Doctor's Visit

I took Andrew to the doctor today for his 2 month well-child visit and he is doing great! She said he is ahead of the curve with things like motor skills and language skills. Yay Andrew! He weighs 12 pounds 8 ounces and is 24 inches long, both of which fall right at the 75th percentile on the growth chart. He's my big healthy boy!

I didn't take any pictures at the actual doctor, but I took some before we left and I just have to share. He looks so cute in his little man jeans, haha. He looks like a little boy instead of a baby.

I really don't think there's a cuter little boy in the world! I realize I'm biased here, but come on! He's a cutie, right??

Today I guess all babies are scheduled to receive something like 8 vaccines? Am I the only one who thinks this is a bit ridiculous? He's 2 months old! I declined the vaccines today. Polio doesn't even really exist anymore so we're not doing that one. Hepatitis B is considered a sexually transmitted disease. Seriously? Do they think my 2 month old is going to be sharing needles with the neighbors or something? So silly to me that it's a normal vaccine given so young. We also are going to skip the rotavirus vaccine since it's so new and isn't really thought to be that effective.

The ones my pediatrician said we really should not skip are the DTaP vaccine, the Hib, and the one for pneumonia. She told us that there's a local outbreak of Pertussis, so that's pretty scary. I declined any vaccines for today since I've been on these antibiotics for the infection I have. It's possible that since the antibiotics pass into the breastmilk, they are compromising his little immune system, so I don't want him to have a bad reaction to the vaccines. We'll go back for those three vaccines in a week or so, I guess. I just think it's ridiculous they pound babies' immune systems with so many toxins so early on. I know vaccines are important, but I think maybe they're taking it a bit too far.

I am so happy that Andrew is a healthy little boy. I'm grateful for his health and these beautiful happy smiles that we get to see every single day. God has truly blessed us!

Andrew is 2 Months Old!

I seriously can't believe it's already been two months. George and I spent some time last night going through all of our photos of Andrew so far, and it's amazing how much he's grown and changed since that first day we welcomed him into the world. I already miss how little he was way back then (2 months ago, haha), but I'm excited for how much he's learning! Today, he discovered that he has feet, lol. He was enthralled, staring at them and reaching down to figure out how to touch them. It was super cute!

And speaking of cute, here's a 2 month photo bomb:

Hi everyone!

Look! I'm sitting up!

Wait... Nope. Falling over again.

So much easier with Daddy's help!

Happy 2 months little guy :). You make my heart happy.

My Miracle

Getting pregnant wasn't easy. It took a little longer than we hoped. My pregnancy wasn't the easiest either between morning sickness, gestational diabetes and mean case of pregnancy brain. The delivery was not at all what I hoped it would be and ended in a C-section after 32 hours of labor. Now, even post-partum has been difficult. I have had mastitis twice (2 rounds of antibiotics to get rid of it) and now my c-section incision is infected too! What gives?? I want to just look to heaven and scream, "Lord, can you give a girl a break here??"

But then I look into my beautiful son's face and he gives me a big toothless grin and I know that those small things I mentioned above were nothing. Every single moment has been wrapped in joy because as much as my body has seemed to betray me, somehow it managed to grow and nurture this perfect, healthy, happy human being. I am so incredibly grateful. He's my sweet little miracle.

Happy Swing

When my sister was visiting just a week or so after Andrew was born, she bought us a swing. It's one of the really good ones with 6 speeds that also plays music and has a spinning mobile at the top of it. At first, Andrew would only stay in it for about 10 minutes at a time before he would start to cry. Now that he's matured a bit, though (haha), he loves his swing! After we get dressed and have some play time in the mornings, Andrew happily moves into his swing for a little while so that Mommy can have a little bit of time to answer emails and work on her book. :) Sometimes, like right now, he even dozes off for a short time. I wish I could get a good picture of him sleeping in the swing because he looks so peaceful and beautiful. Unfortunately, the swing moves too fast and all of my pictures come out super blurry!

I did, however, get a great picture just before I started the swing. Andrew is in a cute new outfit from my good friend Karen today. The shirt says "here comes trouble" which I love! I used to have a shirt that said Trouble-maker on it, too, which makes us practically twins.

Time Is Flying

I had such high hopes of chronicling Andrew's life from birth to forever, but man, time flies! How has it almost been 8 weeks already???? I've been trying to remember to take pictures as often as I can, but I just recently realized I wasn't taking any video. Yikes! I have already missed his super early baby days when it comes to video, which makes me sad. All I can do now is try to take lots of video moving forward! I just can't believe how fast time seems to fly by and how the days all run together. My little man is getting bigger!

