Two Months

Hi, Coleson!

Two months old, little man.  This has been the shortest and longest eight weeks of my life.  Being on maternity leave is such precious time with you.  You still occasionally fall asleep on me, but it's less often.  Whenever you do, I always stop what I'm doing and watch you and then slightly recline to nap as well.  I don't think there is anything better in the world than a mother having her baby fall asleep on her.  You occasionally thrash and let out the sweetest little baby sigh when I squeeze you in tighter to console you. Soon, I know you'll be too stimulated by living for silly things like taking naps on mama and will need to go to your boring crib to sleep, so I am soaking this time in while I can.

Daddy and I breathed a sigh of relief when we read in Baby 411 that six to eight weeks is usually the height of fussiness.  You can go from "Yeah... I guess I could eat" to "WHY ARE YOU TWO CLOWNS STARVING ME!!" in less than two minutes.  You also have the occasional flailing-legs-screeching fit at 2 am after you've been changed, fed, rocked, and cuddled.  One time, Daddy crawled back in bed at 4am after one such freak-out.  When I asked how you were, he mumbled, "Finally asleep.  I had to put him in the car just to calm him down. I drove around town for an hour and then thought, 'Where would be open?' So we ended up at Krispy Kreme."

That is how your Daddy stress ate two jumbo chocolate iced, kreme filled doughnuts at 3:30 am.

It's neat to see Daddy being a father.  I heard him over the monitor reading Good Night Moon to you once.  

"'Good night noises everywhere.'  The End.  Hmmm... What did you think of that Coleson?  It seemed to be good on pictures, but light on plot development.  You agree?  Would you give it two pacis down?"

You'll laugh at him one day, promise!

There were so many firsts this month.

You finally learned the concept of peek a boo and smile widely... but only when mama does it to you, which is cute.  You grin when Daddy wiggles his fingers at you, and makes an ambulance noise, but not when I do it.  I think it's neat that the two of us each have our own thing going on with you for now.  We're going to start trying to outdo one another just to see who can entertain you the most.  Cirque de Soleil skits to come...

  You charmed the pants off an entire office Christmas party while they were all playing flip cup ( you brought your own bottle), and, of course, Kate and Mark who came for a visit.  They have an adorable boy who you will get to meet soon!

Daddy and I took you to meet Santa.  You snoozed the entire time, but woke up later when we took more photos:

You had your first Christmas, which included more toys than FAO Schwartz and lots of cuddles from everyone.  

Grampy's voice is one of your favorites.  He can always get a smile out of you.

Oh, and you tried to suck Mimi's cheek when you got hungry on Christmas Day.

 Speaking of hungry, you have quite the appetite and have gained at least two more pounds.  We go to the doctor's on the 30th and are excited to see how you've grown.

Everyone is looking out for your little habits.  Daddy and I were chuckling at family members who were already widely speculating about your personality.  "He's an extrovert!  Look how interested he is in other people!"

I don't know if we can apply Myers Briggs to you already, but I already found myself doing the same thing during tummy time when you fought to keep your head up and kept trying again and again and again.  "What tenacity! What courage!"

The truth is we have no idea of your personality yet, and that's okay.  We just love studying your expressions, taking in your habits,  watching you begin to grow up already.  It's heart-breaking, and precious, and wonderful.

We love you, Coleson.

Anne Geddes, Perverted Santa, and the Nightmare Before Christmas

Oh, hello!

It's been a while, I know.  But you've been busy making merry too, right?

With Coleson's first Christmas, I was determined to make it special, which meant doing all of traditions and adding several new ones... even if he slept through most of them.  My sister-in-law Em pointed out that he was too young for most toys and can't even hold his head up properly, so the best way to have fun with him around Christmas is to go "full-on Anne Geddes and shit."

Her point:  dress him up in a million fun Christmas outfits and take pictures:  

Santa Coleson:

Kissable Coleson:

And my favorite outfit... Dapper Coleson!

Is this not the cutest onesie ever??  It was the sweetest gift, and he looked so cute in it!  Comfy and dressy!

This was also the year of our first Christmas card.  Never have sent one out before,  but I decided since it was Coleson's first, I could indulge.  I wanted to make it funny and kinda creative so I chose an infographic template that broke down our year into random facts.

