Easter celebration, strawberries, and growth spurts!

Lots to share in tonight's post so we'll go chronologically

Easter! We celebrated the Lord's resurrection on Sunday and Truett made his Oakmont debut. We tried to go to both Sunday School and "big Church" but Dad kicked us out of Sunday School! (He was hungry and excercising his vocal cords...imagine that!)

This Easter I felt a new level of appreciation for the Lord's sacrifice of His only son. The word "thankful" doesn't describe what I feel knowing the my own son is loved by a caring Father who offered His child for our sins. I can't imagine the pain the the Lord, and Mary, felt on the day. Jayson and I will participate in the Child Dedication service in May and I'm looking forward to publicly committing to bring Truett up in a Christ filled home.

The Easter bunny came to visit Sunday morning. We all know this was more for my pleasure than it was for Truett but I'm okay with that. I had fun making his Easter basket despite hot gluing my finger nail to my skin. All in the name on love.

Doddlebug looked rather dapper in his Easter egg yellow Polo from Granny Angie and Papa Jay.

Another growth spurt has viciously arrived! And just as we were getting into a better sleeping pattern. Late last week Truett was either skipping his 10pm feeding or only eating for  few minutes before following asleep. I knew this would lead to trouble and sure enough he'd wake up around 12 or 1. So we pushed back our feeding to 11/11:30pm and he was able to last until 4/5am and then sleep until 7 or 8 which was nice! Today we've been feeding every 2/2.5 hours. In fact, my blogging was temporarily interrupted by my starving child.

Jayson weighed himself while holding Truett tonight and thinks Truett has crossed the 10 lbs. mark. His little newborn diapers are becoming a little snug!

One of my favorite seasons has arrived...strawberry season! We ventured out to Strawberries on 903 today; conveniently located 5 miles from our house. We picked a quart which are already gone and I'm not sure if Jayson got any. Opps! :) I'm looking forward to the pumpkin patch this fall when Truett is moving around and can enjoy it.

Truett's in there. I promise.

It was feeding time and he did not appreciate waiting while we tried out the Bumbo. We'll try again tomorrow after a feeding.

Sleepy baby

We don't have a lot to write about today but I wanted to share these pictures.

We had a really good day today. I've been working to get Truett on a napping routine during the day. Today he slept for an hour and a half in between feedings and I didn't have to hold him. Friends, this is a small miracle. I was able to clean the house, do some laundry, shower in peace! It was great. From what I've been reading daytime napping is very important for brain development. After he eats, we have play time for about thirty minutes or so then ideally, he goes to sleep.

#1 Please look at how long his legs are #2 Please look at those feet!

He was trying desparately hard to fit that fist in his mouth

I admit...this was staged

He doesn't really love tummy time so today I put him on his belly to see what he'd do. Surprisingly he didn't seem to mind it. He just hung out!

This was not! She loves her brother

Aunt Mallory and Truett's first visit to Washington

Play dates and sweet mates

So Truett's week 5 sleep-stretch has gone pretty well. Some night he makes it 5 hours (from when he starts to feed) and sometimes he cuts it a little short. For the past few nights he's eaten at 10pm, will sleep until 2:30-3am and Jayson will give him a bottle. Then I'll let him sleep until he wakes up in the morning usually around 6:30 or 7. He's starting to talk and make noises other than crying so when he's waking up, he could easily "talk" for an hour or so. The other morning he was waking so I got up at 4:30 thinking he'd be ready to eat. I ended up doing laundry for an hour before he decided to stir. We'll continue to let him stretch out his feedings but are expecting a growth spurt any day now so this schedule will probably be interrupted.
We had a great weekend in Fuquay visiting with Papa Jay and Granny Angie.  It's nice to have a few extra pair of hands to help out and Truett loves the attention. We had our 1st playdate with Bralyn, our friends Patrick and Jessica's little girl. She's a month old this week. Both babies made their first church visit on Sunday and slept through the service. I know both sets of parents were relieved! During their play date, Truett knocked Bralyn in the head a few times but she got back at him by spitting up on him, so they're even.

Truett's been holding his head up so well lately. He's a strong little fellow! We have to be sure to hold his head when walking or he could easily throw himself out of our arms. He doesn't love tummy time that much but seems to be pretty content sitting up in the boppy and he'll hold his head up while in the Moby wrap.

This morning we were playing on the floor and Harker came in the nursery. He followed her around and even smiled when she came to give him kisses. She's so sweet with him. We're really excited for them to play together.

Enjoy the pictures below.

Week five has arrived!

