Month Two

Apparently I do nothing else of note from month to month.  (Which is fine with me.)

Our first try at two month pictures.  He wanted no part.

Take two-The next day.  

(The cute blanket was a gift from a student I had last year.  She sewed the pieces.  Her mom bound it.  And her grandma did the quilting.)

So little Atticus has had a much better month.  Once we got him on the right medication for his reflux and once I finally resigned myself to the fact that I can't eat chocolate or dairy (and quite possibly peanuts... Please stand by...)  He was suddenly such a happy baby.  He started cooing and smiling right away.  He really is just such a good baby now and so happy.

Here be his two month stats and some other stuffs.

         -Height: 22.75 inches--40th percentile

         -Weight: 10 lbs 10 oz--23rd percentile

         -Head circumference: 14.8 inches--6th percentile--Ya the kid's head is TINY.  

          It's grown .8 inches since birth.

                 --So basically he is still just a little guy.

-He looks exactly like his dad which we are frequently reminded of by others

-We are also frequently told he has his mom's eyes.  Therefore, our son is the chosen one of the wizarding world.

-He's a morning person.  Who knows where he gets it from.  But his most happy and talkative time is after his 6:30 breakfast (he has a 9:00 breakfast too) and it makes it completely worth it to be up that early after no sleep

-He's most often fussy around 4:30 in the afternoon.  Right when I would get home from school to see him.  Not pleased.

-We read his board books everyday.  The best ones (as in my current favorites) are the Hiccup-otomus and his Star Wars books.  Mainly because I'm doing better at knowing my Star Wars characters now.

-We like to jam out to Bob Marley.  It can get him to stop what he's doing to listen and I like to help him learn to have rhythm.

-Even with all the jaundice gone, the kid still has a great complexion.  He's nice and tan.

-He's recently begun doing this little pouty lip thing right before he cries and neither Dan nor I can help ourselves when he does.  We are completely under his power.

-The kid really likes his daddy and enjoys his daddy time when he gets home from work

-He has this humongous cowlic on the back of his head.  Mostly it's adorable and makes for some great morning hair.

-Speaking of hair, he still has plenty of it and it's just getting longer.  Oh and it's curly when wet.

-He's been making up for the nonstop screaming he did in the first month of his life and is now a very happy and easy-going baby.  Generally the only times he cries are the two minutes it takes for me to change him before he eats.  The rest of the his awake time, he's smiling, talking or simply calmly watching.

-With the change from him always screaming to not, we had a hard time getting him used to the fact that he doesn't need to constantly be held, especially to sleep at night.  He's getting much better though.  He's fine during the day and will spend most of the night in his cradle.  Then about 5 am every morning he starts grunting and whining until I bring him and lay him next to me and then he's fine

-He can be very cuddly and will just drape himself over you and be so happy.  (The best is when he's sleeping on you and he coos as he breathes.)  And then other times he will fight cuddling because he definitely wants to sit up and play.

I love my little boy.  He is just such a perfect, happy, sweet baby.  We are so blessed to have him.  We are happy.

6 weeks

 7 weeks

 8 weeks

 He got to visit his Aunt Stefanie and some of her kids.

He was loved on by "Gis"-obsessed Jersi

 My best friend Oaklee

 Really the first few times of him calmly lying on his back like this I nearly cried.  

It was a miracle

 The kid could just sit in the tub all day.  He likes it pretty hot and doesn't mind being splashed in the face.  He's doing better at not throwing fits when it's time to get out too.

He learned to smile on purpose and Dan swears he's laughed.  Cutest smile ever.

 Love my cuddle time and how much he looks like his daddy.

 Still loves his arms free from the swaddle

 His eyes are currently blue and lighten more each day.

 He went to church for the first time and stays pretty good while there.

 Handsome.

Cuddled up with daddy.

 Love these while he played with grandma

On to month three!!

