Garrett - 3 Months

Diapers

We’re up to size 2’s now.  We moved to size 2 about halfway through the month I think.

 

Shoe Size

He doesn’t wear shoes yet so I have no idea!

 

Clothes

Mostly 3 month clothes now.  He’s totally outgrown newborn and I’ve already sold most of those clothes.  Some of the clothes he wears now is 3-6 months, but they’re a little baggy.  He also wears some Circo 6 month clothes, but that brand runs super small.  Carter was much smaller than Garrett is and he was also wearing those Circo 6 month clothes around 4 months too.

Feeding

Garrett feeds great!!  He nurses most of the time, but sometimes he has a breastmilk bottle (just depends on where we are and what we’re doing).  He does get one formula bottle and it’s the one around 10:30pm.  Formula fills them up more than breastmilk, so we do this to help him sleep through the night.  I also made my first deposit at the Milk Bank of Alabama.  It was a whopping 264 ounces!!!   I counted and thought it was 251 ounces, but the milk bank emailed me and told me it was 264.   I still have to get a blood test before they can start processing and giving my milk to NICU’s.  I can’t have the blood test until about March 2nd because I had a blood transfusion after G’s birth and they won’t allow a blood test until 4 months after a transfusion.  Until then, they will store my milk for me since I’m running out of room!

Schedule

Still doing well off a schedule.  The great thing about Garrett is that he thrives off of anything!  He does great when we’re at home all day and he abides by his schedule, but he’s also ok when we have to get out and about and is thrown off his schedule.  He’s really good at falling asleep in the stroller so that makes hauling him around to run errands very easy.  He also falls asleep almost immediately when a car starts moving.  Such a great baby!

Sleep

For the first couple of weeks of this month, Garrett was getting his dreamfeed sometime between 9-11pm, then he would wake up around 3 or 4am.  I was ready to be able to sleep better so I started sleep training.  When he woke up I would go up there and give him a paci and then he’d fall back asleep for a couple of hours.  The time that he wakes up got pushed back further and further and now, for the past two weeks, Garrett gets the dreamfeed between 10pm-11pm and he sleeps until after 7. Just the other day I had to wake him up at 8:15!!   It’s kind of funny, because sometimes Carter shockingly wakes up before Garrett!!! 

 

Waketime

I’m definitely not using Baby Einstein as much as I did with Carter.  Maybe it’s because Garrett is satisfied with other things when Carter wasn’t.  His favorite thing right now is the music mat.  There’s a mirror that hangs over his head and he just smiles so big and laughs when he sees himself.  He also plays on the ocean mat that we have, swings in the mamaroo (Carter never really liked the mamaroo so I’m glad we’re getting some use out of it this time around), and he also sits in his bouncy seat while mommy takes showers!  He’s just content wherever he is…it’s amazing!!

Mother’s Day Out

I actually just turned in Garrett’s registration forms for school.  Carter will go to 3K starting in September and 3K is three days a week instead of two days (like Mother’s Day Out).   The plan was for Carter to go to school Tuesday, Thursday and Friday and for Garrett to go to school Tuesday and Thursday.  This year they started a 3rd day for Mother’s Day Out at an extra charge.  I told Justin that if I had to go up to the church three days for Carter that we may as well put Garrett in on Fridays too.  So we’re paying a little more for Garrett to go three days a week like Carter will.  Both kids will do the Summer Fun program that starts in June.  It lasts four weeks and is three days a week from 9-1pm.  Nice off time for mommy :)

 

Justin’s Travel

Justin is out of town this week, but he’s been in town since Christmas!  It’s been nice to finally have an extra pair of adult hands around the house helping out.  He only goes out of town one week in February too!!

 

**How hilarious is this picture?!?!? **

Statistics

Garrett’s next appointment is his 4 month appointment so I don’t have official stats, but I measured him at 24 inches and he weights 14 pounds, 14 ounces.  Based on a chart I saw online, this puts him in the 60% for height and 80% for weight. 

 

Abilities

He’s doing spectacular at tummy time!  He can hold his head up for super long periods of time.  He is also starting to touch toys, but he can’t really grasp them just yet.  He’s also starting to figure out how to suck his fingers.  He may end up being a thumb sucker like his brother!  He’s already rolled from tummy to back, but I can tell he’s working on rolling from back to tummy.  When I put him on his tummy, he frequently rolls onto his side but he just can’t get that bottom arm to move so the he can roll to his tummy, so he ends up falling back on his back.  This is what Carter did a lot before he finally started rolling over.  I think he was almost 4 months when he rolled from back to tummy, but he did it very early.  Our pediatrician told us that this particular move doesn’t happen until roughly 6 months, so Carter was WAY ahead of the game.

