Paxton James - Year in Review (part 2)

Welcome back!! Hope you enjoyed your intro to Pakee :-) let's talk about the next 3 months or so. 

Paxton has been a pretty easy baby. He's slept through the night since he was about 3 months old. He's slept in his own bedroom since he was 5 months old. He's slithered around on his belly from months 6 all the way until recently when he finally figured out how to get on all fours. 

He's a very different baby from Brooklyn. She was very much a cuddle bug...always wanted to be right there beside Mommy. Pax...he's a free spirit. He can't even really get comfortable and go to sleep unless he's left alone. He's always been a big talker (in his own language of course) and much like his big sissy he loves to smile.

Also different for him is all the teeth he's managed to get. He started pretty early with teething and pretty much hasn't stopped. He now has 7 teeth and it's been that way for a few months. 

Sleeping twins...

I love when I catch my two guys napping together...this was even cuter with them both in their white tees :-)

Paxton's baby dedication

Pax was dedicated at our church in November. He wore his first big boy outfit and did very well! It was so nice to have his Mama Pat and Grandpa there to celebrate as well!  The cool thing about a lot of churches today is that they live stream so our family who couldn't be here were still able to watch it live. It was a great experience!

Forming that sibling bond already :-)

It is so heart-warming when I catch them in moments like this...

Pakee's First Christmas Season

Well...he got the full enchilada...photos with Sissy, visit to Santa, cookie party, decorating Papa's house...you name it. That's what happens when you grown up with a sibling. Brook didn't get to experience all of that when she was a baby...

Ok...Ready for the photo dump?? Here you go...

Ok the next post will be the last one before this big boy is a whole year old!! Stay tuned!!

Paxton James- Year in Review

I ought to be ashame of myself for just now revealing what a sweet little addition we have to our family. Life is so much different with 2 kids than 1 and so is extra time to do things like write a blog post. Nevertheless, I really do miss blogging and I felt like I couldn't start back until I gave our Pakee his due diligence.

It's tough to write about a whole year in a digestible amount, so we'll break this up into quarter posts....this one will take you through his first 3 months, next will be through 6 months, then 9 months, all culminating to his birthday blowout post which if I time right will be just in time for his birthday! 

You ready? Here we go....

Getting ready for the baby...

Although I really hadn't had my sights set on having a baby shower, Aunt Brandi and BFF Cheryl said otherwise. So, they planned and plan well and put a very nice shower on. They had tons of RSVPs for which they planned for and then way less than half of those showed up. Nevertheless, it was great to have who we consider our closest friends there to celebrate with us!! It was a great morning!

The Maternity Pics

 So I went on Groupon and found a good offer for a photographer in Conway, Courtney Utley. I scheduled an outdoor session for the whole family and after much prep of my hair, Brook's hair, and her nails we forged towards Burns Park. I texted her to let her know we were there and she had our day mixed up!! I was livid, but she MORE than made it up to us.  Although we had to drive to Conway and take the pics on the campus of Hendrix College, they were absolutely beautiful pics and instead of simply giving me the handful that came with the Groupon she ended up editing all the pics and giving them to me digitally along with the copyright release!!! Here are a few of my favorites...

The Big Day!!

  Paxton James was born on Monday, May 11, 2015 between 7:30 and 8:00am...it's a shame his mom doesn't remember the exact time. He let the world know LOUD and proud that he was here and he was not appreciating being removed from his nice cozy spot inside Mommy! That boy still has a set of lungs on him! I do remember some things though...

It was raining so hard on our way to the hospital.

I felt instant relief once they took him out of my belly

My contractions were coming so hard and fast that the nurse told me I would have probably had a baby that day even if I weren't scheduled for a c-section.

Nevertheless, it felt like our family was complete with this little one finally making his arrival. 

Big Sissy Brooklyn

The only thing to do now was see how Big Sister Brooklyn was going to take to having another kiddo around. She had been prepped taking her Big Sister class but would she be jealous? Would she be scared? Would she want to hold him?  Surprisingly since day 1, she's been nothing but loving towards him! Never jealous or mean. She's just always looked out for her little brother and of course bossed him around. She even stamped him with the nickname that's followed him since then...Pakee. :-)

Discharge Day

Discharge day was very special to me! I can remember when I was discharged from the hospital after I had Brooklyn it was minutes after learning she had some serious issues and was airlifted to Children's Hospital. I left the hospital without my baby and very heartbroken and afraid of what the future might hold. This discharge day though was absolutely perfect and it was very emotional to walk out of that hospital with BOTH of my babies healthy and in tow!! For all four of us to get in that car together was the best day of my life!!! Words can't describe the joy I felt! I'm so glad I was able to take a shot of them together before we walked out of the doors :-)

The Newborn Photo Session

  The maternity pics turned out so well that we wanted to do some newborn pics and family pics with Courtney too. For these, she came and set up shop in our house when Pax was only 4 days old and took some absolutely gorgeous shots of the kids and the whole family!!! Here are just a few of them..

