Thoughts on Motherhood

This motherhood gig is tricky business, I tell you what. After almost seven months, I feel like I mostly have the hang of it...and then something happens to completely shake my confidence. Like this week, when Mr. Max has apparently started teething hardcore (well, we are assuming, anyway) and the routine we had finally, sort of settled into has quite effectively gone out the window. No more 9:00 bedtimes where we lay him in his crib, turn on some lullabies and call it good...lately we are lucky if he falls asleep by 10:30, and only if he is laying next to one or both of us after carrying on for a good hour and having a nice dose of Tylenol to make his little gums feel better. He also has a bit of a cold that has been hanging around for a few weeks, making eating slightly more difficult because he can't always breathe too well...and the only thing that helps him to breathe better (the glorious bulb syringe we got at the hospital) is perhaps his least favorite thing ever in the history of his short little life ever and I feel like I am basically torturing him every time I use it. Sigh.

I've discovered that it's hard not to compare myself to other mothers. There are a few blogs I read every now and then, both written by first-time moms (one stay-at-home, one work-from-home) who have babies that are not much older than mine. These women are always impeccably dressed in expensive clothes (and six-inch heels! On weekdays!) complete with stacks of bracelets, long necklaces and humongous earrings, hair looking like they've just come from the salon, faces full of makeup, always going on and on about their healthy eating habits and religious workout routines. Their babies are apparently wonder-children, on set routines and seemingly never fussy or hard to handle.

Truth be told, most days I am not dressed before noon or later unless I have somewhere to go...and pretty much at least once a week I stay in my pajamas or robe all day. I have decided that I may have to start foregoing jewelry completely, as my little man has ruined more than one of my necklaces because he finds them so fascinating and such fun things to chew on (earrings, too...I haven't even dared tempting him with bracelets so I just stay away from them altogether). Any shirt I have on is certain to be sopping wet with either my baby's drool or spit-up by the end of the day, so T-shirts seem to be the most practical option for me at the moment. Putting my hair in a ponytail is usually a good idea, since Max likes to yank and suck on my hair, too, which is always fun. I started working part-time from home about a month and a half ago, so in between trying to get four hours of work in every day and taking care of my baby, I barely have time to eat, take five minutes for myself and just breathe, let alone work out on a regular basis or most days even leave the house. 

I don't want to complain, because I am beyond grateful that I was able to find a job that is flexible enough to allow me to stay home with my baby while bringing in a little extra money for our family and helping me keep up with my skills...but honestly, it can all become pretty overwhelming. At the end of the day, the things that keep me going and restore my sanity are these simple facts:

My baby never goes hungry,
My baby gets the attention he needs,
My baby is clean,
My baby is well-dressed,
My baby is read to often,
My baby is snuggled,
My baby is developing just as he should,
My baby is happy and healthy,
My baby knows that his mama loves him,
And my baby loves his mama.

And that's really all that matters, right? 

March Recap {Or, as I like to call it, "The Month That Must Not Be Named"}

So. We made it almost the entire winter season without getting sick, besides a couple of mild colds (I was just on the verge of bragging about my apparent super milk and its immunity-providing capabilities)...and then March hit and it all went to crap.

Early in the month, Max caught a stomach bug and spent an entire sad day spewing whatever milk he had drunk right back up. Two days later, I caught the same bug--only like a million times worse because I am an adult and obviously did something wrong in a previous life requiring much suffering on my behalf in this existence--and spent two days flat on my back in bed, wanting to die. (Side note: Every once in a while I think about how much I loved being pregnant and how I miss it. Having that stomach bug reminded me of the horrors of morning sickness. Let's just say that Max will not be getting a sibling anytime soon.)

I had hoped that we were home free after that, but oh, how prideful I am. About two weeks ago, Max came down with a little cough, which turned into a cold. We ran the humidifier in his room for a few nights and then he was pretty much as good as new. And then, like clockwork, two days later I came down with a cold myself. A nasty, miserable cold that is still hanging around like a jerk. And on top of everything else, my body decided to revolt and give me mastitis over Easter weekend while we were up in Logan visiting John's family. Let me tell you, there's no funner way to spend a weekend at your in-laws than stuck in a downstairs bedroom all day, only seeing your baby to feed him while at the same time fighting a high fever and having the source of your baby's milk scream at you in pain. Thank heavens for antibiotics...and on-call doctors who will call in prescriptions to out-of-town pharmacies. 

However, we did manage to get an adorable family picture on Easter Sunday. Behold:

In the midst of everything, my darling little Max turned six months old on March 21st. SIX. MONTHS. OLD. HALF A YEAR. As in, my baby is growing way too fast and soon enough will be crawling, then walking, then hating me because he'll be a rebellious teenager and, like, Moms are just so not cool. YIKES. We had another fun well-child visit at the pediatrician (three cheers for another round of shots, which I again braved by myself! Go me!), where we learned that Max is perhaps the cutest baby on the planet and also that he is good and healthy and developmentally right on schedule (and in some ways, ahead of schedule...child prodigy alert! Ha.).

SIX MONTH STATS

Weight: 16.53 lbs. (30th percentile)

Height: 27.56 inches (84th percentile)

Head Circumference: 17.3 inches (55th percentile)

And here is a little bit about our bean at six months:

• We started him on solids about two weeks ago, and it's going...OK. He seems to like the oatmeal cereal he started out with, but didn't seem to be such a big fan of rice cereal until we fed it to him tonight and he devoured it. We gave him applesauce on Sunday and he LOVED it, but when I tried to feed it to him yesterday he wasn't very interested. Huh. I think it's just going to take a while to get him used to something other than breastmilk. Next on the agenda: sweet potatoes.
  
• He is getting closer and closer to crawling. He finally figured out that it's OK to roll from his tummy to his back (he's been rolling from back to stomach since he was about four months old), so he rolls all over the place now. We find him in all sorts of crazy places if we leave him alone for a few minutes.
  
•  He doesn't mind tummy time so much now and is starting to get up on all fours, and just this morning he was using his feet to push himself forward to get to a toy. I am about to be in trouble, y'all. 
• He is still a curious little thing. Every time we go someplace new, he spends the majority of the time just looking around at everything, trying to take it all in. 
• He does not love loud noises or really loud places. (I DON'T KNOW WHAT WE'RE YELLING ABOUT!!! Ha, bonus points for you if you know that movie reference...) We tried taking him to University of Utah basketball games twice earlier this year and oh, the trauma. We also went to John's cousin's wedding reception over the weekend and he was not having it until we gave him the binkie. Bless you, binkie, for your soothing ways. (I will not, however, be blessing the binkie when my child still wants it at age four. Ugh.)
• We are told on a regular basis that Max is one of the cutest babies ever to be born. I'm serious, we hear that all of the time, totally unsolicited. Therefore, I cannot be considered biased when I tell you that I have the cutest baby ever.
• His hair grows like crazy. We've already had to give him two haircuts to stop him from looking like he has an old-man comb-over.
• He babbles and babbles non-stop these days. He does this high-pitched scream thing and will do it back and forth with me and John for a long time.
• He is crazy ticklish. And I maybe tickle him more than I should because I love to hear that little giggle.
• His favorite toys at the moment are not so much toys as boring, everyday household items. He is mesmerized by water bottles and if we put him anywhere near our gross gray TV remote he goes insane trying to get to it. He also loves to suck on tags...he'll have the cutest, brightest toy to play with and all he'll want to do is get to the dang tag. Weirdo. (But a cute weirdo, remember?)
  
• He most certainly does not like to be rocked to sleep anymore (or rocked at all, or even to be held in the position wherein we could rock him), which makes me quite sad. Usually at night--bedtime is around 9:00--we read him a story, turn on a CD of lullabies and put him down in his crib and he eventually puts himself to sleep. Except for the part where he appears to be teething hardcore at the moment and as we speak it's almost 1b0 and he is currently kicking the laptop as I'm typing this. Silly rabbit. 
• Speaking of sleep, I kind of love taking naps with my boy. He takes much longer naps if we take them together, and it's one of the rare times he likes to snuggle with me. The funny thing is that the second I wake up, he wakes up--not sure how he knows I'm awake, but it happens almost every single time.
• He absolutely LOVES listening to John sing and play the piano or guitar. And when you put him in front of a keyboard or piano, he pounds away on the keys to his little heart's content. It's looking like he was born with at least a little bit of John's musical talent. 
• He loves to touch people's faces...and gouge their eyes out, grab their neck fat, yank on their lips, all sorts of fun things. If he does that to you, you're in.

That about sums it up. I will try not to let another two months pass without an update...and hey, maybe sometime I'll post something non-baby related! (Yeah, right. Let's face it, that's what most of you come here for. And I don't blame you. Just look at this face!) 

Last year's birthday (a post 12 months in the making!)

So. My birthday is today. My 30th birthday (BOOOOOOOO). I have absolutely no idea how any of this happened. Isn't it still 1998 and right now it's time for me to go watch Carson Daly host TRL where my favorite "band" in the world, 'N Sync, has the no. 1 video for the 126th day in a row?! Yeah. Pretty much in my head that's where time stopped for me. My life rules. 

P.S. I still love me some Justin Timberlake. And I may or may not be kind of, sort of, ridiculously excited that he's fine.uh.lee making some new music. About dang time, Mr. J.T.!

P.P.S. Don't judge me.

Last year for my birthday, I woke up in the middle of the night with what I thought was a wicked case of food poisoning. (I'll spare you the details other than to say what a dear, sweet husband I have since he traversed to Smith's at 3 in the morning to buy me Sprite, saltine crackers and Pepto-Bismol.)

Breakfast in bed for me last year. Bah.

John and I had both taken two days off of work and made reservations at the Anniversary Inn up in Logan to celebrate, so in between bouts of nausea we eventually made our way up there so we wouldn't lose out on our money. Our room was pretty dang amazing, but sadly I was too sick to really enjoy it. We did manage to get pictures, though, don't you worry. 

Well, the nausea didn't go away over the course of the weekend (to this day, thinking about the breakfast we were served at the hotel makes me want to throw up), so I figured I had a nasty, nasty strain of the flu. Going to work the next week was a nightmare and I'm not quite sure how I managed to even make it out of bed...I spent my days ridiculously nauseous, counting the seconds until it was time to go home. And when I got home I would just lay on the couch for the rest of the night. All I could even think about eating were ramen noodles, grilled cheese and baked potatoes. 

Fast forward eight months later and that "flu virus" was born. And this year, that stubborn, vicious flu bug that turned into my darling, darling little John Max is here to celebrate my birthday with me. Here's hoping my day does not involve vomit this year! (Not counting spit up, because my sweet boy may have already spit up on me when he gave me the most generous gift of waking me up at 3 a.m. to feed him. Happy birthday to me!)

Four months.

Yo. So my baby suddenly became four months old on the 21st. You know how people who've experienced something before you have always tell you what to expect, and how things will go, and you kind of think to yourself, "whatever, my experience is going to be totally different than that!"? Those people are actually kind of right. When I was pregnant all I ever heard was how fast babies grow up, to cherish every moment while they're still little and will let you hold them, and to try on their clothes earlier than you think you need to because they'll probably outgrow things before you even have a chance to put it on their little baby bodies. And I thought to myself, babies are babies for a long time, and my baby will be the snuggliest baby EVER, and besides, I'll have a little pipsqueak baby who will stay in newborn-size clothes for months and months and months. 

Well, here I am with a four-month-old who is, indeed, growing faster than I thought possible, with a closetful of darling clothes, some of which he's never even worn and perhaps won't get a chance to since he's growing so dang fast and is practically in 6-9 month clothes as we speak. Oh, and the snuggly baby thing? Not so much. Max is much too interested in things going on around him to take the time to lay that cute head of his on Mom's shoulder. He's got throw pillows to look at! And walls and ceiling fans to stare at! And hands to eat!

Max had his four-month well-child appointment this morning (and another round of horrible, awful shots that this time I braved alone!) and here are his stats:

Weight: 15.43 lbs. (61st percentile)

Height: 26.77 inches (96th percentile) (!!)

Head circumference: 16.7 inches (50th percentile)

So essentially, we have a skinny, tall, very healthy baby. I am kind of blown away by how tall he is (maybe because I'm such a shrimp myself?)--our pediatrician said he's as tall right now as an average seven-month-old. Sheesh, kid. He's also developmentally on par in some ways with six-month-old babies, what with his new-found ability to roll over from his back to stomach, desperate attempts to sit up by himself and constant need to stand. We have a wonder child, folks!

Here's a little bit about our cute boy at four months old:

Likes: 

His binky

Having his diaper changed

Playing under his activity mat

Standing

When Daddy comes home from work

When Daddy holds him upside down (Mommy is not such a big fan of this one, however)

Looking in the mirror

When Mom and Dad make funny sounds for him

Being pushed in the stroller
Listening to Daddy sing and play the piano or guitar

Dislikes:

Being burped

Being cradled like a baby when he's tired (seriously?! What baby doesn't like to be held like a baby?)

Having his nose suctioned out

Being put in the carseat

Having clothes put on him (seriously, he cries almost every single time I put a onesie on him)

When he rolls over onto his tummy and gets stuck
Going to bed earlier than 10 p.m. (We have apparently passed our night owl tendencies onto him...but we're working on getting him on an earlier schedule. Not my favorite thing in the world, mind you.)

Man, we just love this boy to pieces.

Holidays wrap-up. And the startling realization that my baby is no longer a newborn.

