Four Months and a Year Ago

Wow, I cannot believe Mr. Felix is four months old.  This week marks one year since we found out that our lives were going to change forever.  After 16 months, I finally got a positive pregnancy test on the Monday morning after Thanksgiving.  I didn't trust it, of course, so off to Randall's I went at 6:00 in the morning to buy a digital test.  I also bought some mousse, you know, just so I didn't seem totally desperate.  It was like buying tampons when I was 17 all over again.  Anyway, I woke up Sammer, we both cried, and I made a doctor's appointment for later that week.  My regular doctor was out for the rest of the year so I had to see her partner.  Now, my (now previous) doctor wasn't the warmest of women, but I liked her.  Her partner made her look like Miss Warm and Fuzzy.  She didn't know my history so she, rather coldly, blurted out that the test I took at the office was negative.  "Oh, but it's probably just the batch of tests.  Another girl ot a negative last week and turned out she was pregnant."  Yeah, not making me feel better lady.  I immediately went to have my blood drawn and completely broke down on the poor lady who took my blood when she said the doctor didn't order a "stat" so I wouldn't be getting the results until the next day.  She was so sweet, I felt bad.  I started laughing and of course it sounded like I was getting hysterical.  I would see this lady 4 more times over the next couple of weeks, we became semi-friends.  Wow, I remember this all so vividly, like it was yesterday.  Sammer and I wanted a baby so, so badly and it had taken so long for us.  It seemed like everyone else was getting pregnant just by looking at a baby.  Last Fall alone, I had twelve (12!!!) friends who were pregnant at one time.  Anyway, I called Sissy on the way home from work and broke down on her in the HEB parking lot.  Yada, yada, yada....Felix is here, all is happy, enough of this story.  On to the greatness of King Felix!

It seems like the difference between three and four months is the biggest one yet.  Felix smiles so much now.  He babbles a lot.  He grabs for his toys and puts everything (EVERYTHING) into his mouth.  He loves, loves, loves sucking on his little paws.  He is actually kind of on a bit of a schedule.  He goes to bed at 7:15 and gets up between 5:00 and 6:00, much to Sammer's chagrin.  He used to wake up about 6:30, but then Daylight Savings came along.  Curse you DST!  His limit for being awake is two hours.  He will always take a nap two hours after waking up in the morning and is good for 1 1/2 - 2 hours during the day.  I come home from work at 4:00, nurse him and let him nap on me for a bit.  It doesn't matter if he wakes up at 5:00 or 6:30, at 7:15 he is out.  We asked the doctor about his naps and awake time, supposedly he should be awake for 3-4 hours at a time.  Felix naps for only 30-45 minutes, sometimes longer but that rarely happens.  Doc says that's fine and that it sounds like we have a social baby.  He is sleeping about 3-4 hours total during the day and 10 or so at night.  He still wakes up at least twice during the night.  I don't really mind, it's nice to snuggle with him, but I wouldn't turn down extra sleep if it was offered.  :-)  He wakes up anytime between midnight and 2am, then again 3 hours later or at 4:30, whichever comes first, then up again about 5:30.  When he wakes up at night, as soon as he sees me he is all smiles and wants to play.  Between me and Sammer, it makes sense that we would have a snuggling social butterfly on our hands.  :-)

Felix just took his first road trip!  We went to Baton Rouge for Thanksgiving.  The ride there took 11 hours, but a lot of that was because of traffic.  We stopped just past Lafayette and ran into a full on traffic stop.  We took an alternate route, where we again ran into another traffic stop.  Awesome.  Felix slept for the last hour and a half, so we totally could have made it to Baton Rouge, but instead with the runaround he woke up about 20 minutes before reaching our destination.  It was a wonderful holiday, Felix got to be loved on by his Maw Maw and Paw Paw, and met his Aunt Sammie for the first time.  I think he had a great time!  It was fun seeing how much he is loved by his family that doesn't get to see him everyday.

Now for the big four month stats:

15lb 4oz, 50th percentile
25 inches long, 50-75th percentile
75-90th percentile (for his big brain, just like Daddy's!)

Here is another link to Felix's fourth month of life in pictures.

