Wednesday, September 25, 2013

FIVE MONTHS!

Porter is just one short month away from being half a year old! They always say the second kid grows up faster and they are exactly right! This has been a big month for little Porter-he battled an ear infection and the croup, he finished getting his second tooth and we moved him out of his first house.

At five months, Porter is:

-really close to sitting up on his own. He sometimes folds in half or flops over, but he's definitely on the brink!


-deliberately reaching for things and playing with toys. Most things go straight into his mouth.


-starting to develop his own little personality that is completely different from Paxton's. He is a lot more serious except when someone is paying attention to him. He always has a smile for everyone and usually even some giggles. He talks A LOT. And he squeals A LOT. He has to have a little blankie over his face when he takes a nap and he's still swaddled at night. Paxton always wakes up happy, but Porter needs a little time to wake up all the way before he's in a good mood.


-sleeping better now that he's over his ear infection. He usually goes to sleep around 8:30 and then has a little snack around 10:30. He usually sleeps until 5-6, eats and goes back to sleep until about 8:00.


-nursing exclusively. We haven't started solids yet except for a few bites of banana or tiny tastes of other things here and there. We are planning on waiting until closer to 6 months like we did with Pax. We haven't tried rice cereal again since his sleep regression and don't have any plans to.


-wearing size 2 diapers and 3-6 or 6 month clothes. I can tell he's smaller than Paxton was at this age because Pax had already moved up to 9 month clothes by now.


-really easy to take places. He still falls asleep in his car seat on almost every car ride and is content in his car seat for the span of a shopping trip or a meal out.


-such a cuddler. He loves to be held, or at least be touching someone at all times. He holds our hands or grabs our faces and holds on. He has also started giving big, sloppy baby kisses which he thinks is hilarious and I think is the sweetest thing ever.

We are having so much fun learning about his personality and watching him learn new things. With Pax I was always so excited for the next milestone that I didn't enjoy the things that made him a baby as much as I should have. This time I'm focusing on the babyness and maybe trying to keep Porter little for as long as I can. 

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

This House

 Today is the last day that this house is in our possession.  We close on it this afternoon.  It's defintely a bittersweet feeling...sweet because we sold it so quickly and for such a great price, and because selling this house means we are closing this chapter and starting the next chapter...which I think will be a pretty exciting chapter for our little family.  And bitter because this house held so many amazing memories.  We became a family in this house.
 I sat on the couch yesterday as the movers were taking all of our things out and unveiling the 1700 small plastic balls and cars that had rolled under almost every single piece of furniture and remembered...
 We brought both boys home from the hospital to this house.  Both times two exhausted parents walked through that front door and set an Eddie Bauer car seat full of a perfect little boy in blue pajamas down in this living room.

I look at the spot where Jared literally stopped talking in the middle of a business phone call and we both grabbed our iPads to record Paxton pulling up for the first time.

I remember the exact spot I was sitting on our three year anniversary when Pax was 14 months old and he took three unassisted steps into my arms and officially became a walker.

This is the wood floor that Jared installed completely unassisted when Porter was just a week old while I battled to keep both boys fed, clean and happy while fighting through mastitis.

I remember us sitting together in the living room, exhausted from two nights in the hospital with just an hour of sleep at a time, knees touching, just staring at the little boy we made and filming him while he slept.

I picture our house decorated for Paxton's first Christmas and can almost see him rolling and army crawling straight to the tree and pulling off ornaments as fast as he could.  I know exactly where he sat to open his first Christmas present.
 I remember mopping the floor of this kitchen almost every day during Paxton's phase of throwing everything off his high chair tray onto the ground.  This is where we set up his high chair for his first baby food, and where I realized I could remember the Heimlich for babies under pressure as he choked on a wagon wheel.

This is where we sat to paint pumpkins, paint valentines, color birthday cards and attempt Play-doh.  This is where I spent hours concocting Pinterest recipes that claimed to be toddler-approved, only to have Paxton throw them down in disgust, and where I slapped together PB&J sammies that were devoured in seconds.

I know exactly where Paxton stood when he licked his first beater...a beater covered in cookie dough made from the same recipe my mom always made when we were little.

