screen the entire time they were doing the EKG.

Thankfully, the cardiologist confirmed that the murmur was an innocent murmur and that Carter’s heart looked good.  Thank God!  I knew going into it that he would be fine, but that’s my baby.  Worry isn’t easy to control even when you know everything will be fine.  Carter is taking a nap now.  Poor baby is super sleepy because he missed his morning nap to go to this appointment so he’s sound asleep right now.    I’m just so glad his little ticker is ok!!

#27 and #72 - Check

Number 27 on my list of 101 things to do in 1,001 days was to watch Justin complete a Tough Mudder race.  Justin and I along with our friends Matthew and Nicole drove to Athens, Georgia this past weekend so that the boys could do the obstacle course along with a couple other of our friends that drove up from South Alabama.  We left on Saturday around noon and got to Athens around 5pm.  After unpacking a little bit, we all met up and drove to dinner on UGA’s campus.  We decided to go to DePalma’s for some yummy Italian!!  The race was on Sunday morning and their wave began at 9:20am. 

If you’re not familiar with Tough Mudder, let me explain.  This isn’t like any ordinary 5k or 10k.  It’s an 11 mile course with 27 obstacles along the way.  These obstacles range from somewhat simple, such as jumping over holes in the ground filled with mud, to incredibly challenging, such as swimming from one side of a construction dumpster to the other in ice cold water.  There were tons of water obstacles in the course and if you live in the area, you know that the South had an unusually cold weekend this past weekend.  In Washington, GA where the race was, the temperature at the time of the race was 22 degrees with a 19 degree wind chill.  Can you honestly imagine swimming in anything at all in that kind of weather?!?!?  There were numerous cases of hypothermia during the race and tons of people ended up skipping obstacles because it was just way too cold to do them. 

Nicole used my camera to take pictures while I used my video camera to take videos.  Nicole took over 300 pictures.  I could share some, but honestly the videos show you much better what the race entailed.  So instead of putting up pictures, I will share numerous videos of some of my favorite obstacles to watch.  This is Justin’s second year to do the Tough Mudder and he absolutely loves it.  He plans to make it an annual thing.  Georgia has been the closest location to us for the past two years, but starting next year, they’re actually doing one close to the Birmingham area.  Justin’s really excited about it!

Here’s some pretty spectacular videos:

This obstacle is called Kiss the Mud.  Racers had to crawl under barbed wire in mud. 

This is Arctic Enema.  This is the obstacle I would have had to skip right on past.  In the 22 degree weather, racers had to swim in a dumpster full of ice.  There was also a board running through the middle of the dumpster forcing racers to have to actually submerge their entire bodies in order to get from one side to the other.  Most racers were taking layers of clothes off so that they would have something to put back on that wasn’t wet.  There weren’t any stands or bleachers that I could get on to get a good shot of the inside of the dumpster.  I was bummed about that. 

In the Funky Monkey obstacle, racers had to cross a pool of muddy ice water on monkey bars.  Doesn’t seem too bad, but realize that hundreds of other racers with muddy hands have done it before you, causing the bars to be VERY slippery.  Also, they go upwards at an incline, so it was actually a difficult task even if the bars weren’t slippery and it wasn’t over a pool of ice water.

This wasn’t even technically an obstacle, but should have been!!  In order to get from obstacle 12 to obstacle 13, racers had to go into this trench of mud that was waist deep.  It was actually amusing to watch!

This obstacle is called the electric eel.  Racers had to “swim” on their stomachs under wires that were holding volts of live wire.  This was also very amusing to watch.  I bet you’re asking yourself at this point “who the crap would willing do this race?  Much less, who on earth would PAY to do this to themselves??”.  Answer – my husband and his friends.

As if the Arctic Enema water obstacle wasn’t enough, or the falling in water from other obstacles, racers were forced to “Walk the Plank”.  There was absolutely no way around getting wet on this obstacle!!!

Twinkle Toes is basically a balance beam over…you guessed it…ice cold water.  This was probably one of the most amusing obstacles to watch.  It was the second to last obstacle and at this point, all the racers are tired and so many of them were falling on purpose because they just gave up.

The final obstacle at Tough Mudder is called “Electroshock Therapy”.  Similar to the electric eel, this obstacle “shocked” racers with live wire.  10,000 volts of live wire.  Racers had to run through the wires dodging hay bales along the way. 

Those are just some of my favorite obstacles.  There were 27 total and I didn’t want to put up all 27 videos, but these are the ones that give you a good idea of the difficulty of this race.  Oh and number   72 on my list of 101 things to do in 1,001 days was to get 8 hours of sleep again.  Thanks to Nana for watching Carter while we were in Georgia for the race, this momma got a full 8 hours of sleep the night before the race.  Woo hoo!!!

#76 - Check

Number 76 on my list of 101 things to do in 1,001 days was to get Carter’s first round of immunizations.  We  did this today at his 7 week checkup.  Yes, I’m the awful mother that scheduled so many shots to occur on Valentine’s Day.  It was the only appointment they had this week!  Justin came with me because I didn’t know if I’d be able to handle it, seeing him scream and cry.  He got 4 shots, two in each leg, and one oral vaccination.  At 7 weeks, Carter weighs 10lbs 14oz and is 22 1/2 inches long.  He’s in the 75th percentile for weight and the 70th percentile for height.  Doc was impressed by this since he’s a breastfed baby.  His next appointment won’t be until he’s 4 months old.  The doc did however hear a slight heart murmur.  He said he wasn’t worried about it it, but that as a precaution, he wanted us to see a cardiologist to get an ultrasound to make sure it wasn’t anything major.  Please pray that this murmur is the kind that will heal itself over time!! 

