Alexander, his Mommy, and the Terrible, Horrible, Very Bad, No Good Morning

Anyone having a bad morning??? Let me top it...

First, Jeremiah calls and says his flight to Iraq is leaving Thursday morning instead of Friday morning...BOO Army!! After that, Alex and I are taking out the garbage can...keep in mind while doing that he poops in his diaper. Then, I go back to open the back door and it's locked!!! I am locked out with Alex and no phone on the first cold morning we've had (55 degrees). As luck would have it, almost all of our neighbors are out of town this week or at work. There is one stay at home mom who I have never met...so off I went to ask to borrow her phone with my unbrushed teeth, spit up running down my shirt, and a stinky baby! It turns out she is really nice and I was able to call Jeremiah. He of course didn't answer so I left him a message and waited about 20 minutes at her house hoping he'd call back. He eventually did and ran home to unlock the door for me and poopypants! Of course when we did get back in the house, all the sandy dirty laundry and stuff from our trip to Seaside was still waiting for me....

Not a great start to the day when there are only 48 hours left before Jeremiah leaves us for a whole 12 months.... but atleast is shouldn't get any worse!!

Alex Loves the Nightlife! =)

Alex turned 6 weeks yesterday and he's still not showing any signs that he's ready to sleep through the night. He continues to wake up about every 3 hours through the night to eat....after all he is a growing boy! I have to say he is a really good little guy at night though. He wakes up, nurses, and usually goes right back to sleep again. Sometimes, he cries louder and I always know that means there is a dirty diaper needing changing! Last night we had a wake up session that was a little more eventful than usual, so I thought I'd share it....

He woke up about 4:30 AM and I could tell it was one of those times that he was needing a change. We went into his room to the changing table and started changing his diaper. Well, sometime in there while I was sliding in the new diaper, he decided to let loose pooping again. It went all over the place...on the new diaper, up his back, onto his pj's, and onto the changing table. I grabbed some wipes and started cleaning up things, so I could slip in another new diaper. During this process, Alex decided to let loose some more and sprayed me with pee!! As I was frantically trying to clean things up, get the poop off of him, and get a new diaper on him before anything more could come out, Alex looked up at me and gave me the hugest, most beautiful grin. He sure knows how to put a smile on my face even during the yuckiest, poopiest moments of being a mom!!

On another note, we went out to lunch with my friend Monique today, so he was dressed up cute. I decided to snap a few pictures of him and I got this really great one. Doesn't he look like such a big guy?!?!?

There's a Whole Big World Out There!!

Sorry I haven't posted anything in a week. Grandma Gale was here visiting last week, so we were busy doing things with her! (More pictures from her visit later this week...)

Alex is busy becoming much more social and fighting sleep as much as possible! One of my books says these two things go hand in hand. At around 6 weeks (tomorrow for Alex), they start to realize there is a world around them and apparently they start wanting to live instead of sleep! This is definitely the case for Alex. He just doesn't want to sleep at all during the day, so he ends up pretty fussy later in the day. I think the only saving grace to this for moms is that he is also starting to look up at me with these huge grins. It makes me so happy that I forget how fussy he has been!!

I took him to a Nursing Mom's Group/Play Group that the hospital runs last Thursday. There were lots of little ones from newborns up to 12 months plus a few older siblings. Alex was so interested in looking around at all the other babies. It was precious!! It made me realize how much I need to get him out and around other babies to help him socialize even at this young age. (FYI--They had a scale at the group and we got to weigh him--he's already 11 pounds!! The breastmilk is definitely working!!)

The big guy is also starting to realize he has hands and that he can grab at things. Last week, he was in his bouncer and he got very intent on one of the toys (of course it was the monkey). He kept staring at it and a few minutes later, he swiped at it and got it! I was so excited that I screamed (a la DeeAnn) and actually kind of scared him...oops! :) He also started to really like his little Rainforest Gym. He loves laying there and looking up at the toys. He smiles and coos lots while he's laying there. One of the toys plays music and Jeremiah and I swear that he looks like he is dancing when the music plays. He starts moving his arms and legs like he's jamming to the music. So cute!!

One Month with Alex!

Our first month with Alex has already come and gone. Time is flying by and he is growing so fast! I wanted to post something about how our first month has been and I decided that a picture is worth a thousand words! I have never posted any photos of his nursery, so I'm going to show you what our month with him has been like via some before and after photos of the nursery.

Before Alex Arrived...







After Alex Arrived...








Things have changed just a little!! =)

Flyin' Monkeys!

As I have written before, Alex's favorite time of the day is the morning. He is so awake and alert for those first couple hours. It is as if he is a little sponge soaking up everything the world has to offer!

Yesterday morning, we had woken up, changed him, and nursed him. I had to set him down for just a second to take care of something so I put him in the swing. When I looked up a minute later, I noticed that he was staring up at the little rainforest animals on the mobile. This was the first time I had seen him do that!! I got excited and decided to put him in his crib to look at the mobile there. He did the same thing!! It was like he was seeing it for the very first time. The mobile has four little monkeys and he picked one of them out and followed it with his eyes around for the whole circle. It was the cutest thing!!