5 Months

Levi will be 5 months old next weekend. My baby boy is growing so fast. Here's the latest on what's been going on around here. Levi had his last doctors appointment about two weeks ago and he weighed 16 pounds, 9 ounces. His length is in the 69 percentile, weight is in the 65 percentile, and head circumference is in the 89 percentile. The doctor said there has been lots of brain development going on...I guess!! Levi is wearing 6 month, 6-9 month, and 9 month outfits. Because it has been so hot over the last few days I have been putting him in just onsies when we are just hanging around the house. Today he was in a 12 month onsie. Last week we started giving Levi rice cereal. Just a little at first and now we have worked up to two feedings of rice cereal a day. And the kid loves it! He is still nursing and that is going really well. He is eating about 30-35 ounces of breast milk a day. On the days that I am at work he does get one 5 ounce bottle of formula but other than the rest is all breast milk. I am hoping that since he will be eating solid foods more in the future the demand for breast milk won't be so much so we can get rid of that one bottle of formula but right now I am just not able to pump enough at work to compensate. I am only working three days a week so it all still works out well. My goal is to keep nursing till he is a year...so far so good. Levi has become a little talker. He is always talking away in his exersaucer or when he is laying on his back. He loves to hear the sound of his own voice. When we give him a bath at night he loves to hear what his voice sounds like under water, its so cute to watch him figure out all the different sounds. Levi had his first trip to the ER last weekend. He had a febrile seizure that about gave us a heart attack, it was probably the scariest thing I have ever been through. He was rushed to the hospital by an ambulance and after two days in the hospital it was concluded that he had a UTI. He has been on antibiotics for over a week and he has not had a fever since last Monday. He seems to be doing really well. We are going in on Tuesday for some further testing to confirm that his little kidneys are working well since it is very rare for a boy that young to have a UTI. Needless to say Rob and I have been pretty stressed this last week. The kid has not left my sight, and any time he cries I am right there. He is becoming quite spoiled. I just can't get the image of him having his seizure out of my head. So he is just going to have to be spoiled then!! Here are some recent photos of little man:

3 Years

On Tuesday Rob and I celebrated our third anniversary, it's amazing where life has taken us in three short years. In September it will mark five years together, it has been the best five years!! We have had our fair share of ups and downs, many, many tears but many, many laughs too. And at the end of each and every day I am so blessed to come home and be with the greatest guy a girl could ask for.

Over the last few years there have been some trying times, times when I was very unsure of things. But one thing that I have always been sure of is the strong love and commitment my hubby and I share and that we are in this together, forever. Happy Anniversary baby - I love you ABT (a billion ton...inside joke)!!

Mr. Pumkin Head

I am bad, I admit. I have been meaning to update this for weeks but life has been super busy. I went back to work three weeks ago and it has been going really well. I am working Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and that schedule seems to fit really well. Levi is with his two grandma's on the days I am at work and he and I both LOVE that. I love how when he comes home he smells like either his Nani's (my mom) house or his Grandma (Rob's mom) house. It's the sweet smell of warmth, love, and a little dose of spoiled baby!

Levi is changing all the time. The happiest change around here has been that he is sleeping through the night. About a week ago he slept from 7:30-6:30 and it was amazing. Scary for me at first because I kept waking myself up thinking that he should have woken up at some point but after numerous trip to his room to check on him I realized that he was just ready to sleep through the night. I still wake up every few hours to check on him, I am hoping eventually I will let my anxiety back off a bit so that mommy can sleep through the night as well.

I call Levi my pumpkin head because his head is so round he looks like a pumpkin. It's the cutest thing. He is also a super happy baby. Within seconds of looking at him he will give you this huge gummy smile, his whole face lights up when he smiles. He also loves to hear my voice - which I love. I can always get a reaction out of him when I start talking or singing to him.

A few milestone he has reached are that he can roll from tummy to back, he can hold his head up anytime he is held or when he has tummy time. I think he is getting ready to roll over from back to tummy cause he will do this thing where he arches his back really high like he is going to roll over.

I am still nursing full time and try to keep up with Levi's demand by pumping on my days at work. Very rarely do we have to supplement a bottle of formula and if we have to its usually only about 3-4 ounces, the rest of the time he gets breast milk. I have been lucky that has been going well, Levi will take a bottle with no problems and then will shift right back into nursing. I am so happy that has worked out.

So all-in-all things around here have been going really well. We are LOVING EVERY MINUTE with our little man, we just hope he doesn't grow up too fast!!

Too fast

It seems like over night, literally, my little man is starting to grow up. We started last night putting him in the crib that's in his room. He did really well, only got up at 4:30 am to eat and then went right back to bed. Even though he only got up that one time I was still up every few hours so that I could go in and check on him. It was torture. It took everything in me to not pick him up in his sweet little onsie and put him in bed to snuggle with me. I couldn't believe how well he did. I secretly was hoping that the transition period would not have happened so quickly. I was hoping that part of the night he would sleep in his room and then spend the rest of the night back in our room so that I could watch his every move all night long. But I guess baby boy was ready, even though I was not.

