Hugh - Three Months!

As I grabbed my laptop (which is totally on its' last leg and part of the reason for the crickets around here) to write up this post, Dingle asked me what I was doing. When I replied, "blogging." He said, "You still do that?" Ha ha. ...It's a good thing he is handsome. Also he certainly isn't wrong. I like to hold my baby, a lot.


Time is flying by per usual and I can't believe that it is already the middle of October. I mean really, where did September go?!? I know that when I look back over my blogging for the past year I will feel a little guilty that for the most part I blogged about my pregnancy and my Hughtiepie. I really do owe each of my other kids a post...hmmm. On second thought given that just today I was awoken in the predawn hours by two chattering monkeys, did several loads of laundry comprised mostly of tiny Thomas the Train underwear and footie pajamas, loving prepared meals, played cars while simultaneously playing the maracas, and wiped three butts that were not my own...I owe these people nothing! I'll add their posts to my todo list :)

Hugh is officially three months old...ouch that hurts. I love having a baby in the house so much. I really can't ever imagine knowing that we are done. There are a whole lot of reasons why I think that maybe we should be done but when I am holding this sweet baby not one of them matters. I can say with 100% confidence (multiplied by infinity) that having a baby who sleeps makes life with three children feel manageable. We have a lot more help here in Maine than we ever had when Lily and Ben were babies so I know I never have to worry about reliving the sleep deprivation I endured with Ben. That being said, I am SO grateful that I do not have to rely on someone else taking care of the kids in order to preserve what little mental stability I have left. I think what I am trying to say here is Hugh, thank you for being so wonderful and now PLEASE SLOW DOWN so that I can enjoy these baby days for as long as possible.

Likes: Mommy, being held, nursing, bottles, having a fresh diaper, paci, the swing, riding in the car, tummy time, snuggles, clutching a burp cloth, trying to cram his whole hand into his mouth

Dislikes: Being expected to sleep when not in Mommy's arms and/or laying flat to sleep, baths, having a wet diaper, smiling for the camera, loud noises

Nicknames: Hoo, Hughtiepie, Hoopie, HJ, Youkie

Milestones: First giggles (10/19/14)

 Feeding:  Hugh continues to rock in the nursing department. A fact that I do not take for granted knowing that several of my friends with new babies are struggling to breastfeed. My only regret is that I have not even attempted to put Hugh on a nursing schedule. Basically I just nurse him whenever he seems like he might want to. The exception being the middle of the night, but even then I have been giving in more often than not. (Insert every stereotype about first time moms vs third time moms here) I would love to say that I have mellowed so much as a mom that I no longer care about things like schedules. Truth is, the squeaky wheel (BEN) get the grease and laid back babies get away with murder.

Hugh nurses in the morning and in the late afternoon with greater frequency than the rest of the day. At night (around 10:30pm) he takes a 4-5oz bottle from Daddy and I pump. He takes a bottle from just about anyone and really isn't too particular about the temperature of the milk unless it is just too cold.

Sleeping: Lily official wins the title of "best sleeper" but Hugh is pretty darn good. He does not love to sleep flat on his back which is proving to be a challenge as he gets bigger. He is already sort of outgrowing the bouncy seat. He spends most of his naps in his car seat swing or the mamaroo. The second problem being he really does sleep longer when swaddled but I can't swaddle him and lay him partially upright in anything that has a 5 point harness. I know he will outgrow needing to be swaddled eventually, I am just hoping that one of these days he will be comfortable in the crib!

At night Hugh has been a little inconsistent for the past two weeks, getting up anywhere from two to four times between 11pm and 7am. I really do try to only nurse him after 3am but sometimes I am sort of on autopilot and before I know it he is happily nursing away at 1:30am. He is still sleeping in our room but we are considering moving him slight further away (into the master closet!) so that I do not hear every little peep he makes. With our room on the first floor moving him upstairs just seems like a lot of effort and our closet is bigger than my childhood bedroom so it really isn't as bad as it might sound, haha.

It is possible, and should probably be documented, that we have set a really bad precedent for our sweet little man in the evenings after the big kids go to bed. I nurse him around 7:30 and then I hold him, yup, for the next three hours. Sometimes I will hand him off to Matt or lay him on the couch but way more often than not I just hold him. I mean really aside from blogging what else do I have to do? I would feel guilty about it but I know for a fact that I held Lily just as much if not more and she turned out just fine, probably. If I am 'stuck' doing it every night until he is seven then we can talk about how maybe it wasn't such a great idea. Until then I am spoiling the baby...which I've heard can't actually be done.

Hugh is a light sleeper and toddlers are incapable of whispering with any kind of consistency which unfortunately leads to some very 'irritated mommy' moments. Nobody likes irritated mommy least of all me but it is maddening to get Hugh down for a nap only to have Ben freak out at the top of his lungs because he can't find his truck (Ben, the truck is on the couch...it is ALWAYS on the couch!). Like his sibling before him Hugh is a paci fiend, like Lily he has an affinity for the the giant green soothies...Ben was a Nuk man. I bought Ben a giraffe wubabnub when he was a baby but I could never get him to take it. One man's trash is another man's true love and I have already placed a backup in my amazon shopping cart to prevent a potential crisis when we inevitably lose this one in the Hannaford parking lot.

Odds and Ends: Don't let all of these adorable pictures fool you, Hugh really is a very sweet baby but he is not going to win "best personality" any time soon. Much to the dismay of just about every person at the grocery store he rarely smiles at strangers. He barely smiles at us for that matter. Like I said he isn't at all grumpy or unhappy, just serious. He did giggle the other day in response to being tickled but as soon as I tried to get him to do it again he furrowed his little brow and looked around as if to say, "Did you hear that? I hope it doesn't happen again!"

I seriously can't get over how big he is. A few weeks ago I loaded up his drawers with 3m fall clothes and this past weekend I packed them all back up again. He never wore any of them and now they are way too small. I kept out anything labeled 3-6m but I imagine in the next couple of weeks I will just put those away too and accept the fact that my four month old is in all 6m clothes. The nice part being that even though he is a few months younger than Ben was during his first winter all of the hand-me-downs will be just the right size.





Up next: A road trip to NY, tricks or treats, and as much outside time as we can get before big bad winter gets here!