2 Months of Mason

STATS (at 2 month check-up)
- Weight: 11 lbs. 12 oz. (50th percentile) - hooray for average!
- Height: 22.4 inches (25-50th percentile)
- Head circumference: 41 cm (50-75th percentile)

- size 1 diapers

- kissed some Newborn clothing goodbye and bumped him up to 3 months

- has the most darling dimple in his left cheek - smiling or crying. I prefer the former.

- his right eye tends to drift in the wrong direction but he's got a few more months before it's a concern.

- fantastic hair - it's the first thing anyone comments on.

- his skinny, little chicken legs are starting to fill out. Catching up to his cheeks. (Those are the next things people comment about.)
- he issues a very manly grunt instead of crying at times.
- started to sing and coo - finding his voice.

- great nurser, feel very fortunate it came so easily.

- even better vomiter - it's unreal.

- cries only when he needs something and stops as soon as you figure out what it is.

- sleeps in our room in a fun little contraption I wish I'd had with the first. A rock 'n' play sleeper which fits neatly on my side of the bed so I barely have to move to pull him up to nurse him.

- it's been hard to put him down, he's such a great snuggler.

MASON MOMENTS

I learned that I'm not cut out for babywearing, or may need some practice. I spilled a large dollop of sauce on poor Mason's head at dinner one night.

He met his Auntie Nicola when she came to visit this month. He was blessed on the 1st of December, the first week we met in our brand new church building and he behaved very well.

Love at First Sibling

I know they have the rest of their lives to fight and hate each other, but at least for the last six weeks, Teagan has loved Mason with all her little heart and soul. She was nervous at first, just because he was so small, but she loves to hold him now and won't leave him alone. She's always reading to him, or "helping" me change his diaper and picking out things for him to wear. We tried to eat dinner the other day while he was fast asleep in his bouncer and she refused to eat until he joined us, so we dragged him over next to the table and she plopped her time out chair right beside him and kept him company. So sweet. I took all of these in the first 8 days of Mason's life...I know I need to cool it on the photography but they are so cute together. At the moment. Maybe subconsciously I know it will end soon and I want to be able to remember "the good ol' days"!

1 Month of Mason

STATS (at 1 month appointment 12.5.2013)
- Weight: 10 lbs. 6 oz. (50-75th percentile)
- Height: 21 inches (25th percentile)
- Head Circumference: 39 inches (50-75th percentile)
- size 1 diapers
- 0-3 months clothing (tried to squeeze him into Newborn sleepers for too long)


- Two words: THE HAIR. Inspiring comments since his first appearance.
- Chubby cheeks
- Chicken legs
- Dark blue eyes...so what if the right one drifts in the opposite direction every once in a while?
- Really content - only cries if he needs something
- Got days and nights sorted out really quickly
- Took a binky in the hospital with no problems (YAY!)
- Started taking a bottle when only days old (DOUBLE YAY!)
- Furrows his brow and looks concerned far more than a newborn with minimal problems should
- Prefers the baby swing to the bouncer
- Loves being held - and has hardly been put down since he was born!

MASON MOMENTS

I forgot how small babies can be. Even though he was more than 8 lbs at birth, he feels incredibly tiny and fragile. I know that babies are super resilient and the risk of me doing irreparable damage is minimal, but it doesn't feel that way when I'm holding his entire body in the crook of my elbow. I have a hard time putting him down - he snuggles like a champ, smells like a dream and sleeps like a log. Love my beautiful little man.

Zero to Six Pees

We're up to our eyeballs in diapers over here. Teagan "helped" me by sorting he newborn diapers by Sesame Street characters. Size is irrelevant - it's very important that Mason wears Elmo on the right day.

 

They are the perfect size for her babies (not so much for Mason anymore) and GG made up a wee diaper bag for her to carry around. It's more than a little bit adorable. If only she'd change actual dirty diapers.

At the moment, there are three of us in diapers. Never thought I'd live to see the day. I pulled one of Teagan's out one day and it was comically large in comparison to Mason's teeny tiny newborn ones. And then to add insult to injury, I grabbed one of my hospital issue beauties and nearly cried. 

 

There's so much truth to the fact that a toddler needs to choose when to potty train. Proven by the fact that Teagan finally showed an interest in the whole affair exactly four days after her brother was born. I'd been trying to get her to sit on the potty for weeks and finally gave up, planning to pick it up when she was ready. We took both kids to see the doctor and she asked about potty training, to which I responded that Teagan had absolutely no interest. Then, to make me a liar, she sat on the potty as soon as we got home - thanks to GG. GG was able to convince her to sit on the potty until something actually happened.

The look on her face when she heard the pee hit the bottom of the potty was absolutely priceless. That success lit a fire in her and she was hooked.

She peed in the potty six times that first day. SIX times.

I was so excited she was actually doing it that I promised her a piece of Halloween candy each time she peed on the potty. After a few days of her peeing every few minutes and consequently rotting her teeth, I had no choice but to scale it back to a single Skittle and a fun size chocolate bar for pooping.

A few days in, she actually threw a diaper on the ground and stomped on it, yelling, "Diapers are for babies! I a big girl."

We had a few pairs of big girl everywhere, but they were 2T and 3T, so Sneaky Cheek was at an all-time high, and as they were hand-me-downs, they weren't really characters she was all that interested in. GG suggested we have her pick out some big girl underwear, which she likes to call "everywhere" so we headed to Target, my happy place. We talked to her about all the possibilities and she decided she wanted Minnie Mouse everywhere. And even in the face of Doc McStuffins, the Disney Princesses, Dora AND Bubble Guppies, she came home with Minnie Mouse. A girl of her word indeed.

So far she has been fantastic. And while I'm not able to lift her, in light of my incredibly recent surgery, things are going well. She has a stool in each bathroom and I've only had to lift her onto the potty (sometimes from the bathtub) a few excruciatingly painful times so far. I'm cautiously optimistic. But life just got a whole lot more complicated. And messy.