The nurse was measuring his height here

He did good on the oral vaccination.  The nurse said most babies just spit it right back out, but Carter actually swallowed it like he was supposed to!

First shot.  His face is still relatively calm here, but only for this brief second.

Then he turned beet red and literally held his breath the length of the four shots.  Even the nurse told him to breathe!

Daddy did a great job of calming him down the best he could.  Carter has cried plenty of times in his seven weeks of life, but this is literally the first time I actually saw tears rolling down his face!  It made me so sad.  But I held it together and Carter was totally fine as soon as we got him back in the carseat.  He was out the second he got back in my car.  I nursed him when we got home and put him straight down for a nap, skipping waketime.  I’m okay with that because he went through a lot today and even skipped his morning nap because we were at the doc.  He’s sleeping soundly right now.  Sweet sweet baby boy of mine!

When Carter Met His Family

I promise, one of these days I will stop making every blog about my son and start talking about other things.  Right now, being on maternity leave, I am with Carter 24 hours a day so he’s all I have going on right now.  Plus, I want to document things like this so that I can come back and remember them later.  Like I said in my labor and delivery post, Justin was the only person in the room when I gave birth to our son.  With the traumatic delivery, it was a while before we let family back to finally see Carter.  My sister came first because I wanted her to get pictures of the rest of the family seeing him (she used the photos she took here to make the birth video slideshow that I blogged about here).  So Justin used our video camera to capture her meeting little man for the first time:

After Lindsey met him and then talked with me for a few minutes, we let the rest of the family back to see our sweet baby:

I know they’re short videos, but I was glad to have everyone’s initial reactions on video.  I know we’ll cherish this forever and am excited for Carter to see these videos when he’s older.  I wish I had videos of the reactions of my family when I was born!!  Ain’t technological advancement grand?!??!

#73 - Check

Number 73 on my list of 101 things to do in 1,001 days was to introduce Carter to his great grandparents (my grandparents on my dad’s side) that live in Moundville, AL.  I was born and raised in Tuscaloosa, which is a mere 20 minutes from Moundville, so I saw my grandparents a lot.  Even when I went to college at UA, I drove to Moundville most Sundays to go to church with my grandparents and have lunch with them.  When I moved to Nashville, I wasn’t able to see them all that often and even since moving back to Birmingham, things tend to always come up that keeps me from seeing them frequently.  They weren’t able to make it to the hospital when Carter was born so I was really excited about introducing him to them.  Since Justin is out of town this week, I decided to drive to my aunt’s house in Tuscaloosa to have dinner with my dad, aunt and uncle, cousins and my grandparents. 

Nanny loved holding him, but most of the night he was held by my aunt Delane.  She pretty  much picked him up when I got there and only let go of him for Nanny to hold him so I could take a picture.  I think Delane is loving all the babies in our family!

On an unrelated to the 101 List note, when I got home from Tuscaloosa last night, I fed Carter and put him to bed at 10:15pm.  He usually wakes up one time in the middle of the night for a feeding around 2 or 3am.  I even woke up on my own just waiting for him to wake up.  He never did.  He didn’t wake up until 6am this morning.  MY SON SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT!!!!  I was so proud of him!  I just hope he keeps it up.  It’s obvious he can sleep through the night without a feeding, the question is will he do it again.  We’ll see I guess.  I’m so glad he slept for 8 hours, I just wish I knew he was going to do it and then I wouldn’t have tried to stay awake.  Even though he got 8 hours of sleep, I didn’t sleep well past 3am because I kept waiting for him to wake up.  Proud of him nonetheless though!

Tummy Time

Carter has gotten to where he really enjoys tummy time.  I really think it’s his favorite part of the day.  Well, I think it’s a toss up between Tummy Time and watching his Baby Einstein DVD’s.  I got a video of him during his tummy time that I felt like sharing (he’s 5 1/2 weeks in this video):

He’s been holding his head up since week 2.  Seriously.  Now he’s just getting to where he picks his head up off the ground and he’ll try very hard (to the point of frustration) to hold it up for as long as he can.  Such a big boy already!!

#40 and #36 - Check

Number 40 on my list of 101 things to do in 1,001 days was to order and send out Carter’s birth announcements.  These came in this afternoon and I have half of them addressed.  I plan to address the remainder after Carter goes down for the night and send them in the morning.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE these announcements.  My sister, Lindsey Smith with Lindsey Smith Photography, ordered them for me and did the template.  There’s a front and back.

Front:

Back:

Since they’re going out tomorrow, most people should get them by Saturday or Monday at the very latest, depending on where you live. 

Number 36 on my list was to finish writing all of the thank you notes for Carter’s gifts and get them sent out.  While I was mailing the above announcements, I went ahead and mailed these out as well.  So I’m all caught up now.  YAY!!!  I remember it taking me a while to write thank you notes from all of our wedding gifts.  That lag time is NOTHING compared to when you have to do it with a child.  For starters, you get more gifts with a baby for some reason.  Secondly, good luck trying to get thank you notes out when you’re a slave to the schedule of a newborn!!  You barely have time to eat much less write over 100 thank you notes!!!  So to me, this is a BIG accomplishment off the list because it took me forever!