5 Months (Rewind)

Ok, so I wrote the below (super short) post when Adam was actually 5 months old.  I just never found the time to finish it and add pictures so I could post it.  Anyway, let's rewind now and revisit when Adam was 5 months old . . . poor kid is going to have second child syndrome with my lack of timely blog posts! -------- Time marches on and Adam is officially 5 months old!  His newest trick that he enjoys often is grabbing his toes.  He has perpetual floppy socks from grabbing the toes of his socks and pulling on them. :)  His core strength is rapidly improving and I've really noticed lately how well he's doing with holding his torso upright when I sit him on my lap.  I am still waiting on him to roll over.  He continues to bring a ray of sunshine to our home!

From Loving the Life We Live

4 (cough, and a half) Months

This post is so late that I debated just waiting and combining the 4 and 5 month posts. Yikes!  But anyway, Adam is now four and a half months old and just as cute and sweet as can be. He drools like there's no tomorrow, enjoys grabbing toys or clothing with both hands and bringing them to his mouth to gnaw on, has been able to roll from tummy to back since the date of my last post but has only demonstrated this a few times, and is just recently getting soooo close to rolling from back to belly. He gets quite far over on his side but just can't make that final push to get over his arm. He is working on holding himself straight when you hold him upright and is doing lots of baby crunches to strengthen his core. He did a great job in the car on his first trip to Grandma and Grandpa's house in Missouri over Labor Day weekend. As far as sleeping, well, he he slept ALL NIGHT LONG two nights in a row and I was so excited . . . but has proceeded to wake up an excessive amount of times every night since then. But I know the little stinker is capable of sleeping all night, so hopefully better rest is in my not-too-distant future. He adores his big brother, who makes him smile and laugh. He has rubbed out a lot of his side hair but has a ton of hair in the middle, which elicits a lot of mohawk comments from friends and strangers alike!

Adam's four month stats:

Weight: 21 lbs 12 oz (99th %ile)

Length: 27 in (97th %ile)

Head circumference: 99th %ile

I am so enamored of this little man. The curve of his chubby cheek, the soft creaminess of his skin, the kissable rolls on his thighs, the chubby starfishes that are his hands, the way his deep brown eyes light up when you look into them, his winning smile . . . This kid is a keeper!

 

 

3 Months

We have successfully made it through 25% of Adam's first year.  Whew!  Not that I'm wishing away the months with my last sweet cuddly infant, but let's be real here - the first year is exhausting! As far as babies go, you'd be hard pressed to find a sweeter one than our little Adam.  He continues to have such a calm, laidback personality.  Undivided attention is hard to come by with big brother around, but whenever he can get it, he absolutely thrives on it.  He loves to look you in the eye and smile, gurgle, and coo.  He has the sweetest way when he's tired of burrowing his face up under my chin. If you put a toy in his hand, he brings it to his face and mouths it.  He enjoys sucking on his fist, fingers, or thumb whenever he manages to maneuver them to his mouth.  Many other times, you can find him with his hands clasped in front of him, twisting them together.  He is a prodigious drooler.  He continues to top the charts, sporting 6-9 month clothes already and making other babies jealous of the fat rolls on his thighs.  He's not a bad sleeper, usually waking up twice per night.  A couple of nights ago he surprised me by sleeping from 7:30pm-4:15am, although I'm not expecting that to become standard.  I'm making plans to move him to his crib soon.  He is well-traveled for a three month old, having not only visited my parents, but also his Aunt Shalimar at her new home and experiencing his first hotel stay when we went to a wedding in Ohio. I am back at work part-time and Adam has transitioned very well and is getting a lot of love and attention on the couple of days a week that he and Davis spend with our wonderful babysitter. He is an all-around great baby and is soooo unbelievably loved!

From Loving the Life We Live

2 Months

Our little munchkin had his 2 month well baby visit today.  He has been a sad, sleeping baby all day long after that mean ol' nurse gave him his shots.  :(  However, he got a glowing report from the pediatrician.  She wondered how I get any shopping done with all the people who must be stopping me to comment on how adorable Adam is.  :)  His tight neck muscle also seems to be corrected.  We will have a follow-up with the physical therapist on Monday but I think she'll say he's a-ok! Here are his 2 month stats (brace yourself): Weight: 17 lbs. 7 oz. (99.9 percentile) Length: 25 in. (99.6 percentile) Head Circumference: 16.25 in. (97.62 percentile) When he's not recovering from a round of vaccinations, our two month old is a sweet-tempered, easygoing baby and a cuddly little joy.  He started really smiling at us on June 5 and Aunt Shalimar was lucky enough to be here for his first smiles. He had his first road trip this past weekend to visit my parents and go to a family reunion and did beautifully, sleeping right through church and most of the afternoon.  He loves his Mommy and is always happy when he's cuddled in my arms. He is a pretty efficient eater and, unlike my first baby, prefers not to "snack" and nurse to sleep, opting instead to fall asleep with just cuddles or with a pacifier.  His night sleep is decent, but there is a lot of room for improvement.  :)  There have been a few nights where he's had a 5+ hour stretch, but that is not the norm.  As you can tell from the above statistics, he is a BIG boy.  He is very long and wearing 3-6 month clothes, some of which are even too short for him.  I tried to put him in an outfit that Davis wore at 2-3 months and he was stuffed in there like a sausage - for a moment I thought I would have to cut it off of him!  He is being baptized this Sunday and we are looking forward to sharing that special time with our families.

