The Farm

We were invited to our good friend's dad's "farm" this past weekend.  We always have such a blast when we're there.  The views are TO DIE FOR and to top it off, they just put in a brand new pool and pavilion and we lucked out with an end-of-September weekend that was warm enough to hang out poolside and go for a swim!  The pictures of this place speak for themselves, it is the ultimate relaxation spot!  A little piece of heaven in upstate NY.

Nathan - three months

Photo update of my sweet babe at 3 months!

big boy in his high chair!

Too cool for....naps, apparently...

I've been meaning to write this post about my big girl since July....it's still relevant now, only the ending of the story has slowly morphed into the demise of our beloved nap time [moment of silence, please]. so sad.

It all began at Gwen's 2.5 year Dr's visit.  Her pedi was pretty blunt about the fact that we should be getting rid of the pacifier .like.now. (even if she does only use it for sleeping).  Uuuhhhh ok lady, do you realize that we just brought a new baby into this girl's life?  Taking away her pah-pah could be devastating.  No thanks!  Fast forward about a week later to her first dentist appointment and apparently she was already showing signs of an overbite.  Ok, new plan...sayonara pah-pah!

After some planning and scheming (and stressing), Justin just decided to pull the trigger one night.  Literally from night one, the girl was a rock star!  She fell right asleep, no tears, nothing.  It was like she never even had it to begin with.  We even threw a "Big Girl Party" the next day to get her excited about the fact that she doesn't need her pacifier anymore!

Naps though, now they were a different story.  At first she would nap about 50% of the time without her pacifier.  This percentage slowly declined until she would ONLY nap for Daddy on weekends.  And now, sadly, the only time she'll nap is if my timing is just perfect and both kids are in the car fed, changed, happy, and tuckered out.  Each of these elements as crucial as the next because if anything is off, one of them is going to wake the other.  I've perfected a driving loop consisting of 3 highways around our house so that I never have to stop at a light or go any slower than what is necessary on an exit ramp.  Miraculously, I've gotten a couple of hour long naps for both kids out of it so far.

I'm pretty sure 2.5 years is pretty early to be done with naps.  And although I've thrown a few pity parties, I really can't feel that bad for myself.  For most of Gwen's life, she has given me very consistent 3-4 hour naps (and that was on top of 12-hour nights).  I'm not sure why all of a sudden she's ok with getting by on less sleep - including shaving an hour or so off of her overnight sleeps.  I keep hoping maybe it's just a phase.  But one thing I've learned as a parent is that just as you think you have things figured out, that's when they change.

Long Island

Big milestone here, people!  Nathan made his first visit to Long Island last week!  My parents took the ferry with me on Thursday to help out with the kiddos and Jackson, and Justin took the train and met us there on Friday.  We can always bet on a nice, relaxing visit and this time was no different with trips to the playground, visits with great friends, and just hanging out in Gram & Pa's backyard.  We also celebrated Justin's birthday while we were there.

Nathan's first ferry ride!

Nathan meeting Aunt Dre

Meeting Aunt Jessy

Gwen loved playing with the squirt gun.  In the second picture I was trying to spray it in her mouth hehe :)

Nathan loving the hammock, and who doesn't love that chick! (it's at least 30yrs old and still going strong)

Westhampton's annual art fair:

Happy 33, Daddy!

We had a blast and can't wait to go back!

seven

This post is a bit late, but we just had our seven year anniversary last month and I thought it would be fun to go through some photos of us on July 15th through the years (minus '08 & '10 for some reason?).  I'm lucky to be married to such a hardworking and caring person.  An amazing husband, and the most loving daddy to our two sweet babies, he certainly is!

2006

2007

2009

2011

2012

And (drumroll) HERE'S our 7th Anniversary last month - looking back, I realized it's the ONLY picture I took that day! haha!! How things change :)

2013

Nathan - two months

So the first month totally FLEW by.  We had a ton of help from family and both Anne and Kristen were able to visit.  The second month draaagggggggggggged.  Man, is it tough being by myself with a 2.5 year old and a newborn (I swear, if it's true what they say about age 3 being harder than 2 I may just lose my mind).

OK I'm making a serious effort for this post to be all about Nathan, and not Gwen's reaction to Nathan.  Poor second kid always gets compared to the first, I'm hoping I can avoid that....

So I know I didn't write a 1 month post, but I'll just try to cover everything here.  First, let me say that breastfeeding [comparatively speaking]...oh crap there I go again.... has been a piece of cake.  I had some pain in the first week (and the uterine cramping the first 3 days UGH!), but nothing I couldn't handle.  I was very happy about this because I really questioned whether I was going to be able to do it again if the first 2 weeks were anything like I remembered.  Well, now we're into the third month and it's going great!

At around 3 weeks we had one night in particular that we questioned if we'd make it through.  Nathan was up the ENTIRE night wanting to nurse constantly, but then choking and crying, and his breathing was very shallow and labored.  It was so bad that we called the on-call Dr and she had us bring him in the next morning.  Physically, he was fine so she thought it could be reflux.....OR.....the dreaded "C" word.  Yes, COLIC. AHHHHHHH!!!  No parent ever wants to hear that word.  Luckily, it turned out to be an isolated event.  We held off on the reflux meds and although he spits up more than any child I've ever seen, I'm pretty sure he doesn't have reflux.  And although he can be a bit fussy when he wants to be, he most certainly does not have colic (phew).

Nights have been going great.  He's still in our room in the pack n' play because he'll eventually be sharing a room with Gwen, and she sleeps so well that we haven't wanted to make the move yet.   For the last few weeks he's been sleeping anywhere between 5.5 - 7 hours, and one night he slept 8!! Hallelujah!  I'm pretty sure this is all due to the swaddle (which is something we never did before).  He was moving around a lot, and we thought he was keeping himself up because of it.  He seems to instantly relax when I swaddle him.

The boy is growing like a weed.  Most people are shocked when I tell them his age because he looks older.  Here are his stats:

Birth:
7lbs 10oz, 21in

2 wks:
8lbs 7oz, 22 in

2 mo:
11lbs 15oz, 23 in

At his 2 month appt, the Dr told me that he's above the 90th percentile for both height and weight.  Grow baby, grow!

In the past few weeks, he has been super smiley, talkative, and responsive to us.  The Dr told us that he's very "flirty" for a 2 month old.  I think he's going to be a very animated little guy and I'm really looking forward to watching his personality develop.

Here he is, happy as can be, at 2 months old: