9.18.2013

August/September 2012

Gus was only a couple of months old and was an angel.  We did have many sleepless nights, but not from him crying all night, he never had a single night like that.  He just would wake up every 2 hours like a normal baby to eat.  However, unlike a normal baby, he also had LOTS of nights where I had to wake HIM up to feed him, because he would sleep for 5-6 hour stretches at night! I really like these nights, but his Pediatrician said I should wake him. :( darn!
Since I had never done the newborn baby and nursing thing, I had quite a few new experiences those first few months.  I have never experienced such extreme exhaustion where I am basically hallucinating that I have done something, only to discover that I really hadn't.  I lost track of how many times I would wake up to Gus whimpering, believe I had fed him, and then an hour later, really wake up and wonder why he was upset, only to realize I had been dreaming of feeding him and he was still patiently waiting to nurse.  I also had lots of nights of falling asleep while nursing him, and then waking up wondering why he was still hungry, I just fed him!...only to realize it had been 2 hours since I fed him and he was hungry again. :)
Around mid September is when I got my first giggle out of him.  It was the sweetest noise I had ever heard!  He was such a chill lil guy.  Really never made a fuss. Was just content and happy. :)
I recall one night where Topher said I should wake him up when I did Gus' 3 a.m. feeding and we would have ourselves a 3 a.m. "date".  I woke him up and he decided that would be a great time for him to iron his uniform in our room while I nursed Gus.  He stayed up with me for an hour or so just talking with me and snuggling with me and Gus.  It was so wonderful and I remember being so grateful to have such a wonderful hubby that valued our relationship much more than a good night's sleep.
From what I have heard most newborns are like, Gus slept ridiculously well for me.  I would say he ate well too, but he enjoyed eating way too much and would fall asleep constantly while eating.  Nursing him usually took me around 45 minutes to sometimes even an hour and a half.  I tried really hard to sleep train him and so I would feed him as soon as he woke up, play with him for about an hour and a half or so and then lay him down for a nap.  He always went down really really well for me and would sleep for 2 or more hours at a time.

Gracey loved him to pieces and I was actually pleasantly surprised by how good she was with him.  She wasn't crazy or intense, but just absolutely enamored with him.  

During those first couple months Grace also was a total champ.  Each night before I went to bed, I would set out cereal for Grace and then in the fridge I would put a small cup of milk.  She would wake up, get dressed, get her milk and make her cereal, eat and then entertain herself until I could get out of bed with Gus, which was usually around 9 or 10.  She was so patient with me.
We did Grace's first swim lessons ever, just a few weeks after Gus was born.  I was nervous about this at first, but it turned out to be fine.  Her lessons were the first of the morning before the sun was high and hot, and so it was comfortable and Gus would sleep the whole time.  Grace loved swim lessons and progressed really quickly throughout the 3 weeks of class.
I had really wanted to do professional pictures of Gus, but they are so outrageously expensive! Topher instead let us buy a new lens for the camera and even okayed me buying some fabrics for back drops and "fake floor" paper.  I tried my best to get some good shots, I even ventured out into the almost 100 degree humid outdoors and tried to shoot some out by the pond down the street.  Each time I tried I would feel fairly confident I got something, and then when I would upload the pictures, the large majority of them were out of focus. :( Out of probably more than 200 pictures, I may have gotten about 5 that I actually liked.  Oh well! I got 5 right? and at least I didn't have to pay $1,000 for them.







In late August, we had a big milestone occur with Grace.  Her first day of real Pre school! We had done a Community Center pre school the year before, but it was sort of a joke.  I mean, she enjoyed herself and her teacher was a sweet heart....but she didn't learn a thing.  It was a class of almost 30 kids and I felt like it was definitely more of a glorified day care than a pre school.

So the next year we went to St. Timothy's.  It's a little Lutheran Church, which seemed really weird to me at first, but I ended up loving it.  It was really pricey, but Grace learned a LOT.  Her teacher also I think helped prepare Grace quite a bit for Kindergarten and what would be expected of her.


When Gus was about a month and a half old we made our trip out to Utah for his baby blessing and for the family to all meet him.

Emily and I decided to do a combined baby blessing for Sadie and Gus.  It was so great! We did it at Topher's parent's house and so we had a great dinner with tons of family and friends and then people could swim and play, and it was just awesome! I loved getting to do the blessing with Emily.  That was something I loved so much about having our babies right next to each other.  I haven't gotten to experience that before and it is so fun to have a sister with a baby that is developing at the same rate as mine.  I felt like it was such a neat thing to always be able to bond over our babies. :)

While we were out there we did some biking with Dac and Dad and their families up to Bridal Veil Falls.  It was a bit interesting seeing as how Gus was too little to go in a biking stroller...we attempted to put him in a baby carrier on me but that didn't work so great either.  Perhaps not the most successful biking adventure, but fun none the less.

We also did the super fun, (and now annual) Cousins Carnival.

Dacia planned this great day full of activities and we all tried to play a small role in pulling it off.  My favorite was the obstacle course and the coloring faces.  I seem to recall Grace throwing a temper tantrum because all she wanted to do was color faces.  She didn't have much interest in all the other activities.  I think Dacia may have even taken a few tickets away from her for her bad attitude. :) The activities I was in charge of were the ring toss, the balloon noodle dash, and then I contributed a bunch of prizes.  So fun to buy prizes!!

It was a huge success and everyone had a blast.  We did several other different carnival type games, including a "gypsy" face painting station, had a great lunch with fun "fair" food and even had tickets and a prize table at the end.

Other than those few big things we did we mostly just played and enjoyed family for a couple weeks.

While we were in Utah for the baby blessing Dacia took some family photos for us out at Wheeler Farm and they turned out so so great.  Grace was difficult because well she's Grace.  She is just so short on focus and is SO energetic and easily distracted, but somehow Dacia got some adorable shots of her. Gus sadly was asleep in basically all the pictures, so that was a little bit of a bummer but I was really really pleased with how well they all turned out.  Dacia was so patient with us and has gotten so talented it's insane.



When we came back Gus was so sweet and such a good baby and Grace was loving pre school and being quite the helper.

That was August and September!