7 Months Already?

 

Bennie the Bull, today you are 7 months old.

Let the updating begin.

*You were Mr. Milestone this past weekend.  On Saturday (May 7th), you achieved sitting up and crawling in one day.  You don't mess around.  Every day you perfect your crawling skills a little more.  I love seeing you on the move, however in your brief amount of mobility, you have shown yourself to be more destructive than your sister has in her three years of life.  Life will surely only get more interesting from here.

*Clearly I missed posting a 6 month recap.  We can blame that on a family-wide flu infestation.  Here's the highlights: we weaned from breastfeeding at 5.5 months because of mommy's migraines.  Once we weaned, you adapted fine to the bottle and stopped hating it.  At your 6 month appointment you weighed 20 lbs, 12 ounces and were 28 inches long.  At that appointment, Dr. B said you were eating too many ounces of formula a day and to cut out the dreamfeed at night and add another solid meal in the morning.  You FINALLY started doing really well with your sleep, sleeping 7:00 pm to 6:00 or 6:30 am.  Just this past week you started waking up between 5:00 and 5:30 am again, acting starving.  Now we are feeding you lunch too.  I'm not sure what we are doing to do next.  You are basically maxed out on food.  So far you like everything.  Squash would probably be your least favorite.  I've made all your baby food so far and need to make another round of stuff soon to introduce you too.

*You are wearing mostly 18 month clothing.  It seems like you are constantly in need of clothes, but I hate to buy too much, because you have gone through clothes so fast because of your size.  I like buying baby boy clothes so much more than I thought I would.  You look adorable dressed like a little man.

*We had your baby dedication at church on May 1st.  Surely someday I'll get around to posting specifically about this.

*You are a MANIAC in your walker.  You spend all your awake time either crawling/rolling/sitting on the floor or in the walker.  You go all over the house.  Sometimes I can't find you because you've gone in the other room.  You are already at the point that if it's too quiet, I come looking for you.  The other day you had wheeled your walker up to an outlet in the hall and were trying to pull the carbon monoxide detector out of the wall.  You also love to steal the kitchen towels off the handle of the oven and then take off in the walker with them.  You are a darling, mischievousness boy.

*You still think your sister is the most hilarious thing you've ever seen.  I was trying to take a picture of you yesterday and you only had smiles for her.  I don't blame you, she is pretty hilarious.

*You are starting to show some signs of separation anxiety and of being a Mama's boy.  Your dad was getting you ready for bed the other night.  Every time I walked out of the room, you would fuss, then when I came back in, you would laugh.

*As every day passes, I cannot believe how much I love you more and more.  You and your sister light up my days sweet boy.

Every litle thing she does is magic hilarious

Confession: I really kind of wanted Bennett to be a girl.  I had my heart set on a pair of sisters with a special bond.  Not that Campbell couldn't be close with a brother, I guess I just didn't imagine it going that way.

I am, however, starting to get the sweetest glimpse of a very special relationship between my two kids.  He thinks she is literally the most interesting, hilarious thing he's ever laid his huge blue eyes on.  And all she has to do is look in his direction and he laughs. 

And although sometimes she is too preoccupied with her own stuff to stop and pay much attention to him, sometimes she is so sweet with him I can't hardly stand it.  She has lots of nicknames for him "Bennie the Bull, Bennis, Bennie Jack".  She can be so sweetly concerned about him.  She loves to cheer "Go Bennie Go" when he's walking in the walker, jumping in the jumper, or making attempts to crawl.  And she will ham it up big time to get him to laugh or smile.

Case-in-point, last weekend she was messing around with her big, purple ball.  He was laughing so much more than he ever has that I had to video him.  Russ and I NEVER get laughs out of him like this.  I think at one point in the video she even hits him with it and he laughs.

I am so in love with my little man.  I'm so glad the Lord knew what our family needed better than I did.  And so grateful He is answering my prayers for the sweetest of relationships between the two little people I love the most.

Easter is Awesome

Before I started recapping our Easter festivities, I went back and looked at my posts from the past several Easters.  Go here and here to see Campbell's first two Easters.  (I might have just cried.)  My little chubby-cheeked baby has definitely turned into a little girl over the past year. 

We had a great Easter three-day weekend.  Seriously, God bless the inventor of the three-day weekend. And oh so timely.  We are coming off a serious four week wave of sickness in our house.  It has been physically exhausting, but even moreso, both Russ and I were feeling disconnected with each other, the Lord, other people, and life in general.  Our weekend was renewing on so many levels.  We spent much of Good Friday hanging out at home, doing a little deep cleaning, and honing our pottying skills with dad's help.  I had a newborn session that afternoon and in the evening we had dinner at my parents with my sister, brother-in-law, niece, and nephew.  We ate, hung out, and dyed Easter Eggs.  Some people (Campbell) may have done some nude egg dying.  She's taking potty training to a new level.

