Three Months

Riley is three months old! I don’t have any official stats since he doesn’t go back to Dr. B until next month, but the boy is becoming quite a chunker. I love squeezing his chubby little legs! Here are some other things I’d like to remember about this past month.

• He’s up to 4-5 ounces at most feedings. We started supplementing with formula at the beginning of November because my milk supply was no longer keeping up with what he was taking in. And I officially stopped pumping last Friday, the 26th. I’m glad I was able to go the full 12 weeks like I wanted to, but I most definitely will not miss having to pump. Riley is now mostly getting the frozen milk supply I had built up, with the occasional ounce of formula here and there.
• He still gets fussy in the evenings, but the really bad afternoon fussiness only lasted a few days, thank God. As long as we’re standing up while we hold him during his fussy times, he’s usually okay. (The second we attempt to sit down, though, he starts to squirm!) And he’s still sleeping great, only waking up in the middle of the night a few nights a week on account of gas. We had a bad few nights in week 12 when he would wake up multiple times and not settle back down, but that’s all. We’re giving him Little Tummys drops a few times during the day to help, but they don’t give him complete relief.
• We attempted to transition him out of his swaddle at the end of week 11 by leaving one arm free at night. It worked okay, but I think the combination of that new sensation and his gas just didn’t work. Plus a few times we found that he had somehow managed to wedge himself into a corner of his crib and that upset him, too. So he’s back in the swaddle completely. We need to stick with trying to wean him out of them soon, though….they’re getting too small! He has also graduated to size 3-6 month clothes.
• His cradle cap seems to be under control, but he has developed pretty bad eczema starting in weeks 11-12. It’s most pronounced on his left cheek, but it’s also apparent elsewhere on his face, his chest, and most recently on his arms. We’re putting Aveeno Baby lotion on the bad spots a few times a day, as per Nurse Amy. Not sure it’s really helping, though. I HATE the way the eczema looks, but it doesn’t seem to bother him at all. I’ll just have to hope it goes away soon!
• He’s smiling at us regularly now, and he’s starting to laugh out loud a bit. I first heard his little giggle on November 5, but Kenny heard it a few days earlier. I can’t wait until it becomes a regular thing because it’s just so darn cute. In the meantime I’m continuing to enjoy his “conversations” with me (or, more often, himself). He also loves when Kenny and Nopsi talk like Donald Duck to him.
• He recently started to discover his hands and LOVES sucking on his fingers (see video below). In fact, lots of times he’ll get practically his whole fist in his mouth! He’s also become a drool machine. And his hair is a constant battle: it’s not sure which direction it wants to go, and I am constantly trying to tame it. It’s actually quite curly when it’s wet and presents quite a challenge after he has a bath. Oh well. He’s getting very close to needing his second haircut!
• He continues to excel at tummy time. And in week 12 he started to stand up on our laps while we hold his hands for short periods of time. He definitely lets us know when he’s tired of being on his back. He’s getting some good use out of those chubby legs of his! On the other hand, I’m afraid he’s destined to become a couch potato: the boy loves watching television. And I’m not sure he cares what’s on. He’s totally absorbed in the movement, whether it be football, Grey’s Anatomy, or Star Wars. He’s becoming more aware of lots of things, like toys, vivid colors and designs, other people’s hands, etc. It’s so fun to watch him discover all of the things around him. I can’t wait to plop him in front of a decorated Christmas tree and see what happens!

Here’s his 3 month pic (we had to improvise a bit since we weren’t at home), as well as a video of him cramming his fist into his mouth.

Thanksgiving

Riley’s first Thanksgiving Day dawned in typical New Orleans fashion: it was bright, sunny, and hot. Get used to it, kid; this is life in south Louisiana.

We had a great day with family, despite the temperatures hovering around 80. Either way, the boy looked mighty cute in his special turkey day sleeper and bib (thanks, Nola!). We got to see some of my side for a bit before we went to meet Kenny’s side for dinner and the Saints game (Who Dat!). And we even managed to get a picture of all four cousins together, as well as a group family pic, minus Aunt Jaimi. We missed you lots and we hope you’re feeling better!

Happenings

Kenny, Riley, and I spent many of the days before Thanksgiving in New Orleans at my parents’ house. Here are some pics from our time with Nola and Nopsi! (Thanks, Dad, for using your mac-daddy camera to capture these moments!)

   

Christmas Card Photo Shoot

Oh, Christmas. You are my favorite time of year.

I didn’t always feel this way, especially when my mom used to make us take our family Christmas card picture in the middle of November. I’m sure I whined and complained more than once as I was growing up when the time came to take the picture each year. I mean really, what kid wants to stand still and smile constantly for an hour?

(Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating about that length of time.)

(A bit.)

However, what goes around comes around. For the past few years I’ve actually hand-drawn our Christmas cards. But now that there are three of us, I decided to go with a photo card this year. I’m sure it will be the first of many. I wonder if Riley will rebel against taking pictures for our card every year or if he will just go with it. At the very least I’m quite sure the kid will know exactly what a camera is and what it does well before he’s a year old.

You see, I sort of like to take pictures. It’s kind of my thing. So maybe he’ll be so used to his mother sticking a camera in his face for every little thing he does that he won’t mind an official Christmas card photo shoot once a year. We shall see. He did fairly well for his first one, which we actually broke up into two separate instances this past Sunday. (He had to nap in between.) Even though he’s not exactly smiling on demand yet, we got some good shots.

      

As for our actual Christmas card, I did some research on a few different sites a couple of weeks ago to see what was out there this year. I went to my old standby, Kodak Gallery, first. I didn’t see a single design that I really liked. There were 1 or 2 cards that I could have lived with, but they certainly didn’t knock my socks off. I also checked out Walgreens but didn’t find anything that blew me away on their site either.

Luckily, third time’s a charm. I went on the Shutterfly site and almost immediately discovered almost a dozen really great card designs. I narrowed them down to a few and thought I knew which one I wanted to go with. However, after looking at the 350 pictures my dad took during our photo shoot and picking out my favorites, I quickly realized the card I thought I wanted didn’t really work with the pictures I wanted. So I looked through Shutterfly’s options again and found a great-looking design that I had previously skipped over but that I knew would work really well with the shots I wanted to use.

After all of that, I think I am going to switch all of my photo-related activities (picture storing and sharing, photo gifts, etc.) from Kodak to Shutterfly. I recently designed a photo book using Shutterfly and I was so pleased with the ease of the process and the resulting product. I also love giving photo calendars as gifts, and Shutterfly has great options for those. Add to that their huge selection of gorgeous holiday cards and numerous coupon offers and I’m hooked!

So what does our Christmas card look like this year? You’ll have to wait until I send them out in a few weeks before I post it online. But I can promise you it turned out really cute. :)

Thanks, Shutterfly!

P.S. – If you’re a blogger, visit http://bit.ly/sfly2010 for instructions on how to receive 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly!

LSU-Ole Miss Tailgate

Saturday was Riley’s first appearance at a tailgate on LSU’s campus, hopefully the first of many! Nola had bought him a little jersey onesie to wear, and he looked so cute in it. Too bad it won’t fit him next season! Oh, well. Although a little hot, it was a beautiful day, and Riley did great. There were lots of people and it was pretty loud and noisy most of the day, so he didn’t nap much at all. But he got through it like a champ and promptly passed out once we got in the car. And the Tigers won! BCS bowl game, here we come!

 

After we left campus we headed to Mandeville to Kenny’s parents’ house. His sister Debbie and her two boys, Nick and James, got into town from California Saturday afternoon and will be in for a week. It was so great to see them again, and Aunt Debbie loved meeting Riley for the first time. We already can’t wait to see them again on Thanksgiving Day!

    

Smiley Riley

When my parents were here last weekend my dad got Riley to smile a lot right before Kenny and I left for my birthday dinner on Friday night. And I, of course, got a pretty good series of photos of my smiling boy!

   

Just Hanging Out

My Birthday Weekend

My parents offered to come over and watch Riley this weekend so Kenny could take me out to dinner for my birthday, and we accepted pretty quickly! They arrived late Friday afternoon and left this morning. My birthday was on Friday, and Ken and I enjoyed a great evening out while Nola and Nopsi stayed home with Riley. We went to a little wine market/restaurant that we had only been to once before. It was just as good as we remembered it!

The next morning Mom helped me bake two new cookie recipes that I recently came across online. One was a bit hit (ranger cookies) and one was not (hot chocolate cookies). But I finally used my big Kitchen Aid stand mixer that we got as a wedding present. It only took me 3 years to do so! While we were finishing up our baking, Reyna and Matt stopped by with Natalya. They’re in town visiting family and wanted to meet Riley. It was great to see them!

After that, Mom insisted on getting me out of the house for a girls day. We went to lunch, shopped at Loft, and saw a movie (Morning Glory). We had a great few hours by ourselves and then came back home to be with the boys for the LSU game. Kenny made burgers and we watched the Tigers win very convincingly over ULM. Even though LSU won’t be playing in the SEC Championship game this year, it has been a pretty good season!

 

Thanks, Mom and Dad, for coming to stay with us and for babysitting on Friday night. We really appreciated it, and all three of us were so glad to have spent time with you two. See you again soon!