Bumps in the Road

Friday was 14wks for Parker, and some ups and downs came along with!

First off, we had a great Memorial Day weekend at the lake last weekend! Kyle's birthday was great! I think he got lots of special treatment considering he got lots of his faves (chicken supreme, brownstone front cake, margaritas, eggs benedict...)

 Then last week was pretty typical until Friday... I had an appointment at the doctor for Parker because his eczema had flared up over the week and it seemed to be bothering him. So, on the way to the doctor the AC in my car just stops working! Cold air one second... hot the next! Parker was already fussy because he was getting hungry and itchy - so throw in a little extra heat and you have a VERY cranky baby! Once we got to our appointment, we got some great news though! She gave us a prescription steroid oil to take care of the flare up of eczema and told us to use Selsun Blue for his cradle cap. She said just use the oil for 5 days and his skin should get back to normal, then just maintain the moisturizing and use the oil if we see another flare up coming on.

I also mentioned he had just been more fussy and not taking full bottles during the day, but I attributed it to being uncomfortable from his skin. She wanted to check things out just to be sure... well, the boy already has a tooth under his gums!!! She said it would be a few weeks before it broke through, but it was definitely there! (That explains the drooling too!) She was also impressed that he rolled at 10 wks - she said, "We are just going to have to call him Parker Early Gordon because he keeps hitting his milestones ahead of time!" He is also up to 13 lbs... getting bigger, but still skinny.

The rest of the day was just crazy! I needed an oil change and inspection anyway, so I went straight to the shop to have that done and have them look at the AC. Well, my insurance expired May 30, and I forgot to put the new card in the car... couldn't get the car worked on! So I went home to try to cool off Parker. I also wanted to give him a bath and do his cradle cap shampoo and body oil... so in the process of getting him ready I managed to get peed and pooped on. That takes some talent on Parker's part! Once I got him taken care of I had to pack and get ready to leave town. I also had other errands to run... so needless to say it was crazy and just one of those kind of days where nothing goes right!

We made it down to Austin safely though (thankfully Muffy was gracious enough to let us borrow her mini-van to avoid the heat). Parker usually just sleeps the whole way, but not that day! He fussed and fussed... The weekend was great though! We stayed with Kyle's brother Justin and his wife Jenn at their new house (which is beautiful by the way). They had a baby shower on Saturday, which was lots of fun! It is going to be so exciting that our boys will be 6 mos apart - they will have so much fun growing up together. We got to see everyone for dinner on Saturday to celebrate Kyle's birthday with his family (he managed to get ANOTHER brownstone front cake).

We had to head back early yesterday though to make it back for the Raising Cane's summer picnic. We stopped at the new store in Waco - it seems to be doing really well so far! The picnic was fun and Kyle's store won the contest for Best Drive-Through Greeting. It was so big this year with all the new stores in Dallas and the HQ employees joining as well. There were also tons of babies right around Parker's age! It was fun to see them all together.

Parker's latest trick this week is slowly learning to sit up. He has been really strong with holding his head up since he was born. He also does well when someone holds him around his waist on their lap, but today I started letting him do a little more on his own. I sat him on the floor and just held his hands for balance. He did great! I was so proud! I also sat him in the Bumbo to get some practice that way too. He started to get a little lean when he was tired, but he didn't get frustrated. He'll get it on his own before too long!

Parker and I are headed to San Antonio on Thursday for the Sportsman's Team Challenge Nationals (shooting competition). Sadly Kyle won't be able to make it with his work schedule, so we are going with my Mom and Dad. It should be fun, but I haven't had nearly enough practice this year! I guess I've been a little busy ;)

3 Months!

Well, Parker is officially 3 months old! How crazy is that?! Not much has changed though since the last post... cradle cap is still going strong, still sleeping good (through the night now for a whole month!), and still rolling around! He has started to stop halfway on his rolls though and just hang out on his side. I think he kinda likes it! Hopefully that will help him figure out he can go back and forth. We did have a rough patch of napping last week. I think it was just due to the 12 wk growth spurt/developmental leap, but we are back on track this week!

Other things going on now... he LOVES his thumb/fingers still! He just can't get enough of them, but at least they keep him happy. If he really gets to sucking I try to catch him and replace with a paci so hopefully we don't form too bad of a habit. Along with the finger sucking comes drool... he drools a lot lately with or without the fingers (it just gets all over his hands when he gets to sucking). I've heard this can mean early signs of teething, but I'm pretty sure we are too early for that!

Along with his cradle cap, the poor boy just seems to have VERY dry skin (gets it from his Daddy). We lotion him up all the time, but he just has some little red rough patches that are always around on his arms and legs. He also gets a little dry around the top of his chest, and the other morning he woke up and had a heat rash under his neck! It was bright red and concerned me a little, so I called the doc. They said don't worry about it and just put some Lotrimin on it to keep it from becoming a yeast infection (I guess since it's all moist in those neck folds!). It was gone by the end of the day, but he's still getting dry around there.

He is just getting so big now! He is 12 lbs now and has outgrown a lot of his Newborn and 0-3 size clothes. It's so funny how every brand's sizes fit differently (like our clothes I guess). He is still pretty skinny though because the larger clothes he is wearing now fit him lengthwise, but he still doesn't quite fill them out!

My favorite thing lately is just how giddy and smiley he gets! The kid loves getting his diaper changed, bathtime (I think we see a naked trend here), and dancing with his arms! Do any of those and you get the biggest smile on his face. It's just too cute... I'm anxiously waiting for the giggle though ;)

The last couple of bath times he has figured out splashing... he just kicks those legs around and gets a kick out of getting Mom and Dad wet! He is actually quite the kicker in general. He's got this "Houdini Kick" as Kyle calls it - when he's in bed he will lift both legs up real high, then kick them out straight and push them down. He does this over and over until he gets his feet free from the swaddle. It's hilarious!

Parker made his first trip to Joe T. Garcia's a couple weeks ago! My cousin Allison just graduated from SMU (congrats to her!) so we went out there for a celebratory lunch! The food was amazing as usual, but we got there right when a monsoon came through. Our poor waitress... we were sitting in a special room in which she had to go outside to get to! They were great though and kept the ritas and food coming through the storm!

Kyle's parents came up to visit this past weekend. It was great to see them, and I know they enjoyed getting to spend time with Parker. Easter was the last time they saw him, so it had been about 6 or 7 weeks. We are going up to the lake this weekend for Memorial Day! It will be his first real weekend at the lake. All the other times we've been there it hasn't really been a normal weekend. He won't get to be down at the boathouse a ton with the heat, but we will have to get him down there a little bit!

Happy Memorial Day and have a safe and fun weekend!

First Roll!

Parker is 10 weeks old now and growing up to be such a handsome boy! With the cool snap, he got to wear his snuggly outfit...

He is doing really great sleeping through the night now too. He goes to bed right after his 7pm feeding. Then we do a "dreamfeed" at about 11pm (he doesn't wake up, just eats with his eyes closed) then he sleeps until about 6 am. At that point he usually wakes up but will put himself back to sleep or hang out contently until I go get him at 7am to start the day. Then he is on a 3 hr schedule for the day of eat~play~sleep. It's been great having the consistent schedule to get some predictability to our days!

Tummy time is still going really great! He has been consistently pushing up on his hands and getting his head up to look at you.

He had also been getting this leaning thing going on like he was trying to look up at the ceiling. Then on Saturday he leaned so far he rolled over to his back! I thought it might be a fluke, so I put him back on his tummy and sure enough he did it again! Kyle was at work so I texted him. Of course, he didn't believe me and thought I had helped push him over. Then the more we talked about it, I started to think maybe it was just a freak thing. But yesterday and today he has done it multiple times - so we officially have a roller on our hands!!! I caught it on tape this morning!