Bring on the Visitors

  Over the course of the next few weeks, family and friends made their way by to see Paxton. Here's a little photo memories of some of our visitors...

Breastfeeding and other woes

One thing I can say about Paxton is that he was my first experience breastfeeding and pumping for a serious length of time. Brook's health issues prevented her from nursing and her care once we got home with her a month later was so overwhelming I didn't keep up with pumping. However, I wanted to stick with it at least 6 months with Paxton. I stressed so much about it even before he was born. Once he got here, he latched with no problems. The first few weeks were a little tender for me especially pumping and nursing, but other than that I was fine. In my mind, I wanted to nurse him until he was about 8-12 weeks old and then exclusively pump after then. Some kind of way, I thought I was superwoman though and could pump and nurse from the start. I was miserable!! Then I decided ok I'll just pump. Well he was unhappy and so was I. So when I went to just nursing him, my life and my sleep improved dramatically!!! So did my supply. I was an avid user of the side lying position to nurse him when we slept at night and I'd sleep while he nursed....it was like an answer from heaven!!! 

Don't get me wrong though, I still stressed about supply when I went back to pumping. I probably bugged the crap out of my friends Christian and Kia because they were the closest friends to me who had done it recently. I subscribed to all kinds of support groups and forums. I did it all. Oh, I remember we had a power outage out of nowhere when I was about month in....breastfeeding mothers know where I'm going with this...thank God for Kia and Tony for clearing some freezer space for us!! At that time, I had a few hundred ounces that I probably would have had to have therapy over had they gone to waste!! 

I think the thing that was the absolute toughest about it though was keeping it up while traveling when I started back working. I pumped in cars, bathrooms, breakroooms, you name it. Then trying to keep it all cold when traveling 6 hours some times with connecting flights...Geez!!! So, once I hit my 6 month goal I let it go. I was still proud of myself for doing that though. Plus I had to remind myself formula is still nourishment and he would be fine....and yes he's still doing fine and I am on an even bigger countdown to be done with this formula than I was to stop breastfeeding. 

Pakee's First Day of Daycare

  Because I started a new job fresh off of maternity leave, I had to start back to work a little sooner than originally planned. It was important to me that I be off work when Pax started daycare though so I could be around should there be any issues so he started at 10 weeks instead of 12 weeks. 

No emotional separation for either of us though. We both took it like champs! Did manage to snap a few pics of him and his new friends though...

Arkansas Children's Nutrition Center Study

Times at Children's Hospital with Brook exposed me to flyers for various studies they had going on there and I had remembered seeing one for a study for pregnant mothers that followed her and the child through age 2. It monitored nutrition in the mother and the child and how the body burned calories and used energy. It involved cash compensation for the mom throughout the pregnancy and diapers as compensation for the baby for the entire first year of baby's life!!!! Say what??? Yes it did and yes it has!! We've been fortunate enough to not have to buy any diapers for this boy. Except for diapers that did a little better for overnights when he was a little younger. Nevertheless, he's almost a year old and we've purchased maybe 2 packs of diapers this whole time. Definitely worth it! One of the tests that is done at the study visits involves having to have his head covered and it would tickle me to see him in his little stocking cap :-) so I sent a pic to his Daddy to show him how his little capped boy would look at the clinic...

More than baby acne...

  Brook had baby acne around 8 weeks and it made me feel so bad that her skin looked so awful. So with Paxton, I felt like I shouldn't freak out. However with an older sister in a daycare that constantly had ringworm going around, I definitely had room for concern. He ended up with it mixed in with his baby acne and had to have a little treatment for it. He was only about 6 weeks old, but we had to do Lamisil and some 1/2% hydrocortisone cream but it cleared right on up! Maybe that'll help someone who might experience that same thing. 

Brief stint of paci use...

Paxton's really not been a chronic fan of the paci. I don't know if that's been a good thing or not. He took it consistently for maybe a week or two but other than that has wanted nothing to do with it. At least I have a few shots of him with it. His main one of choice was this lovely "mute button" one that his Aunt Brandi bought for him

Other than that, he had a few months there where his soother of choice was his own 2 fingers...

That lasted until the teeth came in...lol. 

From then on, he's the "Linus" of our family. The blanket you saw in the photo with him and Brooklyn on discharge day is what soothes him when he's upset. You can even see him suck his tongue a little when he gets it in his hands. He'll rub it against his face and it takes him to his happy place.

On the bright side, I don't have to break a pacifier or a finger sucking habit.

Photo Drop....

Well let's wrap this post up with some more shots from Pakee's first 3 months including his first family vacay, photo shoot with Mama Pat and his cousins, and various other memories...stay tuned

In about a week or so we'll move on to his next 3 months...