Wordless Wednesday - What is this thing on my head??

Elliott - 4 Months

Nothing says Happy 4 Month Birthday like a white terry cloth jumpsuit!

So, here's the scoop on Elliott:

The official stats are 17lbs 3oz and 26 1/4 inches. He's a big boy! And mommy has a sore neck and back to prove it :) Elliott is wearing 6-9 month clothing  (more 9 than 6) and even a few 12 month things. All our boys have been long so they tend to grow out of things quicker.

Elliott is such a ham. He has the best smile and shows it off all the time. He likes to laugh and I can even get him to do that deep belly laugh. This past week he's started blowing bubbles. E might be starting to teeth a bit. He's taken to chewing on his hands as well as blankets, rings, or whatever he can get to. Speaking of getting to, E has been reaching for things for a couple of weeks now. His grasp is strong once he finally gets a hold of something. Elliott is also starting to pull his head up more and more as if he wants to sit. The boy loves to "stand" and will even "walk" a few steps (with assistance of course). Tummy time is going well and he pushes himself up to look around. No rolling over yet though.

Little man is a good eater. He is still nursing exclusively but has spread out to a more manageable 2-3 ish hour eating routine. But he won't take a bottle. We keep trying, and he keeps refusing. He gave me a total "you are an idiot mom if you think I'm going to take this" kind of look the other day. I'm clearly never getting a night out in the near future! And while he does still spit up every day, it's getting better.

Another thing E doesn't like is the carseat. Ahhhh.....here we go again. He was doing good for awhile but is back to hating it. It doesn't really help that it's dark at 5pm now too because what he hates even more is being in the carseat in the dark. So, we drive with the light on above his seat and are constantly turning around trying to sooth him. I'm trying to limit his time in the car, but sometimes it's just unavoidable.

Elliott is taking a pacifier much much better now, so that is a good comfort for him. He likes to have something soft up next to his face sometimes too. E likes the bumbo, the swing, and the activity gym for a bit. He does strongly prefer to be held though. I'm thinking of trying the exersaucer this week.

I'm sad to report that Elliott is a TERRIBLE sleeper at night. And very hit or miss during the day. You would think with the third child I might have this figured out by now. NOPE. Right now we seem to be in a pattern where he will sleep about 3 hours when you first put him down. After that he's up about every hour or so until morning. The issue is that he wakes up (I think at the end of a sleep cycle) and just can't put himself back to sleep. So it requires me putting the pacifier back in, or feeding him, or holding him, or something. I'm not a fan of cry it out because it just makes me me more upset and crazy at seeing him get upset. He's still in our room so that makes it more of a challenge too. I move him from the pack n play, to our bed, to the bouncy seat, etc. But nothing is magic. It will get better......  In the meantime I will just put on more makeup to cover the dark circles and curse the people who write on Facebook "my 2 month old is sleeping through the night". Yeah, good for you!!! (I'm not bitter or anything).

Elliott loves his brothers. Except when they are too loud, then he cries. But for the most part they are good entertainment because they rarely sit still. Xavier calls Elliott "my baby" and Wesley is very protective of Elliott's things saying "dat's a Eyet's (whatever)". 

We are so happy to have Elliott as part of our family. I can't wait for him to be running around interacting more with Xavier and Wes. How fun it will be!

Happy 4 Months baby boy!!!!

Monday Lunch Time

Not a lot going on lately except a lack of sleep. Walter got a deer this weekend. But the photo of that is pretty graphic so I'll refrain from posting it :)

Here's the boys at lunch today. Wes was not happy that I had the camera out. Maybe because he was being so messy ?? But the other two were ham'in it up!

Happy Monday!

Sleep is a Pipe Dream

Sleep....it ain't happenin at our house lately. And the time change is really not helping our situation!

For the past several weeks Elliott has regressed from his "not even all that great" 4-5 hour stretches of sleep down to 1-3 hour stretches of sleep at night. One night he was up every 30-90 minutes :(  I thought things were getting better a few days ago, but he seems to be stuck at 3 hours or less. We've gone back and forth with swaddle, no swaddle, rock to sleep, put himself to sleep, binker, no binker, etc. Nothing seems to make a difference. And apparently I'm surrounded by people whos 3 month old children sleep all night. Why do I never get those?? You would think that at least 1 out of 3 would be a winner.