Other things going on right now... He officially found his thumb! He is good about using it to self-soothe but doesn't just suck all the time. It makes me want to quit swaddling his arms when he goes to sleep so if he wakes up he can get it if he wants. But then again, his random arm movements will wake him up, so I think I am going to keep them in a bit longer and just rely on the pacifier to help him get himself back to sleep if needed.

He is so smiley and giddy now - it's just precious. He particularly likes getting his diaper changed! It's hilarious... you put him down on the changing pad and he just starts smiling and kicking and making all kinds of sounds! I'll have to try to get a picture of how happy he is!

His cradle cap is also back and worse than before - YUCK! It's definitely no fun, but I'm trying to keep it under control with oil treatments. They help, but don't get rid of it entirely...

On Saturday we took Parker to Mina and Justin's engagement party! We are so excited for them and can't wait for the wedding. Lots of our friends that hadn't met Parker yet were there, so that was an added bonus!

My first Mother's Day yesterday was great! We went to the lake with my Mom's side of the family (us, Mom/Dad, Ems/Marcus, Muffy, Aunt Cindy, Allison/Joe). It was great to have everyone together. We didn't get the best weather on Sunday, but it was nice to kinda lounge around together! That's it for now - until next time...

2 Months!

Well, Parker was officially 2 months old on Monday! Man how time flies (I feel like I am going to be saying that on a regular basis for a long time...). We had a great weekend! Saturday afternoon we took a family walk (Mom, Dad, Parker and Shadow) to the grocery store to get some items for dinner. We cooked a great meal together - salmon, mmm mmm! Then Sunday we went to a Frisco Rough Riders (minor league baseball) game. Cane's was a sponsor of the Lil Wrangler Party charity event. All in all it was a great weekend together with the family!

We also started sleeping Parker in his nursery last weekend. On Saturday night we slept in the guest room next to his room just in case he was fussy (we didn't want to be going up and down the stairs all night!). He slept just fine though and only woke up once at about 3 am to feed. We started him on a more regular schedule (following "On Babywise" roughly - see link to the right for Chronicles of a Babywise Mom - AMAZING blog) with him waking up at 7am for the day, eating every 3 hours, taking a nap 1 hour after eating, then going to bed right after the 7pm feeding. He does get one "dreamfeed" at 10 or 11pm to help hold him over through the night. I realized we can work towards dropping the 2-3am feeding and get to sleeping through the night because he wasn't eating very much when he woke up at 7. So since he doesn't really need the feeding in the middle of the night, we have been weaning him off of it. The past 2 nights he has gone from the dreamfeed until about 5:45! At thatt point we just gave him an ounce or two then popped the pacifier in his mouth to hold him over to the 7am feeding. We should be sleeping through the night soon!!

Tummy time has been very productive lately! I was worried because he wasn't very active when we would put him on his tummy, but this past weekend he kicked it into high gear! He turns his head back and forth repeatedly and he is even lifting up his head. Most of the time he lifts it to about a 45 degree angle, but yesterday he pushed up on his hands and lifted it so high he could look at me - just amazing! He is so strong...

Today when I picked Parker up from Mom and Dad's house, they had him in the Boppy with a blanket and he looked like he was missing the lower half of his body! Too funny - had to take a picture.

Traumatic Events

Today brought many dramatic events for the little Parkster... First of all, we had his 8 wk appointment with the pediatrician this morning. Everything went well! He is 10 lb, 4 oz now and 23 inches long - that puts him in the 22nd percentile for weight and the 58th percentile for height (both are up from the last visit). He is pretty skinny though because for his weight to height ratio he is in the 2nd percentile! We might have to beef him up a little ;) But the doctor said he is eating good and is right on track.

He also got 3 shots and one oral vaccine today - as you can guess, he didn't like that very much. He took them pretty well though. They did 2 at once then the third so it was like he only got pricked twice. She was pleased to hear he is smiling now, so that was a big check off his development list! His assignment for the next appt at 4 months is to be able to roll over and laugh. I can't wait until the laughing comes! So, to get him rolling over we will have to be diligent with our tummy time. He does good with it right now and has mastered switching his head from side to side. He also lifts his head up sometimes too just to look around.

