Eli- 2 months

Eli is 2 months old!

I don't know how time has gone by so quickly already. He's getting so big! I swear, he grew overnight. Seriously, all of a sudden, his diapers and clothes got smaller and his body filled up more of his bathtub.

We had his 2 month well baby visit yesterday and, although I knew he was getting big, I did not expect him to be ELEVEN pounds 2 ounces! It was definitely a nice surprise to see he's becoming a chunky monkey. It's crazy now to think that we had issues with nursing in the beginning. He's definitely gotten the hang of it now! I think it's even more surprising because babies are supposed to double in weight by 4 months...and he's almost there at 2 months (he was 6 lbs. 12 oz. at birth)!

He is also 22 inches long (was 19.5 at birth) and has a head circumference of 15 inches. He's in the 25-50th percentile for height & weight and 25th for head circumference.

He actually hated the check-up part itself more than the 3 shots he got. We were amazed at how well he did with the shots. He's a tough little guy. He cried for about a minute after he got them, then I picked him up & gave him his binkie, and he proceeded to fall asleep snuggled up to me. All of the nurses were thoroughly impressed with how good he was. He was a little fussy last night, but mostly just slept after his crazy day.

He's also totally on track as far as development:
- Smiling responsively and spontaneously
- Following moving faces
- Turns towards voices
- Raises head 45 degrees when lying on stomach
- Making cooing noises
- Tracking objects past midline
- Startles to loud noises

He's really happy, in the morning especially, and absolutely loves to smile with a big old goofy grin on his face. He's really starting to develop a great personality. It was definitely easy to get lots of adorable 2 month pictures of him!

He gurgles and coos with us all the time, and even tried to talk to our 3 month old neighbor the other day.

Such a cutie!

He loves his daily tummy time and is a pro at lifting up his head. He always gets excited when his daddy comes in the room and loves to give him a big old smile almost every time. He also has his sad face down pat and loves to stare at us and curl his lower lip when he's upset. He's pretty cute, I think we'll keep him!

Hit By a Truck

Wednesday morning at about 2:30am, I woke up to feed Eli and felt like I had been run over by a truck. Thankfully, he went right back to sleep after I fed him and I was able to get some sleep for a few hours.

Then, I fed him again a few hours later and just couldn't quite get back to sleep because my whole body was aching. Let me tell you, there is nothing more frustrating than not being able to sleep when your baby is asleep. I just tossed and turned in an attempt to get comfortable, all to no avail. 

Eli ended up finally waking up for the day around 8 (so late for him!), and by that point I didn't even feel like I could get out of bed I felt so horrible. Thankfully, Nick was able to call in to work and didn't even have to go check in. So he provided invaluable help with changing Eli and taking care of the both of us. Eli was also on his absolute best behavior that day (wish I could still say that, ha ha), which is nothing short of miracle with a 7 week old!  

Also, thankfully, the doctor's office had an appointment a few hours later, so I could get checked out. They ended up diagnosing me with a clogged milk duct and an infection (probably mastitis) and were able to get me on antibiotics and pain meds right away that are ok to take while nursing. Once I started taking those, it was like night and day. I'm definitely still not 100% healthy, but during parts of the day, I almost feel normal again.

I'm pretty sure it all came about because I wore a sports bra that was too tight. Definitely not making that mistake again! I'm just so glad I was able to get in to the doctor early and that Nick was still here to help out. As much as I wish I wasn't sick right before he heads out to Ranger School, I don't know how I would do it without him. I mean, I didn't even feel like I could drive myself to the doctor!

But, like I said, I'm on the mend again, thank goodness! I'm feeling better and better everyday.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases,

Psalm 103:3-4

Sent from Court's iPhone

Happy Father's Day!

Yesterday, we celebrated Nick's first Father's Day. Since he reports to Ranger School next Sunday, it was especially nice to have him here to celebrate! We didn't do a whole lot, but I think Nick just enjoyed hanging out as a family. We watched some Band of Brothers, went to church and opened presents:

Eli helping Nick open his new olive oil sprayer

And, of course, Nick and Eli had their obligatory nap together. Eli made sure to wear his "Daddy's #1 Draft Pick" onesie and dinosaur shorts for the occasion:

Chillin with Daddy


I think they like each other

So, Happy Father's Day baby! I hope we made your first one great and we love you so much. You take such good care of us and we can't wait to celebrate many, many more Father's Days with you.