 

**Tubby’s face didn’t even fit through this hole!!!  In his defense, that hole is TINY!!!  It was a cutout at the Birmingham Zoo.**

Teething

Definitely not there yet, but he has been sucking on his hands a lot though!!

 

**This was our first golfcart ride with Garrett.  He wasn’t a fan, but I think it was because the sun was in his eyes most of the time.**

Discipline

Again, definitely not there yet!

Other Notable Things

Likes

• Sleeping
• Car rides
• Watching brother and the dog walk around and do things
• Being held by momma (he prefers to be held upwards so he can look over your shoulder.  He’s not a fan of being held like a baby).
• Lights and ceiling fans-this probably won’t change for a while
• Seeing himself in a mirror
• When you shake his chest back and forth.  It’s when he laughs!  He also laughs when you rub underneath his chin (of course you have to move around that double chin to get to it!!)

Dislikes

• Being put in the carseat.  He is fine once he’s in the car and moving, but he’s not a fan of the “strapping in” process.

How Mama Is Doing

I’m now about 3lbs below my pre-pregnancy weight.  I’ll probably take this section off for the next post now that I’m all healed up and have lost the weight.  I’m still working on tightening up those muscles though.  Lots of ab exercises in my life right now.  I’m typically doing a P90x 3 days a week and Pure Barre 1 or 2 times a week.

Zoo Day With Cousins

It’s been unusually warm this week in Alabama.  Pre-kids, I loved winter.  I mean, L-O-V-E-D winter.  Then I had kids.  Winter means kids can’t really go outside and play because it’s too cold which means they stay inside and drive mama crazy, therefore, mama now hates winter.  But on MLK day, the high was close to 70 degrees so Justin and I decided to take the kids to the zoo since we hadn’t been in a while.  My sister also came and brought my niece and nephew.  We had a blast.  We were there for SIX HOURS!  I can’t believe Garrett made it through, but he did.  Talk about a low maintenance baby!!!  Here’s a few pictures:

This is my nephew Anderson, myself and Carter in my lap, and my niece Lydia.  Garrett is sleeping in the stroller!

Checking out the giraffes!

Those sweet kiddos!!

 

On the left is all the kids (sans Garrett since he’s sleeping) and myself and my sister Lindsey.  On the right is me and Garrett waiting in line for the train.  He had just eaten before this and stayed awake for maybe a whopping 30 minutes but right before we got on the train he ended up doing this:

   

On the left is Garrett in an Auburn cutout.  Justin and I looked at the thing and were amazed at how insanely small that hole was for the head.  We were sure Garrett’s huge cheeks wouldn’t fit.  He just barely fit so you can imagine how upset older kids may have been if they couldn’t fit their face through!  And on the right is Carter sleeping on the ride home.  See, he was good most of the day, but around when he usually takes a nap, he was starting to get SUPER cranky.  It was around the same time that I looked around and tons of kids were getting cranky and getting in trouble by their parents.  I told my sister “yep, it’s definitely naptime at the zoo!”.  We had a very fun day and Carter was loving being with his cousins.  He loves Anderson and Lydia!

Garrett’s Newborn Photos

I got back Garrett’s newborn photos from my sister recently.  They were amazing as always.  If you haven’t heard of my sister, you should try her out.  She is AMAZING with photography and with kids.  She can always get a smile out of baby or toddler!!!  Check out her website – Lindsey Smith Photography.

Here’s a few of my favorites:

Carter - Three Years Old

Cannot believe I am mom to a three year old!!!  So here’s what’s going on with Carter at age 3 now:
 Diapers
No diapers!!  Carter is completely tee-tee trained and has been for a while.  I don’t even have to take him to go to tee-tee.  If we’re at home, he’ll just go on his own and the only way I know that he’s gone to the bathroom is to hear the toilet flush.  Then he brings his underwear to me and asks me to help him put them on.  I usually put them on around his ankle and he pulls them up on his own.  He’s just not coordinated enough yet to put each foot into it’s respective whole just yet.  As far as poo goes, well, we’re unfortunately still not trained for that.  He just won’t go in the potty for some reason.  He waits until naptime or bedtime because he wears a pull-up during those times (he’s not ready for underwear while sleeping long stretches just yet-his control over his bladder only applies when he’s awake).  So he basically waits until he’s wearing a pull-up and then goes poo in the pull-up.   I’m about to force him to sleep in underwear during naps.  Hopefully this will force him to go in the potty because he really does refuse to poo in his underwear (and I’m ok with that!).
 
