The past year in a nut shell. Matthew was born April 14th, 2011. It was the BEST day of this entire year! This is something I've been looking forward to for 7 years or more. Finally finally finally, all those heartbreaking years paid off. Matthew is PERFECT!!!!! He's everything I wanted and more. I wanted a little one that resembled Tommy, had light eyes, and that I would have prior to turning 36. God granted me all 3 wishes and then some.
Matthew is such a sweet baby. He began smiling around 4 weeks. These weren't the gassy smiles, these were the real thing. I worked really really hard for those smiles. They certainly light up a room.
Shortly after bringing him home, we went to the beach for Tommy's spring break. I didn't do too much while down there but I did get around to dying Easter eggs and we took Tommy to the skate park.
The summer was really busy. My sister flew in with her 4 kiddos. They stayed from June until the end of August. I spent my entire summer w/ them. We went to Carowinds, Monkey Joes, the beach. I even went to the NKOTBSB concert w/ my sister on July 23rd.
School began in August for Tommy. I was ready to get on some sort of a schedule since the summer was so hectic. As much as I hate to admit it, I was ready for school to begin. I needed some time to work on a dedicated schedule for Matthew....bedtime, breakfast, bathtime...etc.
His bedtime has been around 10 every night. I crash about this time so I'm glad he's been sticking to it.
We began construction work in October that is still going on to this day. I'm so ready to get my house back in order. It's been messy and very time consuming. We had some wood replaced on our house, had the house painted, had our back sliding glass doors replaced as french doors, had the side and front doors both replaced. We've had indoor painting going on for weeks now. The painter pretty much set his own schedule since my hubby failed to put that in the contract. It's ok though, the painting is almost complete and looks really good. We got Tommy's room, bathroom, the Fourier (sp), and our bedroom and bathroom all painted. It looks so good. We've been cleaning out as we've been going along so I feel as though a huge weight is being lifted. We also got new comforter sets for both rooms along w/ new posturepedic mattresses. Ours even has the head and feet lift. So comfortable!
Other than the construction work, it's been a pretty busy past 8 months. I can't believe Christmas was here and gone already. I wasn't ready AT ALL. Makes me sad since Christmas is my favorite holiday of the entire year! Every year I see more and more people that don't celebrate which makes me so sad! I even thought about flying out to OR to spend it w/ my sister since she went all out. We made it happen but it wasn't easy. Santa is becoming harder and harder to do as Tommy gets older. He asks all the time if he's real and pays attention if a price tag was left on something. I suppose I'm just not ready to take that magic away. Even though he's almost 10, he's still my little boy. Santa has added magic to our Christmas every year since Tommy was born. I know we have Matthew now so we can still celebrate, but I will miss it when Tommy no longer believes.
As for where we are now....Matthew still isn't crawling that well. This is mainly my fault. I hold him A LOT!!!! Since having the construction, I didn't want him on the floors until they got a good cleaning, plus, we have hardwoods downstairs. What baby wants to learn to crawl on hardwoods? Recently, I began putting him in his pack and play w/ some of his toys. It has been wonderful to have my arms free even for just a meal. He plays pretty contently for a good bit. He is soooo close to crawling. I say this but he has taken a few crawling moves. He began scooting/crawling backwards which was so funny! Now he rocks and rocks and has lunged forward quite a bit. I've watched within the last week where he can go from laying down to a sitting position. He loves to sit and play w/ his toys but still looses his balance some and falls either sideways or face down. I always have him some kind of cushioning around so that he won't get hurt.
He babbles and laughs all the time. He can say mama and dada but we aren't sure if it isn't just him babbling or if he's really saying it. Either way, he grasps our attention immediately when he says either since we think it's so cute. He is still exclusively on breast milk. He has never had any formula in which I've made a great sacrifice to do for him. The first few months were horrible. I didn't enjoy it at all! Some moms do and yay for them but this wasn't something I thoroughly enjoyed. I felt like I was sitting constantly and didn't have a moment to myself, not to mention, he wasn't the best nurser. I would say around 4-6 months, it got much better. I wanted to stick it out no matter what and I'm so proud of myself for doing what I set my mind to. It takes great sacrifice to nurse a baby. Now I love it! It's much much easier and I enjoy that time w/ my sweet little boy. I find it to be much easier now than I ever thought it would be in the beginning.
As for food, he isn't interested. Milk is just perfectly fine with him. He just learned recently how to hold his bottle. Of course I have pumped more lately so I could get my Christmas shopping done and it's been WONDERFUL being about to go out and let him feed himself. People say snide remarks all the time about he should be eating or taking a sippy cup. It's irritating but obviously these are people that have probably never nursed and if they have, they have pumped and given the baby a bottle verses the breast and also probably started their baby on solids WAY before they needed to. I've read enough to know what is and isn't ok for MY baby. There is nothing wrong w/ him not eating right now even though I do try my best to introduce food to him on a regular basis.
He does like peas and mac and cheese. These are his favs so far. He had to get allergy tested since he had 3 episodes where he ate rice cereal and had projectile vomiting. He has FPIES (Food Protein Induced Enterocolitis Syndrome) and is unable to have rice until he's 3 and milk, soy, and wheat at a year old. We have an Epi pen in case he should have any food allergies.
So now that I've talked some about Matthew, now about Tommy. This has been a very challenging year for Tommy. I'm not sure if it's jealousy of Matthew or his age. A lot of parents w/ boys this age go through the same things we've went through. He's been so sassy and doesn't follow any rules or directions no matter what we do. This is something I'm not use to so it is breaking my heart. Tommy has always been such a sweet little boy and over the past couple of years, he's slowly made some personality changes which I've found very negative. I've even heard him say a couple of bad words in which he cried after since he knew better. He seemed to know some about the birds and the bees from his peers so I had the "talk" with him. It wasn't fun at all and all it does is make me more sad knowing that my little boy is growing up. I wasn't looking forward to the day when he was old enough to know what the birds and the bees are all about. I didn't give him too much info but enough to clear up the misconceptions he had from what his little friends have told him over the years. I still believe this is an area where his dad needs to step up and discuss with him. Very uncomfortable for me that's for sure.
We've had to talk w/ his pediatrician about some things going on with him that are out of the norm. I won't discuss here as I know he would rather I didn't. I've even had discussions with his teacher but his teacher doesn't see the things we do since Tommy is so well behaved at school. Math has been a HUGE headache this year. Tommy HATES math! He puts up an argument every single night which turns into Gabe and I arguing since Gabe doesn't have a clue how to help Tommy in a calm manner, instead they go back and forth every night which stresses me out. I don't like a bunch of negative energy or loud noises, makes me anxious so then I get upset. Needless to say, this has been a year I never saw coming.
I believe Tommy has been a great big brother to Matthew and is always so sweet to him then there was today. Tommy was sucking on Matthew's fingers and all of a sudden Matthew began crying out of nowhere. I wasn't sure what was going on since nothing was hurting him that I could see. I realized that Tommy let go of his fingers and I finally got it out of him that he was biting him. He wasn't biting him hard but babies are sensitive, anything like this is going to upset them. I was beside myself upset w/ Tommy so we took his computer away and he had to sit in his room by himself to think about what he had just done. I still trust Tommy even though some moms would think I'm crazy. Tommy felt horrible and said he was barely biting down which I believe since there were no marks or indications that he was even biting him. Tommy loves Matthew but I will be on the watch for anymore behavior such as this. Tommy is STILL my child and I love him more than words could ever describe. I hope that 2012 will bring us a positive change. :)
I'm sure I could go on and on but I've got a baby to feed.
Happy New Years!!!!!
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