Well, I never got around to finishing this post and Felix is now almost 5 months old.  So we'll call it a day and have another post in a few days. :-)

An update on all things Brammerlix

Did you like how I just updated our name?  Let's see, what's been going on in our world.  Well, after the two glorious days of 7+ hour sleep stretches, there was a major regression.  Mr. Felix refused to be put down.  He would be sleeping for an hour and we'd go to lay him in his crib (or anywhere) and WAH!!!  This lasted for three days.  Three long, grueling, exhausting days.  Being the sweetheart that he is, on Sunday night he finally let us put him down and went back to giving us a good 4 hour or so stretch.  I would love to have our 5+ hour stretches back, but anything is an improvement over the last weekend.  I even scratched another "I'll never" off of my list - I brought him into the bed with me.  We were in the guest room and I just needed to lay down.  I was so afraid of falling asleep while holding him in the glider and he would fall or something.  (My first "I'll never" broken was putting him to sleep in our room.  I was so naive before he was born.)

Monday was Halloween and Felix went as his alternate persona, SuperBaby.  I wasn't going to dress him up b/c I figured everything would be too hot or annoying for him.  But of course, as the day got closer I really just had to have something for him.  I found this "costume" at Old Navy on Friday night after work.  It's a little small for him, but the 3-6 month size was HUGE.  He is right in the middle of the size ranges - 0-3 months is 7-12 lbs and 3-6 months is 12-19 lbs.  He is about 12 lbs.  Anyway, he rocked the costume. 

Suuuper-Baby!

 

 

 Isn't he adorable?  The back of the costume had a little cape painted on it, I will have to find a picture of it.  We went up to my work for the Trail of Treats.  Let's face it, I really just wanted to spend time with him and show him off.  It's not like he was getting any candy or anything.  There was another awesome meltdown on the way home.  I stopped in the parking lot of Chinatown and nursed him for about 20 minutes, until he fell asleep.  As soon as I pull onto the Mopac access road, WAAAAAH!  Poor baby.  Mopac was especially parking lot-like that day, too.  My gosh, it was just awful.  He pretty much passed out as soon as I picked him up out of the car seat.

What else is new...there is a different person who watches him on Thursday, Matilde.  Today she said that he grew a lot since she saw him last.  Maybe this is why his sleep was so whacked out last week.  Felix will smile at me when I come up to him after work and that just makes my whole day.  He will let me hold/play with him for about 5 minutes before he has worked his way down to the breast.  He's never hungry, but he always wants to nurse as soon as I get home.  It's very sweet, he misses Mama and this is how we snuggle.  Oh, I love him so much.  I am doing the "take one look at him and cry because I love him so much" thing again.  He is just the most precious thing in the world to Sammer and me. 

He is smiling a ton and we think he may have found his feet.  He's getting better and reaching for things but still isn't doing it a whole lot first.  We can see the wheels turning but he's just not there yet.  Since we received the big rainfall last month there have been a plethora of mosquitoes around.  Even in our house.  Boo Boo has a lot of mosquito bites and it is breaking my heart.  3 on his face and 3 more on his tiny little foot!  This is where Mommy goes "WAH". 

Felix is 3 months, 1 week old

3 Months

Boo!

Wow.  I can't believe our little Boo Boo Bear is 3 months old already!  Time really does fly.  What to say about Felix....well for starters he slept 7.5 hours straight two nights ago and 7 hours last night. STRAIGHT!  This is amazing.  He went from giving us one 4-5 hour stretch to this wonderful bliss.  I'm afraid it's a fluke, but who knows.  I guess we'll see.  The bad part about him sleeping so much is that he was still asleep when I left for work.  That made me very sad because I didn't get to nurse him before I left.  I try to get to work at 7 so I can leave at 4.  No more OT for me!  I would have stuck around in the morning, but who knew when he was going to wake up.  Of course, he woke up right after I left.  :-(  I really love nursing Felix, I am already dreading the day I have to wean him.  Or he has to wean me, I should say.  It is just so beautiful to watch him and have those snuggles that are all mine.  Growing him in my womb and giving him life was amazing, but I think being able to sustain him and watch him grow from the food that only I can supply is even better.

Felix is just amazing and is really starting to show his personality.  He is happiest in the mornings (he definitely does not get this from his father).  He will give us lots and lots of smiles and coos then.  Sammer gets up with him  during the week, which is a lot earlier than his usual wake up time, and gets to spend some quality Daddy/Felix time.  He says he doesn't mind getting up early.  I have a feeling this is probably the highlight of his day.  :-)  I love that they get this bonding time together.  Sammer loves his little boy so much, and I love watching them together.  They have their own little routine where Sammer feeds and changes him, they play a little, and he "watches" Sammer get ready for work.  It should also be noted that Sammer is an amazing husband and gets up with Felix at least one day on the weekend so that I can sleep in a little.  Have I said lately how much I love that man?