Saturday morning, I had a few family sessions and enjoyed a solo trip to Target to get Easter basket stuff.  We went to lunch and then headed to our church's FIRST Easter Egg Hunt.  Campbell was way excited.  Russ and I were pretty nervous about an outing in panties.

I snapped some pics of the kids before we left.  My kids are very cute and I can generally get cute pictures of them individually, but they are not at ages right now where getting a picture together is easy.  It's a good thing I have a fondness for candids.

Campbell did GREAT with her first big outing sans diapers.  This is in part due to potty I picked up to keep in the back of the car (thank you Angela McClinton for the inspiration).  The only downside was that C was so excited about the novelty of using the potty in the back of the SUV that we stopped along the side of the road and did it multiple times :)  And then in the middle of the Easter Egg Hunt we took various potty breaks.

Campbell LOVED the Easter Egg Hunt.  She has always been a timid girl and lately we have been marveling at how she is becoming so independent.  This is just the kind of thing that would have sent her into a tailspin a year ago, but she ate it up this year.  She makes me so proud.

Talking strategy

Without a doubt, the highlight of our Easter weekend was church on Sunday morning.  (I didn't realize it until just now, but I wrote a very similar thing two years ago about the church service!  While I'm sure it was awesome, it didn't hold a candle to this Easter :). 

Last year on Easter Sunday, my husband and our dear friend, Jordan McClinton, officially took over as worship leaders of The Waters Worship Band - now called Current Worship.  This past year has been one of growth in so many areas for both of them - leadership, hearing God, relationally, balancing time, musically, and various others.  I could not be more proud of my husband or more impressed with God for the transforming work He continues to do in this man I married and continue to love more and more.  Not only was this Easter Sunday a phenomenal time of worship, it was an emotional time for Russ, as he was doing a lot of reflecting about what the Lord has done over the past year.

It was a beautiful time of worshiping the Risen Lord Jesus and acknowledging that although unnecessary, we are being used to bring forth His purposes here on Earth.

We finished out the weekend with family at my parent's house that afternoon.  It was fun and low-key.  I once again faked domestic awesomeness with an amazingly simple baked beans recipe.  Here's the best I could get of the kids before church.

I dare you to tell me you have seen a boy this cute before.

What's Campbell up to these days? - an update of my girl, as told by iPhone photos

After completing such a massive post about Bennett, I felt it was only fitting to write an update about what our Campbell is up to these days.

Currently, Campbell is 2 years and 10 months.  She is beautiful, incredibly sweet, smart as a tack, hilarious, and at times, completely exhausting.  She definitely has a stubborn streak.  And she's bossy as all get-out (seems like she got most of Russ's good qualities and most of my bad...).  She's such a funny mixture of toddler and little girl at this point.

Here is a look at the life of the Goose, over the past five months.

These are in no particular order!

.

 The first time she met her little brother

One of the advantages to having a little brother is all the stuff to put your dolls in.  Or yourself.

Wearing "fancy shoes" with her pajamas.  She's classy like that.

Speaking of wearing things, she's gotten into dressing up a little.  She wore this pink ballerina outfit for an entire weekend recently (slept in it for three nights, took a bath and put it back on, wore it to the grocery store, wore it to CHURCH on Sunday).  On Monday morning, I finally peeled it off of her and told her it had to be washed.

She is actually napping in it as I type this :)

And has worn it for multiple playdates.  Pairs well with crown and princess shoes.

She was really excited about this hat for a few days.

Getting dressed up in her skirt (Daddy's boxers) and necklaces.

*boxers were clean!

Christmas was kind of exhausting this year.

On the way home from costume day at school...with her kitty face on.

The boss of Bennett

"Teaching" Bennett

Reading to Bennett

This was awesome.  She has a puzzle book - each page is a different Sesame Street puzzle.  The back of the puzzle pieces are color coded.  She came and got me one day and told me the pieces were ready.  She had separated them into colors and put them in piles.  What really blew my mind is that they are in order (1st pile is 1st page, 2nd pile is 2nd page, and so on).  Little genius!

Hanging out with Atti.  She was both excited and annoyed that Atti was laying on her.

 

 Bennett was roughly three and a half months before she decided she wanted to hold him.  It's a good thing she did, because I think he was probably bigger than her the next day.

  

 On our way home from school one day with her favorite treat - Sonic Orange Slush.

 

Ready for Western Day at School

 "Mom, I drawed a kite!"

First time to draw something recognizable, other than some of her letters.

 

Cooking with Dad

Loves bubbles

Mostly a big girl, but still a little bit like a baby.

Bennett is 5 months old!

