Check up

Today was Hudson's 2 month checkup.

The good news is: He is completely healthy. The doctor even said, "He's not fat, he's just healthy." Ha!

The bad news: We waited for almost an hour in the waiting room. I am not a very patient person in that type of situation. But Hudson actually handled that part quite well.

More good news: He tolerated his first set of shots really well. Cried while they were giving them and stopped as soon as we picked him up. Pretty sure it hurt me worse than it hurt him.

The other bad news: Crying, pitiful, unhappy baby ever since. Oh so sad.


He was 24.5 inches long and weighed 14 lbs 10 oz.

Yep. That's big.

95th percentile for weight and height. To be honest, I was a little surprised he made the chart for his weight. =) Pretty sure this is only because his weight gain has actually slowed down over the last 3 weeks...about a pound and a half in 3 weeks after gaining a pound a week up to that point.

The nurse today asked how much he weighed when he was born (8 lbs 5 oz) and then asked if I had a natural birth. When I said yes, she responded as though she was really impressed. This is the second time this has happened with someone in the medical field. Another reminder of how rare natural childbirth is...for the most part it didn't feel like it was all that impressive to me. Just seemed like everything happened that was supposed to happen. Strange that nurses would be so impressed. Maybe she was imagining giving birth to a baby the size H is today. Now that would be impressive!

Hoping he feels better soon so we can all get a "good" night's sleep.

That's still all relative at this point. I don't want to be one of those parents that neglects to enjoy their child because of always looking ahead to the next milestone. But man, it sure is hard not to long for that Sleeping Through the Night accomplishment.

I'm trying to remember what sleeping 8 hours feels like.

One day I will know again.


Right???


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Two Months

Hudson, you are two months old today!



What are you up to these days?

• You are wearing size 2 diapers and 0-3 month clothes (but not for long!)

• You weigh at least 14 lbs, but we'll get an 'official' weight and length at your checkup on Tuesday. You're growing FAST. Strangers tend to guess you're about 4 months old with all those cute chunks.

• You're eating every 3 hours during the day, but going a stretch of 5-6 hours most nights. You still sleep in our room at night but in your crib for naps. We are currently working on getting you to nap more than 45 minutes at a time.

• You only cry 5 minutes or less when we put you down to sleep, and often don't cry at all. After 5 weeks of hearing you cry 15 minutes every time, we are incredibly happy about this change!

• You have learned to like your swing, but seriously love your play gym. I think you might stay happy there for half the day if I left you (don't worry, I won't). And your new favorite things to look at are your own reflection and our Christmas tree!

• You are still very happy and sleepy in the car almost every time.

• You smile a lot and I can't get enough of your adorable grins. We see them the most first thing in the morning. Sometimes your daddy sticks his face in front of mine to steal your smiles meant for me. =)

Check out these arm rolls:

• You have relaxed your hands a lot this month and don't keep them on/by your face nearly as much as you used to. You have gotten better at figuring out how to get them in your mouth though and you really like to suck on those chubby fingers. You also really like your pacifier.

• Your eyes are still blue and we think you might be a redhead, but it's still hard to tell.

• You've started cooing. Your favorite thing to 'talk to' is the Christmas tree. You also talk a lot while we read you books. But you get really quiet when I sing to you, which is a lot. I'm not sure if it's because you like it or you wish I would stop. =)

• It is so much fun to watch you grow and learn and I am so thankful to get to spend all day every day with you.
  

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Thanksgiving

I know this is overdue, but pictures should help with that, right?


For Thanksgiving this year we went up to my mom's house in the mountains and spent Wednesday and Thursday with her side of the family. This is the family I grew up spending every Thanksgiving and Christmas day with, but we haven't all gotten together for a holiday since about 2000. I had a great time, very good food, and fun seeing most of my generation with babies. Quite different than Thanksgiving 9 years ago when we were all high school and college students.

Hudson had fun at GieMa's house too:

But it takes so many tries to get a picture of him smiling that I usually end up with a few that look like this:

This year I'm thinking it's pretty clear what I was/am most thankful for:

It is already astounding to me how much my life has changed since the holidays last year, when I was wondering how long I would have to wait for a baby. A year ago this week I was diagnosed with PCOS and told I would likely have trouble getting pregnant and would probably need 'help' to do so. What a difference a year makes! And I am so humbled and very grateful.



Stay tuned tomorrow for another post. Shocking, I know.


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Cards

Look who's smiling!

Maybe it's because he's so excited about the birth announcement/Christmas cards I just ordered!

Or maybe I'm the one who's so excited about those. Thanks to Erika's help/prodding, I have been completely won over to VistaPrint. They have by far the best deals on Christmas cards and the like.

I had decided not to do birth announcements for financial reasons (not wanting to spend $100 on them), but this way we spent less than $50 for 50 two-sided cards, including shipping and 140 address labels. Woot!

They should be here in 2 weeks, which means they'll be perfectly timed for Christmas cards and not too terribly late for birth announcements.




I have been trying for a while to get some of Hudson's cute expressions caught in pictures and it seems I'm finally starting to have a little success.

This one is perhaps my favorite picture of him yet:

Jonathon thinks it's his first attempt at the Heisman pose. I just think I finally wised up and busted out the camera first thing in the morning when he seems to be most expressive. Which reminds me...are we sure this is my child? I mean, he seems to seriously like mornings. Someone should probably look into that.


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Show us your life - Pets

So I haven't participated in one of Kelly's Show Us Your Life posts in a while, and this seemed like a good one to jump back in for. I had to do some digging, but managed to find some pictures that I haven't already shared.

