Thursday, January 22, 2015

Knox is 6 MONTHS!

STATS coming after your appointment


That dog is going to seem like a bad
idea more and more for these pictures!

Dear Knox,
So that happened.  180 days have past since you were born.  You are officially halfway to a year.  In some aspects when I think back to the day you were born, it seems like it could have actually been 6 months but when I think about how fast you've changed it seems like it's just gone SO fast.  I have no idea if you are my last baby.  But what if you are?  It's probably a good thing that we don't know if you are the last because this day would be even harder if I knew you were.  I just want to really be in every moment that I have with you.  I want to remember every smile and every snuggle and the way you smell and the way you love to hold my hand when you fall asleep.  I don't ever want to forget the 6 month you!

You are seriously such a good baby.  You cry pretty much when you're hungry or you want to just be held.  At times I get irritated that you just want to be held, when I'm in the middle of something but if I stop and really think about that, what a blessing it is.  You are comforted by my touch.  You just want to be with ME.  I'm SO grateful that my touch can do so much for you.  I'm overwhelmed by the privilege of being your momma, the one that you just need sometimes.  How sad my days are going to be when I'm not just needed anymore.

Because I don't want to ever forget, here's a look at you at 6 months old...

Eating:  You are eating about 5 ounces at each feeding.  The timing of your feedings are still unpredictable.  In the mornings, you still don't really want to eat much but in the evenings you want to eat about every 2 hours.  That's newborn stuff kiddo!  We tried to give you rice cereal, let me rephrase that, Daddy forced me to give you rice cereal by threatening to do it when I wasn't there.  He thought it was time, and he was right.  I was putting it off.  It's not my favorite.  You're messy... not just you, all babies are messy.  I guess you have to learn to eat at some point, or at least I hope you do.  You weren't a fan of rice cereal so I tried oatmeal.  Not a fan of that either.  We might just have to skip both and try some sweet potatoes but because your momma is a rule follower, I'm going to wait until we go to the doctor on Monday for your 6 month check before I make any decisions.  In the meantime, you're happy with your bottle and I'm happy to not have to feed you with a spoon :)
Eating in the bath.  Awesome!

First taste of rice cereal... you didn't know
 what was coming


First try with oatmeal... not loving it either.

Your favorite way to eat and go to sleep, in a headlock.
Sleeping:  For four nights in a row you didn't get up in the middle of the night.  You slept through the night.  Since you're my third I knew not to get my hopes up.  I was right.  You were back to normal last night.  That's okay.  Once I get out of bed and get my hands on you, I'm happy to spend that quiet time with you in the middle of the night, which is about 4:00am (probably a wake up time for some but it's the middle of the night for me).  So we're going to continue with a late night feeding around 11pm brought to you by Daddy and a "middle of the night" feeding around 4am brought to you by Mommy.  You are still napping twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon.  I usually can time it right so that you and Ty are napping at the same time for at least part of the time in the afternoon, which gives me a chance to do some work because Case usually gets iPad time then.  Probably too much iPad time.  I'm not sure how to do all that needs to be done without that time.  You're Momma is FAR from perfect.  You'll come to realize that.

"DON'T touch my paci!"
Yes, you are still scratching your face.  Do they make those
mittens for 6 month olds?



Occasionally Mommy's tired enough that I'm not ready to
get up when you are so I bring you to bed with me.  It might
be my most favorite place to be.  You lay on the pillow next
to me and turn your head until it is touching mine and you
fall asleep.  It is so sweet!  

Sleeping in your headlock again :)  and yes,
your eyes are partially open.  They always are.
It's creepy.

Ty caught us both napping and snapped a
picture.  Good work Ty! Caught sleeping
on the job! 

Snuggles in the chair.  I love when you
sleep on me!!!  At least I wasn't asleep
for this one!
SIDENOTE:  Do you know how hard it is to type your 6 month post while getting a detailed explanation of how Spider-man climbs?  Let me just tell you, it's no picnic.

Clothes:  You are between 6 and 9 month clothes now.  Some 9 month stuff is a little big.  I've never had a kid who's clothing size was actually close to their age before.  Weird.  Your brothers, especially your oldest one was probably in 12 month stuff by this point and he sure wasn't only drinking 5 ounces in a bottle either!  Still no idea on shoes.  You'll be lucky to have those even when you're walking.  You are in size three diapers now.  I still squeeze you into size two's every now and then but lucky for you, your aunt is expecting a baby so I'm going to use the rest of the size two's for a diaper cake.  You're welcome.
Hoping size threes will help prevent this.  You
thought it was very funny though!  

One of my favorite outfits you're wearing right now
That's a hand me down shirt from Maddox :)

New Things:  You are very steady sitting now.  You still fall over occasionally but for the most part you are really steady now.  You are occasionally holding your own bottle.  Awesome!!!  I think that's about all for the new things department but you changed so much from 4 to five months I'm okay with that!

