12,000 Page Views!

My blog has officially hit the 12,000 page view mark! Yes, that's correct! Not 1,200 but 12,000! I know I've been blogging for over a year so that probably isn't impressive at all but I'm proud of that! Thank you to everyone who takes the time out of your day to look at my posts. It means a lot to me!

Nap Time Nightmare

Last week I totally bragged on Cooper for dropping his pacifier habit cold turkey.  Well, this week I may be eating my words.  Don't get me wrong, we haven't gone back to pacis but we're having some MAJOR sleeping issues now.  He's been on a no nap strike for about a week now.  Maybe two days last week he took a nap but they weren't solid ones.  He just refuses to sleep.  He's been jumping in his bed, like it's a trampoline, to keep himself awake.  He also cries... and cries.  He'll do this for 2 hours straight and never fall asleep even though he's exhausted.  He's also been fighting us on going to bed at night.  He never cries for us and that's all he's been doing for the last week.  He does fall asleep at night but not without a lot of jumping and tears.  He'll sleep all night once he's fallen asleep, thank goodness.  I know he's not ready to cut out his naps because he walks around the house like a little zombie, carrying his blanket, laying down on everything.  He's extremely irritable, cries at the drop of a hat, and lays all over us.

We cut out the pacifiers because he bit the nipple off, which scared me.  Cooper isn't a talker by any means so he never asks for his "sassy."  He didn't a few weeks ago, he doesn't now.  That's not surprising.  He also hasn't been pointing at his paci bucket or taking Clark's when he's sleepy.  So I'm not really getting signals that he wants it back, he's just not sleeping.  I'm not even sure he realizes what he's missing at nap time and bedtime.  We do the same routine each day before naps and bedtime.  We do it at the same time each day.  He still has his blanket for comfort.  I just don't know what to do.  When the pacis went away so did my good sleeper.  I'm afraid if I give in and give him his paci again we'll never get it away from him.  We've made it a week and a half but the napping issue is just getting worse.  We both still need these naps... desperately!  I feel like giving in is a bad choice but I also feel like letting him go with sleep deprivation is a bad choice, too.  Ahh... parenting is SO hard!  It's well worth it though.  His sweet kisses when I get him out of bed make up for the frustration.

Happy 3 Months Clarkster Larkster!

My little baby is 3 months old today!  Where does the time go?  He's such a sweet little blessing.  He's a wonderful sleeper, a good eater, and just an all around happy baby (besides the colic).  He didn't go for a 3 month checkup so I'm not sure of his stats this month but I do know that he's a chunky little thing.  I can also tell he's growing in height because his toes are about to come out of several of his sleepers.  He's fitting very well into 3 month clothes and I'm sure it won't be long until we're in 3-6 months.  At 3 months old he's still completely formula free!  I'm very proud of that.  We've made it this far on a strictly breast milk diet and I'm determined to keep that up as long as I possibly can.  

Clark's latest tricks are laughing out loud, super big smiles, watching his brother run around the room, finding mommy and daddy when we come in a room (when he hears our voice), sucking on his hands, kicking on his play mat, cooing like crazy, holding his head up with much more control, standing in our laps, and wiggling all over his crib.  Some of our big accomplishments this month include taking a bottle better, graduating from our swaddle sack to a sleep sack (freed arms!), using a spoon once to eat cereal (it was hilarious), and going from 6 feedings a day to 5.  He's growing up on us!  He already doesn't feel like a little baby anymore and it breaks my heart.  Like I said, he's such a blessing to our family and I don't know what I'd do without my chunky monkey.  I think we'll keep him, colic or not.  

: )

Photo Friday

We've had a tiring week with the boys.  Between Cooper fighting sleep, being a little sickly, and Clark's colic I'm worn out!  Our church youth group is helping host a tailgating event at our local high school (and my alma mater) tonight and we're helping.  The older I get the more antisocial I get in certain situations and this football game is one of them.  I have to go and purchase our tickets here in a little while at the high school, during school hours, and my nerves are about shot just thinking about it.  Don't ask me why, I guess I'm just crazy.  I haven't been to a football game since the fall after I graduated and I can't say I'm really looking all that forward to it.  Oh well, I'm hoping Cooper will enjoy it and not be terrified of the band and all the people and that Clark won't have a colic spell while we're there.  I keep telling myself we're going for a good cause, hopefully I can keep a good attitude!  Wish us luck!  Here are my pictures... enjoy!

 A little fun with the boys on a new photo app I bought.

 Someone has been fighting sleep horribly this week.  He's fighting naps and bedtime... this is odd for him.  I'm hoping it's just a short phase and that we'll be back to normal soon.  Anyways, this is what happens when you refuse to nap one day... you fall asleep on the way to church.

 A new, busy work schedule I'm trying to adjust to.

Someone wasn't fighting sleep at this point in time.

 He loves bath time with his big brother.  He just sits and watches Cooper play.

 Hanging out with mommy and Clark during an eating session.