So Felix is smiling a lot, I think his favorite thing is getting his diaper changed.  He will smile, smile, smile during and after.  There is a little jacket hanging above the changing table and he loves looking at it, he even reached for it this morning.  He seems to be getting more comfortable in the bath.  He's always kind of liked it but now he just looks more at ease and less tense.  We have yet to get a smile during bath time, but I know it is coming soon.  I was so close to getting one tonight.  We can tell that he is trying to talk so hard but only gets out a sound every once in a while.  It's adorable, of course.  The same thing can be said for reaching for/grabbing toys.  He is thinking so hard about it but doesn't actually get his hand up there very often.  He did grab the rattle last week when my parents were here though, that was so cool!  He sits in the bumbo every few days but he can't hold his head up for too long so he doesn't stay there much.

Poor Elvia was initiated with not only one but two big poops.  I can't believe he pooped (big!) twice in one week.  Yesterday it was all over both of them, Elvia was cleaning herself off when I came home.  I should have known it was coming, he was letting out some major man sized toots when I left him in the morning.  Good thing he is so cute!

We don't have another doc appointment until 4 months so I don't have any stats to share this month.  Rest assured that he is growing like a weed and getting cuter every day!  Here is a link to his 3rd month in pictures.  I am particularly partial to the pictures in the froggie pajamas.  Seriously cute.  Check out the difference between the first and last pictures. 

Felix's likes are smiling at Mommy and Daddy, diaper changes, the octopus on his play mat, the baby in the mirror (oh yeah!  He is starting to notice himself in the mirror and it is just precious!), snuggling of course, standing on us and stretching his legs, watching the fishies (this is sometimes the only thing that will calm him down - thanks to Nannie for figuring that one out) and sucking on his fists, particularly the left one.  Oh and drooling.  He drools like a champ!  He also likes hanging out with his buddies Quinn, Amelia, and Sophie.  Ok, Mommy likes hanging out with their mommies.  :-)  We all met up with them and their daddies at the NXNW Oktoberfest last weekend, it was a lot of fun and aside from the car ride Felix was a dream!

Carolyn & Amelia, Anne & Sophie, Lauren & Quinn, Mommy & Felix

The car seat is really his only dislike.  There are two very long 8 hour (at least) road trips in our near future so I really hope he starts disliking it a little less soon.  Sammer finally experienced a meltdown of epic proportions the other day and I think he now realizes that I wasn't lying all of this time.  I wish I had been, I hate it when he is sad.  He has even begun arching his back when I start putting him in the seat.  :-(  Elvia took him for a long walk in it the other day so maybe things are looking up!

Felix is 3 months old, and as precious as ever.

Oh, and a big, fat DUH.

Felix is sleeping in his crib at night!  He has been napping in there off and on for a few weeks but Sunday night was the first night in the crib.  It's funny, he looks like Andre the Giant in the bassinet but a little bitty munchkin in the crib.  Even though the crib is exactly 11 steps from our bed, I still use the monitor.  Sammer thinks this is silly but I'm so afraid that I won't hear him cry for some reason.  I'm sure we'll be able to ditch it soon, but I really don't care about being overly cautious right now. 

I miss having him in our room, but at the same time it is really nice to have our space back.  Now we don't have to worry so much about getting ready for bed or leaving the lights on to read, or the loudness of toons on the laptop.  I guess this means he is growing up though.  SOB.  He is really getting big, more on that in a couple of days.  He is almost 3 months old, ya know. 

He took to the crib just fine, I think.  No problems at all on Sunday night.  Last night he was a little difficult to get to sleep.  That started from the beginning of bedtime though, so not sure it is crib related.  It could be separation related since yesterday was the first day with the nanny.  Who knows.  He finally went down at 9:00, which really isn't too unusual, then up at 9:30, we thought down at 10:00 but really he didn't go down for real until 11:00.  The silver lining?  He only woke up once, at 3am, then he was up for the day at 6:45. 

I am working from home today and Thursday.  It's so hard to hear him cry in another room without going in there.  He wasn't even really crying, just fussing because he was hungry.  But, Elvia is great.  He seems to really like her so that is good.  I notice that she doesn't have to hold him all of the time like we sometimes do.  Hmm. 

I can't say goodbye without a picture.  Here he is in the awesome outfit that our friend Katie made for him.