Bennett Russell, Bennie Boy, BB, Mr. B, Mr. Bennett, BR, Big Man, Bennie Boo-Boo, Boober, Little Buddy, Buddy-man:

Today you are 5 months old. 5 months already! Your life has been a tremendous blessing, but I do have to say that it is flying by! Since I have not done a post documenting ANY of your life, here we go.

Newborn (October 10 - November 10)

That first month is already hard to remember. 1. Because I was so tired and 2. because you have changed so much since then.

You were born October 10, 2010. I went into labor at Uncle Drew's family birthday party the night before you were born. It was fun to sit around and count contractions with the fam, as Uncle Drew and your daddy used iPhone contraction counting apps to monitor them. Finally, we called the on-call doctor and he said to come on in. Once we did, labor slowed down. They decided to keep us, suspecting you were a big boy, and would give pitocin the next morning if needed. Part of me always knew it was going to end in a c-section. I'm not sure if that was instinct, God's way of preparing me, or just responding to the news that you seemed to be rather big.

After trying to labor for the morning, the doctor concluded that you were not going to fit enough to even move down. I asked for one more hour to try. Towards the end of that hour, your heartrate started to do funny things and he would not give me any more time. You were born at 1:10 pm, with your dad and MiMi there to witness it. As the doctor pulled you out he said "this baby should have come out a week ago!".

9 lbs, 8 ounces. 21 inches long. You looked hilarious in the nursery. Like a toddler next to all those normal sized newborns :)  You were instantly a great eater.  One of the nurses commented in the hospital that you latched on like you absolutely knew what you were doing.

We stayed in the hospital for 5 days. We were going to leave on day #4, but you were jaundice, so we all stuck around for another day. You fought the jaundice for a while. At birth, you tested positive for Coombs Syndrome. This has something to do with blood and antibodies of mother vs baby. The only result of this is an increased likelihood for jaundice and more difficulty getting rid of it. You definitely struggled to get rid of it. We went to the doctor a bunch of times in the first three weeks. Finally FINALLY, you got over the jaundice issue. At about two weeks old, we began to suspect you had reflux. The doctor put you on Prevacid, which helped, but we had numerous days and nights where you reacted badly to things I had eaten (red sauce of any kind, tomatoes, caesar salad dressing, salad in general, wine).

Aunt Nik came to take your pictures a few days after we got home. I am so thankful for her and her amazing photography skills. You grew so fast, that those pictures of my newly born boy are so precious to me.

You went to church for the first time on the day you turned two weeks old. Your mom and dad don't mess around.  You are loved on so sweetly by our church family.  You have no idea just how blessed you are to grow up at our church, but you will.

At the end of your very first month of life, you went to your first birthday party - your Mommy's 30th! We had a pretty quiet celebration, but it was wonderful to have you there.

1 Month (November 10 - December 10)

On the day you turned 1 month, you got a fever that required us to take you to the Emergency Room.  Although our pediatrician suspected a virus, because you were so young, we had to go do a whole slew of tests.  She had warned us that they would do a spinal tap.  Luckily, it is only required with babies under one month...you certainly skated that line!  Since everything checked out fine, we spent only an afternoon there before coming back home and you recovered quickly.

At one month, you weighed 13 lbs.

Somewhere around 6 weeks, we moved you from our room to your room.  You started sleeping a little better, and we started to feel a little more normal.  A little.

You celebrated your first Thanksgiving!  We spent the morning at Grandma and Paw-pa's house for brunch, then went to the feast at MiMi and Da's house.

2 Months (December 10 - January 10)

Celebrated your first Christmas! It's a little bit of a blur to me...I'm pretty sure I was still living in "New baby fog". You slept a lot during the festivities, got lots of clothes (you had already outgrown most of yours - most people got you size 6 month clothes!). Your sister enjoyed opening most of your gifts for you.

At your two month appointment, you weighed 16 lbs, 1 ounce.

We continued to struggle with sleep. Sometime this month we gave up on the swaddle. You were simply too big and too strong. It set us back a few days, sleep wise, but overall you adapted fairly quickly.

Mommy went back to work at the beginning of January.  It was definitely bittersweet.  After two days of work, I am ready to be with you all the time again.  I feel so blessed to do what I like to do two days a week, and spend all the other days with you and your sister.

3 Months (January 10 - February 10)

This month, Campbell seemed to start to warm up to you a lot. It does not surprise me even a little that she took some time to get used to you. She processes things slowly and takes her time to adjust. As you got more and more smiley and started to notice her a lot, she seemed to be more and more enamored with you.

On February 1st, we found out you are going to have a little BOY cousin come August. Most likely, you and Richard Alexander (Rich) will be in the same grade. It is amazing to think that while he is still developing in-utero, you are quickly becoming a big boy. In a few years, we won't even be able to tell any age difference at all.

