First Christmas

Luke's first Christmas was a huge success and a lot of fun! The celebration started last Sunday when Aunt Susan, Uncle Bobby, Kristen, Ryan and Lauren came to visit. We had an early Christmas dinner at Mom-mom and Pop's house. Here's Aunt Susan delighted to finally see Luke in his Baltimore Raven's outfit.
Mom-mom got in on the baby Ravens action too.
Our holiday took us to Atlanta next. Luke was awesome in the car!! He slept most of the way making it easy on Mommy and Daddy. Here's Luke with his Aunt Pam
and his very attentive cousins!
Emily proved to be an excellent babysitter.
Olivia got some special time with Luke as well.
Leah was a fabulous! She and Luke have a special bond already:)
Luke loves spending time with his boy cousin, Eli. (He's grabbing Eli as if to say, "Save me from all these girls!")
Gabby loves not being the baby anymore!
Here's the family on Christmas Eve. (Notice who's helping Daddy with Luke!)
Grandmom found herself a little reindeer!
Aunt Becky couldn't get enough of the baby. (Ken, are you sure she cannot have just one more!?!)
Christmas/Hannukah dinner was a lot of fun.
Look, Santa left a baby under the tree!
I guess Luke was nice this year:)
Happy almost first anniversary! Didn't think we'd have a baby before our first anniversary but we're so happy with the way things turned out.
We couldn't have asked for a better Christmas gift. This was the best Christmas I've had since I was a child.

Did I mention that he is learning to suck his thumb?

In other news, Luke slept in his crib in his own room last night! I am sad that he is no longer sleeping right next to me, but also happy to have our bedroom back. He's still sleeping well, waking up once or twice a night to eat but going back to sleep relatively easily. At Aunt Pam's he even slept 6 and a half consecutive hours! That's considered "sleeping through the night" but it's hard to call it that when it's 10-4:30am. Still, we'll take it!!

Daycare... sigh

Luke and I visited his daycare yesterday. He's not going to start going until mid-January, but I was feeling anxious about it so I decided to bring him in to check it out again. All in all, I am happy with our choice. Here are some of the good things about his school:

1. The infant room is huge with a nice separation between the play area and the sleeping area. Most of the other places we toured had one on top of the other making it difficult for the children to sleep.
2. There are 10 infants and 3 teachers. Most good places in town have a 4 to 1 ratio so this is lower than average.
3. Luke will be the youngest in his class. After Luke, there will be a 7 month old and an 8 month old. All the other children will be one or older.
4. It is 1.8 miles from our home.
5. The teachers seem nice, attentive, loving and relaxed.
6. The children seemed happy.
7. The school is very clean.
8. The school is in a church.

However, it is still daycare. Not mommy care at home. I feel sick to my stomach even thinking about it! Did I mention that most of the children had snot dripping down their faces? Bring on the colds. Yikes. I am thankful that I will (mostly) only be using the daycare for 3 days a week.

Ok, on to happier news...

Luke loves bath time! David and I have so much fun bathing him. Here he is just chillin' in the tub:


He also is really enjoying his activity mat. Yesterday he enjoyed it so much that it wore him out!

It took us a while, but we finally figured it out!

For some unknown reason, we stopped swaddling Luke after about a month. We had convinced ourselves that he didn't like to be swaddled preferring instead to have the ability to stretch out. So, away went the swaddle and in came the roomier sleep sack. By the week before Thanksgiving, Luke's night time sleeping "pattern" (or lack thereof) resembled that of a one week old instead of a two month old. He was waking up 3, 4, even 5 times a night to feed. I was beyond exhausted. 10 days ago, for no good reason, I decided to try swaddling him again. That very night, Luke only woke up once to feed. Needless to say, we swaddled him again the next night, and the next, and the next.... I am thrilled to say that for the past 10 nights, Luke has slept so much better. During 8 of these 10 nights he only woke once to feed, and during the other 2 he only woke twice. More importantly, his first stretch of sleep is lasting 4.5-5 hours!!! So, it took us a while but we finally figured out what LOTS of parents already know: babies like to be swaddled. (Yeah, we're slow but give us a break. We're sleep deprived!)

Here's Luke in his swaddler:



These next pictures just crack me up. Looks like he's saying, "I didn't do it!!"

"Ok, I did it."

"I'm grounded for how long?!"

Finally, let me tell you about my new favorite thing. It's Luke's smile when he sees his dad. Wow does his face light up when David comes home from work or greets him in the morning. It melts my heart. Luke loves his daddy!

He changes every day!

It's amazing how much Luke changes each and every day! He is now smiling a lot (mostly at the Pottery Barn candle holder on the wall- that seems to crack him up), has much better head control (I look forward to total control so we can use a Bumbo seat), can focus well on objects (like us!), has developed a serious love for putting his fist in his mouth (looking forward to when that becomes his thumb), and is sleeping more regularly at night (Hallelujah!!!). A fun thing to do with him is put him in his playmat so he can look at the toys. Here he is just chillin'.