Pacman!

 

 Felix is 12 weeks, 6 days old.

A job ain't nothin' but work

Well the day came and I went back to work on Thursday, October 20th.  It wasn't so bad, not as bad as I was expecting anyway.  That's because my sister was here and she watched him for the first two days.  That made me feel very at ease, I knew I could call her 100, OK 1,000, times and she wouldn't care and wouldn't think I was (too) crazy.  It was really special that Sissy watched Felix.  Seeing her with Felix just made my heart happy.  I love to see how much our families love him.  

 

 

 

We interrupt this blog for a cute little froggie.  Are these not the cutest pajamas ever?

The first day of work actually wasn't that bad, I'm sure because Sissy was here.  Felix decided that he didn't want to sleep Wednesday or Thursday night though, so that sucked.  I essentially got 45 minutes of sleep on Wednesday and 1 1/2 hours on Thursday.  Fantastic.  I think he knew I was going back to work because he just wanted to be held.  Back to work...it was kind of nice to use my brain for something other than trying to figure out how to make Felix sleep or poop.  Plus I didn't do a whole lot.  I pumped about an hour after getting there, then visited, then went to the benefits fair, then visited, pumped, had lunch, deleted some of the 14,899 emails that I received while out (no exaggeration), pumped, and went home.  Of course, I got there as early as possible so that I could leave as early as possible.  I was fine until I drove into our neighborhood.  I think I was just overwhelmed by the thought of seeing him soon.  There are a couple of pluses about going back to work.  1) It is easier to organize life with Outlook at my fingertips, easier to run errands and "research" on the internet, and 2) I can drive with the windows down and the radio up.  That is a glorious luxury that I have missed since Mr. Felix came along.

Today was the first day that the nanny, Elvia, came.  I was a little more nervous today.  Of course everything went just fine.  Elvia came before Sammer left for work and he said everything was peachy when he left.  Then he came home for lunch and Felix was fine until he picked him up, then he started crying.  It didn't last long though.  Felix initiated Elvia with a good poop.  Poor lady.  He only poops once a week and she got it.  I knew he would poop today, the toots and spit up have been coming on strong the last couple of days.  I have been sleeping with a little bunny lovey so that Felix could be comforted by my smell when I wasn't around.  Elvia said that he loved it.  I hope so, because when I came home it was on his face while he was sleeping in the bouncy chair.  hmm...we will have a chat about that in the morning. 

I am working from home on Tuesday and Thursday this week, just to ease back into it all.  It will be interesting being here while someone else (not named Sammer) is taking care of him.  I'm afraid we may have another night like Wednesday or Thursday...Felix will not sleep.  He went down about 9:00 and woke up 30 minutes later.  It's now almost 10:30 and we cannot get him back down.  He needs and wants to be swaddled, but he is fighting it because he wants his hands to munch on.  Well, his arms flail and wake him up.  Should be a fun night!  Here are some pictures to help us get through it.

First time in the bumbo

Super happy baby!

Last day at home together

Felix is 12 weeks, 5 days old (Do I have to start saying this in months?  If so, he is 2 months, 4 weeks and 5 days old.  That's not much better.)

Our baby is sick

Cue major sad face here.  :-(

Poor baby, we (the nurse, Sammer and I) think he has a cold.  He is super sniffly, runny nose, sneezing and coughing.  It started day before yesterday, he had a runny nose at night and a sort of tough time sleeping.  You could tell he didn't feel good and it's like his nose would drain and that would make him cough when he was lying down.  Yesterday it got a lot worse so I called the pediatrician.  There really isn't anything they can do, it just has to run the course.  The nurse told me to get some saline to spray in his nose before using the aspirator.  His nose is pretty runny and he's sneezing more.  Last night Sammer stayed up with him until about 1:00 while he slept in the Snuggle Lamb (thanks, Mike and Jenn!).  Then I fed him and stayed up with him until about 3:00.  I decided I probably needed to get some sleep so I could be on top of my game to take care of him today.  He woke up about 4:30 and I fed him and held him for another hour.  I got a little weepy and every time I would sniffle it would wake him up, so back to bed we went.  He slept until 8:00!  That is unreal, folks.  Usually he would have gotten up once, maybe twice by 8:00.  He was up for about an hour or so and is sleeping again.  He has lots and lots of snot coming out.  That's good, but I'm sure he's making more as we speak.  His temp was 99.8, getting close to calling the pedi time again.  Poor baby, I just hate this for him.