You also have your first Christmas under you belt and your first Christmas Eve dinner at the Japanese Steakhouse  :)
Meeting Santa



First Christmas at Grandma and Grandpa's You'll
learn that Christmas at their house is way better
than Christmas at ours!  

Crazy hat dinner on Christmas Eve at the Japanese Steakhouse
I forgot your hat.  Fail.
LOVE. THIS. PICTURE.
  

I love how your big brother is always
checking on you!


You have started to "sing" yourself to sleep, just like Ty used to do.  You only do it when you are sleepy and facing out on someone's lap.  It's so cute!


Case is still your absolute favorite form of entertainment!  You just light up anytime you see him and you still laugh the greatest belly laughs when you watch his antics (which no one else quite gets).   I don't think anyone else thinks he's nearly as funny as you do!


What Case gets                      What I get

You like hanging out with your Ty Ty too!


I can't wrap my mind around the fact that you'll be a little boy running around in the midst of all our chaos soon.  It just breaks my heart to think that pretty soon you aren't going to need to hold my hand to go to sleep or need me to hold you just because.  You're going to go and grow up just like your brothers did.  I am excited to see who you become but no rush there kiddo!  Take your time and just be little.  I love you Knoxy!

Love ALWAYS,
Mommy

Sunday, January 4, 2015

Knox is 5 Months



These pictures are getting tougher already!

Dear Knox,

You are 5 months old.  That's getting really close to 6 months, half of a year.  That's CRAZY!

Sleep: You're sleeping about the same at this point.  You stay up late with Daddy although you are usually sleeping through most of that time after about 9.  Daddy feeds you one more time before bed and down you go.  The big news in this department is that you are now sleeping without your arms swaddled.  You're still wearing your swaddle sack but you're only swaddled with your arms out.  Woohoo!  One step closer to no swaddle sack!
My favorite place for you to sleep

Probably a reaction from the noise that is
constantly surrounding you.  

Those hands... still together
Sleeping with arms out of the swaddle!!!


My snuggle buddy

Eating:  You are still not a "breakfast" person.  You'll eat your early morning feeding and then you don't really want anything for a long time.  Once you do eat it's not more than 3 ounces if that usually.  Then a few hours later you're back to normal and wanting to eat close to 6 ounces.  In the evenings you're cluster feeding.  Lots of every two hour feedings in the evening!  You're just really hard to predict!

Clothes:  You're pretty well completely filling out your 6 month clothes now and probably getting pretty close to ready for some 9 month stuff.  I've put you in a few 9 month onsies and they really aren't too big.

New Things: This has been a BIG month for you in the "New Things" department.  First and biggest, you started sitting up on your own!  ON YOUR OWN!!!  You weren't even 5 months yet.  You did it for the first time on 12/15/14.  You're still a little wobbly and I don't go far because you eventually fall but you're doing great!

Head's still flat.  Gonna need some hair to cover that up!


Big boy sitting up!!!


I love this picture!!!

You've started rolling back to belly.  You don't really love to stay there long but you're doing it on occasion!  I will have to catch it on video for your next post but for now there's no video evidence.

You took your first antibiotic too.  You'd had a cold for the better part of two weeks so I called the doctor and he called you in some Amoxicillin.  The same day you started it your cold developed into croup, which the antibiotic wouldn't treat but they wanted you to stay on it to prevent you from getting anything else.  You were pretty pitiful.  None of your brothers have ever had croup up to this point so this was s first for me too.  A croupy cough has a very distinct sound to it.  The croup took you to your first trip to immediate care, of course you didn't cough once while we were there.

About 8 days into your 10 days you developed hives... lots of them.  They were weird as they would come and go and move all over.  I called the doc on call and they didn't want to rush into saying you were allergic to Amoxicillin but they did have us stop giving it to you.  The hives came and went for about 5 days before they went away completely.  You never seemed to mind though.  See, You had all kinds of firsts this month!

It's been another great month with you, even though you were sick through most of it.  Your smiles never stopped though.  You are such a kind baby and this momma loves you more than I could ever put into words.  Love you little man!!!

Love,
Mommy
This is how you looked when they started


This is when they were the worst!  You were
still smiling though!  

This is your world... sorry kiddo!  :)

I think you're going to be just as obsessed with
technology as your brothers are!  I guess it's 
just in your genes since Daddy works in IT.  

A bath by candlelight :-)  Such a rough life!

Bring on the Christmas celebrations! 

Lots of lip smacking and raspberries have started
too!  You look like your cousin Maddox here :)

See all those scratches on your face?  You need to get your
hands away from your face to prevent those!