Photo Every Hour: August 21st

 

School starts in just under a week, so we're trying to get back on to our school schedule. Which means I'm supposed to be up and mostly ready for the day before I need to wake the boys up at 6:45. So far I'm struggling with the transition as much as the boys are....

7:00 And this stinker here is a big reason for it. He just can't decide if he wants to consistently sleep through the night or not, and the inconsistency of his schedule is killing my body. Even on the nights he does sleep through the night I don't necessarily wake up feeling refreshed because my body is more confused than anything

8:00 However, we have had success making daily cleaning a part of our back-to-school routine, and that has been awesome. They play downstairs WAAAAY more readily when it is actually clean than when it is a royal mess (and guess what--it's WAAAAY easier to clean as well when you do it every day)

9:00 Finally getting one of the display frames in Matthew's room updated with his birth date #betterlatethannever

10:00 When one of the best cupcake shops in town celebrates their birthday, you celebrate with them

11:00 Play time!

12:00 Messaging one of Darrell's cousins (whose husband is a pest-removal expert) on what to do with the (suspected) wasp nest under our gutter. I HATE WASPS

1:00 Productivity be damned--when this cutie wants me to color with him, I do everything in my power to oblige him

2:00 Back to the productive reality--I'm pretty sure EVERY time I do one of these posts I'm doing laundry #storyofmylife

3:00 You might think this is cute now, but just you wait... 

4:00 A rare moment of all four playing in the basement (although despite what you might assume, they are pretty much all playing something independently)

5:00 ....It's not so cute now. Okay. Fine. It is cute. And I love how he is looking at me (and I love Darrell working on dinner in the background). But I DO NOT love that he has gotten insanely clingy in the afternoon/evening hours and will ONLY be calm if Mommy is holding him or sitting and playing with him. I do like to pretend that I have a life beyond my children

6:00 The pokey dinner crew--Connor who has decided that he needs to be "helped" with every bite and Matthew, who legitimately does need to be helped with every bite (or at least have his Cheerios broken in half for him by his ever-doting big brother)

7:00 Pretty sure I'm the luckiest person in the world to call these five boys mine

8:00 We're pretty sure Connor can't actually read yet (because seriously, that would be insane), but this kid can memorize books like nobody's business and LOVES his story time before bed (or really, at any time of the day)

9:00 Lounging with a drink and a show... And paying bills because #momlife

 10:00 Trying to be responsible and starting to get ready for bed at a respectable time. And I was being so responsible, in fact, that I forgot to take a good night photo. So good night!

Matthew: Six Months!

Height/Weight: You'd think that after four kids I'd be better able to analyze the physical appearance of my kid. Apparently not, though, because my estimations about Matthew at five months could not have been more inaccurate. While it is maybe true that our scale put him at 16 pounds at five months, either our scale is off or his weight gain slowed drastically between five and six months because at his well visit he weighed in a 16 pounds, 7 ounces. Which puts him as the lightest of the three boys. However, Matthew came in at 26.7 inches tall, and only Garrett was taller at six months (and not by much!). So maybe I'm just imagining the fact that the has rolls? Because with a height in the 53rd percentile and a weight in the 28th percentile you'd think he'd look more like a bean pole than a roly poly chunk, but I swear he's the latter. 

Wearing: Well, I finally bought my first box of size three diapers for Matthew--but only because they were on sale and we still had a box and a half of size two diapers for him. We're finally down to the last couple dozen of size two diapers, and while they generally seem to be fitting just fine, he does wet them substantially overnight, so I'm hopeful that I won't need to change the size three diapers in the middle of the night like I do the size two ones (and honestly, I've considered putting him in different sizes for night and day, but keeping track of that just seems like too much work). A few weeks ago I did start to pull some 3-6 month outfits out of his closet because they were too small, but I haven't really needed to add 6-9 month clothes into the mix yet because he has plenty of 3-6 month stuff that still fits (#fourthboy #handmedowns). I'll probably go through the 6-9 month tote soon, though, if for no other reason than I want to get the "summer" stuff in his closest so he has a few opportunities to wear the pieces before fall gets here (how is it already August in a few days?!?)

Eating: Well, it was bound to happen. We made such an effort with all the boys to nurse exclusively for the first six months, but Matthew just refused to let that happen. A few days before we officially started solid foods with him, he was sitting on Darrell's lap while I was finishing getting dinner on the table and he stole the hoagie roll right off of Darrell's plate and immediately shoved it into his mouth. Darrell was able to salvage most of the roll, but we allowed him to keep the balled up drooled on piece that he was clutching in his hands, and he happily sucked on it the entire meal--which, for the record, is the most content he had been at the table in weeks. Suffice to say this kid is ready for something other than Momma's milk. He did continue to have a couple of rough stretches with nursing in the past month, mostly in that he only wanted to nurse for a minute or two and then refused any more--which then resulted in some not so great naps--but (knock on wood) I think we're past that.