The good thing is he seems pretty happy.  He's given me lots of smiles and laughs today, between the sadness of having his nose sucked for the umpteenth time.  He doesn't hate it too much, he's a good sport, but he lets me know when we're done with it.  We're having a pajama day and I've read him lots of stories and shared lots of cuddles.  It just breaks my heart that he doesn't feel good.  I thought I knew what love was when I fell in love with Sammer, and don't get me wrong, I love him more than anything.  But Felix...wow, the love just jumps to a whole new level with your child.  There is nothing that would stop me from taking care of him, providing for him, being with him, doing anything for him.  Earthquake?  No.  Tsunami?  No.  Nuclear war?  No way, Jose.  He is my baby.  I would sell all of my possessions and live in a cardboard box if I had to.  And I know Sammer would do the same.  We love our little Boo Boo more than we ever could have imagined.

Extreeeeme close up!

I now understand even more why my parents had picked up my sister and were on their way down here less than an hour after hearing that I had an emergency C-section.  All of those times that they've told me how much they love me and how they would do absolutely anything for me, Sissy, and Bobby really sink in now.  I guess before it was kind of, "Yeah, yeah, I know you love me and I love you, too," but now I get it.  I didn't think it was possible, but having a child makes me love my parents even more.

This is my last week of maternity leave, I go back to work next Thursday.  BOO!!!  We're trying to make the most of it...Monday we met Lauren, Quinn, Carolyn, and Amelia for a walk in Hyde Park (which was lovely), yesterday we went to Baby Day at the Alamo with Lauren and Quinn and saw 50/50.  (Oh, and let me just tell you that Mr. Felix did not make a peep in  the car all the way up to the Lakeline Alamo!   That is FAR people! He slept in the sling through the entire movie, cried a little on the way out of the parking lot and then fell asleep for the ride home.  Oh my gosh, it was heaven!  Last time we went somewhere, he got so upset he made himself sick and puked on the car seat.)  Today we were heading for yoga but looks like only snuggles in our future instead.  In the movie, the main character has cancer (with a 50/50 chance of surviving).  He isn't close to his mother because she is a little coo-koo and overbearing.  Of course when it comes down to surgery time, she is there for him and he is grateful.  She meets his therapist and immediately says, "I want you to know I smother him because I love him."  I know I will continue to smother Felix, I just hope I can find that right balance of smothering and giving him freedom when he gets older.  Right now, of course it is my job to smother him.  And I love every minute of it.

Felix is 11 weeks old today (2 months and 15 days)

PS - Today is Daddy's birthday, as well as Felix's cousin Robert's birthday.  Happy Birthday to Daddy and Robert!!  

Sleep? We don't need no stinkin' sleep!

Oh man.  Since his shots last week, we've had two nights of waking up every two hours.  Except for last night, when he decided to wake up every two hours for a while and then went to every hour.  That was fun.  Poor baby.  The nurse said the rotovirus vaccine could cause an upset tummy for up to two weeks.  I've made a pot of mint tea so that should help if it is his tummy.  I hope it was just a fluke, although he did seem a little sad.  Molds are really high here right now (you know, from all of the rain we've been getting....) and he had a bit of a snotty nose last night, too.  I can't seem to get anything out with the aspirator. I'm tempted to buy one of these.  Maybe that's what was bothering him.  Of course, he will sleep for hours if one of us is holding him.  Mommy is not down with that at night though.  When that happens, I don't get sleep.  If I don't get sleep, it's difficult to function and make sound decisions in taking care of Mr. Felix.  Sigh.  I know he needs to sleep more, I just wish he could.

I forgot to post pictures from his one month photo shoot.  Here he is at one month.

I didn't think he had grown much until I saw the pacifier in his mouth.  That sucker is huge!  The t-shirt he is wearing was given to us by our sweet neighbors, The Sullivans (Jake, Paula, Jarrett, Brian, and Clayton).  Paula was very sick with cancer and they went on one last family vacation to Port Aransas just after Felix was born.  She was so sweet to think of Felix and brought him this cute little shirt.  Sadly, Miss Paula passed away on August 25th.  Her son, Brian, brought the shirt over to us and said how appropriate it was that Felix's first outing (aside from doctor visits) was the morning she passed.  We saw Brian that morning as he was on his way to be with his mother.  Paula is certainly missed by everyone who had the pleasure of knowing her. 

Felix is 9 weeks, 5 days old