Wesley had a cold about 2 weeks ago and was up a lot in the night coughing. He's better now, but seems to be continuing the night waking habit every other night or so. And when he's up, it's for a good 2 hours or so. It's very annoying.

Xavier is a challenge to get to sleep initially. He doesn't fall asleep quickly and has a zillion requests (fan on, fan off, sippy, bathroom, etc) when settling down. More nights than not he does sleep all night. Unless you count last night where I was changing soaked sheets at 4:30am.

On their own, the overnights wouldn't be all that bad. But when you combine all 3 kids it's a miracle if I get one good 3 hour stretch of sleep. Poor Walter is up in the night, then trying to work all day, and go to class or do homework at night. You could take a trip to Europe for a year with the size of the bags under our eyes.

Sometimes I just laugh (in my sleepless delusion) at how many times I get out of my bed during the night to tend to someone. Here's a sample of last night:

X and Wes in bed at 7:45p. (X not asleep until 9pm.) E in bed at 8p.
I went to bed a 9:15p because I fell asleep in front of my computer.
E up at 12a. Back to sleep around 12:30a
Wes up at 2am. Walter lays on Wes' floor until 2:30a trying to get Wes back to sleep. He gives up and brings Wes into our bed. Wes spins in the bed and kicks us both until 3:30a.
E up at 3:30a. Walter takes Wes to the living room to watch a dvd.
Wes back asleep at 4a.
E back asleep at 4 am. Sleeps 10 minutes then up again. Repeat 2 times, and back asleep at 4:30a.
X up at 4:45am saying he's wet the bed. I change his sheets and get him re-settled.
E up at 5:00a
X in our room at 5:20a clearly not going back to sleep.

5:45a. We give up hope of getting any more sleep. Walter gets in the shower and I sit with X and E in our bed.
7a. X eating waffles and watching Curious George. E finally goes back to sleep. I get a shower. My mom arrives to help so I can take a nap. Yep, that's right folks, I desperately needed a nap at 7:30am. How messed up is that!!!

I did sleep 2 hours (and so did E -- little booger!)  THANK YOU MOM!!!!!

I know it's a phase and one day I'll have 3 teenagers that I will probably have drag out of bed every morning. That just seems so far away right now.

Last week, a friend of mine from a few years back watched her 4 year old son pass away after months in the hospital. Her son will never wake up again. I can't even imagine.....

So I may be tired, really tired, but that has put things into perspective for me. My kids wake up. It's a blessing I should never take for granted.

Halloween Festivities

it's November 1st and we haven't carved our pumpkins yet - OOPS!!

I felt a little stressed this year about costumes. I scoured the internet looking for the perfect costumes for the boys to be 2 firemen and a dalmatian. But I didn't find what I wanted for the price I wanted (because I'm not spending a fortune for an hour of wear time) and the sizes I needed. Finally I just gave up, and used some hand me downs we already had for X and Wes, and a costume I'd picked up earlier for E.. The kids are still too young to request a certain costume. They were happy with what I told them they would be.

So I present to you...........Frankenstein, Tigger, and a Puppy.

Walter had school Halloween night so he wasn't home to trick or treat with the kiddos. He was really bummed about that. But, Auntie Donna was in town and did an excellent job helping the boys trick or treat with me. And Gma Debbie was nice enough to stay back at the house to hand out candy. We only made it about 2 streets because then X wanted to come back home and eat his candy!

Back to why we didn't carve our pumpkins.....
We went to the pumpkin patch Saturday morning with our good friends. Saturday evening we had to volunteer at church. Then Walter had to work on Sunday. So carving just didn't happen. I think we'll do it with the boys next weekend (if the pumpkins last). That's the beauty of having small kids who don't really know the difference yet :)

We had a blast at the pumpkin patch. This is our 4th year in a row. Walter has a ton more pictures on his phone, but the likelihood of me downloading those any time soon is pretty slim.

Wes threw a big ol hissy fit when it was time to go. Somebody's always cryin.......

Our little family of 5. Although you can barely see E.

His little white bunting suit blends in with my sweatshirt!

A few days before Halloween we took the boys trick r treatin at the "Old Folks Home" where my gma used to live. They were Frankenstein, Dracula, and Skeleton for that one!

Well, I guess now it's on to Thanksgiving! Maybe I could dress the boys as Turkeys???