Then tonight my girlfriend and I went to a class at the gym and I planned it perfectly so that daddy would give Levi his bath and get him into his pj's so that as soon as I got home I could nurse him and then put him to bed. When I got home at 7:30, which is usually the time he is ready to eat and go to bed I found him asleep in daddy's arms. We decided to go ahead and just put him to bed. I wanted to cry, I felt so un-needed. For the past three month my little boy has been so dependent on me and all of a sudden it felt like he didn't need his mommy so much anymore. What am I going to do when I start back to work in two weeks? This mommy gig is really hard on the heart strings. If I could keep him in my arms and in my sight until he is an old man you know I would. It was so much easier to keep him right were I wanted him when he was in my uterus.

This is how Levi sleeps. Yes, it scares the heck out of me - so much that literally every 10-15 minutes I am going in till he falls asleep to pull the blanket back. It is really cute though to see him rub his nose back and forth on the soft part of the blanket till he falls asleep.

Levi is 2 months old!!

Wow. Has it really been two months already? In so many ways it feels like just yesterday I was laying around the house with my big ol' belly just waiting to pop and in other ways it feels like Levi has always been apart of us. Life has definitely changed these last few months. Here is the latest on our little man.

First (an most importantly), Levi does not like to sleep!! He will do a few 15-20 minute naps throughout the day and that is about it. Makes it very hard for me to get anything done around the house, much less try and catch up on some sleep myself. Although he doesn't like to sleep during the day he is pretty good for us at night. We start our bedtime routine at about 7:15 and he is usually in bed, asleep by 8. Last night I put him to bed when he was still pretty awake and within about 15 minutes he put himself to sleep. So far we have been pretty lucky with getting to bed at night. It was pretty rough in the beginning though but I think we now have the hang of it.

Levi loves to eat!! He is still nursing about every 2-2 1/2 hours. I have been trying to pump in between feedings so that I can have a nice back up supply stored for when I got back to work in a few weeks but it is pretty hard to do when your child is constantly eating. We had Levi's 2 month appointment on Monday and he now weighs 12 lbs 7 ozs and I actually though he was going to weigh more than that because he is such a chunky-monkey.

It's amazing to watch all the new little things that Levi is discovering. At night I am no longer giving him a pacifier because he has become very content with his thumb/finger. It is so cute to listen to the little sounds of contentment he makes when he is sucking on his fingers. He has also become a real talker, especially in the morning. Right after he gets up I take him to his room to change his diaper and almost immediately he starts grinning and making little noises when I put his on his changing pad. It is so precious. I love how he smiles right back at you when you look at him, he is such a little character.

At the appointment on Monday Levi measured 23 1/2 inches. He has a really long torso so most of the clothes he is wearing now are 3-6 months or 6 months. Yesterday I put him in a long sleeved onsie and it was a 6-9 month. I am very interested to see if he will always be a few sizes ahead or of eventually he will fit into his actual size. Either way I am just glad that he is growing so well.

Based on the measurements taken at the doctors office - Levi's weight is in the 65% tile, 75% tile for length, and 62% tile for head circumference. He also got his first round of immunizations. He did really well, he didn't really even cry. He was a little fussy yesterday but with a little baby Tylenol he did much better.

Here are some recent photos of our little man -

Levi is 6 weeks!!

Where has the time gone? Here is the latest on our little man -

At his last doctors appointment a few weeks ago he was 10 lbs 7 oz and is now measuring at 24 inches. He loves to eat!! The first few weeks after he was born I was having to supplement at night about 2-4 ounces with formula because I was not able to keep up with his ferocious appetite. Since then I have become a milk machine and Levi is now exclusively breastfed and so far so good. I am really thankful that the breastfeeding has been going really well. I have been pumping about 6 extra ounces that I am freezing so that when I go back to work I will have a good supply.

This last week Levi's little personality has really starting to come out. He has always smiled in his sleep but this last week he started smiling at you when you look at him. It is the cutest thing I have ever seen - nothing beats a precious, gummy smile.

He is also holding his head up a lot. He has never really liked being burped over the shoulder but when you put him up there to burp him he waves his head all over the place. You really have to be careful that he doesn't hurt himself. He is also getting really close to rolling over. Whenever I lay him on his changing table or on the sink in the bathroom to get him ready for a bath he turns his whole body to one side. I am sure in the next few weeks he will be rolling over.

Levi is no longer in newborn OR 0-3 clothing. In fact just yesterday I put him in a 3 month outfit and he may only get to wear it one other time because he is getting so big. It's hilarious, he is built just like his daddy, very long waisted with short, stocky legs. I have a feeling he will be a linebacker on the football team when he gets older.

Here are some recent photos of my precious baby boy -

My little prince

The last thirty six hours have been amazing! We are loving every minute with our precious Levi.