3 Months

Well, I am so glad that Colt is finally 3 months old.  The newborn stage is not my favorite for several reasons, the biggest being how dangerous it can be for a baby that little to get a fever.  And me being the crazy worrier that I am would pray every day that Colt would not get sick before three months.  I still pray that he stays healthy, but it really does give me some relief that he is not in the scary sick age anymore.  I was just talking to Lance tonight about how crazy it has been that three months have already passed.  It doesn't seem like it was THAT long ago that we were in the hospital with him.  And with this three months passing brings my maternity leave to an end.  I am super sad about this.  It is definitely not easy to be home every day with two little ones, but I don't want it to stop!  I love being home with them, and they love me being here, too. Our dogs love it, too...they might be the most depressed of everyone once I go back to work.  The good news is that I only have to go back for three weeks.  I hope they FLY by.  We are very fortunate to have Lance's sister, Angie, be able to watch the boys until school is out.  I saw a quote the other day that really stuck with me and that I felt really was spot on with the way I have felt sometimes in the last three months and even before that when it was just Ryder.  It said, "The days are long but the years are short."  There are some days that I just want to pull my hair out or that I just wish I could lay in bed and sleep.  But then I have to remind myself that I only get to experience these days with my babies one time and once they are gone they are gone.  And the time really does go by fast when you look back on it.  I can't wait until the next three weeks is up so I can enjoy a summer with my babies.
Colt is doing so great!  He is such a big boy.  I could tell he was a long baby when he was in my stomach, and he is just growing and growing.  He can wear 6,9 and 12 month clothing!  He is so long that anything under 6 months is borderline too short on him from his shoulders to his crotch.  He is strong, too!  The nurses in the hospital said so many times how strong he was and they weren't kidding.  Colt rolled over from back to tummy and about 2.5 months and does it all the time during the day.  He will hardly stay on his back on the floor.  He lifts his head up really well. He likes to sit in my lap and lean forward which helps work on those neck muscles.  He has also been getting in his jumperoo this week.  He is still too little to really get into it and jump around, but he does like to sit in it and look at all the stuff on it, especially the lights.  He will also sometimes kind of bounce around, but he hasn't grasped that concept yet of course.  Colt has gotten really good at tracking people across the room.  He really makes good eye contact now and that makes it even more fun to talk to him.  And he's always trying to talk back.  He loves to coo and tell us "stories".  He started to do this grunt laugh thing at about 11 weeks.  He hasn't had a full blown laugh yet, but you can tell he wants to and is just trying to figure out how!  His legs are super ticklish and so are his ribs.  I can't wait until I can finally hear him just let out a laugh!  Colt is still not a big fan of pacifiers.  He will use one to help him fall asleep but as soon as he gets real sleepy he spits it out.  I am kind of glad for this so hopefully it won't be a hard habit to break.  The biggest struggle we are having right now is Colt's sleeping habits.  He was sleeping anywhere from 7-9 hours up until 9 weeks, and we switched him to a thicker formula when he was choking while eating (this was at the time before we did the swallow study and all that) and it was like as soon as we changed formulas, his good sleeping just went right out the window and has not come back.  Sometimes he does pretty good and wakes up once a night to eat, but more often he wakes up two.  And then sometimes he will have nights like last night where he woke up FOUR times!  I am so tired today.  I really hope that his sleeping gets better since I am going back to work.  It's hard to feel rested the next day if you only get an hour or two of sleep at a time.  Overall though, Colt is a great baby.  He is happy and content most of the time.  I love kissing on his chubby cheeks and hugging on him.  I can't wait until he can hug me back!!  He is now in to size 2 diapers and eating 5-6 ounces every 3 hours during the day...and sometimes every three hours at night.. :(  It's a good thing he is worth every second of sleep that I am missing!