Life with a baby

I was never very good at blogging on a regular basis, but now that I have a baby im sure my blog posts will become few and far between. Its been 6 months since my last post. But for my own record keeping I want to write about my Wes and these past wonderful/amazing/rewarding/tiring/difficult/challenging months with my amazing little boy.

From the very beginning Wes has either been super sweet and docile, or he has been upset and demanding. Honestly, the kid can go from 0 to 60 in a second. He is NOT an easy baby. But is VERY rewarding. He interacts with you, smiles at you, giggles at you, and occasionally he will even cuddles you. But when he is hungry he lets you know and he DEMANDS to be fed. He is a very good screamer :) He doesn't give you any warning time, he just says "Im hungry, and im hungry NOW!" But up until that second he is the biggest sweetheart. 

This was one of his 'I want you to hold me NOW' moments

He started sleeping through the night just before I went back to work, 8 weeks. He was pretty easy to get to bed. Looking back on it now I wish he would have been a little harder, because it would have forced us to research sleep behavior and we would probably have less trouble now. For the last month or so he has been a little tricky at night. Ive only just recently started trying different 'sleeping tricks' and im sure if I had started a while ago, it would be a lot easier now. 

He thinks he is the most handsome little guy and LOVES looking at himself in the mirror, or looking at pictures of himself. Sometimes we turn our camera phones on so that it is facing him and that usually keeps him pretty entertained. 

Self portraits by Wes

My sister Brittny has a little guy, Gavin, who is exactly 12 weeks older than Wes. Brittny and her husband are slightly smaller people, and Chuck and I are slightly larger people, and as a result Wes is quite a bit bigger than his older cousin :) Here they are together when Wes was about 3 weeks and Gav was about 15 weeks.

Wes and all his cousins. Gav and Wes are about the same size here. Wes is about 12 weeks, Gav about 24

And the most recent of the two of them. Wes is 6 months and Gav is 9 months. Its not a great picture to show their size, but I promise, Wes is bigger than Gav.

In April my extended Brown family went on a Disney Cruise to Cozumel, Mexico and The Grand Cayman. Wes turned 3 months while we were on the cruise, and everyone thought we were crazy for bringing him, but it turned out great! It was so nice to be on a ship because we were never more than 5 minutes away from our room if Wes needed a nap. It was a fabulous vacation. It was also Chucks first time on a Cruise, and now he loves it just as much as I do. 

Having a baby has changed EVERYTHING. The only thing that is even remotely the same is work, and even that takes on a whole new meaning. My sister Kira told me when she had her first baby "Having a baby gives you a really good reason to go to work, to be able to provide for your baby, but it also gives you a really good reason to not want to go to work" and its so true! I know that I will be working for atleast another few years, and ive accepted that. I love my work. I love getting out of the house and being with my fabulous co-workers. I love getting a paycheck. But the love for my baby trumps all that and id rather be home with him. But if I have to work (and yes, right now I do have to work) I am SOO thankful we have the Mason family who lives right upstairs to watch our baby! Jenny and Will Mason are my cousins, landlords, nannies, and friends. They have been sooo wonderful to live with. They watch Wes while we are at work and it has been sooooo nice to know that he is at home with family who loves him and take great care of him. Im sure it would be a lot harder to leave him everyday if I was dropping him off at a daycare. 

Here is Wes and Jenny. He loves her :)

Wesley and our dog Sonny get along great. The first time Sonny met Wes she was just really curious, and when she got a good look, she was done. They had been pretty indifferent to each other until recently. They LOVE each other now. Wes gets really excited and giggly when he sees her.

I dont have any pictures of this, but Wes does pretty good with solid foods and cereals. He likes most of the fruits, oatmeal cereal and rice cereal, but he doesnt seem to care for the veggies as much, and really dislikes the meats.

Wes loves to hear his own voice. He experiments with sounds a lot and its so fun to listen to him discovering his new sounds. He does this terrible gasping for air sound, the first couple of days he did it, it terrified me every time. He sounds like his airway is closing and he is gasping for air, but really its just him playing with his voice. He also loves to blow raspberies.

 

Last but of course not least, Wesley loves his Mommy and Daddy :) We love having him around and we feel so honored and blessed to get to be his parents and to get to be the ones who love him and take care of him. He is such a special little boy and Chuck and I comment to each other how we cant even remember what life was like before him, just 6 short months ago. And we dont want to because he has made us this amazing little family! It is such a wonderful feeling when we walk into a room and he gets so excited to see us! Parenthood has been the most wonderful, amazing, joyful, soul filling, rewarding thing I have ever done, but also the hardest, most exhausting, scariest thing I have ever done. It is terrifying and wonderful to be responsible for this little soul. I wouldn't change it for the world.