Changes I've noticed:

• He's smiling A LOT! Mornings seem to be his happiest time. (Where he got this, I have no idea. It certainly wasn't from me!) He coos and smiles and is super alert when he wakes up in the morning. This is usually sometime around 6 am. I'd prefer it to be more like 8 am, but who am I kidding? LOL.
• As I mentioned there, he's making more coo'ing sounds and other just happy baby noises and vocalizations. It's super cute and just melts my heart.
• He can lift his head even more than before. He loves tummy time and has even started to sort of scoot forward with his feet. This is very suspiciously like early desire to crawl, and he's not even 2 months old yet! Scary!
• His coordination is getting better. When he is being fed with a bottle, he reaches for the bottle like he wants to take it. He just can't quite put two and two together yet, but soon!
• He's practically standing up. Often when we have him on our laps, he will push down with his feet and bring himself to a standing position while holding on to our hands/fingers. He's such a strong little guy! He just lacks balance at this point, but I think we will have an early walker on our hands.
• He's alert more often. Wide-eyed and learning about the world. He's such an awesome little guy.

I'll be curious to see how much he weighs on the 13th at his 2 month appointment. I am guessing he will be at least 12 1/2 - 13 pounds already. Such a big boy!! I am already having to order size 2 diapers for our next round of diapers (We have them delivered from honest.com), because I'm afraid he'll grow out of the size 1's in the next couple of weeks. How did this happen?? Before we know it, he'll be asking to borrow the car!

Here's a photo bomb of the most recent pics that are my faves:

 He's really the coolest kid ever! And I will try to do a better job of posting updates!

Short Visit From Nana and Grandpa

My parents were here last night! They spent all of last week at the mountains visiting with my Aunt and some friends here in NC so they made a slight detour on their way home to GA to come see Andrew. Of course, my mom was here for the first 10 days after he was born, but my dad hadn't seen Andrew in person yet. It was so exciting to see him hold Andrew for the first time!

Unfortunately, they were only able to stay overnight. Mom is a teacher and school starts back on Wednesday. Booo!! Still, I was grateful for the little bit of time we did have. They got here around 2:30 yesterday afternoon and we spent a few hours just hanging out with the baby. He fell asleep on his Nana's shoulder!

When he woke up and was fed, we decided to head over to the mall to do a little bit of shopping and to go out to eat. I am always a little bit nervous when we take him out for such a long stretch of time. The past couple of weeks have been very tough since my sweet little guy is having some gas/colic problems. He cries A LOT, so that doesn't make him very portable. We've been spending most of our time in the comfort of our house, but it was so nice to get out for a little while.

Even though Andrew did cry in the car on the way to the mall, he quickly settled down once we got him into the Moby carrier and he was snuggled up next to my body. He seems to really like the movement when I walk. I'm guessing it feels very similar to when he was still in the womb. We walked around for a while, and I got to go to my very favorite store - the Sanrio store! I haven't been shopping in a while, so I sort of went nuts buying new Hello Kitty stuff for myself. It's back to school time which means they have their new design of loose-leaf paper. I've gotten the paper every year for the past 5 years (it's a new design every year and once it's gone, it's gone forever), and I really love the design this year. I also bought a calculator, a new binder, and some pens. Fun!

After the little bit of shopping, we headed to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner. We had to wait for about 30 minutes to get a table, but Andrew did a really great job of being patient and not too fussy. The five of us had a wonderful time talking and eating. Andrew only got really fussy once, but as soon as Mom stood up and walked around with him for a few minutes, he was calm and quiet again. I took a bottle of pumped milk with me just in case, and he downed about 4 ounces while we sat there! Hungry boy!

Last night, we sat up and talked. Can you tell how happy I was to get some good adult conversation for a change?

 I know my parents loved being able to spend all that quality time with Andrew. We all went to bed around 11:00 and when we got up this morning, Andrew was his usual smiley morning self. I was so happy that my parents got to see his morning smiles!

I think Andrew was fascinated by his grandpa's low voice! He kept smiling at him and wouldn't take his eyes off him. So sweet!

We were all sad to part ways, but I was incredibly grateful to have them here. I wish we all lived just a little bit closer so we could have visits like this more often. It would have been so much fun to have Kris and Kanon and Susan and Doug and Sami and Casey here too!! I can't wait until Thanksgiving when we can all be together for the first time. It's hard to believe Andrew will be almost 6 months old by then.

I think Andrew was especially sad to see his grandparents leave. He's been crying all day since they left. :( Poor little guy. I really hope we can find a solution to whatever it is that's been bothering him. Until then, we'll shower him with love and let him know we're here for him and doing everything we can. He is one very loved little baby.

One Month Old!

I'm a few days late with posting this, but my sweet little man is already 1 month old! It's been a whirlwind of a month, wow! Being a mother is hard work, but so incredibly rewarding. I know this stage goes by fast, so I am spending every moment I can with him. These days he has more and more stretches where he is very alert and looking around at the world. I'm not sure how much he can actually see at this point, but he loves looking at lights and following my hands from side to side. He's such a sweetie! Here are a couple of cute pics: