Mason's Half Birthday!

I can't believe my baby is 6 months old!!!

Mason has changed so much in this past month! That was really my motivation for me to catch up on this because I know in a couple weeks, I won't even remember when he made all these changes!
His 5th month was pretty eventful and exciting!

Some of his favorite things are chewing (on just about anything, but mostly fingers and anything cloth), pulling hair, playing with his hands and feet...and yelling at them, he loves watching Bailey and he reaches out to touch her. He still loves taking a bath. He's getting a little better about when we take him out and dry him off. He still loves being naked, but he's not as fond of diaper changes as he used to be. I think it's because he has to lay still and he's SO wiggly now! He has started to respond to his name, but only if he isn't distracted by exciting toys.

Breastfeeding is still going great! Yay for making it 6 months EBF! It was hard and a lot of work at first, but it was so worth all the effort! Josh gives him a bottle of pumped milk each day still and he does great with it. Sometimes, he even puts him to bed with just the bottle (this was a no-go when he first started teething - he would finish a bottle and still want to nurse to sleep). He is so curious now and he likes to play around as he finishes eating. He will do some of the craziest things! I get fingers in my mouth, he grabs on to my face, pulls hair, "bites" me (we're working on this and I'll hopefully correct it before he gets teeth) and my new favorite...hip thrusts.

He started teething and that has been a bit of an adventure. He's typically a very happy baby, but he's had several fussy days and when he does, it's obvious that it's from the teething bothering him. He gets really clingy and wants to chew on EVERYTHING. He was really fussy one day not long after he had eaten and had his diaper changed. He wasn't tired and I couldn't figure out what was wrong with him. He was just screaming! When he had his mouth open, I noticed that I could see the white from a tooth! This was actually the day he turned 5 months! That has been a month now and we still can't feel that dang tooth! I actually can't even see it most days now. Luckily, the fussy days are not often, and it only seemed to affect his sleep one night so far, at the beginning. He had his first fever as a result of the teething too.

The very beginning of his first tooth.

We both love his jumparoo! He has fun and he stays occupied for me to get some things done! Win-win. Want to know what's not a win? When he has a massive poop in there. Cloth diapers can hold a LOT of poop, so we've really only had a couple small blow outs. well, this was not a small blow out at all...

I mean...it was nearly in his armpit. Who knew motherhood could be so glamorous, right?

He's been very interested in sitting for a while now. He's been sitting while only holding on to our fingers for several months. He started to be able to let go and sit on his own for a couple seconds just as he turned 5 months. Last week, he was suddenly able to sit on his own for 5+ minutes! We've been sitting him up to play with toys and he's loving it!



He also took his first bath sitting up. We decided to also make that his first bubble bath and he really enjoyed splashing the bubbles!

We spent our first night away from him a couple weeks ago. My sister kept him while we spent the night in Charlotte. I cried when we left him. Of course I worried that he wouldn't sleep or something, but everything was fine. We missed him a ton, but it was nice to have some time to ourselves too.

Snuggles and our last nursing session before we left for Charlotte. This is my fur nephew, Benji. He was born on Mason's birthday!

I had to be THAT mom and do a Valentine's photo shoot. He was a trooper and toughed it out for longer than I expected him to! Here are some of my favorites.

 That sweet, sweet smile!

 He was so giggly for a while!

He's out of focus, but I still love this one...and it's the best one I got of the two of them. lol

He's gotten really good at rolling back to front. He's less interested in rolling back over. I think he actually really enjoys tummy time now, so he's not as motivated to roll front to back. I have yet to be fast enough to record him rolling over. One day, he rolled over and I sat right by his side for 10 minutes afterward, phone out and ready for him to roll. He didn't. I needed to refill my water, so I got up and walked in the kitchen. I was gone for no more than 30 seconds and he was on his belly when I got back!

This was the look I got.

We took him to his first swimming class. I knew I was interested in doing swim classes from an early age and a friend told me about an affordable place in Smithfield, so we decided to give it a shot. It was a lot of fun! He didn't get super excited to be in the water, but he had just fallen asleep in the car as we were pulling into the parking lot, so he got like a 5 minute nap before class. I was hoping he would sleep the whole way there and be well rested, but he's a curious baby, and that keeps him from napping well when we're out and about.