Sleeping: So here's the thing. My other boys were pretty much consistently bad sleepers--at six months they were all getting up twice a night, and most nights, more than that. But because it was constant, my body must have gotten used to it or something. However, the nights that Matthew gets up twice are AWFUL. And honestly, twice is pretty much the max. Most nights it's only once, and we even occasionally get a night where he sleeps from 8 pm to 7 am. So really, comparatively, I should be doing fine... But I'm not. It's like my body can't figure out a "good" sleep cycle and as such I'm always getting interrupted in the deepest part of a cycle. And it sucks. Naps are improving slightly, which helps, but it's far from every day that he naps well and even then I maybe get one decent nap out of the whole day. I've complained to Darrell more than once that this whole thing isn't "fair"--with the older boys I hated letting them cry so I inevitably created bad sleep crutches which resulted in babies who weren't the best sleepers, and with Matthew I've been trying So.Hard to let him cry more and self soothe and he still isn't as good of a sleeper as I would hope, which makes me feel even worse when he cries because it seems like it isn't doing anything anyway. Which rationally, I know isn't really true, and rationally, he is consistently better than the other boys were, but ugh--the fact that he can be soooo inconsistent from one day/night to the next is brutal. My body never has any idea what is coming--and factor in the needs of three other boys and my brain is just crazy over-taxed. But, like everything, this too shall pass. So we'll get through it. 

New Stuff: Well, if I had to speak for Matthew, I'd say the biggest excitement of the past month is that he discovered his penis. The kid loves nothing more than to play with himself, and the minute his diaper is off (sometimes even before), he's got at least one hand grabbing on to it (which, as you can well imagine, makes changing poopy diapers incredibly difficult). Since he has pretty well mastered sitting he has joined Garrett and Connor in the bathtub, which basically just turns in to another opportunity for him to hold on to his penis (#boymomproblems). So that's been fun. We celebrated his first 4th of July (at least to the extent that we could being stuck at home and only allowed to be at the cabin for one day of the long weekend), but at least he was able to get in the lake for the first time on the day we were down there, so I suppose that redeemed the celebration a little bit. 

He's starting to develop an awareness for people and places--William can almost always get big smiles and giggles out of Matthew with little effort; Garrett can do the same thing as William but gets much less of a reaction, probably because Matthew knows there is a much greater chance of Garrett being too rough with him than William (to Garrett's defense, he just loves Matthew SOOOO much and can't not be playing with him/carrying him/repositioning him, but I definitely think it wears on Matthew). He is also very aware of his nursery and generally fusses when we take him in there because he knows that it means nap time. Unfortunately, he is also very loud (like seriously--always SO LOUD), which has resulted in him waking Connor up early from his nap a few times. So that's fun. 

All in all, it's been a pretty wonderful half a year with this kiddo. It's definitely not the way I expected the first six months of his life to go (#covidsucks), but we've made the best of it and he's definitely made the journey worth our while. And as much as I love his squishy baby rolls and sloppy wet baby kisses, I'm excited to see his personality continue to develop as he grows. Just not too fast, of course. 

Photo Every Hour: July 21st

Real life: I had been up at 345 this morning feeding Matthew, and when my alarm went off at six it took me awhile to register what was going on because it woke me up at a weird point in my sleep cycle. Checking my phone made me remember to snag a screenshot for my "Photo Every Hour" post, and then I promptly turned off my alarm and went back to bed

Getting up for real this time

7:00 Happy boy after some morning milk!

8:00 Watching their morning show

9:00 Trying to get back into the routine of running errands with the boys. On the agenda today: drive-thru photo pick up, car wash, and....

10:00 Picking up the books we requested from the library. Which we immediately sat down and read

11:00 And which we were still reading an hour later. Can you guess how glad we all are that the libraries have reopened at least some of their services?!?

12:00 Nap time for this silly boy!

1:00 Showing off his sitting skills

2:00 And when he's not sitting, he is desperate to work on his standing skills!

3:00 Taking some time to myself after FINALLY getting the littlest down for a nap

4:00 Getting ready to play Zingo with my favorite five-year old

5:00 What it takes to get laundry done some days (and yes, that is a beer on the dresser. I think #laundrybeer might start making a regular appearance in this house...)

