Two Months Old!

Max was officially two months old on Tuesday….though he was 8 weeks the Thursday before. As my friend Becky said, it’s kind of like pregnancy math, where you’re pregnant for 9 months but it’s 40 weeks. We are loving all the smiles he gives us, and he’s starting to do a funny little laugh sometimes. One of those gives me enough energy to make it through a whole night of interrupted sleep. We had a pretty uneventful week last week, we did enjoy a visit from a friend of mine and her 10 month old boy. It was fun to see them and I was reminded that we’ll have some childproofing to do before Max becomes mobile! Thursday night Jeff had to work late so it was just Max and me. Around 8pm I got him to sleep. I was tired, hungry, thirsty and ready to find some dinner. I walked out of his room to see that one of our cats (neither confessed but I suspect Dory) had eaten a piece of ribbon we had out from one of our baby gifts, and then thrown the ribbon back up. But she didn’t just do it in one spot, she apparently walked down the hallway, throwing up as she went. I really wanted to just leave it there, but I did clean it up…with a small break to get Max back to sleep when he woke up partway through the process. Needless to say, I was very happy to see Jeff when he got home and a big hug from him improved things dramatically!

Here are Max’s two month pictures…as Jeff says, the bear has shrunk since last month!

We are enjoying a visit this weekend from Jeff’s brother Greg, our niece Elizabeth, Greg’s awesome girlfriend Leah, and her daughter Emma. Well, actually, all four of them are awesome, and we love having them here. On Saturday we had, in the words of Emma, “Excellent girl time.” The four girls went and got manicures while the boys hung out at home. We discovered that the nail place will do little girls’ nails for only $3! Leah said it was worth that just to have someone else trim Emma’s nails. Here we are showing off when we got home:

The girls are enjoying their time with Max. What a cute group of kids!

Cuter by the Day!

I know, I know…it doesn’t seem possible that Max could get any cuter, and yet, he does. We are so in love with him and it is so much fun to watch him grow and change. For a couple weeks now he has been really grabbing onto our clothing when we hold him…just like a little baby monkey. It’s so cute to see him hang on like that. He’s still really trying to get a thumb or fingers into his mouth, but usually ends up just mouthing on his closed fist. Sometimes he does manage to capture some fingers, but they soon go flying out of his mouth again when he flails his arms. I’m sure he’s thinking, “Hey, who took those fingers away?”

We’re no longer giving him the reflux medicine. If anything it seemed to make him feel worse, so we’re thinking that his tummy owies are more from gas and digestion than reflux, though he probably does have a touch of that. I’m sure that Maxwell is thrilled we’re not using the medicine, here was the face he would make every time:

We got to show Max off to both our workplaces last week. I took him with me to visit my coworkers on Tuesday. They had met him before but hadn’t seen him for several weeks and were impressed with how much bigger he is. Then on Friday we drove down to Bellevue to meet Jeff at work. This was Max’s first time there and everyone was suitably wowed by his cuteness. He was calm and alert for our visit, just dozing off towards the end. This week we’ll mostly be hanging out at home, I have a friend and her little boy coming tomorrow to meet Max, and we are looking forward to a visit from Jeff’s brother, his girlfriend, her daughter and our niece over the holiday weekend. Then next Tuesday my friend Jess arrives from Ohio. I can’t wait for her to meet Max!

I’ll leave you with a few pictures. Enjoy!

All wrapped up in his cute froggy towel (thanks, Aunt Tami!)

Hanging out with Daddy:

Maxwell’s Grandpa (my dad) sent him this onesie before he was born. Grandpa is a Porsche fan and clearly wants to instill this same love in his grandson. Here’s Max showing off his “I’m so cool” Porsche attitude:

And one with a cute smile:

We had beautiful warm sunny weather all weekend. Max got to wear shorts, and we tried out his sunglasses. They’re still a little big, but I think he liked them.

Have a great week!

My First Mother’s Day

I loved celebrating my first Mother’s Day as a mom yesterday! Jeff and Max got me a beautiful card and a stroller charm for my charm bracelet. Then we journeyed up to my Grandma’s house in Lynden for the family celebration there. This was the extended family’s first chance to meet Maxwell, and they were suitably impressed with his cuteness. The weather here was beautiful and we enjoyed spending the afternoon there. I am really lucky to be a mom to such a wonderful baby!

