Mid-month Mugshots - 16 weeks

It's Movember! Emerson is ready for the month of facial hair and turkeys! Of course I had to dress him for the occasion-he's going to hate me for all of this one day!

What a ridiculous hat-I had to buy it!

Emerson is 16 weeks and literally changing right before my eyes. A little over two weeks ago he started rolling from side to side with little effort then two Mondays ago he was inches from rolling over, and this past weekend he finally did it! He was trying so hard to roll from back to tummy so I thought he was going to do that first, but he surprised us with a tummy to back roll. I'm afraid if I blink I'm going to miss all of his new faces, his growing personality, and his big milestones. I turned my attention away from him for 30 seconds and when I looked back he was doing this:

I'm so happy AJ and I were home and filming him when he decided to do this:

Emerson is four weeks into daycare and the whole family is loving it! Miss Vicki is so great with him and she works so hard to help his little body grow stronger. I've told you how much this kid hates tummy time, but with the extra help from daycare he's doing 5-8 min intervals now! Any day now this kid is going to be moving across the floor-guess that means I can't slack on the vacuuming anymore. 

With so many of our friends having babies around Emerson's age it's hard not to compare your baby's growth with theirs. Compared to our friends' kids, our little guy is truly a little guy! He goes in for his 4 month checkup on the 25th and I'm already expecting him to weigh in at the 1st or 2nd percentile. It's not that he's not eating-he just started drinking 6oz and he eats every 2 1/2 to 3 hours. We've had to start supplementing formula on a regular basis because Mama's boobies can't keep up with this little piglet. We have another two weeks before the Dr's so maybe the added formula will help him pack on some lbs before then.     

Besides getting weighed and measured, Emerson will be getting another round of shots. Poor Poor mama baby. I really hope he doesn't get a fever this time around. His shots are coming at a bad time because we're pretty sure he's teething or just about to start. So far he's only been an absolute drool monster, but I'll take that over a cranky baby with a fever any day. Along with the drool comes a new trick-Emerson can make spit bubbles now!

Emerson is starting to really interact with us and his surroundings. He loves grabbing for toys or anything else he can get his hands on (mommy's hair-OUCH). He loves when toys make sounds and play music; he gets so excited! He's learned which toy makes the music play on his bouncer and that's the one he grabs. He never wants to close his eyes because he's afraid he's going to miss something. He takes 30-45 min naps at home, but when he's at daycare he fights off sleep until he can no longer keep his eyes open. He loves looking at the other babies and kids running around. There's another 4 month old at daycare and they love looking and cooing at each other. I hope they will both grow up together and be the best of friends.  

Happy almost Christmas!! If you're like me you're already listening to the Christmas music and just dying to put up your decorations! We don't host anyone for Thanksgiving, but I always wait until the day after to decorate. I CAN'T WAIT!

Three Months

Emerson is a quarter of a year old! I still can't believe it, but I gave birth to my baby boy 14 weeks ago. He has completely changed our world in such a short time. The love in my heart for this kid takes my breath away.

The other weekend we took our first family pictures. It was originally supposed to be Emerson's 3 month/Halloween shoot, but with no costume (more on that in a minute) we had time to add some family shots. At this age it is so hard to schedule appointments because there's no saying what kind of mood he'll be in at that time on that day, but thankfully he was great this time. We came prepared with a bottle so anytime he started to get cranky we just stuck that thing in his mouth and he was a-okay. I'm so in love with the final products!

Halloween came and went WAY too fast. We had one heck of a time with costumes this year. This is one of my favorite holidays and AJ and I always dress up, but this year I was so focused on finding a costume for Emerson that AJ and I just decided to dress up as parents! I thought I was ahead of the game when I bought Emerson's costume a month in advance, but I'm dumb and never had him try it on until the week before his pictures and of course it ended up being too big. We bought a super cute elephant costume at Costco and after that didn't fit, AJ ordered a baby pilot costume that was to die for. We bought the costume and a cute matching bomber pilot hat to go with it and when they came in the mail neither fit, UGH! The costume was sized 0-6 months, but was clearly made for a fat and long 6 month old. What newborn do you know that is the same size as a 6 month old?? Since both costumes were too big and because we waited until the week before Halloween to figure that out we went with the smaller of the two and ta-da, Emerson the Elephant! Still the cutest elephant I've ever seen!

He was over his costume at this point

My First Halloween!

Three months for Emerson meant back to work for me. BOO! He's been at daycare for two weeks now and I'm just starting to adjust. I've been very lucky and have had part time approved for my first 6 months back so Emerson only has to be at daycare three days a week. Leaving him on his first day was by far one of the hardest things I've ever done. The week before he started daycare Emerson started sleeping 7-8 hours every night. It was perfect timing for me because working makes it a tad hard to stay in my pjs all day and catch some zzz's during nap time. The week before I went back I started planning out how our mornings would work and I thought I had a pretty great plan, but of course our first morning was hell! Everything that could go wrong, did; it's like Emerson knew I was leaving him. My first day back I didn't have to come in until 8 am, but I wanted to get ready as if it was my normal 7:30 start time. Emerson had other plans for me, I didn't get to work until 8:15! 

After a stressful, emotional morning I started going through my 1000+ emails, trying to hold off on my first call to daycare. I made it to 9 am and finally cracked! When Miss Vicki answered the phone I could hear Emerson screaming and my heart instantly broke. Apparently he had been screaming all morning long. She told me that she would get him to calm down in another room, but the minute she walked back into the room with everyone he would start looking around for me and AJ and when he didn't see us, he'd start screaming again. I felt SO bad for Emerson and my daycare lady. The tears I fought so hard to keep back when I dropped him off started to flow. I waited until noon to make my next call and again he was screaming. My poor, poor baby. I made one more call around 2 and Miss Vicki finally had some good news. Emerson finally cried himself to sleep around 12:30 and didn't get up until 1:45 and when he woke up he was a happy baby. AJ picked him up at 4 and said Emerson started smiling the second he saw him. It was so great to get home and wrap my arms around my baby boy. The next morning went off without a hitch and when I made my first call to daycare he had been a perfect angel since I dropped him off. My day was so much easier to get through once I heard the good news. When I took him for his second week I was nervous he'd have another bad day because of the 4-day break, but he was great this week too! Thank goodness he only took one day to adjust! I knew this whole thing was going to be harder on me than him. I just have to remind myself that this is the best thing for him; he will gain so much from being around other kids all day!

Emerson has grown up so much in the last month. He loves smiling, talking, and he's even giggled once! He can hold his giant noggin up without any problems and he's started to try sitting up with a little assistance from the Boppy wrapped around him. In one week Emerson went from crying the minute you laid him on his tummy to lifting his head up and hanging out for a few minutes. He's also started using his little legs to stand up and push up off of things. This month he's also started to grab for things like toys on his playmat. He loves when Mommy and Daddy read and sing to him. He still loves his bouncer and his Mamaroo. His favorite obsession right now are his hands-he's always sucking on them. Sometimes it's just his finger or thumb, but most of the time he's trying to put his whole fist in his mouth. We don't have any official measurements, but from our attempts we think he's 25 1/4 inches and around 14lbs. He's not a newborn anymore! Can't wait to find out how big he is at his 4 month checkup. 

Love this kid!