A very special almost 2 year old is going to FLIP when he sees his awesome birthday shirt! Thanks Sew Mama!  sewmama.net

Hopefully both boys will have calmer days over the weekend and we can rest a bit.  We've got a busy week of Halloween, wedding, and fall festivities on the calendar so we need a little break.  The sad thing is that with the holidays coming up our lives aren't going to slow down anytime soon.  It seems that my iPhone calendar just keeps getting fuller and fuller.

A Colicky Clark Update

We're deep into our 8th week of colic. It began on Labor Day weekend when Clark was 5 weeks old and here we are at Halloween and 13 weeks old (3 months on Saturday). I'll be perfectly honest with you... colic is one of the worst things I've ever dealt with.  I wouldn't wish this upon my worst enemy.  Thankfully Clark is so little he'll never remember this trying time in his life.  Andy and I feel so absolutely helpless when an attack strikes.  All we can do is love on him while he's so upset.  Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to help much.

Everyone keeps telling me that 3 months is the "magic number" for colic to just disappear.  Well, he'll be 3 months on Saturday and we're still having issues almost daily.  I will say this, his episodes have seemed to calm down some in length and in screaming level.  We've also had a couple of days this past week where he didn't get furious, just a little squirmy, which is wonderful.  His colic is always in the evening and usually corresponds to eating time.  He acts like he's starving and then he simply can't eat because his tummy hurts so badly and he's so upset.  He just screams when I try to get him to breastfeed.  The last few days he's been doing this each time we try and eat at night and I've found if I can get him calmed down and in a light sleep he'll eat.  I guess that's a sign that his tummy has stopped hurting.  The good thing about this is that we can usually get through these spells in about 20-30 minutes and then he'll eat good for me.  We're trying to find some kind of optimism in the midst of all this and shorter spells and a bit less frequency seems to be our silver lining right now.  I'm praying that this colic is on its way out the door but I won't hold my breath just yet.  Dr. Meredith said it could last up to 6 months and I'm really praying that won't be the case for us.  Keep Clark in your prayers, I HATE seeing my baby in so much pain each night.

Operation No Pacifier... Mission Complete!

I'm kind is sad to announce that my baby boy is completely pacifier free.  It's been almost a week since he's had one (besides sneaking his brother's to get a rise out of mommy, he thinks that's hilarious).  He was down to only having them at nap time and bedtime (since about the time Clark was born) anyways but Andy and I decided it was time to be completely done with them after a little scare last week.  Last Thursday I grabbed a paci out of his crib and noticed the nipple was about to come off.  He had bitten through it to the point where it was barley hanging on.  It wasn't an old, worn out paci either.  It looked like someone had cut it with scissors and had forgotten to cut all the way through.  This scared me to death.  I was terrified he'd bite through one while sleeping and get choked on it.  They seem to be the perfect size to get lodged in a little throat.

That evening we decided when we put him to bed we weren't going to give him a pacifier.  A lot of times he points to his "sassy bucket" when we put him down but he didn't fight us.  We were both afraid that he'd cry in his crib until he eventually fell asleep or that he'd wake up several times in the night but he proved us wrong, thankfully!  He made it through the night like a champ.  I was a little anxious the next day at nap time.  It's a lot harder to get him to go down for a nap than it is a bedtime so I was afraid we'd have a fight.  He proved me wrong once again!  I felt pretty confident after a good night and a good nap that we may be able to kick this sassy habit after all!

There have been a few changes in behavior since we cut out the pacifier but overall it has been a lot easier than I ever imagined it would be.  He still has his "Binks" (blanket) at his side at all times and he's taken up chewing on it when he's sleepy.  I'm sure he does that in place of sucking on his paci.  He's also started chewing on his shirts some, I'm hoping that habit won't stick.  He had a bad night the other night, he was awake from 3am to 4:15am, and I was so tempted to give him his pacifier.  We both made it though and that gave me even more confidence!

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all his pacifiers.  I don't have the heart to throw them away yet.  I know I'll keep some of them in his little memory box and then I'm not sure what I'll do with the rest.  Here are some of my favorite pacifier photos over his 23 months.  I'm so glad he's pacifier free before his 2nd birthday!  He's such a big boy!

 He started out on gummy pacifiers.  Due to his preemie size we had to cut them so they wouldn't cover his nose.

To Swaddle or Not to Swaddle... That is the Question

Andy and I are big believers in swaddling our babies when they go to bed.  We did it with Cooper until he was about 3 or 4 months old and we've done it faithfully with Clark.  It helps them sleep so much better when they feel secure and can't knock out their pacifiers.  With both babies we've ran into the same problem... they start moving in their sleep... a lot.  Everyone who reads this blog, even just in passing, knows I'm a worrier.  I worry about SIDS.  Cooper didn't have a blanket to sleep with until he was around 8 months old and I knew he had enough control to get it away from his face.

