On my mind

Bottles 
We are amidst a full on battle of the bottle with Louie these days. We did as they say to do, we introduced the bottle when Louie was about four weeks old. Four week old Louie was totally cool with the bottle, drank down a few ounces with absolutely no protest and we breathed a sigh of relief. Phew, dodged that bullet, one less thing to worry about. Cross that one off the list. Bottle, CHECK!

Then we got a bit lazy about it, and I think he only had one other bottle before he was six weeks old. And then we went to give him one and he was all, Oh hell no! What is this?

Likes: smiling and nursing.  Dislikes: bottles and his car seat.

Ugghhhh. So for the last two weeks we've made it our mission to get this figured out. We even took a trip to Babies R Us and bought like a billion different bottles to try, with nipples that more closely resemble the boob. It was worth a shot right? I prayed that we would find that magical perfect nipple that he loved and our problems would be solved. Yeah. Not so much. (Though we have decided that we and Louie all like the Tommy Tippy bottles the best, so we made a little bit of progress there.)

This last week we really got down to business and attempted to at least try a bottle every day. Tuesday night I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown while Dan worked at it with the little guy for TWO AND A HALF HOURS. Louie got really upset a number of times, and I was this close to running in there and punching Dan in the face and stealing my poor poor baby from his arms. Mama bear ATTACKS!

It was a terrible night. Though after those two and a half hours he did finally wear Louie down, and he drank four ounces and then nursed from me and fell asleep for the next seven hours or so. Poor guy was tuckered out from all the drama. So was Dan. So was I. Gus was in the basement playing, mostly oblivious, lucky bastard.

We took that as a victory but made sure to try again the next day, and (sigh) it was more of the same, though not quite as drawn out, maybe only an hour of torture this time. I know, I should just leave the house.

Anyway, we stepped back a little and are trying to have perspective about this problem, after a reassuring talk with the pediatrician.  Yeah, it's something we have to figure out, but it may just take a day or two of being away from mama for a long period of time, and he may just need to get truly hungry. When I go back in (holy crap!) three weeks, I only work three days a week, and until my sister-in-law starts watching the kids in June, both grandmas are helping out. He's truly in good, loving, experienced hands.

Maybe he'll be one of those kids that drinks the bare minimum while mama is away, just enough to ward off uncomfortableness. We just don't know, but it's really one of those things that I don't have a lot of control over. We'll keep trying everyday, but not to the point of traumatizing the poor child. If he doesn't take a bottle one day, we will roll with it and won't treat it like the end of the world, or some HUGE PROBLEM that we have to conquer that day. Patience. Perspective.

Packing on the Pounds
Thank goodness I'm referring to Louie here, and not me, (though I'm not exactly where I'd like to be). We had his two month visit with the pediatrician and dude is growing, like whoa. He's topping the charts at 15 lbs even, up nearly six pounds from his birth weight. It'll be interesting to see if he continues to be massive, or if he starts to even out between four and six months like Gus did.

Look how huge he looks here in his dad's arms!  And he's wearing something Gus wore at 5 months.

As for me, I seem to have hit a plateau with my weight loss, and I still have about five pounds to go to get back to my pre-baby weight. Though really, I'd love to lose ten pounds, which would put me at around my lowest weight that I was at while breastfeeding Gus. He started to nurse less and less near the end, to the point where when I got pregnant with Louie (and he was about 20 months) it was probably just around twice a day, and I had gained back some weight.

So how am I going to lose five or ten more pounds when I don't exercise at all and am constantly starving and snacking throughout the day? That is quite the dilemma, isn't it? Oh well, I just don't see myself finding the time to exercise "for real" anytime soon, so I'm looking forward to spring when I can start getting out walking again with the boys. On a related note, I need to get with the program and make a decision on a double stroller in the very near future. Because it's March (wooo!) and spring is right around the corner. Hopefully I have plenty of time before tank-top weather to get in a little bit better shape. ;)

I am thinking, "Ooh, a sucker!  What can I go find to eat?"

Sleep
Well, the big guy is smiling and cooing up a storm these days, and sleeping really really really well. He sleeps a good chunk at the beginning of the night, usually from around 7:00 or 8:00 in the evening until somewhere between 12:30 to 1:30 AM. After that he's up to eat about every two to three hours. It all feels so manageable, so lovely, compared to the hellish sleep we got with Gus for about two years, so I'm enjoying it while I can, knowing that it could change at a moment's notice. Everything sleep-related really seemed to truly go down-hill around the 4-month wakeful period with Gus, and it never got better. So I'm still afraid to even get used to any of this awesomeness (I may have a little post-traumatic stress from two years of sleep deprivation), but I definitely will enjoy it while it lasts and hold out hope for something different this time.

I'll give this baby credit though, already I can recognize HUGE differences between him and his brother when it comes to sleep. Quite often Louie is able to put himself to sleep without a problem, provided he isn't over-tired or over-stimulated. I can just set him in his bassinet, close the door, and he kicks around a bit, makes some noises, and with really no fuss goes to sleep very quickly.

This is like a dream for us, as Gus NEVER put himself to sleep. EVER. Seriously.  We still, to this day, lay with him at night and at nap time to help him go to sleep. As a baby he was rocked, shushed, cuddled, nursed, bounced, Moby'd, sang to, and just generally hard-core parented to sleep for every nap and at every bedtime. You name the method, we used it at one point or another. And that's okay, I've made some peace with the fact that Gus needed all that, he was a high-needs baby and is still a highly energetic, highly sensitive kid, and it's a part of what makes him Gus.

The non-sleeper playing with his cousin, and some sort of bizarre white tiger.

.Louie, on the other hand, already seems quite a bit more independent, and consequently is less of a cuddler. He reserves his cuddles for his mama while nursing, or if someone wants to hold him while he's asleep, he's cool with that. But otherwise, he'd rather you walk around with him and give him a good view of the world, or lay him on the bed so he can kick and talk and smile and coo at you. He does love the Moby just like his big brother though, and is totally fine with napping in it if you're out and about, and on occasion likes to be worn to sleep at night.

On that note, I definitely am still loving the Moby, it makes life one million times more manageable with a toddler and a baby, especially on errands. On any given day you might find the three of us at Target or the grocery store, Gus kicking around strapped into the cart, eating snacks and demanding one thing or another, and Louie napping or taking in his surroundings snuggled up in the wrap. How do people do this without babywearing?