Why does week 5 warrant it's own blog posting...because this is week that we start working with Truett to get him to sleep through the night! Oh yeah!

Because my semi-type A personality likes schedules and a routine, when my friends told me about "Baby Wise" I knew it was worth a shot. The concept behind this parenting philosophy is to start your baby off on a routine for eating, sleeping, and wake time from birth. Establishing a schedule for your baby rather than him making his own. Our first priority (birth through 2 weeks) was to get Truett to get good, solid feedings, eating every 2 1/2 to 3 hours. Success! Then we worked to maintain that 3 hour eating cycle. My body is not a 24 hour snack bar so knowing when he was going to eat has helped us with our plans and my personal sanity. If he didn't have this routine and ate as he wanted there's the chance that he would eat a little here, then get hungry thirty minutes later, etc. So we've got our eating routine down. Success #2! Now on to week 5- We continue to feed every three hours but at night we now let Truett sleep up to 4 hours rather than waking him up. We'll gradually allow him to sleep longer and will eventually go to 3 1/2 hours between daytime feedings to 4 hours and so on. Assuming we are able to continue this progression, he should be sleeping through the night by 8 or 9 weeks. I go back to work on May 9th so hopefully we'll all be sleeping soundly by then.

We started this new phase Sunday night. He went down at 12 after his last feeding and slept through to 4am. Unfortunately for me, he was wide awake afterward and wanted to hang out. Last night was much better. He went down at 11pm and slept through to 3am. Ate and then went back down until 6am. We'll continue on the 4 hour sleep cycle for a week or so and see if he can go to 5 hours. We have to be aware of his calories and make sure he's getting enough to eat during the day to hold him through the night.

This isn't for every family but it's working well for us. :)

My sweet boys

I love this picture

Toga! Toga!

Truett's Moby

Attention moms: this is a wonderful purchase! I saw it online and watched the video on how it works and thought to myself, "I've got to have that!" Clever marketing as it's finest. I picked it up this afternoon and we tried it this afternoon while going for a walk.

My kangaroo pouch

Look ma, no hands!

Sweet smile

Why crawl when you can walk?!?!

Tummy time with Daddy

Not to feed!

That was Truett's decision early this morning. Then he decided that he wanted to feed again at 5am rather than the normal 6am feeding time. I knew that was going to happen and at that point, I was going on three hours of sleep. Not a happy mommy!

But he made up for it today when he smiled at me! A real smile...not a gas smile. It was wonderful. Like we were just meeting again for the 1st time.

He's had lots of extra lovin' today. Our Great-Nanee came to visit us today and held him her entire visit while Jayson and I got in a little nap. Now he's with his grandparents and is enjoying Granddaddy's singing. That is a sweet sight to me and I know Truett enjoys it as much as Mallory and I did as little girls.

Now I'm going to let the rain sing me to sleep. Good night moon!

To feed or not to feed?!?!

I'm writing this post at 3:38am while Truett makes his decision on where or not he'd like to keep feeding or go back to sleep. We'll see how far I get before 1) he starts crying or 2) he goes back to sleep. My hope and desparate plea is that he goes back to sleep, soothed by the sound of my typing. :)

We had our 1 month check up yesterday morning and our growing boy is now 8 lbs. 1 oz. and 19 3/4 inches long.  We're up from 6 lbs. 2 oz. and 18 1/2 inches at birth. Everything checked out great! Our doctor was concerned about jaundice due to the whites of eyes being somewhat yellowish and asked us to go in for some bloodwork yesterday afternoon. They tested for jaundice, iron, and his red blood count. Thankfully the tests came back negative! Thank you Lord. That was a scary moment for me. I took him to the hospital for this testing and the whole time I'm going through the "worst case senario". If you know me well, you know I hate needles and all things hospital! I'm so grateful Truett won't remember his bloodwork experience and Ihonestly believe it hurt me than it did him. We were in and out in 15 minutes and we went straight home for snuggle time!

Jayson was on baby duty last night and had a very fussy Truett! He didn't get either of his morning or early afternoon naps so he was exhausted and cranky. I attended ECU's Relay event last night for a couple of hours and Jayson said Truett cried the whole time I was gone. When I got back, we were able to quiet him down and finally get him to sleep. While I hate my little man was upset, it's nice to be needed and be able to give him comfort.

Still sleeping, by the way.  So why am I still typing and not sleeping? Good question! Easy answer- he's a tricky little fellow. He seems to know exactly when you've exited his room and are laying your head on your pillow before waking up. I usally give him a minute or two to get into his good, deep slumber.

Wait...I see movement and there he goes...Signing off.