Carter - Three Months

Carter at Month 3

• Diapers: Size 1.  We learned that pampers swaddlers diapers hold in the poo MUCH better than the normal pampers diapers.  I’m not sure why that is.  But for whatever reason, when Carter wore the normal diapers, his pee and poo both would find it’s way out of the diaper and onto his clothes.  Towards the very end of the third month, we started putting him in size 2 diapers at night since that’s when he goes the longest without a diaper change.

• Clothes:  We have SOOOO many 3 month clothes.  Carter is wearing his 3 month clothes and even though the 3-6 months is still a little big, he wears those too.  He can no longer wear anything newborn.  I’ve already packed up all of his newborn stuff and am giving his clothes to Tiffany and Trevor since they’re having a little boy in May.  She’ll give them back to me when her son is done wearing them so that if we have another boy, I’ll have all of Carter’s old clothes.

• Sleep:   During month three, sleep was up and down.  For probably the first 2 1/2 weeks of March, Carter was sleeping through the night no less than 6 1/2 hours, but usually somewhere between 7-9 hours each night.  The last two weeks he’s been waking up around 5:30am.  The good news is that this works for me when I have him by myself and Justin’s out of town because I’ll feed him and put him back down to sleep while I shower and get ready for work with no disruptions.  The bad news is that Carter doesn’t know the difference between weekday and weekend and he wakes up around 5:30 on both.  But even though he wakes up at 5:30, he’s still getting around 7 hours of sleep.

• Stats:   Carter doesn’t have another pediatrician appointment until 4 months, so I don’t have official weight and height percentages.  However, we bought a scale and I tried my best to measure his height and here’s what I got:  13lbs 10oz and 25 inches long.  I may be slightly off on the height…he kicks his legs a lot and it’s hard to measure him.

• Waketime Activities:  Our waketime activities still include Baby Einstein and Praise Baby DVDs, tummy time in various places in the house, playing on the ocean playmat, observing the house in his mamaroo swing, and bathtime.  I went back to work on March 19th and Justin had him at our house that week, but this week (March 26th) was his first week at his daycare (aka - Justin’s parents house).  I’m not really sure what kind of wake times they do over there.  Knowing my mother in law, she would spend an entire waketime just holding him.  Nana loves him so much.

• Abilities:  He can hold his head up for very long periods of time now!!  And not just at a 45 degree angle but a 90 degree angle.  He can roll from his tummy to his back, but not from his back to his tummy (the books say this doesn’t come until 4 months).  He’s starting to make noise when he laughs.  I can tell when he laughs because his entire face shows it.  It’s a totally different facial expression than a smile, much much bigger.  When he thinks something is funny, he’ll make the laughing facial expression, but when he thinks something is REALLY funny, he cackles.  It’s hysterical to watch and listen to.  He’s also learning to reach for things and have control over his hands.  There’s a toy that is on the handle on his car seat and when you pull it, it makes noise.  He’s learning that he can reach his hand up and pull it for it to make noise.  A lot of the time, if he pulls it once, he’ll just leave his hand on the handle and keep pulling.  It’s as if he is afraid to let go because he won’t know how to grab it again.  And even though I shouldn’t, I laugh when he tried so hard to reach for the handle, but his hand keeps missing it.  He’s trying so hard and you can see it in his facial expression.

• Likes:

  • The kid LOVES watching TV, not just Baby Einstein or Praise Baby DVD’s, but all TV.  He gets mesmerized by it. 
  • Mirrors, lights and ceiling fans
  • Being put in his woombie downstairs.  We usually do this upstairs and he screams because he doesn’t want to take a nap, but we’ve found that (for some reason we don’t understand) when we put him in his woombie downstairs in the pack n’ play, he thinks it’s funny.  He laughs the whole time.
  • He starting to like bathtime.  He didn’t have a problem with it before (he never cried or anything) but now he smiles and laughs while he’s in the tub.  He also has figured out that the two things at the bottom of his body are controlled by him, therefore, he LOVES kicking his feet in the tub and splashing the water around.
  • Gizmo.  He’s finally realized that Gizmo exists and he frequently laughs at her when she’s around and will follow her with his eyes.
  • Morning.  My baby is SO incredibly happy in the mornings.  It makes it hard to drop him off and go to work.
• Dislikes:
  • The sun - it’s a little bright for his liking.  We’re hoping to get over this by letting him play outside more.  We’re gonna need our kid to be outdoorsy!
  • Having his bottle taken away.  When bottle feeding, we usually stop every ounce or two to try to get a burp out.  He HATES when we do that.  He starts screaming…and I mean SCREAMING.  Eyes closed, mouth open, holding his breath screaming.  The bad kind.  Side note - he still gets mostly breastmilk even though I’m back at work.  I pump and he usually only gets one formula bottle a day if he gets one at all.
  • Bumbo Seat.  For some reason, he can only handle the bumbo seat for so long….only a couple of minutes.

#94 - Check

Number 94 on my list of 101 things to do in 1,001 days was to go back to work and NOT cry.  I went back to work today and shockingly, I didn’t cry once!!!  My plan was to keep myself as busy as possible in order to not think about the fact that I wasn’t with my baby.  It’s still our busy season at work and I didn’t even go to my office, I was working at one of my client’s offices.   Since I was at a client’s office, I definitely had work to keep me busy all day.  I will say the one thing I really didn’t like (aside from just being at work in general) was pumping.  I’m not a fan of pumping while at work!  Justin sent me several pictures of Carter throughout the day so that also helped.

The one part of the day that about made me cry was when I got an email from one of our receptionists that I had a delivery at the office.  I wasn’t expecting anything, but as soon as she said that, I immediately thought that Justin sent me flowers.  He has sent me flowers to work on Valentine’s Day and my birthday every year that I’ve been working at my firm, so that was my first thought.  I called him and he swore up and down that he didn’t send anything.  So I asked the receptionist what the delivery was and she sent me these pictures:

So since it said it was “from Carter”, I actually had no idea who it was from.  One of our employees offered to call the florist to see who actually ordered the flowers.  Come to find out, it was from my in-laws.  How sweet of them!!!  They’re in Mexico right now on a mission trip so I can’t call them to say thank you.  They are so awesome.

Overall, today was a success.  We’ll see how I am by Friday though :)

Always Have Him In A Diaper…

Otherwise you end up with this:

While getting Carter ready for a bath, he did this to me.  Daddy was getting the bath ready while mommy was getting him out of his clothes and took off his diaper.  I know better than to walk around with a naked baby, trust me.  After taking off his diaper, I wrapped him in a towel and walked to the bathroom where he takes his baths.  When we I got to the bathroom, I decided to weigh him (he’s 13 pounds now) so I had to take the towel off.  As soon as I got done weighing him, I picked him up and was seconds away from passing him to daddy for him to give the bath.  In those seconds, he peed on me.  And that’s A LOT of pee!!  What’s funny is that right before he peed on me, Justin turned around and saw that I was holding Carter naked and he said “poop on mommy!  Poop on mommy!”.  ALWAYS HAVE HIM IN A DIAPER!

#30, #31 and #37 - CHECK

Three more things to knock off the list!  Number 30 on my list of 101 things to do in 1,001 days was to lose the pregnancy weight.  11 weeks after Carter was born, I did just that!!!  My goal was always to lose the weight before I went back to work, which I did!!   I gained 36 pounds when I was pregnant.  I was rapidly losing weight after I had Carter up until about January 17th and then I stalled out until February 21st, even gaining a couple of pounds back.  Between February 21st and March 15th I lost the remaining 12 pounds and reached a pound below what I was when I got pregnant!!  Yes, I kept a log. 