This is the sink where we bathed both boys for their very first real bath when their umbilical cords finally fell off.  It's the sink where we've washed countless bottles and pacifiers and teethers.

This is where we spent the first hour or so most days when Jared got home from work...making dinner together, talking about our days, dancing around with Paxton and quoting the Office way too much.
 This is where we piled fun food and way too many drinks during family game nights, it's where friends and family gathered for cupcakes and cake balls for both of Paxton's birthday parties and for Porter's gender reveal party.

These are the light fixtures we sweated and cursed and watched YouTube videos and made more trips than we should have to Home Depot to install, the paint I applied to the backsplash one afternoon on a whim while Jared was at work to surprise him when he got home.

 This is where Paxton first sat on the potty.  It's where he pulled all the toilet paper off of the roll while I just laughed because it was his first real TODDLER thing to do.  It's where our boys had their first brother bath and Paxton laughed when Porter peed in their bathwater.
 The nursery is where our first project happened as we made the transition from just renters of this house to owners.  I had pinned countless pictures of nurseries with gray and white stripes and thought Jared and I could knock it out in an hour (spoiler alert: we didn't).  Paxton and I spent so much time in here playing and learning colors.  Every night after bath-time we all came in together and cleaned up together and Daddy and Paxton wrestled and threw balls at each other and at me.

We tucked Porter in for several naps in here...only to have him wake up screaming a few seconds later.  We both changed more blow-outs and pee-soaked pants here than we care to recount.  It's where Paxton held up his toy gorilla, looked right at me and made the monkey noise one day and took me completely by surprise.
 Paxton spent his first night in his toddler bed here.  He ran like a crazy man in circles every time his room was clean.  We stood outside that door and listened to him sing and talk himself to sleep  way too many times.
 All of the night-time feedings happened in the master bedroom...all of those middle-of-the-night minutes (and sometimes hours) spent staring at those tiny lips and eyelashes.  This is where the family tickle fights and early-morning cuddles happened, where Jared's rule of no kids in our bed rule was broken over and over.

This is where Paxton and I cuddled up when he was sick and watched Mickey together.  It's where he first said "clock" and where he and Porter spent the most time together, usually just staring at each other.  It's where Jared was holding Porter when Porter smiled at him for the first time.  It's where Jared first felt Porter kick and where we were when we found out we were pregnant with him.

Sure these memories will stick around, even as we hand the keys over to the new owner, but it still breaks my heart just a little bit to think about shutting the door for the very last time and very likely never seeing these rooms in person again.  I keep reminding myself that wherever we go we will still be together as a family.  We will always be making new memories, and wherever we are our boys will reach milestones and we will laugh at the things they do and say.  New inside jokes will happen and our boys' personalities will sharpen.  The things that made us a family did not happen because of the brick walls and the shiny new wood floors.  They grew out of our love.  But despite that, Jared and I both choked back tears as we loaded the last of our belongings up and put our boys in their car seats in the driveway for the last time.  So good-bye little house on Ridgecrest Road.  Thank you for the sweet memories, for keeping us warm and dry, for giving us a safe place to land, for containing the smells of the burned dinners and the dirty diapers and the new shoes, for letting us make you a little prettier as we lived there, for feeling like home from the very first day.  You'll always have a special place in our hearts.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Sick Baby

Porter started coughing on Saturday night a couple times, but I honestly didn't think much about it. Jared was at the OU game and I was spending some quality time with my fam. As the boys and I headed home, Porter started crying in his car seat which he NEVER does. By the time we got home, he was really worked up. I scooped him up and he stopped crying immediately, but sounded a little wheezy. I texted my mom and she said it was probably just residual from crying since it had cleared up as soon as he calmed down, so I didn't worry.

By the next morning, I was pretty sure he had croup. He didn't really have symptoms besides the cough and a tiny fever (99.6) but that cough is definitive. I consulted Dr. Google to see if I should call the after-hours number or anything and most things I found said there wasn't really any treatment anyway so I just watched him Sunday and Monday. By Tuesday morning he seemed a little better and his cough sounded more like a normal, productive cough.