Shoe Size
It’s been a while since we had his foot measured, but last time we did, he was an 8.5 wide. 
 
Clothes
Our small boy is still small!  He can wear 2t and 3t shirts, but his 2t pants are still a little big!  I got a bunch of 3t jeans from consignment sales and NONE of them fit him.  I went and bought some 2t jeans from Children’s Place and even those are still a little too big!  Pajamas are all still 2t or 3t, though I’m starting to put away a lot of the 2t ones that don’t fit. 
 
Feeding
This year had a lot of ups and downs with feeding.  We know that we do have a picky eater on our hands (at least when it comes to trying new things), however his pickiness has started to get less and less as time goes by.  He now eats pizza!  It’s not his favorite thing to eat, but he will eat it.  I finally got him eating grilled chicken again, too.  He used to eat it but he hit a spurt where he just refused to eat it for some reason.  So I let it go for several months but tried again just this month and he eats it again.  I’d like to try for a peanut butter jelly sandwich next…or even a grilled cheese.  Bottom line-he still doesn’t like bread, so that’s what we need to work on.  He also doesn’t eat hamburgers yet, but I’m hoping that will come with age.  He tried potato soup for the first time this month and liked that as well.  He still does really well with his vegetables-preferring peas, green beans, corn and carrots.  As far as meats goes, he likes ham, grilled and fried chicken, and fish nuggets.  He still loves fruit too, particularly blueberries, strawberries, bananas, apples, peaches and pretty much any flavor of yogurt.  He’s tried a ton of other new snack foods, too.  His favorites right now are Doritos (cool ranch kind) and Mike and Ike’s. 
 
Sleep
Still naps once a day for the most part.  Sometimes he just goes up to his room for a couple of hours but doesn’t actually sleep.  I’m ok with that as long as he still has quiet time.  On the days that he doesn’t nap, he falls asleep FAST at night.  On days that he does nap, he still goes upstairs to his room at 7:30pm, but a lot of times he doesn’t actually fall asleep until 9ish.  On average, he still sleeps about 10-11 hours at night.  Naps range anywhere from 1 1/2 hours to 2 1/2 hours. 
 
Mother’s Day Out
Carter is in the Older Two’s class at our church.  He loves it.  This was also the first year that he will walk into the room and not cry.  He did cry for the first few weeks (new teachers and all) but eventually stopped and he hasn’t done it since.  When we get to his room door, he ALWAYS turns to me and says “kiss and a hug” and I give him a hug and kiss him and tell him I love him and to have fun and then he runs into the room and plays with the other kids.  I love his teachers (I knew them before this because they are members at our church).  This is also the first time he’s come home and sung me songs he learned or talked about things that happened.  He’s memorized not only who the moms of the other kids in his class are, but also what cars they drive.  He can tell me in the parking lot whose mommy is driving what car and he’s always right.  
 
Statistics
Carter’s three year appointment was on January 5, 2015.  They took his blood pressure for the first time.  He had Henry with him of course and naturally, Henry had to get his blood pressure done too.  Thank God for the sweet nurses at our pediatrician office that are patient and understand that sometimes the only way a toddler will do something is if his “friend” has it done too.

He wasn’t a fan once it started getting tight.  He kept saying “it’s too tight!!!” but he was able to keep it on because we distracted him by showing him the screen that had the numbers that kept changing as his blood pressure was being taken.  It was 108/50, which the nurse said was a tad high for his age, but she said it’s likely a bad reading since it was his first time and he was really nervous.  The doc didn’t seem worried.  Carter is now 32lbs (50th percentile) and is 3 feet 1 inch tall (40th percentile).  Our doc estimates that he’ll be 5’9 at full growth.  Justin is 5’9 so that won’t shock me.  We opted to do a vision test where the nurse stood several feet away from carter and had some pretty small pictures of objects (house, car, birthday cake, christmas tree…stuff like that).  He had to cover one eye and tell the nurse what the objects were and then do it again covering the other eye.  Carterman got all of them right!  We talked to the doc about him not pooping in the potty and after a few questions on his part, he decided that Carter is likely constipated and when he does poop, it hurts, which is why he won’t go on the potty.  He told us to give him a stool softener and we would likely see a difference so we’re going to start that soon.  The doctor also noted that Carter is developmentally advanced for his age, which we knew already.  He is so stinking smart it’s ridiculous!  We go back again when he turns 4 at which time he will get his very first tetanus shot.  Yikes!!!
   
