Dear Radley - Month Two

Dear Radley,

On Sunday you were two months old. We celebrated this by taking a trip to the mall play area so we could all get out of the house and your brother could run and play to his hearts content in a relatively contained area. You, slept through the whole thing only awaking long enough to have a snack. Which is sort of how you seem to roll in all your baby coolness.
You sleep an awful lot, which on one hand worries me a bit and on the other, I celebrate your sleepiness and consider the alternative and thank my lucky stars.


In official news:
- You now weigh 12lbs 1 oz and are 23 3/4" long (still on the big side of the spectrum)

- You love the bath, the swing, the boppy baby pillow, long walks, riding in the baby sling. You are pretty much content in any baby apparatus on the market...except for the pack n play - aka your crib which is my biggest challenge

- You smile all the time and i love each and every one.

- You are a very happy baby.

As month 2 draws to a close I want to share with you my intention of these letters less you think that it is only to embarass you by preserving my memories of your cute baby butt on the internet to be available via Google search for all time. I am writing you these letters to document the things you and I and your brother are learning and doing as you grow. I have not gotten you a baby book yet and only half filled out your brothers, so I at this point this blog is how I document your baby-life. I hope that one day you will enjoy reading these, but more likely you will be mortified. And that, my son, is the beauty of parenthood. You are my child and I can traumatize you and your brother as I see fit. In turn, you can one day start your own blog to share my shortcomings with other kids of bloggers.

But know this little one...I have fallen completely, totally and madly in love with you. I love your tiny-ness and seeing you look around and absorb the world around you. You are such a laid back baby.

As I waited for you to arrive everyone warned me that there is no way that you would be as laid back as Maverick had been. And I believed that too as your brother was one laid back baby. But you have suprised us all and in reality you are even more laid back than your brother and you sleep a whole lot more too, which is a bonus...and don't scream endlessly in the car seat so we can actually venture out into the world without your momma developing a twitch from the blood curdling screaming on the way.

In your second month of life, you are spending a great deal of time staring at things in your world. It makes me wonder what is going on in that brain of yours as you do.

Probaby your biggest flaw is that you are not too fond of being left alone or "un-held", so your nanny and I decided that it is a good time to learn to use the slings that your bother only ever tolerated in order for us to get anything done around here. We were pleasantly suprised to find that you love the sling.

You love hunkering down in there and nap away while we putter around the house accomplishing little tasks or saving your brother from his latest peril. At times I look down and you are awake and just scouting out new things to stare at and happy as can be bouncing around with us as we do these day to day things.

Having you as my second baby is an absolute dream. Seeing you interact with your brother and how big he is now serves as a constant reminder to me how quickly this will all go by and soon you will be your own little person with your own thoughts, ideas and opinions.
Soon I will be hearing "mommy, mommy, mommy" a thousand times a day and I can't wait. At times I want to stop time and lock you in as you are now - so sweet, tiny and perfect. I take photos of you every day..hundreds and thousands of photos so I can capture your sweet infant self.

I am reminded by another, that one day you will not look anything like you do in these pictures and I want to remember your little-ness and keep this tiny pure part of you in my heart forever. To remember always... As the days fly by, you just grow and grow and grow..
Time is passing so fast. I can hardly believe that I have already had to pack up all your newborn clothes and you are out of your newborn diapers and in a week or so you will be out of size 1 as well. This past weekend I busted out the 3-6 month clothing size. It is crazy to me how life with you is all going by so fast and the miracle that it is even happening at all.

For now, the thought that occupies a good bit of my mind when I am not trying to figure out some immediate mommy task like who just pooped or how to get a bottle filled while simultaneously keeping Mack from falling off a table and busting his head is the fact that I am now a mom of TWO! That I am a supposedly responsible parent.
It is not that I did not know this was coming, but there is something very overwhelming about the reality of it that can catch me off guard at times. I have moments almost every day that I realize how unalterably my life has changed because you and your brother are here. I dont expect it will be easy, but I do know that this path I am on with you two feels right and is oh so fulfilling and I have a new found enthusiasm for the adventures to come. I hope you enjoy the ride.

I love you,
Mommy


And because I totally borrowed aka ripped off this amazing photographers idea for the chalk photo....We took several and I just could not decide which I liked better...so here is a peek at some of the others... I just loved this idea! I hope to have her do a session for us sometime soon!

Minnow Mack

So Maverick and I just finished our first session of Parent and Me swim lessons. He was a champ. It was good for us. For 2 weeks every morning we spent 30 minutes in the pool learning, laughing and holding each other. It was a great slow me down time so that I could focus on my #1 priority, my kids, while work was picking up and getting more chaotic by the day. It was a wonderful way to spend time together and it felt really good to have some one on one time.

Here he is all suited up and waiting for his turn to get in the pool and examining the array of pool toys that the instructor uses during class.

He loves swimming down and picking up rings.

