Christmas in Arkansas

Finally!  Here are some photos from our trip...

(We have about 1,000 copies of this photo, so we need to figure out the best one and distribute it to everyone!)

This was the most fun (though also most exhausting) trip back home, yet!  And we really miss everyone so much - James asks about his cousins and his aunts (ha - sorry Derek and Andrew) all the time now, which is so, so sweet.  It's hard to know when our next visit will be because of Stuart's work schedule, but we hope it's very soon.

Samuel: 5 months

On the 24th, Samuel turned 5 months!  I remember with James, this is about the time I really started enjoying him and being a mom... with Samuel, we're already there!  Being a second-time mama is quite different... things have just gone smoother all around.  And Sam has certainly acclimated himself quite well into our little family.

Likes:

• Nursing
• Singing
• Being outside
• Reading books (Goodnight Moon, especially)
• Looking at lights or ceiling fans
• Being tickled
• Watching James
• Playing with toys (only for a short time... he seems to get bored rathe quickly and wants to move on to the next activity)
• Getting lotion put on at bedtime (he usually gets really ticklish and giggles the whole time)

Dislikes:

• Bath time (James usually pours water on his head, so this is a hard one for him to enjoy)
• Being kept awake too long

(That's really it... He is such a happy, easy baby!)

What he's up to:

• Playing with toys all the time - he grabs them easily with both hands, puts them in his mouth, waves them around and bangs them on the table or floor
• Rolling with ease - he actually only does this a lot in his crib.  He rolls all over the place in there and I find him in a different position every time he wakes.  But when he plays on the floor, he tends to stay put mostly.  Maybe I need to start challenging him by putting his toys a little out of reach.
• Talking and happy screaming - all. the. time.
• Sitting with support - in the Bumbo we borrowed from the Reagans, but he can't sit up for long totally unsupported (like, only a few seconds)
• Watching us eat and sometimes grabbing at plates/forks/food when he gets the change - he isn't sitting well yet, and we tend to lean toward starting solids closer to 6 months (per recommendations)

Breast feeding continues to go great.  Samuel enjoys it and easily is satisfied.  We actually go to the pediatrician this Wednesday for a weight check mostly for my own peace of mind (at his 4 month appointment he had fallen off his growth curve a bit, though the doctor was not concerned).  The only time he seems irritable while nursing is the day after I work each week, and he gets frustrated after the first let down slows.  The entire day while I'm at work, he drinks from a bottle, which is just so much less work for him to get the milk he wants.  So, the next day when he starts nursing again, he is so happy until the milk slows a little.  He protests and cries and pulls off a lot until the next let down.  But, by the end of that day each week, he tends to remember that he likes it better straight from the source anyway. ;)



Sleeping also continues to go well.  As mentioned in the last couple of posts, we struggled over the holidays with some night waking and bad naps.  Samuel is back into a good groove these days.  He tends to nap three times a day (sometimes he will take a fourth little cat nap in the evening, depending on how the timing of his other naps have been).  His wake time is a little all over the place, lasting 1-2 hours throughout the day.  Here is what a typical day looks like for him:

8am wake, nurse
(1st wake time 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes)
9am 1st nap
(1st nap usually 2 hours)
11am wake, nurse
(2nd wake time 1 hour 30 minutes to 2 hours)
12:30 2nd nap
(2nd nap usually 1 hour 30 minutes)
2pm wake, nurse
(3rd wake time 1 hour 30 minutes to 2 hours)
4pm 3rd nap
(3rd nap usually 1 hour to 1 hour 30 minutes)
5pm wake, nurse
(4th wake time 2 hours max)
*potential cat nap depending on what time he wakes from his 3rd nap*
6:30pm head upstairs lotion, PJs, book and last mini nursing session (6pm if bath included)
7pm lay down awake, falls asleep happily, easily and quickly on his own (really - he is the best baby)

Above is an ideal day, where none of his naps are interrupted by having to leave for appointments or errands, and he isn't suddenly woken up by James ;)  Sometimes the timing gets off so that his 3rd nap ends around 4pm, which is hard because that leaves him with 3 hours until bedtime, and if I try to keep him awake until then, he is very unhappy, so we'll do a quick cat nap around 5 or 5:30pm, which usually only lasts 30 minutes or so.  With the cat nap, if he is awake again by 6, he goes back down for bedtime pretty easily still at 7-7:15pm.  So, as you can see, we're not on a schedule at all, but definitely in a good routine.  The main variables in the day are his nap time lengths and his initial wake time (which varies anywhere from 7am to 8:30am - a whole hour and a half, so that can shift the whole routine by an entire "wake time" length!).



Samuel remains the cutest, sweetest, chubbiest-cheeked infant in the house, and we like him!

Lately

We have spent the week recovering from our AR trip (another post on that with more photos coming just as soon as I have a moment with Stuart's phone!).  We've tried to play outside most days, because James is just a happier boy when we do, and we didn't at all while we were in AR.  The weather has been chilly, but mostly dry, which makes it possible!

James received this Cozy Coupe for Christmas and he LOVES it.  Above, he is trying to put grass into the gas spot.  Working on vocabulary...

He has wanted to wear sunglasses everywhere we go this past week.  Here we are headed to storytime...



Ms. Patty leads music class at the library, which is James' favorite.  It's like storytime, without the stories.  Just lots of dancing and music and (usually) bubbles and shakers.