 There's a little splash park/pool that we get to use after class. The water in here is warmer and Mason seemed to enjoy just sitting with this little ball and looking around. We'll definitely continue to go to classes at least a couple times a month.

We met up with some more moms/babies from my August 2016 moms group!

We went to his 6 month appointment this morning and it went really well! He's staying on his growth curves! He's weighing in at 15lb 14 oz and he's 26in long. He took his shots like a champ! He got an oral vaccination and 3 injections. He didn't cry at all until the 2nd shot! He calmed down quickly too! Way to go, little man! So far, we haven't had any reactions, so that's good!

 Watching himself in the mirror while we wait for the Dr.

A little light weight training.

Now some comparison pictures to see how much he has changed over the past 6 months!

   

First and most recent appointments - 3 days and 6 months

 

Same sun hat - 3 weeks and 5.5 months

1 month


2 months

3 months

4 months

5 months

And now...he has also started to reach for me!<3 p="">

5 Months

Wow...I've fallen behind on Mason's updates for sure...surprise. Haha. It's tough finding the right balance. I want to make sure I'm spending enough time with him, but I also want to take some time to document things. SO much happens so quickly, I know I'll forget a lot of it, and I don't want to forget any of it. My first baby is growing so quickly! Quite a bit has happened since my last update.

He sits and stands with our help. He's starting to sit unassisted for a few seconds at a time.

Working on standing!

I never understood why parents got so excited over these tiny little milestones, but I totally get it now. I'm that mom yelling, "Yay, Mason!" and clapping her hands a bagillion times a day. It's fascinating to watch how quickly your baby develops! I mean, just a 4-5 months ago, this little guy didn't know how to do ANYTHING...even eat! It's just amazing to watch him learn!

I mean, he's happy during tummy time. This is new!

We celebrated his first Christmas!!! Obviously, he had no clue what was going on. This first one was just for us, but we still had so much fun with him. 

When we went to church for the Christmas Eve service, we finally let him stay in the nursery. We've been a few times with him, but we've been going to the infant room to watch, so we've been able to keep him with us. We could take him into the main part, but it's too loud for my comfort level. I also need to get better about being away from him, so this was good practice. We dropped him off and I did fine. We found our seats and sat down, then Josh asked me how I was doing and I started crying. I stuck it out though. He was crying when we picked him up. It was just because he was sleepy. He has been doing SO much better with his naps at home, but worse with them when we're out in other places and there are distractions.

We did our own little Christmas at home on Christmas Eve before we left to go spend the night with Josh's mom. We got up and opened presents with Mason. It was exciting for us, but honestly, it was a little rushed. By the time he wakes up, gets a diaper change and nurses, we don't have much time before he starts to get tired and fussy again.

This is the bag Santa will leave his toys in every year!

 Watching his dog open her presets

 Chewing on his wolf teether (Bailey promptly chewed half his head off)




He was pooped after his first round of opening presents, so he passed out on Nana!


LOVE the hat...the suspenders...the bowtie...love. love. love.

We also celebrated his first New Years! We still put him to bed at his normal bed time.

Josh and I had the week between Christmas and New Years off and we really enjoyed just being at home with him and being able to spend so much time with the 3 of us!

He also had his first "snow" this month! We were expecting a few inches of snow, but we ended up just getting ice with a dusting of snow.


We bundled up a little, then headed outside for some pictures.

So cute! It's been such a mild Winter, I think this is the only time he'll even need to wear this!

If snow is involved, I definitely can't leave my snow bunny out! After we took Mason inside and got him changed, I went back outside to play with Bailey for a bit. This is a funny picture I got of her. :-)

Bailey and Mason are getting along great so far. He is showing lots of interest in her and she's definitely interested in his smells. I look forward to them growing closer over the years! 

Mason - 4 Months!

Mason is 4 months old!!!

He has grown so much over this past month!!! He is making all kinds of new noises. He's been sitting up with our help for several weeks, but now, he's starting to try to sit up himself. It will probably be a while before he can, but it's awesome to watch him try.

