8 weeks old.

my darling boy.  tomorrow you turn eight weeks old.  it's blowing my mind.  i will admit this hasn't been the easiest run, but despite the fact that i haven't slept more than 2 consecutive hours in the last eight weeks, i have absolutely adored this time with you.

you are a little bit of a challenge for me, but i think we are figuring each other out.  either that, or you're outgrowing this phase, which is bittersweet as it means time is ticking along much too fast.  i haven't had an easy time figuring out what you need when - you cry a lot more than i am used to, and your cry is so mad and intense, it feels really overwhelming.  since your big sister was my first real experience being around a baby, i fret over your upset-ness a lot more than i might if i knew more about how babies are.  anyway...you cry and fuss quite a bit.  you fight your sleep - really hard.  you are gassy and it makes you really mad.  you can get super ticked about being changed or getting out of the bath.

but.  you are intensely cuddly and have the softest most delicious skin ever.  your little buddha gut and michelin man arm rolls are to die for.  your smile is getting more and more frequent every day and you are giving more eye contact.  your little coos and sounds are delightful.  you've started batting at your toys and that will content you for at least 3-4 minutes at a time.  hahaha!  you love your mama and i love that you settle when you hear my voice or i hold you.  you're strong - holding your head up really well and already rolling tummy to back.  you adore your time in the bath...i think it helps your gas, and you love to turn your head to try to get your face in the water.

we are figuring out morning nap and our nighttime routine.  it feels like it takes forever to get you to go down, but i think it's mostly because i feel all the pressure of having another child and all the un-done stuff around the house.  i'm sorry if i rush you.  you have started spitting up.  still not as badly as your sis did, i don't think...but it breaks my heart, mainly because i remember the perpetual anxiety i had with her, and i feel it now with you, despite your big-ness.  ha.

i guess this post is a little rambly.  i'm tired.  i just wanted to tell you that i love you so so much, even if i seem a little stressed out.  i promise i am doing everything i can to make you feel comfortable and safe here in your home.  you and i are a good team, and we're going to help you relax and feel good.

mardi gras week.

the kids and i are just getting back to town (saturday, but the getting-back-to-normal-process takes at least a day for each kid, i've decided) from louisiana, where we visited my family for the past week.  it was a great trip, even though there were some challenges with hollis and sleep - haha.

we left thursday night after jb got home from work - he came for the weekend, then met us in houston the following weekend to take us back to austin.  i figured it was easier to make the drive at night when emme could sleep at least some of the trip and we would just go with the flow where hollis was concerned.  both of the littles did great!  we only had to stop once for bathroom/diaper change/nursing/gas.  i was able to pump in the car and give hollis a bottle the other time he wanted to eat, so that worked out well.  emme had snacks and pointed out stuff on the drive for a while and then crashed.  she also transferred into her bed at jj & kk's with no problems.  love that girl.  

my goal was to eat my way through lafayette, and i'm pretty sure i achieved that goal.  i'm never in town for a prolonged period of time, so on any given trip i only get one or two of my favorites.  this time, i got mom's gumbo, mom's etouffe, mom's red beans & rice, la fonda, marcello's, judice inn, alesi's, raising cane's, old tyme grocery, chris's poboys, keller's king cake, and even a few of my mom's egg sandwiches.  i may be forgetting one or two things, but it was a delicious week, to say the least.  thank goodness for breastfeeding, or i think i would have gained 10 pounds.  

anyway.  we went to mardi gras parades on friday night and saturday night.  emme was a little unsure about things initially - a combination of super loud sirens announcing the parade, and it being later than her usual bedtime by the time the parade reached us.  but, she rallied and did a great job yelling "throw me mister, mister!" at the floats.  she also said "bye bye alligator" to each float as it passed, which is one of her recent catch phrases that i love.  mom, dad, and jb caught tons of beads and trinkets for her, and she was in her element talking to random people and dancing to the marching bands.  i kept hollis in the k'tan for the parades and was able to hide out in the car when he got hungry or super loud things were driving by.  it was maybe a little crazy to bring a five week-old to parades, but he looks like a three month-old, so people didn't judge me too harshly....hahaha.

the rest of the week consisted of lots of visits with friends, some knitting, lots of eating, and quality time with kk, jj, and joe joe.  emme absolutely adores her family and it is so much fun to see the amazing relationships they have developed.  it is particularly gratifying to watch her with my brother - he is SO sweet with her, holding her and taking her around to check things out.  she is fascinated by all the wind chimes and other fun stuff my parents have hanging on their patio.  in particular she loves this cow jumping over the moon sculpture i made out of plaster with my face in eighth grade - she will ask joe to take her to "touch the moon" but when she gets there, she gets all shy and says "don't touch the moon!".  it's a woman's prerogative to be contradictory, eh?

hollis had a tough time for the first half of the week.  he went seven hours without sleeping on sunday and he gets SO upset when he's tired.  poor boy.  it was pretty exhausting to go go go all day and then wrangle an inconsolable little tot.  but, around the second half of the week, he started learning/remembering how to nap and became a different person.  he is starting to smile on random occasions - still nothing consistent, but man, it is pure cuteness.

anyway...it's now taken me three days to write this post and it's nowhere near as summative as i wanted, but if i don't publish it will never happen!

 this was some time late in the week when i was somehow the only creature awake in the house.  as the new mom who hasn't slept more than 2-3 hours in a row in almost seven weeks, i'm not quite sure how this happened....

 valentine's day flowers from my sweetheart.  this was our first v-day apart ever in 8 years!  

 daddy loves beads.