I swear, it happens to me every year...December and Christmas just fly right on by, with hardly any time to just enjoy it. Next year all I want to do is sit in front of my beautiful Christmas tree, drinking hot chocolate and watching Christmas movies. (Yeah, like that's really going to happen with a 15-month-old running around the house, undecorating my beautiful Christmas tree, spilling hot chocolate everywhere and yelling during the movies. And oh my gosh, YOU GUYS. My baby will be 15 months old next Christmas!)

Anyway, we were able to get a lot of celebrating in, mixed somewhere in between bouts of illness (John had the most horrible of horrid sore throats for a couple of days and Max and I have been fighting colds for about a year now, it feels like), me officially quitting my job to become a full-time mom (post to come later about this one, kids) and John and I continuing to figure out this whole parenting thing.

 I absolutely love my Christmas tree. It is a hodgepodge of ornaments, but most of them have sentimental meaning behind them. We got two new ornaments for Max this year:

To my great delight, I discovered that Max liked to hang out on the floor and stare at the Christmas tree...saving my sanity and also allowing me to actually eat using both of my hands on more than one occasion. Sometimes he even took naps in front of the tree.

We had kind of a low-key Christmas, present-wise, which I thought was just perfect. I'm sure we could have gotten away with not getting Max anything, but I think he was pretty stoked about his new binkies, pajamas and outfits. Next year we'll splurge and get him some boxes and wrapping paper to play with, don't worry.

We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas morning/afternoon with my family before venturing up to Logan to spend the rest of the week with John's family. I may or may not have spent the majority of my time there staring out the window at the hordes of deer (including a couple of rather large bucks) that converged in my in-law's backyard. Because apparently I've never seen deer before. It's not like I live near the mountains and see them on a regular basis or anything.

And somehow in the middle of everything, I realized last week that my boy is no longer a newborn. He has started grabbing anything he can get his chubby little hands on and he tries to put everything those hands get a hold of into his mouth. We are assuming he has started teething as evidenced by the constant crazy-long strings of drool that hang off of his chin and soak his outfits every day. And he has become somewhat mobile--he kicks his legs all day long and as of Monday can roll over from his back to his stomach! (We're still working on getting him to roll over from his tummy to his back--I have found that he'll tolerate "tummy time" a little bit better if I have him try it out while he's only in his diaper. I swear, that boy is so much happier if he doesn't have on any clothes. Maybe we have an exhibitionist on our hands.) The other day I left him flat on his back in the middle of his crib and went into the other room for one second, and this is what I came back to. Naturally I took pictures before I helped him.

Max is also becoming much more vocal and makes the sweetest little coo and gurgle noises I've ever heard. (He also makes these high-pitched screams and squeals that sound very much like a feral cat...) He has finally started laughing and I'm pretty sure that the heavens open when he giggles. He especially loves to laugh for John.

Apparently all I'm good for is SUSTAINING HIS LIFE by, you know, feeding him with my own body. No biggie.

So...I blinked and my baby is 3 months old.

So somehow my baby is already 3 months old. Umm, excuse me...wasn't he just barely born? When did this happen? John put Max in his pajamas the other night and brought him down in a 3-6-month-sized sleeper. And it fits him. I may have fought back a few tears at how fast my little guy is growing. Yep. I'm one of those moms who cries when her baby moves up a size in clothes. 

Max had his two-month appointment with the pediatrician a couple of weeks ago and apparently I produce super milk because our little dude is, as they say, growing like a weed. (Also, little man had to get his first round of shots. THE HORROR. I cried all the way to the pediatrician's office thinking about it. And even though I totally stepped out of the room when the nurse was doing them (don't worry, John stayed in with him!) I could still hear his sad little anguished, betrayed cries in the hall and couldn't stop the tears from coming. The nurse gave me a hug when she saw me. I am awesome.) Anywho, here are his stats from birth until now:

BIRTH, 9/21/2012

Weight: 7 lbs. 6 oz.

Height: 20.5 inches

TWO DAYS OLD, 9/25/2012

Weight: 7.17 lbs. (24th percentile)

Height: 20.47 inches (68th percentile)

Head Circumference: 13.8 inches (27th percentile)

TWO WEEKS OLD, 10/8/2012

Weight: 8.16 lbs. (27th percentile)

Height: 20.96 inches (54th percentile)

Head Circumference: 14.6 inches (42nd percentile)

TWO MONTHS OLD, 11/28/2012

Weight: 12.79 lbs. (68th percentile)

Height: 24.41 inches (89th percentile)

Head Circumference: 16.1 inches (68th percentile)

Y'all. He weighs as much now as I did when I was a year old. And don't worry that in another month, he'll probably be halfway to being as tall as I am. So I guess when you combine my and John's genes you get super tall, super healthy, super CUTE babies. Because let's be real here, my baby is quite possibly the cutest baby ever born. (Get a load of those chubber thighs...squeeaaa!!! I love them.)