Anniversary

So Dan and I anniversed (I think I just made up that word) this last month.  We've been married three years.  Cute huh?  I'm not one to get all gushy publicly so I'll just say, I sure like my husband, he's good stuff.  In three years, we've moved three times. We've collectively had six jobs.  We've been to four different countries.  And we've had one amazing kid.  It's been fun.

This is us on anniversary #3

Little back story for those of you who may not know...  Dan and I met when we were 18 on the day I moved up to college freshman year (for those of you who can't do math or don't know our current ages, that was 8 years ago.)  Not long after my parents had finished helping me move in and left me there, my friends Laura and Jenna came to get me.  As we were walking out of the building, some boy yelled down at us from a window.  He was trying to get Jenna's attention as he had met her at orientation or something.  We went back up and talked to this random boy for a few minutes.  It was Dan.  Anyway, I spent the rest of the semester flirting with him and we finally started dating that December.  Dan's mission, my nanny job in New York, (some other guys I dated...), my college graduation, and five years later, we were married.  I sure am glad I landed that Dan Bronson fella.  As were many others as they were sick of me talking about him.  In fact, last week we were at Cafe Sabor and our waiter looked a little familiar to me.  When he came back he asked Dan "Are you Dan Bronson?"  When he was met with the affirmative, he explained that I had been his efy counselor (5 YEARS AGO!!) and all I ever talked about was Dan Bronson.  I love that he didn't say hello to me or anything, just automatically assumed that I was with Dan Bronson.  Loved it!

Anyway, we didn't do anything too big and exciting for our anniversary (although it kicked the pants off of last year as we spent the day moving.)  My mom was up helping take care of Atticus for a few days while I finished up the school year and so she took him for the night and we went to dinner.  There are very few nice places in Logan to go get dinner and we decided to give Hamilton's another try.  We were again not that impressed.  Over-priced food that is not even close to worth it and meh service.  Everyone is obsessed with that place but I'd take Elements a million times over Hamiltons.  Okay, that was my random little plug for restaurants up here...  Anyway, we still had fun.  Dan got us tickets to go see wicked in July.  We've never seen it so we're excited.  Everyone says once we see it we'll love it.  So stay tuned.  

Anyway, I love me some Dan Bronson and I'm happy he puts up with me and my messes.

And now, because I only blog for one reason, a random assortment of pictures from the last three years in no particular order...

Quasimodo and my Quasimo-toes

 My first trip to Vegas!

 An engagement photo

 Disneyland!!!

I think this was at our wedding...

 New York Trip!

 Our first anniversary when we tried to eat some of our wedding cake.

 Running of the Bulls in Pamplona.

I think this was New Year's Eve at Elements

 Go Aggies!

 Beaches of Normandy

 Saucy

Our Honeymoon in Puerta Vallarta

 4th of July 2011

 Our first Christmas

 Wedding Stuff

Dorky picture at Dan's graduation.

 Our summer in Spain when they took the World Cup!

 Atticus

 Trip to Cancun

Jerry and Elaine

 We have cute bottoms.

One Month Old!

Here he is, all one month of him with his lamby from grandma.  Still drowning in his newborn outfit...

It's been a happy and frustrating month (filled with undying screams from him).  I thought I'd just kind of list a few things about Atticus' first month of life and show off his handsome little face.  Because, as he is my son, he only does things so he can take pictures of them.

The kid hates to be swaddled since about day 4, swaddling was out the window.  We still try to swaddle him for bed and my brother and sister-in-law gave us this great swaddle blanket that velcroes closed but the kid kicks that open.  Even when he was on the bili-bed for all his jaundice, he managed to squirm his arms out

Yep, he had to be on a bili-bed for jaundice for about a week.  He is still pretty jaundiced.  The whites of his eyes are not white and I get comments all the time on his "beautiful olive skin" (Of course most people look olive-skinned when pasty-white-me is with them) which is mostly due to jaundice.

He is a squeaker.  I don't know how other moms don't freak out and go check if their baby is breathing all the time.  This kid is always making little squeaky/squealy/snorty noises.  All I have to do is wait for a few seconds until his next squeak to reassure myself that he is still breathing.  His best squeak is this little chuckle he's started in the last week and a half.

Of course the squeaks only come at quiet times.  Most of the time the kid is screaming bloody murder.  Starting at barely two weeks old, he decided to start screaming and has hardly stopped since.  I was already off dairy and chocolate as the doctor thought that might help him with his gassiness.  (Everything has dairy in it.  Everything.) And I'm still off just to be sure although the doctor has admitted that probably isn't what's causing it.  He is now on his third try for medicine to help stop the screaming and pain.  The first doctor (the regular doctor was out of town) hardly heard what I had to say and just called it colic and gave us a pro-biotic and a "sucks to be you!".  Regular doctor listened to me and my thoughts on reflux.  We tried one medicine for a week and a half which took the edge off.  We are now on day 4 of a stronger reflux medicine and I think (Hopefully not just wishful thinking) that it is starting to kick in.  For example, he is lying flat on his back right now and is perfectly content.  That never happens.

He loves just lying in the tub, not being scrubbed down, just sitting in the water and having it poured over him.  He also LOVES being outside.  I don't know how he can tell he's even out there but as a method of calming the screaming, we'll walk around with him in his carrier and if we're outside he's calm and literally if we go inside he starts screaming again.  Even on cold rainy days, I can step outside with him for a second and he'll immediately calm down.  Of course it has to be a perfect combination of things too.  He'll calm down if he's in his carrier, we're outside, I am walking, and he has his binky in his mouth (not even necessarily firmly in his mouth.  Sometimes it's hanging out the side like a cigar.)

Another thing Dan has discovered helps him be calmer is holding things, like most babies of course, but Dan has taken to just handing him a highlighter marker and he'll cling to that.  The other day I fell asleep with him on my chest (as that's the only way he'll sleep soundly with all his gas and reflux issues) after Dan had handed him the highlighter.  I woke up about three hours later and the kid still had a firm hold on it.

Let's see, what else...

-He hates being changed-probably a lot to do with having to lay on his back which is bad for his reflux

-He has a constant need to suck which leads to problems because he still has a hard time keeping his binky in and if we don't stick it back in his mouth right away then it's too late and he'll start screaming too much to even notice the binky is back.

-He takes 45+ minutes to eat.  It's a little annoying.  And he is THE messiest eater!  Milk gets everywhere!

-He has met all of his cousins except the oldest one, Tyson

-His once black eyes are really starting to lighten, they're a gray color now and I think they'll continue to change to blue.  I was hoping he'd get my green eyes.

-His crazy head of hair is also lightening-I'm still nervous that he'll develop the infamous Williams Straw-Hair.  It sure was acting that way when I took his one month picture.

-Due to him coming so early, he was able to attend two of his own baby showers.  He also still does not have a proper nursery as that was not ready before he came and all of his belonging are currently overflowing his crib and all over the floor as he doesn't even have a dresser yet and his mom had not tried to organize the closet.

-He gets so angry in all his screaming that he can roll all the way over to his tummy.

-He drools.  Which I swear isn't supposed to start until teething...

-His scrawny chicken legs are starting to fill in.  Sort of.

-He's always good when daddy's home.  In fact Dan hadn't even heard/had to deal with his most outraged, undying screaming until about a week ago.

-He finally met his best friend Henry who was supposed to come two weeks before him but instead came nearly 3 weeks after him.

-He was the most perfect baby for his first photo session, which being my kid, and the first of my kids, he better get used to.
-He generally sleeps with his left eye slightly open.  Even when I push it closed, he opens it back up again.

-He looks more like his daddy every day

For your comparison pleasure, here he is with his lamby at 1, 2, and 3 weeks old.

Meeting some cousins

 Squirms until he can free his arms

Messy Eater

Good for daddy.

With best friend Henry Pierson.  (I've got Henry, Laura has Atticus)

 Loving the great outdoors

Just a few hours old with daddy