Number 31 on my list was to watch Carter laugh on purpose.  He’s been doing this since about a month and a half (6ish weeks old).  I’ve yet to take the time to video him doing it, but I have a favorite picture:

One of these days I’ll get it on video and post it.  His laugh lights up a room :)

Finally, number 37 on my list was to move Carter to sleeping all of his daytime naps in his crib upstairs.  Again, he’s been doing this since about 6 weeks old (I’m not good at blogging about things when they actually happen).  He was originally sleeping downstairs in his pack n’ play but we needed him to be able to sleep in his crib, so when he was around 4 weeks old (I think), we started doing one nap a day upstairs, but he wasn’t loving that.  I finally decided it was all or nothing so I put him in his crib upstairs for all of his naps, everyday.  It was an adjustment, but after 2 or 3 days, he was taking great naps. 

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

 

Happy St. Patrick’s Day from the Morris family!!

Today, we went to a neighborhood St. Patrick’s Day Party.  It was great to see all the neighbors.  We haven’t seen most of them in a while.

Everybody knew we had Carter, but not everyone had seen him yet.  So we got to show him off for the first time :)

Our first family photo since December!!!

Carter was beginning to get pretty sleepy, so we had to take him home so he could get his nap.

Tummy Time Comparison

Carter is almost three months old now and his tummy time skills have GREATLY improved.  For comparison purposes….

Here’s Carter doing tummy time at 5 weeks old:

And here’s baby boy doing tummy time at 11 weeks old:

Yes, that is an episode of How I Met Your Mother that you’re hearing in the video.  I was recording right next to the speakers so it’s pretty easy to understand.  Carter LOVES watching TV these days and will lift his head for very long periods of time in order to see the TV.  At 5 weeks, he could barely hold his head up for more than a few seconds.  Now, he’s holding it up for 5 minutes or more!  So proud of the progress he’s made.

I haven’t blogged about much other than Carter recently, mainly because I’ve been at home with him and that’s all I have time for.  So here’s a quick update on me:

• I go back to work on Monday…and I’m dreading it.  Justin is in town next week so he’ll keep Carter then, but Debbie (Justin’s mother) will be keeping him whenever he’s out of town.
• One of the things on my 101 list was to lose the pregnancy weight and I haven’t marked it off yet, but will very soon.  I’m only 1 pound away from it and can finally fit into my old pants again!!
• I think the weight has come off by breastfeeding and doing P90x.  I started doing P90 again 6 weeks postpartum when the doc told me I could.  I completed 5 weeks of it, but I’m wondering if I’ll be able to complete the rest.  Exercising is hard enough to make time for without a baby, but imagine doing it with a baby whose daddy is frequently out of town.  I rarely have time for myself.  I try my best to do the workouts on the days I’m supposed to do them and plan to finish P90, however, it may not be done in 90 days.  It may take longer.
• As mentioned above, I’m still breastfeeding and honestly don’t see and end in sight!  He’s doing great on my milk and it’s gotten to be second nature to me.

That’s about all I got for now!

#58 - CHECK

Number 58 on my list of 101 things to do in 1,001 days was to replace the empty frames I purchased from my sister (Lindsey Smith Photography) with some of Carter’s newborn photos.  I finally got the pictures in this week and had to wait for Justin to get home from being out of town to help me put the big one in the frame.  The big frame is close to 50 pounds and is NOT easy to get on and off the wall without assistance.  Here’s the finished product:

This is the big frame that weighs close to 50 pounds.  I just LOVE that picture of him!!

Close up

These are two smaller frames and I just love these pictures of Carter with both me and his daddy so I had to incorporate them into his nursery.

Close up

Now, Carter’s room is one step closer to being finished.  I already have some blackout curtains on his window, but they were super cheap and not the right shade of white to match his room, but I needed to get some quickly because the sun comes into his room very easily and it was hard for him to take naps.  So I’d like to get some better curtains as well as a lamp.  After those two things, his room will officially be finished.  I should have put that on my 101 list!