Then on Wednesday morning, he woke up wheezing and I decided that this had gone on long enough. I called Dr. Campbell. He didn't have any appointments that day so we had to see Dr. Simmons (who was Jared's pediatrician when he was little). He confirmed that Porter had croup and that he should be starting to get better morning wheezing is normal and expected. There's not really a treatment for mild croup. However, when he looked in his ears, he noticed that Porter had an ear infection! I felt terrible because I had no idea! He hadn't really had a fever or runny nose or been fussier than usual. The poor little guy had been in pain for who knows how long.

Now that I know he has an ear infection, I have noticed some of the signs: he pulls away several times during each nursing session, he doesn't like to lay down, he is a little fussier at night and is wanting to eat every few hours throughout the night.

Hopefully he starts feeling better soon! I hate that he's sick.

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Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Catching Up

Because what else can you call a post when it has been weeks since you last posted??

We have been busy soaking up these last few weeks of summer, selling our house, figuring out our next step, and just enjoying each other!

Pax got a new Curious George monkey and has been taking it everywhere. He took it to the park which I thought would mean I held it while he played but he proved me wrong! He carried that guy with him everywhere. It was really sweet to watch him slide George down the slide and say "weee George!"


We went to Kaleb's third birthday party where we got an adorable picture of the boys with Aunt Teig and Aunt Mal. Now if only we could get a good family picture!



Paxton is still doing great at the big brother thing. He still loves holding Porter and playing with him at all times.



His favorite thing is when I put Porter on his monkey mat on his tummy. Paxton yells at him to roll over and then when Porter does, Pax cheers and claps and then yells "AGAIN".


We've been taking tons of family walks on the trail by our house. Pax is always in his own little world. He walks down the middle of the path so that bikers and runners have to go around him, he stops to smell every clump of flowers and point out every baby bunny, and of course we have to stop at the playground.






We also have to stop and look at the water...which is ok with me because just look at these two:



We've been hanging out with Grandpa...



And getting fro yo...



And at the end of August we had a family fun day! We wanted to make sure we took Pax somewhere fun for his last summer in OK (for awhile) so Jared took the day off.
We went to Andy Alligator's water park which was just perfect for Paxton!



(he had way more fun than this picture makes it look like)
And Porter got some good naps in.




We took Pax home for a quick nap and then we went to the Redhawks baseball game that night!












Pax even got his first Dippin' Dots.




We've been trying to soak up our last few weeks of living right by a Dunkin' Donuts...




We went to a Back to School Festival at my mom's church where Pax was an absolute wild man.




He had an awesome time though!




We tried library story time again and he liked it so much better than before. He even put up with the group of four 8-year-olds (why?) stealing his toys and making him wear certain hats to play with certain toys. Unfortunately I forgot Porter's bottle so we had to leave early.




We've played outside a lot...




And we hit up Oktoberfest in Choctaw.




We played (FINALLY) at the new Myriad Botanical Gardens splash pad and playground. I've been wanting to go all summer! We happened to go the night of an outdoor concert which made it even better! And we got to see the new Devon Tower at night.




Porter gets to bounce in the Jumperoo now that he's four months and Pax likes to bounce him in there. Porter always just watches Paxton. You can tell he think Pax is the coolest guy ever. I love it.




Porter also sat on his own for the first time on Friday (on the table at McDonald's because we're classy like that). He is hitting all of his milestones so early except the one I care most about...sleeping through the night!




He had a four-month sleep regression which I guess is common...I didn't know about it because Pax always just slept...so for about a week, Porter would only sleep around two to four hours a night and then want to eat. For the past few nights he has been back to sleeping for 6-8 hours at a time so hopefully that sticks.




He has been a lot happier lately!




And he has started playing with toys which is fun!




Paxton has been sleeping in his toddler bed for awhile now and has done so well. After that first night (where he got out once), he hasn't gotten out again! He stays in for naps and doesn't get up until I come in to get him. Then he claps for himself and hops down and starts playing. I am so proud of him!
Porter has had the croup for the last few days. I think he has a mild case...he has a pretty low fever and only coughs a few times a day and throughout the night. Hopefully he gets better on his own!




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