We just opened up his play pen this last weekend for the first time and put him in it. Man does he get giddy in that thing! He just smiles and coos for a good 15 minutes straight! He loves it!

So I had a suspicion coming into this appointment that Parker might be tongue-tied (tongue attached too tight to the bottom of his mouth). Kyle thought I was crazy and just getting freaked out by things I read on the internet, but turns out I was right! My first inclination was the fact that he was taking awhile to latch on when breast-feeding, or he would just lose the latch and have to re-do several times in one feeding. So I started my investigation and found that one reason could be because he was tongue-tied. Then I realized Parker was experiencing a couple other symptoms... when he had a big open mouth cry, his tongue was in a V-shape (like the middle was tacked down). I also noticed as we were starting to wean over to bottle feeding, that certain nipples were not working. He would suck happily for 20-30 minutes and not even get a whole ounce out. I realized that those particular nipples require him to depress the part closer to the base, and I figured Parker couldn't stick his tongue out far enough to make that happen, so he wasn't getting a regular flow of formula. Anyway - we went to an ENT today and got it snipped, so he his A-OK now! He definitely didn't like it (no anesthetic), but it was quick and he was over it in a couple minutes. He got a little bit on the bottle and then his paci right afterward (apparently the sucking makes the bleeding stop!). I'm glad we went ahead and got it taken care of now to avoid any speech problems later down the road.

So needless to say, he had quite a traumatic day with the shots and the frenulum snip, but all is well now. Sorry for the lengthy post!

Big Changes

Well, a few things have happened over the last week or so... Last week I let TracyLocke (my employer) know that I would not be returning from maternity leave. I am so thrilled to be able to spend more time with Parker, however I am going to miss my co-workers greatly! I got so close with many of them over the last 3 years, it's hard to imagine not seeing them everyday. I will be working part time (2 days/wk) doing marketing for a doctor's office in Plano though. I'm already working and am really excited about it. I think it's going to be something that will allow me to be creative and use a lot of my wide array of skills.

I also plan on using this time to push my invitation/stationery business! As many of you know, I have been doing custom invitation design on a word of mouth basis, but as of last week I am official! I filed a DBA for PaperCrush and got a Tax ID number from the IRS. It feels good to take this step in really getting the business going, but there is still alot of work ahead. I am currently working on getting my financials setup and creating a Facebook page, Flickr page and website/blog. So more to come on that soon!

Another fun addition to the Gordon house is patio furniture!!! With the help of my grandmother, Muffy, we managed to finally furnish the patio after almost 2 years of being in the house. Muffy and her sister, Marge, were generous enough to give us a conversation set that belonged to their mother, my Great Grandmother Maggie. We found some great cushions at Home Depot for the time being and we plan on painting them black. We also got a table and 6 chairs to go along with. It looks so great and we can't wait to use it as the weather gets warmer! THANK YOU MUFFY!

To celebrate our new patio furniture, we had a big family dinner this past Sunday evening! We planned on a warm afternoon lounging on the patio with cool cocktails, but instead we made a fire outside to keep warm and it ended up raining. Total bust on the patio portion, but it was great to have the family over. My Aunt Cindy was in town, so she got to see Parker for the first time since the hospital! Speaking of the little fella, here are a few recent pictures...

Happy Belated Easter

Happy Easter to all! I hope everyone had a great weekend. We spent the weekend in Austin with Kyle's family and had a great time. Before we left though, we had Easter with my family in Dallas on Thursday night - we had great food (as usual) and everyone got to see Parker in his cute Easter outfit!

Parker did great on his first road trip - he slept the whole way down to Austin! Friday we went to dinner at El Rancho, then we went to see Jenn and Justin's new house on Saturday. It looks amazing! Saturday night we had a great dinner at Kim and Jason's. Our nephew Sam just loves Parker, so we thought he would get a kick out of carrying Parker in the front carrier! It was so cute, whenever Parker would fuss, we just told Sam to walk and bounce!