Other Abilities/Random Things to Note

• My insanely smart kiddo loves to identify the states on a map of the U.S. now.  He knows the name and location of about 15 states so far.  For Christmas, he got an Encyclopedia Britannica U.S. Map puzzle.  Once you put a state in it’s proper location, you press the state and the map will tell you the state, it’s capital and the nickname of the state.  So for example, when he presses Alabama it says “Alabama.  The Yellowhammer State.  State Capital-Montgomery.”  He has learned so much by playing with this toy!!!
• He loves puzzles
• He still absolutely loves the alphabet and it’s the very first song he asks to sing at night before going to bed. 
• He sings songs on his own now too-mainly songs like Jingle Bells, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and, thanks to daddy, the Auburn fight song.  Thanks to me, however, he also knows a good chunk of the Alabama fight song ;)
• We are currently working on him putting his own underwear on.  He’s good at taking his clothes off, but is pretty dependent on us to put them on, so we are going to start working on that too.
• His new obsession-CARS!!!  Like the little hot wheels cars.  He doesn’t even necessarily play with the roads that the cars come with…just the cars.  He got roughly 20 of them for Christmas and he just puts them all in a line and plays with them. 
• We introduced him to Sprite and he is obsessed.  He wants it all the time!
• The biggest thing to note is that he is an AMAZING big brother.  Y’all…this kid just brings me to tears how much he loves his brother.  He is always checking on him to make sure he’s ok, he wants to help change diapers, wants to go upstairs with me to put him down for naps and ALWAYS has to give him a kiss and a hug.
• He remembers EVERYING.  And I mean…EVERYTHING.  We can’t promise him something and not follow through because he will totally call us out on it.  He also repeats absolutely everything he hears so if you come around my child and curse, be prepared to see the bad side of this momma!!
• He also (just last month) started using the pedals to ride his tricycle!!! 

**Picture above is of him eating a donut.  He LOVES donuts!!!**

Carter’s Third Birthday Party

As you can see, I’m trying to catch up on blogposts today.  Justin is at church with Carter while I’m at home with Garrett (momma didn’t sleep well last night and didn’t quite feel like going to church today).  So anyway, Carter turned three years old on December 28th.  His birthday party was on Saturday the 27th at a place called Pump It Up.  It’s basically a warehouse full of bouncy houses for kids to jump around.  Carter LOVES  bouncy house so I knew this was going to be the perfect place for his birthday party.  When you have a party there, you have the entire place rented out for two hours.  You start in one room that has a few bouncy houses/slides and stay there for about 45 minutes, then you go to another room of other bouncy houses/slides for another 45 minutes or so.  Then you go to the party room where you cut the cake and open presents.  I cannot begin to express how much fun that Carter had at this place!  It was the perfect place!!!  The only bad thing was that a bunch of his friends couldn’t come.  It’s the downside of having a birthday so close to Christmas.  Lots of his friends were out of town visiting family.  On top of that, there’s an insane flu epidemic and I got several responses from parents who had the flu or whose kids were sick and didn’t want them being around other kids to get them sick.  He still had a good turnout, I was just sad that a lot of his friends weren’t able to make it.

Here’s a few pictures from the day:

This was the first room.  I know….Heaven for a three year old!

One of Carter’s classmates, Anika.

Our friends two boys, Vaughn and Fisher.

Sweet Mary and James, who wasn’t quite old enough to slide down the big slides.

 

Clearly Carter and his cousin Celia are having a BLAST.

One of the slides was so tall and climbing this thing to get to the top of it was pretty difficult, even for me!  I can only imagine it was like Mount Everest to a three year old!

This may have been a record for the longest Garrett had been awake.  He was awake in my mom’s arms the ENTIRE party.  I don’t think he’s ever stayed awake that long!

 

Some of my favorite mommas!

And here’s several “in action” shots using the slide…forgive the fact that a lot of these are blurry because it’s impossible to get a good picture when kids and adults go that fast down a slide!

   

 

These two LOVE each other!!!  And apparently they both say “cheese” by grinding their teeth together!!

 

All the kids had a blast and I found a new place to take Carter that’s not the Zoo or the McWane Center or the park.  He’ll love coming to open play at Pump It Up!!!  Happy Birthday my sweet baby!!!!