Around the middle of this month, we moved to a 4 hour feeding schedule. Although the Baby Whisperer says to wait until 4 months, I figured that you would do okay...since you are at least the size of a 6 month old! You did great with the transition.

4 Months (February 10 - March 10)

This past month has been VERY eventful for you. We started out with your 4 month appointment. You weighed in at 18 lbs, 9 ounces and were 27 inches. You grew 6 inches already and almost doubled your birth weight!

We started putting you in the walker and the jumper right after you turned 4 months old. You seem so big sitting in those. Your head and body control is amazing. The jumper especially has become your favorite. You spend a good amount of your awake time in there every day.

On February 19th you started cereal. Our awesome pedi said that because you are such a big boy, we should go ahead and try some. We did it for about a week, then decided you weren't ready. You had no idea what to do with the spoon and constantly tried to suck on it. Then you would get frustrated and want to breastfeed. So we quit. We'll try again sometime this next month.

You had rolled over once or twice, but this past month you officially became a roller! We had about a week of nighttime drama, as you would roll on your stomach and not be happy, but could not roll back. In the past week, you started to be really happy to sleep on your stomach, and the Lord has calmed this mommy's fears about it.

On February 24th (4 months, 2 weeks), you cut your first tooth! It's the bottom right one. The second tooth followed pretty quickly. Those suckers have made you miserable quite a bit and have definitely interrupted your sleep.

You also started laughing more this month. You are definitely ticklish and we can get a giggle almost every time we tickle your little neck. About two weeks ago, we were sitting on Campbell's bed with her, reading some books before her nap. She wasn't doing anything - just sitting there looking at her books. You were staring at her, as is normal, and you just started laughing. You laughed and laughed and laughed at her. A big, awesome, belly laugh. She thought it was so funny and she got right in your face and started laughing back with you. I felt so overwhelmed with gratitude for the two of you and so thankful for how you fit so perfectly in our family.

Speaking of your sister, she grew very fond of you this month. Definitely the month before she started to get a little attached, but she clearly loves you for real now. She laughs at you, talks to you, bosses you, and wants to kiss you. I love watching the two of you. I am also very thankful the Lord helped me to have no expectations regarding the progression of your relationship from the time you were born. Her having taken some time to get used to you and attached to you almost makes it a little sweeter to me. She is growing to love you more and more.

In the past few days you have found your feet. It is fairly hilarious, as you have so many rolls that grabbing them is a little difficult :). I love how you look in just your diaper, holding those cute little toes.

We are still working on the sleep business. I stopped feeding you during the night for the most part this past month. You have had a few good nights, but between rolling and teeth, you have had some rough nights too. Not going to lie, your dad and I are pretty tired.

Bennett, you are the cutest baby boy I have ever seen. You are mostly easygoing now (thank you awesome Baby Whisperer schedule), although it seems that anything new developmentally always throws you for a loop. You sleep awesome during the day...still working on the nighttime stuff! You always, always have smiles to give. Even if you are tired or cranky or hungry, if I stop and look you in the eyes and talk to you, you smile and coo at me. I can't get enough of your sweet smile, your noises, your amazing chunky cheeks, and your big blue eyes.

We simply adore you.

Name!

So way back when, when it was Russ and myself and Campbell in utero, the blog name We 3 Kings seemed clever and fitting. Now, not so much. Mostly because there are FOUR Kings.

Any thoughts?

Why I want to blog again.

This past July, I was unnerved to discover that some disturbed individual had not only been looking at the blog, but had the audacity to post a comment about my precious baby girl. I experienced a range of emotions - from anger that someone had violated us like that to remorse - I should have been more aware, especially in light of what I do for a living. Russ and I decided instantly that we would make the blog private to avoid this sort of threat.

To be honest, the timing was good for me too. Becoming increasingly more huge and pregnant and raising a toddler, blogging just was not much of a priority. Going private seemed like a natural way to slip into not blogging at all. And in the last several months, as we have adjusted to having two kids, I have sort of been grateful that I did not have to think about it, or feel guilty for not blogging.

I've never been one to share my most intimate feelings on the blog, but I do admit there are times I want to say something or express something. And clearly Russ and my precious girlfriends are not ALWAYS available to listen to me when I feel like talking :). Recently, in light of several tragedies in the lives of close friends, I have missed writing as a form of processing some things in my own life.

The most significant reason I even have the desire to blog is because of how much I enjoy reading through the chronicle of Campbell's first year or so of life. I am NOT good at writing in the baby books, so much of her first year is outlined here and nowhere else. I want that for Bennett too.

While I do fear the unknown, I know now that I have to be very cautious of what I post and imagine my audience as not just my friends and family, but whoever out there may have stumbled upon us.

So here we go!