Sunday we went to church and Parker slept straight through - thank goodness! We had relaxing rest of the day, then a yummy Easter dinner. Overall it was a great weekend and we were glad everyone got to spend some time with Parker.

 

Coffee on the porch with Pappy

 How cute is he in his "Baby's First Easter" bib and bunny hat!? Anyway, Parker is just growing up so fast... He is up to 10 lbs now, I just can't believe it! He is also much more awake everyday, however he tends to get cranky in the evenings. We are having to make sure he goes down for naps throughout the day to keep him from getting overtired. I am also having him nap in his crib upstairs, so hopefully in the next couple weeks we can get him sleeping overnight in his room. The longest stretch we've gotten overnight is about 5 hrs, so we are getting closer to sleeping through the night. We are also increasing the number of formula bottles he is getting - we are up to 3/day now. By next week he should be on formula all day and I will still try to nurse at night if I can. Also, a little bumpiness has recently popped up on his face. I know it's completely normal, but his skin was so pretty and clear before! Hopefully it doesn't stick around too long.

One Month Bday and Two Year Anniversary!

Parker was officially one month old on Friday! Gosh, time is flying by! He is getting bigger and is more awake now with a little bit more of a personality. He will make eye contact with you now (which is nice as opposed to the blank stare we're used to!). He is also starting to use his voice to make sounds now instead of just grunting and crying. He just gets more handsome everyday! I can't help but stare at him all the time - how can you not when there is always a new and exciting face!? He is also probably getting annoyed with how much I slather him with kisses, but I just can't resist.

Although he is getting bigger, he is still in the Newborn size diapers. And let me tell you, we go through those like crazy! We use a whole 84 pack every week. People told us you go through a lot of diapers and they weren't kidding! We also are starting to give him some formula to make a slow transition off of nursing. He just gets one bottle a day right now and we will slowly start to add more. He is taking to it very well and it doesn't seem to phase him. He goes back and forth with no problem!

Our new found gadget that is AMAZING is the Itzbeen timer! This thing is a must-have for new parents! We just love how it keeps track of everything and alarms us when it's time to eat or nap, etc. I highly recommend this to anyone trying to keep a schedule for their baby and doesn't want to keep an eye on the clock all the time...

Kyle and I celebrated our two year wedding anniversary this weekend as well! It was actually yesterday, the 29th, but he was traveling for work so we went out to eat on Sunday. That was our first time to go out together without Parker! It was nice to be able to leave him in the trusted hands of my parents for a little while. We needed a date night to ourselves and it was a much needed break. It's amazing how much has happened in the past two years since the wedding... we are just growing up so fast, but I know we also have so much ahead of us in the years to come!

Happy St. Patty's Day

Parker and I wore our green around the house today and showed our Irish pride! I got a few pics in before he got squirmy and decided he was done...

I also realize that on the last post I didn't really do Parker justice with the pictures I posted. So here are a few of my favorite pics so far..

 One of the first days home

Sleeping Baby

The Model

Daddy and Parker napping

Happy Dreams

Parker praying

Mesmerized by the skylights at the lake house

Cross my heart

Ok, enough pictures! I just have so many, it's hard to narrow it down! Things are still going good though. He is sleeping well majority of the time. We haven't been using the Gripe Water everyday and have only had a couple more colicky instances. We are just using it on an as-needed basis, which is still very helpful! Our big challenge now is trying to get him sleeping on a flat surface. We spoiled him by letting him sleep in the pack and play because it puts him in a cozy cradled position instead of flat like he will be in the crib. So, in an effort to make an easier transition to the crib in the future, our goal is to get him falling asleep on his own in the bassinet! He is pretty fussy in there, and I have to admit the past couple nights after awhile I just put him in the pack and play so we can both sleep. It's getting better though... he's sleeping in there right now! Hopefully tonight is better. Well that's all for now, more to come later...