From Loving the Life We Live

One Month

Though you may have been wondering due to the absence of blog posts, I am pleased to announce that we have all survived our first month as a family of four!  Adam has integrated himself very naturally into our family dynamic and Greg and I couldn't be prouder of our two little boys. Adam is a more proficient sleeper so far than his big brother was at this age - Praise the Lord!!  He sleeps almost all the time - so much that I found myself Googling it to make sure he wasn't sleeping too much. Although he naturally prefers to be held when sleeping, he is much easier to put down in his bed or in the swing without waking him.  I am getting longer stretches of sleep at night, up to 3.5 hours at times, than I remember getting the last time I had a newborn, although lately Adam has entered the territory of late-night fussies.  This kiddo has some major gas issues, so that leads to some hard times comforting a screaming baby and trying to coax the gas out of him.  Hopefully that will improve in time.  We have already been able to get out of the house and go places, like a birthday party and out to eat, so I feel this is all progress from when I was a first-time mom.  Adjusting to Baby #2 has definitely been easier on me than adjusting to Baby #1 was.  I am so thankful for that! Davis continues to be an excellent big brother and is always loving and gentle with Adam.  It is so sweet to watch them together and I can't wait to see them interact as Adam gets older.  Davis kept calling Adam his "big brother," but after much correction about Adam being his little brother, Davis now refers to Adam as his "small brother."  It is pretty much the cutest thing I've ever heard - "Hi, small brother," "That's my small brother," "Where's my small brother?," etc. Speaking of small . . . Adam isn't particularly small. One month stats: Weight: 14 lbs. 1 oz. - 99th percentile Length: 22.5 in. - 89th percentile Head circumference: 40 cm - 99th percentile His pediatrician declared him healthy and strong today at his one month appointment.  He has good head control, but always lays his head to his right side, so he's going to physical therapy next week to work on stretching the next muscle and encouraging him to turn his head the other way so it doesn't flatten out. And, of course, what everyone really wants is to see some pictures, so here they are!

Welcome, Adam Leighton Mueller!

Adam Leighton Mueller was born on Thursday, April 24, 2014  at 8:09 a.m., weighing in at 9 lbs. 14 oz. and measuring 21 inches long.

The whole birth and hospital experience was much different this time around than it was with Davis.  The entire day before I was getting worked up and nervous about it, but I felt calmer once the big day actually arrived, and once the scariest part for me was over (getting the spinal block, which didn't hurt nearly as much as it did with Davis), I felt pretty relaxed.  They had to apply a lot of pressure on my upper abdomen to squeeze the baby out and I heard them commenting on how big the baby was - and also posterior (face-up instead of the usual face-down).  Baby started to cry as soon as they pulled out the shoulders, which was a huge relief to me since Davis didn't cry at first and it made me very anxious.  The next thing you know, baby was out and they announced it was a boy!  I didn't feel surprised when Davis was a boy, even though we hadn't found out in advance, but this time I felt a joyful surprise and an overwhelming feeling of happiness.  Since he was crying so lustily and obviously breathing well, I had the pleasure of getting to see him more and watching him over in the bassinet getting cleaned up while I was being stitched up.  Since Davis had to be whisked away to the nursery due to breathing difficulty with me barely getting a glance, and I didn't get to hold him for two hours, it was SO nice to have Adam in the room the whole time, and once they were done checking him out, they wrapped him up and placed him in my arms in the bed and wheeled us back to the recovery room together.  We were able to do skin-to-skin and have his first feeding within one hour of his birth.

Watching Davis meet his new baby brother was obviously a special part of that first day.  Seeing him smile at Adam and gently touch him, looking so happy and proud, just made me so thankful for both of my boys and excited to watch them grow up together as brothers.  On one of his visits to the hospital, I was feeding Adam under the nursing cover and eventually Davis noticed his absence and wondered where the baby was.  When I explained where he was, Davis misunderstood and thought that Adam had somehow been put back inside my tummy!  It was so cute seeing how confused and alarmed he was!

The hospital stay was . . . well, boring at times, compared to our first go-around.  I guess that not being a first-time mom does make a big difference in your anxiety level.  I wasn't a basketcase this time, breastfeeding was going well and I was able to completely eschew visits from the lactation consultant, pumping, and stressing out about feeding and supplementation.  Adam did have a slight heart murmur (which has now disappeared) but was otherwise a strong, healthy newborn, although he barely opened his eyes more than a crack for a few days and we started to wonder whether they were glued together or something!  He lost 9% of his birth weight, which is within the normal range and less than Davis, so it was nice not to worry about that.  We were mostly just spending our time in the hospital feeding him, changing his diaper, holding him . . . and didn't get a whole lot of attention from the nurses, who probably redirected a lot of their efforts to the first-time basketcase moms like I was with Davis.  :)  Still, we were surprised when they sent us home on Saturday morning after only two days in the hospital, since we were there for 3 days back in 2011.

Our homecoming was a relaxed and happy experience.  Davis was really excited that the baby had come home.  It was a beautiful day and we even took Adam with us on a trip to the park that connects to our neighborhood.

 (Adam already found his thumb and started sucking it when we got home.  When Davis saw this, he ran and laid down beside Adam and started sucking his thumb, too.  Some bonding time for my two sweet thumb-sucking boys! :) )

Adam had his first pediatrician appointment this past Monday and she declared him to be a healthy, perfect baby boy.  His stats at the appointment were:

Weight: 9 lbs. 2 oz. (88th percentile) - up 1.5 oz. from his discharge weight last Saturday
Length: 21 inches (93rd percentile)
Head circumference: 14 1/8 inches (79th percentile)

Although it's not always easy - and I am not enjoying only sleeping for 30 minutes at a time each night - we are adjusting to our new life as a family of four! We are so happy (and tired) and feel extremely blessed!