Update

Wow, my life has been a bit of a whirlwind lately. Unfortunately, that has meant severe neglect to this blog. When I only have a few minutes to spare during daylight hours (night=exhaustion), the first thing to take the backseat is blogging.

Let's see...where to begin....sorry if this is a little scatterbrained and all over the place, but that's kind of how my brain is working right now. Especially since Eli has been going through a growth spurt on and off for the past couple of weeks and sleep has been very much affected. For one 24 hour period, he proceeded to eat every 2 hours! Seriously. Ya, it took awhile to recover from that one. Thank goodness Nick was home so I could get a break here and there because it was pretty exhausting! We've noticed in the past couple of days that Eli's clothes are definitely starting to show the strain from all that eating. We have officially retired a bunch of his newborn clothes, which I totally can't believe, even though I know he's 7 weeks old. He's still a 6 pound baby in my head though, apparently. I keep thinking most of the 0-3 month clothes are still waaay too big, but tonight he wore some PJs that looked enormous, yet fit him perfectly. The real problem is he isn't quite wide enough for most of the clothes. I'm antsy to see how much he weighs, but I have to wait for his 2 month checkup next week. Anyway, onto the update:

- Nick's dad (Big Daddy) came to visit a couple of weekends ago to meet Eli. He got tons of quality snuggle time with Eli, which they both thoroughly enjoyed:

Eli & Big Daddy bonding

For awhile, we weren't sure when Big Daddy was going to be able to come visit, so it was awesome that it worked out for him to come! I think he may have secretly planned to come alone all along, so he didn't have to wrestle Eli away from his Nonnie.

- I started the Couch to 5K running program and have completed one week of workouts as of today! I think the hardest thing is getting going in the morning before it gets too hot here. But otherwise, it seems to be suiting me perfectly! As soon as my asthma starts acting up, it's time to slow down and start walking. And my pace definitely improved- on the first day I did 1.75 miles in 31 minutes at a 17 minute/mile pace and today I did 2.02 miles in 31 minutes at a 15 minute/mile pace. And I even surprised myself in that the 60 second running intervals seemed short. This next week, the intervals will increase to 90 seconds of running & 2 minutes of walking, so hopefully I'm ready.

- Nick's training (Ranger School) seems to be sneaking up on us. It's only 2 weeks away and we're pretty much dreading it. It's 2 whole months (hopefully not more) of separation and very little contact. We've all gotten very used to having Nick around with all of his time off. He's been so helpful (he feeds Eli every night at 11pm so I can get some extra sleep!) and excited to hang out with Eli, so this is definitely going to be a big shock. I know I'm capable of handling Eli by myself, but he still likes to throw me for a loop some days when he has his cranky pants on. It's just a little intimidating that it'll all be on me for 2 whole months. But, it is what it is, and I know God will get us through it. And thankfully, we have a lot to look forward to after Ranger School. I forgot to mention in my anniversary post that we're going to treat ourselves to a couple's massage as our anniversary present to each other and to celebrate the end of Ranger School. And we'll probably be starting preparations to move shortly thereafter, which is mostly exciting and only a little bit stressful.

4 Years!

This past Thursday was Nick and my 4 year wedding anniversary! Totally nuts. I can't believe our wedding was 4 years ago already!

To celebrate, we went out for an absolutely delicious dinner of Japanese food, courtesy of my very generous parents (thanks Mom & Dad!). We also went on a walk, and just hung out as a family all day. It was a pretty awesome day! And it all capped off with watching our wedding video, which was obviously a great way to reminisce.

I had my 6 week postnatal appointment that day too and I am officially cleared to work out and everything! Apparently my body has healed quite well. Yay!

Happy Anniversary to us!

Family photo (Eli wanted to celebrate too)

Also, if you're interested in seeing any and all pictures of Eli, click here. We've been trying to add pictures pretty regularly