He has rolled over a few times, but he's not doing it consistently. Speaking of rolling over, tummy time is so much more fun than it used to be! Now that he can support his weight up on his elbows, he's much more tolerant of it. We've passed our goal of 10 minutes at a time, which I never thought would happen! While he's doing tummy time, he scoots a lot, so I think he's much more interested in crawling than rolling. 

He's interested in toys now. He really likes rattles and Sophie. He's not really reaching for them on his own yet, but if you put them in his hands, he will play with them. He's very interested in chewing on everything.

He and Bailey are also starting to take more interest in each other. I've even caught her snuggling with him a couple times. :-)

Don't worry...I was laying beside them the whole time. He fell asleep nursing and I only got up to take this picture.


He laughs and coos a lot and it is super adorable. He's definitely finding his voice and experimenting with all the sounds he can make.

We got to go on a date night to Josh's company's holiday party. Since we were already getting dressed up, we used the opportunity to take some family pictures in front of our Christmas tree. This also happened to be the one year anniversary of the day we found out we were pregnant, so it makes me love the pictures even more! Anna and John babysat for us, so Mason got to hang out with Savannah for a bit! Here are some photos John snapped for us before we left.

Pearls and bowties!

Who wouldn't want to smooch those cheeks?!?

 
Josh bought this Tigger for me while he was at Disney. It used to be bigger than Mason. Now it's not.

He had another play date with Savannah when we babysat so Anna and John could have a date night. We did something crazy and ventured out with two infants. We decided to meet friends for wings. We were hesitant since we had only kept both babies a couple times even at home, but I'm glad we did it.

Mason met Santa twice this month. Both times were right after a nap that we woke him up from, so we didn't get any smiling pictures, but we did get some cute ones!

The first Santa was at John's work.

So stereotypical...pulling Santa's beard.

I think this is so sweet!


We wanted to get a picture with both the babies, but he was kind of over it at this point.

This was the second Santa, at our birthing center. We got to see the nurse that led our natural birth class!

LOVE the bowtie and suspenders!

We went to VA and he got to meet his great grandma, great aunt and uncle and Josh's cousin.

 With his great grandma! We had him dressed really cute, but it was literally about 80 degrees in the nursing home. He was getting so fussy because he was so hot, so we put him in lighter clothing. I don't even know why we had this in his diaper bag in December, but I'm SO glad we did!

With his great uncle KK. I have a feeling these two will get along great! He has the best Donald Duck voice!

We rode there and back in the same day and he did great on both rides. He slept for the majority of the ride both ways.

All of the emotions!!!

I haven't talked much about how the transition to actually being a mom has been for me, so I thought I should do that while he's still young, while I can remember some things and before I'm a mom of a toddler, because I'm sure it will change again then. I didn't know what to expect with adding a baby to our family. I don't think you can really mentally prepare yourself for it. People tell you things, but that's completely different from experiencing it yourself.

Mason was just 3 days old here! How do you prepare yourself to be responsible for that wonderful little life? You can't, you just jump right in.

The emotions I go through are crazy. I'm definitely a much more emotional person now...like, a total mushball. At my 2 and 6 week checkups, I had to do a post-partum depression screening. Everything looked great at my first one. At my second one, I didn't score as well. I wasn't depressed, but I had room for improvement. I talked to my midwife about it (I had actually talked to Josh about it a couple nights before, so this wasn't news to him). I couldn't make sense of any of it. I didn't really know what was bothering me, so I had to dig really deep to figure some things out. That only helped so much, because it still didn't make sense to me. After weeks of thinking and praying about what in the world was going on in my mind, I think I've figured it out to an extent. I was struggling to figure out what my new role was. While I was working through that, I kind of forget about taking care of me sometimes. I guess it started around the time Josh went back to work and our new real life started. It was kind of like his parental leave was the honeymoon phase. I'm incredibly thankful that he had that leave. Having him with me so we could learn how to take care of our new baby TOGETHER was definitely a blessing! Anyway, here's my crazy thought process, that I wrote like 2 months ago...