We stopped swaddling Cooper when he was getting close to rolling over.  I was terrified he would somehow manage to roll over while swaddled and then not be able to clear his face from the mattress (since his hands were constrained).  We're back in the same boat with Mr. Clark.  I don't know that he's that close to rolling over yet but he manages to move all over his crib while swaddled.  We lay him down at night in one direction and when I check on him in the middle of the night he's usually laying in the complete opposite direction!  I don't know how he manages that when the only thing out of the swaddle is his head.  It makes me a nervous wreck.

To make a long story short... we're trying to wean him out of his swaddle sack at night.  When we took Cooper out of his it took a few nights for him to get used to the freedom his arms and legs had and get back to sleeping through the night.  We had tried it last week and after a night of me getting up and down we put him back in it.  We tried it again last night and he didn't wake up and start moving until 4am.  I had to get up with him a few more times after that to replace his pacifier.  He went right back to sleep each time but I know having free range of motion with his arms kept waking him up.  We put him in a sleep sack last night (a blanket that zips up but goes over his shoulders like overalls) to keep him warm.  It's extremely loose around his legs, even though he's zipped up in it, and allowed him a lot more motion from the waist down, too.  I figure we may as well go ahead and get him used to sleeping without his is swaddle sack because here soon he'll be rolling over... I'm not going to worry myself sick about him getting stuck face down when that happens.  We may just have a few restless nights until he adjusts to his new found freedom.

This is a picture from several weeks ago but this is what we swaddle the boys in.  There is velcro and these are much more secure than a blanket swaddle.  I love them!

Photo Friday

This was a bit of an emotional and stressful week for me and I have myself and my obsessive worrying to thank for that.  Decisions have been made and put behind me so I'm hoping to go into the weekend with a lighter load on my shoulders.  I didn't take a lot of pictures with my phone this week due to it being broken.  Luckily, it's still holding on!  I hope everyone has a great weekend, I'm planning on spending mine snuggled up with my sweet babies!

 Clark eating with mommy, worn out from a long night of colic.

 What a sweet face!

 My little techie.  

 Saturday morning steam engine chasing.

 What a doll!  I think he looks like me here.

 There is never a dull moment with this little wild man, who by the way, has made it since last night with no pacifier(through the night and nap time)!  Way to go Coop!

I'm a connoisseur of different cups and drinking bottles.  I bought this one at the zoo this week and have been very pleased thus far!

Fall Break

Our fall break was pretty low key, just the way I wanted it!  The boys and I didn't do much, just mostly lounged around the house.  Friday was a bad day for the whole family.  Between the boys fighting sleep and pitching fits, Cooper pooping all in the tub and then playing in it, Andy getting home late, and by far the worst colic fit Clark's ever had (3 hours!) I was glad to see the weekend come.  Clark had a really bad fall break in terms of colic.  None of his medicine seems to be working these days so we've almost stopped it all completely.  I figure there's no point in pumping him full of medicine if it doesn't help.

Saturday morning Andy helped some friends move so I took Cooper and Clark, along with our 4 nephews, to chase the Chattanooga Steam Engine.  It runs every Saturday in October from Chattanooga to Summerville and passes right through our area.  All of the little boys LOVE trains so we couldn't miss out on this adventure.  My sister and her family are experts at train chasing so we followed their lead.  I was afraid Cooper would be scared since it was so loud but he loved it!  Each time we were racing to the next stop he'd yell "see choo-choo" as we passed by it!  It was so sweet.  I took some good videos of his excitement.

Sunday we had homecoming at our church.  We had a great quartet sing and then had some yummy food.  That evening we went to Mr. T's (my favorite!) with my parents and then stayed up late watching The Walking Dead.  Andy was like a kid on Christmas morning.

We managed to get a few smiles during a horrible colic fit Sunday night!  This is the first picture where I really see myself in Clark.

Monday we took the boys to the Atlanta Zoo.  We got a half off deal through Groupon and took advantage of the cooler weather on Monday.  Clark's feeding times worked out perfectly.  He ate in the car when we arrived and then again when we left.  He's spreading his feedings out and is down to 5 a day instead of 6.  I'm still adjusting to this new schedule but he seems to like it and eats better and is more relaxed during his feedings this way.  Ok, on to the zoo!  Cooper is very into animals right now so we knew if he was in a good mood he'd love it. 

The first big animals we came to were the elephants and Cooper loved them!  He kept waving and saying "hey" to them.  It was so cute!  Every time he'd spot one he'd look at Andy or me and say "see!"  It was so sweet.  He did great and seemed to really enjoy all the animals.  He let us push him in his stroller between exhibits and ate really well.  All in all the zoo was a success.  The only semi-bad thing that happened was that I dropped my iPhone and cracked the screen... into a million pieces.  It was still functional and I literally spent an hour and a half on the way home on the phone with Verizon trying to sort through the mess that is our account.  When all was said and done I decided to keep my current phone, as long as it will last, until our update in early December.  Even though we pay a small fortune every month for insurance they still wanted to charge me almost $200 for a replacement phone.  Ahh, sorry for the rant!  I hated to see fall break end but I keep telling myself it's only 4.5 weeks until Thanksgiving break!

 Cooper's 1st train ride!