Another wonderful new development is that he finally will sit in his bouncey seat, which is GREAT for us because it means we can sit him down while we're eating, or brushing our teeth, or folding laundry... you get the idea.... without having to hold him or lay him flat.

I'm starting to see a bit of me in Luke. Really what I care most about is that he gets David's hair. Yes, he will be cute either way, and of course I will love him just the same, but David has such good hair that ya just have to route for it!!

2 Months Old

Luke turned 2 months old yesterday! Look how big he is:

Ok, he really doesn't look that much bigger. Here he was at 1 month:

And at 2.5 weeks:

I probably should have chosen a smaller stuffed animal to serve as his benchmark! Also, it didn't help that the 2.5 week picture is more of a close up. Oh well.

He is bigger, just not much longer. He's only grown a couple of inches. But, he has put on a good amount of weight. A trip to the doctor yesterday confirmed this. Luke now weighs 9 pounds and 15 ounces and measures 21.25 inches long. So, since birth he has gained 4 pounds and 12 ounces and grown 2.25 inches. That's good growth, but since he was so small at birth he's only in the 10th percentile. What a tiny peanut!

His trip to the doctor wasn't exactly the best way to celebrate his 2 month marker because he got his first round of vaccinations. The shots weren't that bad. (Easy for me to say, right?) Of course Luke cried during the shots, but he calmed down relatively quickly once they were done. The bad part came hours later. Luke slept like a champ for about 4 hours after his appointment and then woke up SCREAMING like I have never heard him scream before. I finally understood why the nurse who came to the house right after Luke was born kept telling me to get infant Tylenol for the occasion. Wow.

The doctor called me stocky. Ok, not really. But we asked him a question about Luke's growth and in describing how it depends on how David and I grew as children he said that I was stockier than David. Truth be told it's not hard to be stockier than David:) But really!!! Did he have to use that word? I was already feeling bad about the lingering baby weight. Sigh.

Ok. I shouldn't say this because I am going to jinx it. But, I just have to because it is the most wonderful thing EVER. Luke only woke up for 1 feeding for the past 2 nights. Only 1 feeding!!! Yes, I am sure this won't continue. But, it gave me a glipse of my future, and my future is AWESOME. Parenthood on more sleep is a whole different ballgame.

Thanksgiving leftovers

My sister, Pam, and her family drove up to Greensboro the day after Thanksgiving to spend the weekend with Luke. This was Pam's second time with Luke, but the first for cousins Emily and Olivia and Uncle Dave. Their visit rounded off a family filled Thanksgiving vacation that started with my mom's visit last weekend (a visit that included Saturday night babysitting that allowed David and me to go out for dinner and drinks with friends- thanks Mom!!), then took us up to Virginia to spend Thanksgiving with David's side of the family, and ended today with my sister and crew back at home. Oh how I'm going to miss all the extra help!! It was so nice to be around so many helping, loving hands.

My nieces, Emily and Olivia, proved themselves to be excellent future babysitters! I was very impressed with how good they were with Luke. Here's Emily entertaining Luke like a pro:
And Olivia holding him perfectly while he slept:

Here's Luke with his Uncle Dave. Once again, notice Luke's smile. He really does smile more for the men in the family!

And here's my sister Pam, who spoiled Luke rotten. He napped almost exclusively in her arms while she was here. Now we cannot get him to sleep in his swing anymore. Seriously. He's in there now wide-eyed and hasn't had a nap in over 4 hours. Yikes.

Happy Thanksgiving

We survived Luke's first road trip! We spent Thanksgiving with David's sister and crew in Richmond, VA (my old stomping grounds). The 3.5 hour trip there was a breeze; Luke slept the whole way. We discovered that there are no pit stops when you have a sleeping baby in the car! Our bladders and stomachs were not too happy with that discovery! Oh well- welcome to parenthood.

Luke was so excited to meet new family members that he only slept 20 minutes from the time we arrived at Susan's house (at 2pm) until 10pm, and that was only after we finally broke down and put him back in the car and drove around and around until he drifted off. The poor little man just couldn't fall asleep.

Thankfully, he was back to his normal napping self the next day, and even politely slept through Thanksgiving dinner allowing David and me to actually eat the meal together!! Now that's something to be thankful for:)

Here is Luke with his cousin Ryan. Look at how happy he is! He has so many female cousins that we think he was happy to learn of another male.
Here is Luke with cousins Lauren and Kristen and his Aunt Susan. He was loving the attention of all the lovely ladies.

I love this picture of Kirsten and Susan.

And here he is with Barbara, who has the magic touch. (She also makes a fantastic cheese cake!)

Knowing how dependent we are on Luke's swing (love it!), before the trip we purchased a portable swing so we can always have one around. Because he wasn't a huge fan of the portable crib, he slept part of the night at Susan's in the swing.

He spent the other part in bed with us.

All in all, Luke was fantastic on his first road trip. He also slept the entire way home! It was wonderful to spend his first Thanksgiving with family.

In other news (because I haven't blogged in so long!), Luke has outgrown his newborn clothes. It's scary how fast he is growing. We weighed him on on our scale the other day, and he was up to 9.4 pounds. We'll have an official weight on Monday after we take him for his 2 month doctor's appointment. He's getting so big!

Also, he is back to eating every 2 hours at night. It really really sucks. He had been eating every 3-4 hours at night but for the past 5ish days he's been waking up more frequently. I don't think it's a growth spurt but who knows. Hopefully we'll get better sleep tonight!

Heck no, I won't go...

to sleep in my crib! I have been trying to get Luke to nap in his crib during the day, in the hopes that he will eventually sleep in his crib at night (instead of the bassinet). I am not pushing a consistent sleep routine yet- from what I've read it's important to start such a routine between 2 and 4 months of age, and he is only 7 weeks old. Luke sleeps best in his swing, and so he mostly naps there. He is ok with the bassinet at night because we can rock him to sleep in it. The crib, however, is stationary. No rocking or swinging and so no sleeping! Napping in the crib would be oh so nice because I have to monitor Harley when Luke is in the bassinet or swing but she cannot get to him in the crib. (Not that I think she would harm him! But, better safe than sorry.)

Here's Luke in his crib after I tried to put him down for a nap. He started crying about 30 seconds after I snapped these pictures.

In other news, Luke has started smiling:) It's the best feeling in the world to see him smile! He smiles more at David than me. David's already established as the fun parent! Ha ha.

Santa lost one of his reindeers

Christmas came early to the Andrews house today. David bought this cute (and warm) outfit for Luke last week, and because we wanted to take Little Man out for a walk in the cold today, we decided to try it out. It's way too big on him (making him look much bigger than he actually is). We figure by Christmas it will be perfect. Of course, at the rate Luke is growing he may outgrow it by Christmas. I say this because on Friday Luke was weighed again (explanation of the doctor's visit soon to follow), and he was up to 8 pounds and 11 ounces!!

Ok, the doctor's visit. Let me preface this by saying that I completely recognize that I fall into the category of overprotective first time mother because I took Luke to the doctor, but I don't care. When it comes to my own health, I'm the type to obsess over something and spend a lot of energy speculating over what my ailment may be, but to never actually go to the doctor. So, when it came to Luke's health I decided to be different. The issue was that I thought (and still think) that Luke has issues with acid reflux. Last week he started throwing up large quantities, and his wimpering that followed broke my heart enough that I decided a doctor's visit would be worth it. I really underestimated how hard it is to see your child hurt. And this was just over vomit!! Anyway, the doctor told me to give him Mylanta after each feeding for 7-10 days to see if it helps. There are three big difficulties with this seemingly easy order. First, the Mylanta is to be administered 30 minutes after feeding, which really stinks if Luke has already fallen asleep. Who wakes a sleeping baby?! Second we are supposed to keep Luke upright for the 30 minutes after a feeding, which is harder than it sounds. Third and lastly, Luke is not on board with the doctor's orders, refusing to completely swallow the icky Mylanta. So, we do the best we can. So far I do think it has helped... Luke has not thrown up or even spit up in 36 hours, sleeps more soundly, and seems less fussy. Mostly, I don't smell the acidic vomit smell on his breath as much now, which I did after every feeding before the Mylanta. I doubt we'll want to put him on long-term medication. Reflux is such a common problem, and I'm not sure we should medicate him for it. Holding upright for 30 minutes after a feeding is probably most of what he really needs. As the doctor said, reflux is really just a laundry issue unless the baby isn't putting on enough weight, which Luke clearly is!

Sadly, the weekend is about to come to an end. Parenting is so much easier when 2 parents are home! When I was working, I used to look forward to the weekends and thought that weekends would mean less while on maternity leave. Turns out, they mean even more!! Thank goodness Thanksgiving is coming up soon. David has the whole week off and we will be with family for almost all of the week. Extra help! Yippee!!

Big Boy!

Luke now weighs 8 pounds and 5 ounces!!!!! Just 5 weeks ago he was only 4 pounds and 14 ounces. What a difference 5 weeks makes. Wow. My baby is getting so big! I don't want to brag, but this growth is higher than average:) So you can see how big he is, I decided to take some semi-nude pictures of him. (I let him leave his socks on so he could maintain some of his dignity.)
Woohoo, 8 pounds!

This is the look that I use to flirt with the ladies.
Ok, I'm ready to eat some more!
In other news, I hit Luke's head on the hutch of the changing table last night. It was horrible. We had just given him a bath. David and I were putting a diaper on him and drying him off. In a rush to pick him up (he was screaming) and get him warm, I picked him up too quickly and BAM! His head hit the hutch. I felt horrible. HORRIBLE. I don't know who it scared more- David or Luke. Fortunately, it didn't leave a mark,and Luke eventually calmed down. I know there will be more of these accidents in our future, but this was the first and it left a mark on me.