I received a JAWBONE for Christmas, and I love it!  Two things I've learned about myself:

1) I don't get as much sleep as I thought I did (average 7.5 hours per night... I've been a 9 hour girl my whole life, just ask my mama), which explains why, even though I mostly feel like we have found our happy new normal with two kids, I still feel weary and exhausted when I wake up most mornings.  So, a new goal for myself is to make it to bed by 10pm.  Not heading upstairs at 10, but actually laying in bed, turning out the light at 10pm.  (Also, that orange space around 5am is Samuel's new habit of waking since our AR trip.  Hoping that doesn't last much longer...)

2) On days that we don't leave the house (for any reason - for fun or just to run errands), I don't come anywhere close to 10,000 steps.  But if we get out of the house, I hit 10,000 no problem.  Also, interesting that a day working as a nurse at the hospital looks similar to a day at home with the boys with one outing.  Did you know that on programs like Weight Watchers, nurses get extra points because they have a "more active" lifestyle by occupation?  It seems like moms deserve extra, too!  And to throw breast feeding in on top of that...!



Samuel has been inducted into the atopic club in our family, which already includes his daddy and older brother.  We battled some severe eczema for about 48 hours, and it finally died down after several rounds of hydrocortisone ointment.  Poor little dude.





Below, just a photo of James snuggling with his mama, no big deal.  (Actually, this is very rare these days, so this photo melts my heart.)



Brothers and morning snuggles



Bedhead



Lunch date at Panera - I can't believe I haven't thought about this option until this week - it's a great one!  They have whole grain bagels, and James loves cream cheese.  And apples!  And the play place at the mall is right next door.  Perfect rainy day outing.



Samuel snoozing in the Ergo at Panera (my current favorite carrier - with James, I easily carried him in the wrap until he was 8 or 9 months old because he was so small.  Not so with this big boy!  Since about 2 months, he has preferred the Ergo!).



What has everyone been up to this first week of 2015?

Holiday Recap

November and December are favorite months here in the Pierce household.  We love the holidays.  We love to decorate, eat, drink, celebrate, and meditate on Advent.  This year, the holidays backed right up to us coming out of the newborn fog with Samuel joining our family.  We opted to keep things pretty simple this year.  We drew names for Christmas gifts on both sides of our family and had a small tree at home (we are not a family that can go without a live tree for Christmas...!).

The little boys and I enjoyed a day at Mema's house doing some holiday crafts.  I hand sewed a stuffed toy for Samuel's stocking (it's hard to buy gifts for a 4 month old who is a second child... he doesn't yet play with toys much, and we already have so many from when James was a tiny babe).  We tried to get James to do a painting craft that included canvas and masking tape that should've made this awesome snowflake print, but he was totally uninterested.  Womp womp.  So, I painted it instead and they turned out alright.  Maybe we'll try again another year.  We also made gingerbread houses from graham crackers, and that was a big hit.  Lots of fun, and James enjoyed snacking on his house.

Pierce & Reagan (and friends) played their 5th annual Christmas show this year in downtown Raleigh.  It was their best show yet and I am so proud of all of them!  I thought that it was a miracle pulling off the show last year, but this year had us all in a much busier place (multiple babies, careers and schooling - almost everyone on stage was either in medical training or working on a PhD).  They had a few new songs - Casey on It Came Upon a Midnight Clear and Stuart on O Come, O Come Emmanuel - both were extraordinary.  Read more about their Christmas album Epiphany and my thoughts on last year's show and my husband playing music.



We haven't been able to go to many resident dinners this fall (though we did go to a lot in September right after Samuel was born and Stuart was home with us, mostly to keep our sanity and get out of the house), but we made sure to drop by for a little bit for the Christmas dinner.  We are so blessed to have this group of friends of colleagues in our lives during this season of training!



The next several photos are from Acree Christmas in Zebulon.  Stuart was post-call on Christmas Even, then had Christmas day and the day after totally off.  We were in Zebulon on Christmas Eve, when we had our traditional nice dinner of standing rib roast and all the fixings.  Katie was in town (always our favorite) and Matthew and Meredith were there with Canaan.  So nice to have all of our people at home!





(Stuart setting up a tripod to capture a group photo... See his success below!)













Merry first Christmas to Samuel (and Canaan)!  The day after Christmas, we woke up at home and celebrated again.  The next few photos are from that morning.

Later in the afternoon on the 26th, my Aunt Val and her family came for the Wilkerson-Acree Christmas gathering.  We used to go to her house most years on Christmas Eve for brunch or something, but we haven't done it in a few years, and now that there is a new generation, we decided it was easiest to host it right in the middle of where everyone lives - our house!  The older kids decorated gingerbread Christmas trees (ice cream sugar cones and green buttercream frosting) and played outside.



Stuart had a few days of work over the weekend, then we left for our trip to visit the Pierces in Arkansas on December 30.  It was Samuel's first plane ride, and James' first as a toddler.  Gosh, it sure is easy to take a baby on a plane compared to a toddler!  Samuel did pretty well, and I just nursed him if he got fussy.  James, on the other hand, did pretty well overall, but did have a few total meltdowns and there was just nothing we could do!




Below are the few photos I have from the trip, but Stuart has a lot more that I need to gather from his phone.  Most of our trip was spent by James playing with all of his cousins (and there are zero photos below of that!).  So, check back soon for more about our AR trip...



James playing Stuart's tiny violin that he had when he was 3 years old (his parents had it restored and gave it to him for Christmas).

James trying so hard to play in this bounce house...  He couldn't even climb up on his own.  One of his bigger cousins came to his rescue, and after having a lot of help, he had a great time!

Celebrating New Year's (at 8:30pm)



Samuel meeting Mimi

Samuel meeting Jenna

Ok, check back for more soon...!