6:00 Cleaning up the dinner mess

7:00 Slicing into a perfectly ripe peach for snack time

8:00 Bedtime gets a little late--and a little silly--when Mommy has to put the youngest three to bed by herself because Daddy is at William's baseball game

9:00 Menu planning. Again. I feel like I do this as often as I do laundry (Spoiler: It's true. I do.)

10:00 One of my friends who has a daughter William's age shared this post on Facebook. It spurred a whole big long conversation which was ultimately good, but equally saddening at the prospect of what school will look like in a month

Trying to get better about making smart choices and going to bed earlier (it helps that Darrell has started running in the morning so he's less inclined to be night owl. Now if only I could get on that exercise train....)

Matthew: Five Months!

All smiles at five months old!

Height/Weight: Per our scale at home, Matthew has packed on roughly a pound and a half since four months, putting him over 16 pounds. If that's accurate, it would certainly put him on pace to "catch up" to where his brothers were at six months. And I honestly wouldn't be terribly surprised if he ended up passing his brothers because he seems to be packing on some rolls in ways I don't remember any of his brothers doing. I suppose it could just be that he is putting on weight and not length, but we've already raised his exersaucer up from the lowest setting so he's at least getting somewhat taller. I guess we'll find out for sure in a few weeks!

Wearing: Still wearing 3-6 month clothes (and 6-9 month clothes that have shrunk down to fit like 3-6 month clothes). Every once in a while I'll find a shirt that is getting a little snug, but I'm not rushing to pull down the 6-9 month tote just yet. He's still wearing size two diapers, and I honestly haven't noticed them being small, but his brothers all moved up to size three right after or before five months, so maybe he isn't going to end up catching up to his brothers by six months? Who knows.

Eating: Still just breast milk, but he gets suuuuuper interested in what we are eating. To the point where his brothers have picked up on it and are pretty much counting down to his being six months old so they can start feeding him real (mashed) food. And honestly, I'm pretty ready for it too--he can have some terrible days of bad naps paired with poor nursings (or maybe it's the other way around), so I'm kind of hoping that working some consistent table food into his routine will help the other elements settle in to place.

Sleeping: Ugh. Why must baby sleep be so difficult? Whoever coined the expression "sleep like a baby" clearly has no idea how babies actually sleep. I've tried to stay really positive with Matthew's sleep habits because I have three older boys that are proof that it could be worse, but man, I've finally got to say it--his sleeping habits blow. I guess I let myself believe that since I had a six-week old who was only waking once at night (without any effort or "training" from us) that every thing else would fall into place just as easily, but that is proving to not be the case. In the past month he's actually been waking more at night than he did when he was younger, AND he's needing to eat during those wakings in order to settle back to sleep (aka I have to go in there and can't just send Darrell). And then I also made the mistake of letting myself believe that since he wasn't sleeping as well at night that he might start napping better during the day to "catch up" on sleep, but that definitely hasn't happened either. Cat naps are still his M.O., and while they are usually closer to 45 minutes instead of the (super irritating and annoying) 20 minutes he had been doing, I'm still done with them. Now that he's getting more squirmy and grabby I pretty much have to have eyes on him constantly, so his naps are really the only breaks I get from being "on", and it's just not enough time--especially when I've usually pushed off needs of his brothers until his nap time, so most of my break from Matthew is spent filling the needs of his brothers. (And yes, I know I technically signed up for this when I chose to have four kids relatively close together, but I didn't sign up to be raising them during a pandemic. Being pretty much stuck at home for the past 3.5 months is wearing thin for all of us.)

New Stuff: Well, Matthew's biggest first wasn't just monumental for him, but also for his brothers. Because despite not really leaving the house since mid-March, we decided (after lots and lots of research, planning, and monitoring trends/data) to go ahead with our annual beach trip with Darrell's family. It was about as drastic of a way as possible for us to "break" quarantine--the boys hadn't so much as been to a grocery store with me since all this began and all of the sudden we were masking them up and loading them on an airplane to stay in a house with their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins for a week. I'd be lying if I said I didn't have any anxiety and doubts about the whole thing, but we've been home for two weeks now and no one appears to have gotten sick, so that's a huge relief. And honestly, it was really good to feel "normal" for a little bit. Matthew did pretty well on the plane, although since airlines are hurting for travelers our original direct flights were cancelled and we had layovers on both legs of our trip, and the second flight on each day was definitely a little rough. Silver lining, I suppose, is that since the planes were flying at only 60% capacity we weren't as close to other people and there weren't as many others on the flight for him to annoy with his crying. I was a little nervous about how he would do in a house of essentially strangers after being with no one but us for the majority of his life, but he did really well being passed around, which was a huge relief (and actually allowed me to have a few breaks now and then!).

Developmentally, he's started to show progress toward sitting; I'd say he's about 50% of the way there and obviously, because it's new it's his favorite thing to do, so I end up spending a fair amount of time on the floor with him sitting between my legs. He still enjoys his exersaucer, and using it has definitely whet his appetite for standing, so he loves to work that skill whenever he can (aka whenever he isn't sitting. He's a busy boy for sure--but with three big brothers we expected as much). Rolling back to front has been more than mastered, and part of the sleeping issue as well because he doesn't roll front to back quite as readily and he hasn't exactly gotten comfortable sleeping on his tummy. Spending more time on his tummy, though, is definitely laying the groundwork for crawling, and while he certainly isn't fully mobile, he can wiggle himself a decent bit so we have to make sure a pretty wide radius is clear around him when we put him down.

The biggest personality thing I can think of (at least that I haven't previously mentioned) is that he seems to have gotten pretty sensitive to being wet, whether it's his diaper or his clothes. If he's fussy but it isn't really time for a nap or a feeding, a surefire way to calm him down is to strip him down and change his diaper. Naked time is fun time for this kid. Of course, between the spitting up and All.The.Drool we're going through constant outfit changes, but whatever. Happy baby happy Mama!

Photo Every Hour: June 21st

3:02 AM What a way to kick off Father's Day/Darrell's birthday! Clearly Matthew wanted to get the party started early with a second post-bedtime feeding (which necessitated a diaper change to make sure his clothes would stay dry until morning)

6:39 AM Speaking of keeping pajamas dry.... It's always a fun morning when your two year old climbs into bed to snuggle with you in pee soaked pajamas 

7:00 But look how cute he is! He asked so politely to play this game with Mommy that I just couldn't say no, even though all I really wanted to do was veg out on the couch with a cup of coffee

8:00 The love Garrett has for Matthew is unreal--and sometimes I'm pretty sure Matthew shares the sentiment

9:00 Time for church! It will probably be a rough adjustment to get used to wearing real clothes to church again instead of just pajamas (whenever that time comes...)

10:00 Happy Boy after his mid-morning snack!

11:00 Play time! (And yes--if you are counting there are extra arms/legs/heads. Our neighbors are moving--cue the tears!--so we are trying to soak up as much play time with them as possible before they go)

12:00 This stinker wasn't too happy about taking a picture with Mommy, but we managed to get a pretty decent one

1:00 The boys found my old molecular model building kit from organic chemistry and they think it is an awesome toy. I think it is awesome that my seven year old knows how to build a benzene ring

2:00 Grocery time! I must admit, I'm starting to enjoy my solo trips to the grocery store (although it definitely takes more planning than when I was able to take the boys with me)

3:00 Bubbles + Sprinklers + Neighbors = Perfect Summer Day

4:00 Working on Darrell's birthday dessert #nothingbeatsprocrastination

5:00 Finished up dessert, now time to work on dinner!

6:00 Dinner time is family time

7:00 Daddy's birthday request: Blueberry Dessert Pizza. The boys were a little confused at first with the word "pizza" in the name (they kept thinking it was going to be something we ate for dinner), but they were more than okay with it once we served it (with freshly made whipped cream, of course!)

8:00 This guy. It's Father's Day and his birthday and he's still doing the dishes. My boys have one of the best to set an example for them

9:00 This is my unimpressed face. Someone was not interested in going to bed at bedtime 

10:00 Maybe when Father's Day and your birthday fall on the same day they cancel each other out? After finishing the dishes and doing some other general cleaning, Darrell started tackling additional items on his To-Do List, like editing his full family photo from our beach trip. I figured that I needed to be productive as well, so paid some bills and worked on the budget. At least we were drinking beer?!?

11:00 Time to get ready for bed, and I just had to snap this perfectly "COVID" picture: Darrell's "office" in our master bedroom, complete with three screens (the laptop on the far right is cut off), a thermometer for daily temperature checks, and the "less work more pay" sign that I got him for his birthday (which I honestly ordered back in February before all of this went down and fortunately he went back to working full time hours the day after his birthday so I didn't feel terribly guilty about giving it to him)

Nighty night! 

Matthew: Four Months!

Womp womp. Back to the good ol' photo of the photo preview on the back of Darrell's camera!

Height/Weight: Well, the trend continues. Matthew is not just my youngest baby, but my smallest baby--although not by much. At his four-month well visit (which we got to have in person with only minimal modifications) he weighed in at 14 pounds, 14 ounces, which is roughly half a pound less than the average of his brothers. His height was 25 inches, which is shorter than his brothers, but not by much. Connor was the tallest at four months at just under 25.5 inches.

