A Mommy in Love

Amazing, our little boy is already 20 weeks old!  He is quickly approaching a half year!  Gabe's personality definitely shows in his pictures.

• Our friends Chelsea & Andre (Gabriel's Godparents) were blessed with a new baby boy, Hudson, on the 18th.  We went for a visit once they got home.  Craig commented that Gabriel has grown quite a lot, considering he was the same weight as Hudson when we brought him home!  Hudson is definitely a cute little peanut!

 

•  Seeing Baby Hudson has "made my ovaries ache," a phrase coined by one of my breastfeeding support group leaders, haha!  Not only that, but I look at Gabriel's sweet angel face, and I want many more babies.  I think I mentioned 16 to Craig.  (And yes, that number did get an eyebrow raise!)  But seriously, when you look at your child, how could you not want many replicas of him/her?  It's truly unconditional love.

•  Gabriel is toying with us recently.  He gets SO CLOSE to rolling over from back-to-belly, and then he pulls himself back onto his back.  It's frankly quite frustrating for his Daddy & I, haha!

Check out his handling of his pacifier!

•  Auntie Debbie and Grammy came for a visit.  Deb brought Gabriel his first pair of shades, really cute Foster Grants.  He wasn't sure how he felt about them, but I was able to get a smile anyway.

 

•  I am coming to the realization that our breastfeeding journey may be almost half over already.  My goal is 1 year (I am happy about every day that we are successful and am not trying to stress about the days ahead), though I am not sure I will be firm in stopping altogether at that time.  I do know that I plan to cease pumping (at work & overnight) and let Gabriel take the lead on weaning.  I wouldn't mind nursing first thing in the morning and last thing before he goes to bed, though.  So anyway, this realization has stopped me from my usual practice of playing on my cell phone while he's nursing.  Instead, I've been watching him (as he watches me, if it's during the day and he's awake) and enjoying the closeness of nursing.  

 

Can't resist this Little Blue Eyes!

• I got a small bonus at work for teaching some extra credits, so I treated Gabe & I to a new baby carrier that should be better for his hips now that he is getting bigger.  It actually is A LOT more supportive on my back with carrying his blossoming weight.  He seems to like it as well.  I tried it with him facing out for the first time (he wasn't too thrilled, he prefers facing me right now), but it also allows him to face in plus two other positions (hip carry & back carry) when he gets bigger.

Our new Beco Gemini carrier

• Here's another green screen tease leading up to our release of Gabe's Easter pictures.  It was my first attempt at merging a picture with a background, and I know it's not that great, but it's still cute!

 

Other pictures from the week:

A Mommy in Love

Thanks for the onesie, Auntie Kristen!

Thanks for the jingly ball, Auntie Lorene!

A Week of Progress

Gabriel hit 19 weeks this week.  He made quite a bit of progress this week especially!

We started off the week with our 7th wedding anniversary.  No, we didn't go out anywhere special.  We spent the day together at home, just the three of us, taking pictures of Gabriel with the green screen.  I got a quick "selfie" of us at the end of the day to document the occasion.  (Green screen edited photos to come soon - they are Easter themed and we don't want to show them too early to spoil the fun!)

The (Still) Happy Couple

• Gabriel now holds his pacifier pretty well and sometimes can even aim the correct end into his mouth all by himself!
• He also throws/drops things a lot now.  I'm not sure if it's on purpose yet or his little fingers just get tired of holding on!
• I had the week off from work for spring break, and Gabe surprised me with a fancy new trick at our breastfeeding support group!  He rolled over from tummy to back three times!  I got a video of it - click here to view.  (The voices in the background are the other ladies in our group cheering Gabe on!)  He also did it once for Daddy to see when we got back home.  But, he hasn't done it again since, even with much encouragement!  I guess it was my reward for being home with him all week.
• We transitioned from the sling part of the baby tub to just using the baby bathtub without it.  He loves being directly in so much water.  He kicks in the water like crazy some nights!