I'm pretty sure everybody who typically reads my blog is well aware of who Scarlett is. Despite Hudson's recent appearance, she is still well loved and cared for. And handling the sharing of the attention astoundingly well. I'm pretty sure she already loves him too.

But you may not know how Scarlett came to be mine. You see, I was pretty much born an animal lover. No one's really sure where this came from because if there is an opposite of animal lover, that describes my mother, bless her heart. She is reading this and knows I manage to love her anyway.

So I was about 4 years old when I started asking for a dog. I was told no in a fairly gentle way. I kept asking and the answer never changed. We got a cat when I was 7. She lived outside. I'm pretty sure my parents were hoping to appease me. Don't get me wrong, I loved her and all, but what I really wanted was a puppy. Patches died when I was 11. Six months later we got another cat. Do you see a trend here?

Fast forward a decade or so. It's my freshman year at UGA and I go over to my brother's apartment to do my laundry so I don't have to do it in the dorm. As we're walking in, he asks me if I've met his new roommate. I'm very confused because he lived alone and it seemed like I would have heard if he had gotten a roommate.

We walk in the door and there is this adorable little black bundle of fur and energy ready to bound out of her cage and greet me. Oh wait. Nope. She was terrified of me. But she had my heart instantly. You see, this was the closest I had ever come to having my own dog. Through several steps of connections, my brother had ended up adopting her (Adrienne, I am forever grateful!). I did laundry way more often after that. =)

Fast forward another 3 years. Garrick was getting married and they had decided they would not be able to keep Scarlett in their new house. He was giving her away to a family of one of his students. I was devastated. She was still terrified of just about everyone, but she new me well and I loved her.

So I worked out a plan. I threw caution to the wind, ignored the 'no pets' rule at my apartment, and a few weeks later she was mine! This picture is from the first week at home with me:



Both of my parents tried to discourage me from taking her, but like I said she was as much mine as any dog had ever been and I was 21 years old...too old for them to tell me no any more! =)

And we all live happily ever after. She moved with me to a small apartment a year later when we got married and adopted Jonathon as her dad. A year after that she happily relocated to an actual house for the first time in her life. One more year later and we got her big back yard fenced in for lots of good romping. And one more year after that brings us to 2009, when she welcomed her little brother into the fold.

This was when she got a bug bite on her foot that got infected. She was so pitiful in this thing:
Fun at the ghetto apartment. And no, we do not typically subject her to this kind of thing:



There is no way she was supposed to be laying on this fancy pillow at the grandparents' house. But this was 3 grandbabies ago, when she was the only 'grandchild' and was as spoiled as can be:

I can't finish this post about pets without a quick tribute. Uga VII died of a heart attack yesterday at just 4 years old. Sad for the Seiler family who always keeps the current Uga as their family pet, and sad for the Bulldog Nation who will be without a mascot for the game tomorrow. RIP Uga.

Firsts

Several times in the last week I have sat down with the intention of blogging. And every time I was quickly interrupted by a crying baby. So this time I waited until his daddy was home in order to write.

Infants have an awful lot of firsts. Mostly because there are very few things they have actually done yet. Here are a few firsts Hudson has experienced in the last week or so:

- Last Wednesday was his first trip to Chick-fil-a. This is significant in my world. The trip included a nap in Ms. Robin's arms, meeting about 15 CFA employees (since I used to work there) who were all very happy to see him, especially all the cute hispanic ladies who work in the kitchen and all seemed fascinated by his blue eyes, and the loss of his mommy's sunglasses.

- Wednesday afternoon he got to meet his Mama Hayes for the first time. This was his first time meeting any of his 3 living great-grandparents. She of course thought he was beautiful and wonderful.

Four generations:

- On Thursday night Ra-Ra (Jonathon's mom) came over and watched Hudson while Jog and I went out on a date. We were very grateful for some time out by ourselves, even if it just meant dinner at Chili's and a trip to Target! This wasn't the first time I had left Hudson at all, but it was the longest I had been away from him and the first chance we had had to go out since he was born. I was shocked at how emotional I felt about leaving him and at the fact that I missed him even though we were gone for such a short time. I realized I've only been away from him for a total of about 6 hours in his entire life. I guess that's why. Man, do I ever love him a lot.

- Friday night Hudson went 5 hours between feedings. It was glorious. And he did it again last night. This seems to me like the beginning of a trend. One I like a lot (and he's now going at least 3 hr 45 minutes at least once pretty much every night, which is also a big step from the first few weeks).

- Today we went back to the preschool where I worked last year for a visit. It was so fun to see all my old co-workers and made me really miss it. I also got to see my co-teacher from last year while she was picking up her son. Neither of us is working again this year because we both had babies. And our babies are within a few ounces of weighing the same as each other. Hers is 4 months old. Mine is 6 weeks. Yikes, he's a chubby one!

I know there have been other firsts lately, but I have forgotten them in all the days since I last blogged. And lots more firsts coming soon. Most notably his first Thanksgiving. And the first time sleeping through the night. =)

I will leave you with a picture of Hudson in one of his favorite places:


He often looks like he's conducting the music. Already trying to take after his grandpa and uncle, perhaps?


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Guilty

"Mom, I'm sorry the baby woke up 20 minutes into his nap and won't stop crying now, but did you see that puppy in the cul-de-sac? I mean, I just had to bark loudly for several minutes in order to protect you from him and make sure he knew this was my turf. It was truly necessary, I swear."

"And incidentally, can you hear that baby crying? Don't you want to go in there and do something about it? It's sure not very fun to listen to."


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