Without further ado, here's our Christmas/ New Year's Card this year:

I just loved it!  It was kind of graphic and cool while being a bit different than the usual Christmas card.

We used this picture from our venture out to visit Santa.  Yes, our little guy is wearing a Santa outfit, thank you very much.

The top part summarized our trip to wine country and Dan's crushing disappointment with the Redskins' performance this year:

The bottom part summarized the somewhat perverted Santa visit we had.  See under "Three Things About This Photo":

Dan and I did our usual tradition of visiting the fancy schmancy Jefferson Hotel to see their annual gingerbread creation.  This year's was a 400 pound gingerbread sleigh covered in thirty pounds of ribbon candy and over four hundred Jelly Bellies.

As you can see, Coleson was riveted.

We also did our annual Christmas light tour.  This year,we found a bizarre and oh-so-creative house that paid tribute to Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas.  Anybody seen that movie where the Halloween characters try to take over Christmas?  The owner must be an artist because he created larger than life sculptures of characters from Christmastown:

See the wreath on the door?  Attention to detail, I tell you.

He carved out over thirty Christmas and Nightmare Before Christmas jack-o-lanterns and lit them up:

Yes, Santa is being kept captive in the background:

     Of course, we finished by going to our favorite house: the one an elderly couple always decorates in memory of their son, who loved Christmas.  It is such a labor of love.

I'll skip over details of our family Christmas, but will say if you haven't played the adult version of Headbanz while drunk then you need to!

This was the year when Bethany got engaged (yay!  Already planning her shower and Bachelorette!!), so there were a lot of funny gifts to her.

Coleson must have been good because look at all the loot Santa brought!  

Hope your holiday was full of love and happy memories!

 

One Month

Soooo, I decided to rip off ideas from Pinterest (cough ** YHL and Shannanigans and a billion others) to do monthly photos.  Mine are just going to be a cute, seasonal outfit, a speech bubble saying, and a fun background.  I smell fodder for photo calendar gifts come next Christmas!

I figured I'll write down a few of Coleson's firsts and likes each month as a type of highlight reel.  These posts will be focused more on him and not me becoming a mom, so you won't see rants about exhaustion or breastfeeding (although I want to post about the more difficult moments separately.)

Anyway, here is his one month photo:

This one came out kind of like Lichtenstein art.  I think it's the dots.

Month One:

Dear Coleson,

I'm guessing these letters will be more for me, a snapshot of what you were like during each month of the first year.   After all, by the time you are actually able to read, you'll probably be more interested in building with your Legos and horse playing with Daddy than hearing about what you were like as a baby.  But that's okay.  I like the idea of writing to you.

Apparently, you like the finer things in life:  a fine bottle (of formula), playing the (Fisher Price mat) piano, and listening to classical music.  You are quite the music aficionado, gazing contentedly at me when I play Bach or Pachabel during the morning time.  Oh, and when you are losing it due to a gas episode, you always stop when we pump your legs whilst cranking Salt n' Pepa's "Push it".  You must understand our ironic love of 90's hip hop.

You had so many firsts this month.  I was so nervous for your first bath that I made it a first-class spa experience.  I dimmed the lights, wrapped you in a warm towel straight from the dryer, and then submerged you while still enveloped in the towel so your skin would stay toasty if you move around.  You screamed like I had just stuck you with needles when the lukewarm water hit.  But then you calmed down and fell asleep while mom and I cleaned out your baby rolls.  Have I mentioned you have the most cherubic folds on your legs??  The next bath time you were much better.  It's become one of your (and my) favorite things to do.

You had your first Halloween and Thanksgiving, both of which you slept through while wearing adorable seasonal outfits.  Your mama loves dressing you up and taking family photos!  We traced your hand on the tablecloth at Thanksgiving, so we can see how you grow.  This was also the day you gave us your first (non-gas) smile.

 

Other first included:

Your first walk

First meetings with many friends who came to bring us food and see you:

your first case of the Mondays:

And your first "No Shave Movember":

 I often read the book On the Night You Were Born.  Your Daddy and I both cried the first time I did.  It ends with, "For you are fearfully and wonderfully made. - Psalm 139"  I say that to you all the time.  "Fearfully and wonderfully made... kiss... kiss... ooh looks at those leg rolls!  wonderfully made, wonderfully made!"  I stare in your eyes and say it.

We love you, Coleson. 

- Your mama