• We took advantage of my time off and good weather to get over to visit the Kingsburys.  Janet & I had been planning a play date since JANUARY but the snow storms thwarted our efforts every time!  It was a nice day, and we got all the kids out in strollers for a little while.  Lucas & Carolyn were especially mesmerized by "Baby Gabe."  (I have to mention a BIG shout-out thank-you to Auntie Janet for all of the boy clothes she passed on to Gabriel from Connor & Lucas.)

Lucas, checking out Gabe

• I noticed that Gabriel has been trying to find something to hold on to during church lately.  I'm not the biggest fan of toys in church, but I found him a soft beginner rosary that has a soft chime (soft enough to not be distracting to other parishioners) and a teether cross on it.  

• We broke out the exersaucer again.  I still have to put a blanket underneath his feet and another around his skinny body to get him in position, but I walked away from Gabe for 2 minutes and came back to him playing with the alligator and getting the music to turn on!

• Grammy came to visit this week.  Gabriel gave her more smiles than cries this time, thankfully!  He wouldn't show her his new-found talent of rolling over, though.  (Actually, he didn't do it at all the rest of the week!  Without the video, I would feel like I hallucinated it!)

• I pulled out Alphie the robot this week.  (Thanks to Ciocia Lisa & cousin Melissa!)  Gabriel was enamored with the ABC song Alphie sings (he likes the versions Daddy & I sing as well - it breaks him of any crying fit).

• Chrissy, Daniel, & Hailey gave Gabriel a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles hoodie for Christmas, and we finally had a chance to use it.  I love how cute he looks in it!  (And it's got an "M" for "Michelangelo," my favorite Turtle!  He always shouts "Cowabunga!")

Complete with cape!

Other pictures from the week:

Gabe's "eyebrow language"

Such a true caption!  (Thanks for the onesie, Grammy!)

Checking out the ring toy Mommy made for me

My first tools - hammer, screwdriver, & wrench

Look how well I hold my head up now!

"Awww, Mom!"

"I'm not sure how thrilled I am about this picture-taking stuff..."

18 Magical Weeks

This week has been fairly eventful, in a mostly exhausting kind of way.  Still in this strange sleep regression pattern, unfortunately.  We have to start off with a cute weekly picture of the little worm though!

• Pediatrician appointment update:  Gabriel was 10 lbs 15 oz (I won the bet over Craig for our previously-mentioned guesses!), 24 inches long, with a head circumference of 16 inches.  He gained a whole pound over the last "Polish baby scale" weighing we did three weeks prior!  During that time he almost DOUBLED his rate of gain!  Go Gabe!  He ended up at the 10th percentile for weight and the 50th percentile for height/length for his age.  Fine with us - a string bean like his father!
• We had our first baby fever event two days after his shots at his 4 month appointment.  He hit 100.4-100.7 around 5pm, but it went down within an hour after a dose of Tylenol.  No fever at all overnight (I checked every time he woke up just in case - thank goodness for the easiness of temporal thermometers!), but then back to 99.5 at 7am.  Another dose of Tylenol before I left for work, and we kicked the fever for good.  He was acting kind of mopey that first day, but he was back to normal by the following day.  I put in a phone call to "Dr Mom" (aka my mom!) the first evening just to see what too high of a temperature would be (she said 104) and to get some tips on monitoring him.
• We had a short visit from Godmother Chelsea during the week.  Can't believe her baby is due in a few short weeks!  We're so excited for them!  Gabriel can't wait to meet his new playmate!

 

•  Craig installed an update on my phone, which I'm still getting used to.  In the meantime, I played around with a "sketch" function on the phone's camera and got a few good shots:

 

• Gabe's new skill this week is holding up his bottles on his own!  Craig had been telling me that he was bumping the bottle up with his hands to make more trickle into his mouth, but holding the bottle on his own was new.  And pretty incredible, since they are fairly heavy 9 oz glass bottles!

 

Other pictures from the week:

Thanks for the hat, Ciocia Teresa!

Thanks for the pajamas, Teresa!

Showing some leg - first time he figured out he could reach his pants!

Mommy's favorite (don't tell Daddy)

Thanks for the pajamas, Aunt Ruthie!