Max has started smiling a lot and is almost to the point of laughing. And can I just say, those little smiles of his can probably cure all kinds of diseases and probably would have gotten Mitt Romney elected if he would have used him in his campaign. (Ha! Political jokes!) It has become my and John's mission in life to get this kid to smile, and we resort to all kinds of shenanigans to get him to do so. I'm sure he thinks we are the biggest idiots ever and only smiles to amuse us...but it works. I mean, just LOOK at this face! I die!

Another reason my baby is pretty much a rock star? He has been sleeping in five- to seven-hour stretches at night for the past several weeks. We finally broke down and put him in his own room at night after having him in with us in a cradle (that my awesome husband and dad made for him, might I add) for the first six weeks of his life, and I think that has made all of the difference. He is not exactly a...quiet...sleeper, shall we say. When he was in our room, I would wake up to every grunt, squeal and whinny. (Seriously, he makes this one noise that sounds like a horse whinnying! Who is this kid?!) And when I woke up, I would turn the light on which probably in turn woke him up, yada yada yada. And then he got to the point where he'd roll over during the night and get his hands and feet stuck in the slats of the cradle and wake up crying. So yeah. Babies in their own rooms is where it's at. And baby monitors are little angelic pieces of technology. 

I finally feel like I am getting this mothering thing down. In all honesty, the first month was super rough for me. I was healing myself while trying to take care of this little stranger, on top of which I was dealing with some pretty nasty baby blues. The whole bonding thing also didn't happen as fast as I expected it to, which was really weird for me because I felt so bonded to my little guy while I was pregnant with him. I tell John all the time that I kind of feel like I was cheated out of that first month and didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I should have. But I am taking full advantage now and breaking all sorts of those so-called "rules" that are in all of the parenting books. Do I rock my baby to sleep? You betcha. Do I let him sleep in my arms? Totally. Do I still demand feed? Yep. Do I pretty much not let him cry longer than a few minutes at a time? Maybe. OK, so I admit that I might possibly be spoiling this little one...but I really can't look at that face and not want to make him happy every second of his life.

Happy 3 months, little bug.

Max's Blessing

Our little Max's blessing day was on November 25th, the Sunday after Thanksgiving. We spent Thanksgiving up in Logan with Johnny's family this year, so needless to say I spent the days leading up to when we went up there cleaning our house like a mad woman. Consequently, I have learned that trying to clean while also taking care of an infant does not always work out quite how you want it to. At least he seemed to like the sound of the vacuum, so I had that. 

We have 1:00 church, so I tried to time everything just perfectly so that Max would be clean, fed and tired by the time sacrament meeting rolled around. He was pretty grumpy all morning and I was sure that he would scream all during the blessing, but he must have known that what was happening was kind of a big deal (or he had help from some sort of heavenly being) because he was pretty much an angel baby during the blessing. And I have to say, my Johnny gave him the most beautiful blessing I have ever heard. I have never felt more like a real live grown-up than when I realized it was my husband up there blessing my baby. I have arrived, people. 

After sacrament, we invited the bazillions of people who came to support our little family back to our house for some grub. People were PACKED in our house. I was running around like a mad woman, yet again, trying to talk to everyone, coercing groups of people into taking pictures so we could commemorate who was there, feeding my seemingly starving child and plotting how to magically make my house bigger. In the meantime, most of the food was eaten and I was reminded again of the joy of motherhood--not ever getting to eat when you want to. Ha.

All of the men who were in the circle

John's family

My family

One of the things I was most excited about was getting a four-generation picture of all of the living John Morreys since John's grandpa was in town. As I mentioned back when we found out we were pregnant with a boy, our little John Max is the seventh John Morrey. We have since found out that all seven of the John Morreys also happen to be the firstborn in their families...sorry, son, now the pressure's all on you to give the world John Morrey VIII. 

John Douglas Morrey (my father-in-law), John Max Morrey, John Scott Morrey and John Rolf Morrey. That's a lot of Johns in one picture.

I think it's kind of funny that you have all of these John Morreys who look just like each other and then BAM...there's some little stranger who looks just like me but is posing as one of them. I guess those Stapley genes are pretty strong.

All in all, it was a wonderful day and Max was such a good little baby for most of it. Only once everyone was gone did the screaming begin. He saves all of the good stuff for John and me. But we just love him and are so happy he's ours.

Zonked on the couch once everyone had left