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I love taking care of Mason, but I'm still struggling to adjust to our new normal. I'm incredibly happy, but it's still easy for me to get sad over the dumbest things. I'm not happy with the state of my house. It really bothers me that I can't figure out the right balance of caring for him and caring for the other people/things in my life, including myself. If I get "enough" cleaning done for a day, I feel guilty that Mason only did tummy time once and I didn't throw the frisbee for Bailey. For the record, I define what enough is. Josh puts 0 pressure on me to get any housework done, so all that stress I have about it, I put on myself. If I spend the amount of time that I want focusing on Mason, I feel guilty that Josh comes home to a sink full of dirty dishes and a floor covered in dog hair and I didn't get any exercise. I'm learning to be OK with the fact that I can't do it all, but it is a very long, hard lesson to learn! Now, I'm back at work, and it's even harder. Cut that time I had to divide all those things into down to almost none and imagine how crazy that makes me!

Another thing I'm having trouble adjusting to is how needy I feel sometimes. Josh literally did everything for me during those first couple of weeks. I didn't change any diapers until we transitioned to cloth, so Mason was about 4 or 5 days old. Even after that, Josh changed all of the middle of the night diapers and most of the daytime diapers. When Mason needed to eat in the middle of the night, he got up with me just to keep me company. I didn't get my own food or water...he even brought food to me in bed (I still can't believe I ate in bed). He washed all of the laundry and took out all of the trash. He didn't have to work and we had help with meals, dishes and such, so he made it his full time job to take care of me and Mason. I never had to ask for anything, it was kind of like he read my mind and did exactly what I wanted before I even got the chance to ask for it. Every woman's dream, right? It was really nice. I hate asking for help, even from people closest to me. I only want them to help if they REALLY want to and I feel like if they REALLY wanted to, they would just do it. I know that's ridiculous, but it's what keeps me from asking for help, even when I want to. Anyway, I guess I got a little spoiled by all of that. As I started to heal and become more mobile, Josh took on more responsibilities, like yard work and actually going back to work, so he couldn't spend ALL of his time and attention on us anymore.  I guess that was just a harder transition than I expected. Josh still does a great job of taking care of me. He helps me clean the house, he almost always washes the dishes, he cooks dinner some nights and lets me do whatever during that time, he starts diaper laundry while I feed Mason at night. He does all of the right things and more, but I still feel so needy and it frustrates me. A lot.

It was just the two of us for a long, long time. Then we got Bailey. She was really good practice for a baby, but it's so different at the same time. Now, we have a baby to share each other with while we're also trying to make sure our fur baby doesn't feel abandoned. I don't want to be less of a wife because I'm so busy being a mother. I think it's very important to always make our marriage a priority and sometimes, that's harder than I thought it would be. Sometimes it's hard to remember to show Josh how important he is to me when there's a baby by my side who relies on me for EVERYTHING.

On the brighter end of emotional things - You always hear people say you'll fall in love with your spouse all over again once you have a baby. I wouldn't say I doubted that, but I didn't understand it. Now, I completely understand it. It's so very true. Not only did Josh help me bring this amazing little gift into this world (and not just by getting me knocked up), he was there with me every step of the way during pregnancy and labor. All of the appointments, the bad days of pregnancy and the good, every single step of labor - he was my rock and my voice of reason when I started to doubt myself. He literally (and figuratively) held me up while I was pushing our baby boy out.  He's been by my side through all the craziness of having a baby and raising him and that has taught me to love him in a brand new way. Even after all the things he saw when I was in labor and the way my body looks now, he's still attracted to me. There's nothing sexier than the man you love caring for you and your baby that way, as weird as that may sound. I feel SO incredibly blessed to have him in my life!

And of course, I feel so much joy when I'm able to take care of my baby. I'm healthy, he's healthy. When he's upset, I can (usually) calm him down. Our breastfeeding relationship has come such a long way and I really do think that has helped me emotionally. I look at him and I see his daddy (and a little bit of me), and that makes me so happy. Together, we made this amazing little boy. Getting to watch him grow up and help him to learn everything he is learning is such a fulfilling feeling.

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I'm doing SO much better now. I'm trying to get better about taking time to myself and that really helps. Josh sends me upstairs to take a bath so I can decompress a couple times a month. I want to start doing this once a week, because it really does help, but we have limited time between when Mason goes to bed and when we go to bed. It's hard to "steal away" an hour of that time. I know how to be "selfish" when it comes to other people, but not to my boys.

Adjusting to being a mom is not easy. Being a mom is not easy. It's a hard, hard job, but it's the best job I've ever had.