 joe joe helping with parade action.  

 chubby boy - almost a smile.  jb said he got more chins while he was gone.  

 a rare sight the first part of the week...

 my niblets on mardi gras day.  

 ek's idea of an appropriate outfit for the parades.  

zonked in the car ride home from houston.  

emme kay lately.

where can i even start with what emme is like these days?  this child is the light of my life.  she is exuberant and hilarious and bossy and dramatic and fiercely independent.  she is full of so much love it could almost break my heart.

emme loves hollis.  she can get jealous of him since he needs so much of me right now, but she NEVER takes it out on him.  she talks to him and reads to him and asks him questions like "hollis, do you want some cheerios with me, hollis?".  the other morning, he was asleep and i was sitting next to her while she pottied before getting dressed for school and we heard him start crying/waking up.  she called out "it's ok, hollis, i'm coming!".  she loves when we pick her up from school each day - she shows him off to all her buddies and "helps" me carry him in the carrier back to the car.

another thing our little independent bug is doing is when she wants to go get something, she will direct us.  she holds a hand or finger out and says "imma be right back.  you stay there mama, i'll just be one minute".  she doesn't want help with the potty, with dressing, washing her hands...even bath time sees her doing battle with justin over who is going to do the shampooing.

every morning, emme wakes up singing.  she also talks to herself and teaches herself lessons while she waits for us to go get her.  stuff like "i'm not going to hit my buddies, no".  ha - i'm glad she knows it, even if she doesn't always act it.  the singing is the greatest.  she makes stuff up, usually to the tune of twinkle twinkle, or she will sing happy birthday to various people.  she also has a new song from school almost daily.  recently, she was using my hands to show me the gestures to a song i didn't know.  i could have sworn she was saying "grey skull grey skull", but i asked a teacher and apparently it's grey squirrel...seems like a much more appropriate song topic.

e's favorite book today is called that pup.  my aunt cynthia and uncle ricky sent it to her for hollis's birth and she LOVES it.  the main attractions are that it involves counting, and she and justin make squirrel noises throughout the book.  love it.

anyway.  i could write for days about our little pooter.  but i am typing one handed and should get packing for our louisiana trip!  ek is so excited for mardi gras and keeps telling us how she's going to catch the beads and say "throw me mister mister".

hollis at one month.

our sweet boy turned one month on monday.  wow.  the main adjective i can use to describe this dude is BIG.  we had a week full of doctor appointments this week, so i can officially say that he weighs 11 lbs. 7 oz, as of tuesday.  that is a full ounce more than his sis weighed at 2 months, so we have quite the chubby monkey on our hands.  this morning at the urologist he weighed 12 pounds, but he had a onesie and a diaper on, so i think he's not quite there yet...

anyway.  hollis is super sweet most of the time.  lucky for me, i have him all day when he is sweet as pie and easy.  the evenings are a bit of a challenge, and we are working on those.  he's not colicky by any stretch of the imagination...he just gets cranky/over-tired and expresses himself loudly.  haha.  i actually feel really bad for justin and emme because they see him at his "worst", but i know all that will change soon enough.  we handle his cranky spells by swaddling him super tight and then i rock and sing to him until he falls asleep.  it usually doesn't take long, but he is a vocal boy, so it can be stressful. plus, we've got another kiddo to work with/attend to/pay attention to, so that is a balancing act.  luckily, emme is amazingly patient and understanding.

what else?  h has started spitting up a bit.  nothing like what ek did, but enough that we make it through a few outfits every day.  it doesn't really seem to bother him, so i'm optimistic that it is just normal baby spit up and not reflux or anything painful for him.  it's also much less scary for me since i've seen it all before.  yet another reason baby #2 is easier.

this week we had our follow-up cardiologist appointment, and we got great news!  his SVT was not presenting at ALL, which means he's either outgrown/is outgrowing it, or that the meds are working, or both.  yay!!  we go back for another EKG in one month, and hopefully this trend will continue so that cardiology appointments can be a thing of the past by the time he hits his first birthday.

we also had a VCUG and follow up urology appointment this week.  the concern was that his bladder was refluxing urine back into his kidneys and/or that his ureter wasn't accepting urine properly, so that would be why his kidneys were slightly dilated.  well, the procedure wasn't particularly fun (it involves a catheter and several x-rays), but hollis did amazingly well.  and, when we met with the doc this morning, our boy's renal system looks a-ok - no reflux, no ureter concerns.  double yay!  the doc even said hollis is eliminating urine better than most babies - hahaha.  we are so grateful for such good reports.  and i am so grateful that all the doctors appointments will be spaced a little farther apart now.  whew!

his eyes are still blue, so we shall see if they stay that way.  i would be shocked, but totally excited too. he's also growing eyelashes and they are just as blonde as his hair.  he has jb's EXACT fingers.  he's close to smiling (i think/hope!).  he's super cuddly.

anyway.  the last almost five weeks have been a total whirlwind, but already we can't imagine life without this little guy.  my favorite thing he does is when he's rooting, trying to nurse, he will point his face up at my face and give me these gummy kisses.  it kills me.  i, of course, know he is just looking for the goods, but i'm pretending they are kisses anyway and i love it.  another fave: he has one tuft of hair i  the middle of his head that sticks straight up, kinda like sonic the hedgehog.  it is adorable.

pictures away!  ek wanted to be in every shot with hollis - she is something else, that girl.

superbowl sunday!

waiting for the cardiologist...

an actual nap in the bassinet.

my lap is the newest hot spot.

one month apart, same outfit.  

awesome quilt made by my aunt denise.