Today, I brought our new underwater video camera in hopes of getting some good footage.
Unfortunately it backfired as all he wanted was to play with the camera and not focus on the swimming part. Next time I will have to be more stealth-like in my videoing...here are the best 35 seconds I got showing him channeling his internal minnow....

Be Still My Heart...

 

Keeper of the Trash

Hey buddy! In further developments around here, you have finally figured out that trash goes in the trashcan and have proclaimed yourself the Keeper of the Trash...at least the trash in or near the kitchen.

What this means is that if I dare to dispose of something without letting you put it in there and close the lid, there is a pretty good chance that the first second that I take my eyes off you, you will be fishing around in there so you can take the item out and throw it away properly...

Apparently, I am doing it all wrong...

I love you! And just remember this when you are complaining about taking out the trash in oh...i say another 6 or 7 years...

And in other news...

Maverick had his 18 month check up today and is growing well...although while he remains on the lower end of the spectrum for both height and weight....Radley is off the charts huge for both. I am thinking that Radley will be able to defend himself ok against his big brother as long as the trend continues...however, my hand-me-down clothes strategy may be in peril.

He is 31 1/2" tall (40th percentile) and 24 lbs 13 oz (35th percentile)

Rock on little dude....

Dear Mack - Month 17 & 18

Dear Maverick,

Happy 17 & 18 months to you my lovely dear boy. It has been a challenging couple of months for us as we adjust to life with our newest family member. You are now a full two months into being a big brother and after a very rough patch when I had to go away to the hospital we are coming to the other side in fine form.

It simply broke my heart that I knew you did not understand where and why I was so suddenly gone. I am so sorry for that. I would never ever leave you by my own choice. I know you won't remember it, but it was really rough on your mommy. I hated every second of it and watching you struggle with it was perhaps the hardest parenting moment I have had to date.

But you did come to see me almost every day at the hospital and we slowly worked through it so you would sit with me for a while and eat my special hospital ice and that was just the best. You were in very capable hands however and are adjusting mostly well to what I am calling Attention Detox. You see while your cousins and nanny were in charge there was not a minute of your awake life that was not spent playing chase, doing crafts, swimming, cuddling, being carried everywhere and generally having your every whim and desire being catered to.

You were a rock star.

And now that I am home and we are settling in and I have another little person permanently attached to my body pretty much 24/7 and cannot carry you around the world as if you were the King of Siam, you definitely had to get through your disillusionment at the new status quo around here. Ahhh...but those were the good ol' days...

You grew so much while I was away. It is like I came home to another child. You were taller. You spoke more. You played harder. You ran faster. Oh yeah...and somewhere in the time I was gone, you discovered and fell in love with "outside".

I can't say precisely when you suddenly went from being content to look through the sliding glass doors at the world to needing more than anything to go outside and touch all of it. But at this point, getting outside is basically the goal of your entire existence. Every day, from the moment you wake up we have our first conversation about going outside. This would be fine except that you have decided to embrace the great outdoors in JULY. In the middle of triple digit temperatures and it is simply hot, hot HOT!...not that this phases you.

I am not going to sugarcoat this for you Maverick. This is very challenging for me. I am not really a super outdoorsy kind of girl. I never have been. I have delusions of being one, but when push comes to shove, I like the Four Seasons, air conditioning and concierge service. I have lots of athletic hiking, swimming, biking, sport-playing friends, and I love them, but I am more of a spectator than participator in these events. I also do not think we need to discuss camping right now either, because I fear than if you hear it is possible to sleep outside, you will start trying to drag your crib out there. But whether I am melting or not, we spend a lot of time outside together and it really is quite fun. It makes me thankful that I finally got around to landscaping the backyard before you arrived so that we have a magical place to spend that time together - even if it is as hot as blazes out there.

Meanwhile we are settling in to this two-kid-home-dom quite well. You are definitely not sure what to make of this little brother business, but I hold out great hope that you two will ultimately be the best of friends. You love to give Radley kisses and hugs...

and I think you have made it your personal mission to make sure he has a paci constantly whether he wants one or not...

Occasionally you like to pat him a tad bit harder than I would like...

or poke him in some of his softer spots to see what happens. (normally, he takes it quite well)

But you try to poke him a lot...

There are moments that are crazy chaotic and then there are others that make it so so worth every second of those frustrating times. Many times in the early mornings and just before bed in the evenings I find myself in a pile with you two boys in my big pregnancy recliner on the receiving end of the most precious smiles, coos, snuggles, giggles & kisses ever and nothing in the whole entire world matters as much as staying there with the two of you for as long as you can stand it before some other pressing matter crashes the moment. Soon someone needs a diaper change or Radley needs to change sides or it is finally night night time for you or you have something you must go do on your toddler agenda...but for those fleeting precious moments with our tangle of arms and legs snuggled up on the chair...my. life. is. perfect.

I love you so much baby boy,
Love,
Mommy