Wearing: Not surprisingly, he's still got plenty of room in his size two diapers. Which is good, because apparently I mistakenly bought a large box of them when I already had a large box on hand (I blame Darrell for reorganizing our storage room and I didn't know where he had put the diapers). He's also got plenty of room left in his 3-6 month clothes, although per the tag a handful of them are technically the 6-9 month size, but they've definitely shrunk. I suppose passing clothes down through four kids and washing them how many dozens of times eventually causes them to shrink. Go figure.

Eating: Breast milk. From the tap or from the bottle, he isn't too picky. Of course, he prefers for there to be absolutely no distractions around while he is nursing, which is a little difficult with three older brothers, but we've managed. I'm lucky to get a three-hour gap between nursing sessions during the day, but he's typically up only once at night, so I guess I won't complain too much.

Sleeping:Well, his sleep definitely hasn't improved--but it has already been pretty good, so given the age he is at I don't really expect there to be too much improvement. We did have a little bit of a setback just before he turned four months (a couple of nights where he was up every couple of hours and would only sleep if we held him), but we're hoping it was the four-month sleep regression and that now we're done with that. Most nights he'll stir at least once around ten (after a roughly 8:00 bedtime), but he settles back to sleep until between two and four when he gets up for a feeding. After that he'll sleep until seven or so, and this Mama is grateful for every minute of night time sleep that she gets from this boy. He's started to occasionally give us a long nap during the day, but usually his naps only last for 35-45 minutes. But, he takes them in his crib and with minimal fussing, so again--no complaints here.

New Stuff: Oof. Is it bad that I had to check the calendar to see what--if any--special events occurred this past month? And don't even try to blame it on #fourthchildproblems--this is absolutely a result of #quarantinelife. Regardless--the calendar reminded me that Matthew did get to help me celebrate my first Mother's Day with my four sweet boys! It was as lovely as a day as we could have in quarantine, and Darrell even picked up on my not-so-subtle hint to get me the "Friends"-inspired "Mother's Day 2020: The One Where We Were Quarantined" mug. Anyway. I digress from Matthew. We (still!) haven't really gone anywhere or done anything, so no new stuff in that regard, but developmentally he is a totally different child (or at least it seems that way some days). He's really started getting in to playing with toys, which means he can occupy himself in his exersaucer for at least a little bit (and honestly, his play time in there is usually ended by one of his big brothers--cough Garrett cough--before he actually starts to fuss about being in there). His favorite toys are anything he can get in to his mouth (including his toes! The toe sucking is seriously out of control--I usually have to force his feet out of his hands in order to get a diaper change) and as a not-at-all surprising result he needs an outfit change at least once (but usually two or three) times a day.

On May 11th--with no witnesses--Matthew rolled from back to front for the first time (he's got the front to back well under control). Darrell swears he placed Matthew on his back, walked away, and then looked over a few minutes later and Matthew was on his tummy (and no, his older brothers didn't do it--they were at the table waiting for a snack). Prior to this, we had no indication that he was close to rolling over because he had never really rolled to his side, but apparently it happened (and for this reason alone I am glad we have had his arms out of his swaddle for at least the past three weeks--the prospect of his first "back to front" roll occurring while he was fully swaddled in bed is a little terrifying). For the next few weeks we desperately tried to get him to repeat the feat, but he would readily roll to his side and then stop. There were many times he would get his hips all the way turned so that tops of both of his legs were on the ground (hopefully that makes sense...) but he wouldn't quite get his upper body turned. So while I believe Darrell that the "first time" happened, it definitely seems to have been a fluke.

The only other thing I can think to mention is his spitting up. Constantly. If he isn't needing an outfit change from drooling it's because he has spat up all over his clothes. And it's a rarity for me to make it through the day without an outfit change. We've dealt with this with pretty much all the boys, and while we've asked our pediatrician about it on more than one occasion, Matthew has been our first child to "show off" his proliferation for spitting up while at the doctor's office. Let's just say that our pediatrician actually made the comment that he's glad his office floors are laminate and not carpet like they were at his previous practice. But--like his brothers--his spitting up was diagnosed as a laundry problem and not a health problem because he is a "happy" spitter and still putting on weight at a reasonable rate despite the amount of milk that he projectiles out of his mouth. So I guess that's a good thing? All I know is that I'll be glad when I don't have to keep a minimum of three burp rags stationed throughout the house to clean up the messes he makes--although I'm sure that with four boys I'll probably never outgrow the need to keep easily accessible rags stationed throughout the house to clean up inevitable messes!