Max has had some assorted minor health things the past couple of weeks. He’s battling baby acne. Thankfully he is confident enough in his charm and good lucks that it doesn’t bother him a bit.   A little over a week ago his left eye started watering a lot and then oozing goopiness. Turns out he has a blocked tear duct, which is very common and can come and go over the first year. If it keeps up after that, an eye doctor can open it up. Those of you who know my eye issues know that I can barely stand to contemplate what that would entail, so we’ll hope it’s not necessary. He comes by it honestly, turns out both Jeff and my mom had the same thing. The pediatrician gave us a prescription for some antibiotic ointment but said we might not need it, turns out she was right…it got much better over the next couple of days. Then today we were back to see her to ask about reflux. Max has shown some signs and she said that it was worth trying medicine, especially since there are very rarely side effects, it’s a really small dose. We notice it mainly when he’s sleeping, or trying to sleep, and is bothered by what we’ve taken to calling “owies in the tummy.” The pediatrician said that we’ll need to try the medicine for two or three weeks to know if it is effective. Hopefully it will help him, it is hard when he is clearly bothered and we can’t do much to help. Thankfully it will also improve as he gets older.

One side benefit of the visits to the doctor is Max gets weighed. We have been so happy to see his weight increasing at a good rate. Today he was up to 11 pounds, 1 ounce! It will be interesting to see where he is now on the growth chart when we have his official two month appointment in a couple weeks.

Don’t worry, I have pictures for you! First, Mother’s Day:

The three of us (Max is awake but closing his eyes against the bright):

Four generations on my mom’s side:

Max and Mommy (his onesie says “Mommy loves me”…truer words were never spoken)

Jeff, Trinity and Max. Trinity is my cousin Jason’s daughter and she couldn’t wait to meet Max. She has sent us some wonderful things for Max in the mail, and yesterday she gave him a bracelet she made. He is very lucky to have such a sweet cousin! Trinity did a great job of holding him and was very helpful when I changed his diaper also. She is an old pro from taking care of her beloved doll Happy.

Here’s Max after a bath on Saturday, showing off his mad tummy time skills. He held his head up like this for several minutes.

And finally, a shot showing that wonderful smile:

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream…

Here’s something I’m sure is news to you…you don’t get much sleep with a newborn around, especially if you are his sole food source. This is ironic, since it seems that Max sleeps for the vast majority of the day, but of course it’s in chunks that are considerably shorter than your average adult would choose. I am adapting to the tiredness and actually coping with it better than I thought I might, given that I have always been a girl who needed a good 8 hours, pre-baby. I must say that those of you who have done the newborn thing when you have another child (or two!) have my utmost respect and admiration. We’ll hopefully be there sometime down the road also, but right now I can’t imagine doing this with another little one around. I remind myself that all too soon Maxwell will be bigger and I’ll get more sleep and wax nostalgic about his tiny newborn days.

Max’s current favorite game is played at diaper changing time. There are several variations on this game, but all involve waiting until his current diaper is off and then releasing more of what caused it to be changed in the first place. Sometimes this happens before the new diaper is on, sometimes right after Mom or Dad gets a nice fresh one all set. A week or so ago he got a morning bath because he managed to catch an uncovered moment and there was pee all over, including his hair and ear. We try to keep the area covered during changes and you should see our lightning-fast reflexes when he starts to go, but he still seems to win the game more often than not. Truth be told, we don’t really mind that much, after being so stressed about a lack of wet and dirty diapers in his early days, we don’t complain when he produces lots of them now.

And now, on to the best part: pictures!

I promised to post some from Dad and Helen’s visit last weekend, here is one of all of us. Max doesn’t look too impressed but I can assure you he had a great time with his adoring visitors:

I’m sure you’ve heard of the importance of “tummy time” when babies are awake. Max does not always love tummy time but we do it every day for at least a few minutes. He is getting much better at lifting his head, so it seems to be paying off. Here’s a demonstration:

The other day he was wearing a cute new outfit and I just had to take a picture. You can’t see it in this shot, but there are cute green and blue striped matching pants. He is into some of his three month clothes already, but then some newborn things still fit. Baby clothes seem to be sized about like women’s clothes, which is to say, totally inconsistently.

I’ll leave you with a photo of Max with Mommy and one with Daddy. Excuse my crazy hair, I clearly hadn’t done anything with it yet that day: