Nails

When Ezra was born (five days overdue) his sweet little nails were growing over his finger tips.  They were paper thin and I was so afraid to cut them! For fear of hurting him, I had Kelly do it for me. 

Since that time his nails have grown at rapid rates, requiring clipping at least twice a week.  I quickly gained the confidence to do it myself and have only cut him once...

......

Sweet little nails- no more! His claws are his deadliest weapon. 

He may look innocent...

But, not only does he scratch and pinch... he bites and has started lifting weights!

M

Taco Time

Following a semi successful Saturday shopping excursion, Tieba suggested that we go to Taco Time for dinner.  I couldn't have been more excited about this idea! 

.........

After having nothing to eat (except dry toast and cheerios which were regurgitated 30 minutes later) for nearly 24 hours and the hardest two and a half hour work out of my life (pushing Ezzy into the world), my parents brought me a much anticipated natural beef soft taco from Taco Time.  I remember getting TT when Kelly was in the hosptial with Levi, and for weeks I had it planned out in my mind that I would also have it while I was in the hospital. 
Unfortunately, by the time I finished a very painful nursing session, my taco was cold, and I was I was so uncomfortably chilled and shaky after coming off of my epidural that I couldn't even enjoy my meal...  

A few weeks later, when Tieba and I were finally responsible for  our own dinner, I asked him to get us Taco Time- since the last time was such a disappointment.  Of course when he got home I was nursing Ezra and my dinner would have to wait (like most meals that first month of motherhood). 
Unfortunately, he brought me a natural chicken soft taco.  My level of sadness, anger, and disappointment bordered on psychosis...
 
......... 

Finally I would be able to eat my fresh, warm, beef soft taco!  Ezra had recently fallen asleep in his seat and we decided to make a date out of this dinner. We went through the drive through and then ate in the parked car to avoid the possibility of waking our buddy.  The dinner was heavenly and we had fun critiquing the service of our "emaciated" (T's wrong choice of words) cashier and talking about our cute little man! 

To get back home we had to take a U turn at Dairy Queen.  Like true gluttons we stopped for dessert. 
Unfortunately, the maniac at this drive through was talking so loudly that she woke up Ezzy and our evening of parking lot eating was cut short. 

10 Minute Trainer starts Monday!!!

M   

 

Teething?

At Ezra's 2 Month check up our pediatrician noticed that Ezra had his fists in his mouth.  She asked me if he does this often and then told me that he could be teething... I didn't think much of it at the time.  He doesn't love (or hate) his pacifier and I happily assumed that he was sucking on his fists to self soothe.  There was no way that such a tiny could be teething!

at his appointment anticipating his first round of shots...

Since that appointment the fist fixation has grown... and I have realized that he isn't sucking, but full on chomping on his rolly wrists/ fingers and foaming at the mouth 75% of his wakeful hours! 

Over the weekend I noticed that his fingers on his right hand have little red scratches all over them from his frequent gnawing.  Such a sad sight!

Kelly got him to take a teething toy... 

 I guess I need to stop being in denial that teeth are coming and give him something else to chomp on! 
Maybe this explains why he is so fussy sometimes? 

M

Month to Month

Last week Ezra hit his three month mark.  While I feel like he has been mine forever, this has also been the fastest three months!  

I've been working on a baby book for Ezra where I write him a little note each month.  I realized the other day that while the notes are for him, I also want a place to keep them!  

1 Month: 

Dear Ezra,
It is hard to believe your are already a month old! The last four weeks have been so special for our family. Your dad and I stare at you all day long, every day.  So many visitors have come by to meet you and tell us just how cute you are. You love to be held and are in someone's arms at all times during the day. 
You make us laugh with your explosive, stinky toots and bright white tongue. You have peed on one of us almost every day and have even sprayed us with your poop! Because of this, your dad gets pretty panicky when changing you... He moves at wild speeds and usually has sweat dripping off of his forehead by the time he is done.  Most of the time after you have finished napping with him you are both soaked in sweat! You love for us to sing to you and bounce you around the house. Your Aunt Emily makes fun of me for the way that we dance around together.  We spend a lot of time looking out our big window at all the passing cars and buses.  I talk to you all day long and never run out of things to tell you.  Especially how much I love you!
Love,
Mom


2 Months: 

Dear Ezra,
You are no longer a newborn and are now looking like a chubby, double chinned baby.  You have already grown out of a number of your cutest outfits and your baby acne is a thing of the past. You love to eat and more often than not, over eat so much so that geysers of milk pour out of your mouth after most nursing sessions. We have learned to go nowhere with out a spit up rag, most of your cute outfits are covered with a bib, and you usually wear at least 4 suits a day! You are like a clock- ready to eat every two hours on the dot! This makes it difficult to go anywhere and get any sleep... So, we spend a lot of time hanging out on the couch together reading books and looking at each other.  When you nap, I should also sleep, but instead I usually watch TV or do research on the internet about everything baby you could imagine. You are a very happy boy full of smiles and cuddles, until about 6:00 at night, or right when your dad gets home.  We call this your witching hour. For whatever reason you are very fussy at this time and all out of sorts, only happy when you are being fed, having someone sing to you, and or being bounced around the condo! Your dad puts you to sleep every night.  He is so good at getting you in a tight swaddle and shushing you to your slumber. We love you more and more each day!
Love, Mom


3 Months

Dear Ezra,
One of the first things people notice about you is how alert you are.  You love to soak in the world with your wide eyes!  At one of your Dad's basketball games, a little boy told me that you were staring at him and that you didn't blink the whole time.  He told me that you would win any staring contest :). You especially love to lock eyes with me and follow me around the room with your big browns.  But, your very favorite thing to look at is yourself!  Looking in the mirror always guarantees cheeky smiles and loud laughs. You love to dance to the hokey pokey and stretch out your arms to show us just how big you are!  You are a very expressive boy.  You are a real chatter box- you always have big stories to tell in the morning.  You are never shy about letting us know how unhappy you are in your car seat, or how hungry you are when I'm getting ready to nurse you! I love the way you hold on to me while I'm nursing you and bury your face into my shoulder when I pick you up after a nap.  Nothing makes me happier than seeing your smile and hearing you coo.  As you are getting bigger and bigger, I am finding myself hold onto you longer and longer before I put you in your crib to sleep. I smother you with kisses every day because I know before too long you will be too big for a smothering momma!
Love, Mom

........
While I can hardly wait to know what Ezra's voice will sound like, the activities he will be interested in, books he will enjoy reading, and foods he will like to eat... I am treasuring these little days and breaking every night time rule I read about that tells me not to rock, nurse, and sing my Panda to sleep.  While waking up every two hours to feed Ezzy is less than ideal, I know that I will miss our quiet moments when everyone else is asleep.  I already miss that white tongue and watching T freak out when Ezzy would pee on him :).

M

Valentine Fun!

Ezra has made every one of our days more special.  Holidays, like Valentine's Day, that I used to not really care about, are now more fun than ever. 

To start our day, Kelly, Levi, and Troy came over to make heart shaped sugar cookies.  Levi was the king of the kitchen. 

Levi loves "cookin"!  It has been fun to see him grow from simply enjoying turning the mixer on, to taking charge of every ingredient (including the eggs).  He loves to help and takes his role in the kitchen very seriously! 

Kel and I switched off between tending to the head chef and our precious observers.

 

While the cookies were in the oven Levi made cards for his dad and friends from church. 

He loved eating the dough and could hardly wait to eat his cookie, but when it came down to it, he decided to simply dip his Satsuma in the frosting and then eat the sprinkles only... when he left he hadn't taken a single bite out of his cookie! 

............

Since Ezra was born, Tieba and I haven't gone on a date (alone).  We have been to dinner a couple of times with Ezra in tow, but one of Tieba's coworkers informed him that it wasn't a date because Ezzy was with us... So, for this special occasion, we arranged a babysitting trade with Kelly and Ben.  Tieba and I would go to dinner from 5 to 7 and they would go from 7:15-9:15.  The Buehlers got the easy shift- the boys were all snoozing. 

But, we had the fun- burgers and nuggies, The Cow Loves Cookies 5+ times, bath, trains, and cuddle time!

It had been over a year since we had been to sushi, and towards the end of my pregnancy I decided that our first date would would end the raw strike.  Wanting to stay local, but do something out of the ordinary (not go to Sushi Zen), we decided to try Wasabi Bay. 

It was so nice to not have to rush, eat with both hands & an empty lap, and talk with out our favorite distraction. Unfortunately, the sushi wasn't that great and I was forced to get a cheeseburger at McDonald's on the way home...

I feel very lucky to have such a loving husband, one that- does all the chores that I don't like: garbage + recycling + diaper pail + shower scrubs, gives Ezzy his vitamins, encourages me to pump so that he can wake up with Ezra for his first feed, always compliments me, lets me make the schedule, knows the names of all the freaks from the shows I watch and talks to me about them as if we know them personally, loves my sisters as if they were his own, always makes time for family, and spoils me with surprises... Love you, Dougy!

And the greatest Valentine of all! 

M

"Whatcha Doin Mom?"...Growing so fast

This week I had the opportunity to travel to Denver, meet our credit department, and help them in their transition to our new software development method. While I feel so incredibility blessed to have had this opportunity for my career and the future of my family, I really missed my little unit "I mean look at them; how could you not?" :-)...

Needless to say I was super happy to return home and see the gang after my three day trip. The wild thing is E seems to have changed so much in that short span of time. He has always been an "alert" baby, but now he's super alert and tracking people and things across the room (very aware of his environment). His favorite person to track/watch?....Non other than his mom, every and any time Meg walks into the room, Ezzy locks on to her and watches her every move with the most serious look on his face, if he could talk he would say, "Whatcha doin Mom?"; I'm laughing just thinking about the seriousness of his expression, and the level of concentration he has watching Meg. You can really tell E loves his momma bear and they have a lot of fun together, I am always in amazement of Meg and her ability as a mom, E and I are two pretty lucky guys to have such a wonderful lady......Tonight I got the pleasure of watching E and Meg play one of E's favorite games (I was late w/ the camera as he was laughing even harder than in the video, but you get the idea, such a little gem)....

 

So not only is Ezzy super alert and aware of his environment, he can now roll over from his stomach on to his back...CRA CRA! Today Meg was doing tummy time w/ him and he rolled over. Meg was like Ezra rolled on to his back, and I was in disbelief I had to see it for myself. Sure enough Meg put him on his tummy and he rolled himself right over on to his back......As far as tummy time goes it's not his favorite activity but he is much better at it. He can lift his head completely off the mat, which for his head size :-) is very impressive. Our little Ox.."Strong like Bull" lol. 

 I love being a parent, it's not always easy, but hands down one of the most amazing things to do in life. There is nothing like the love you have for this little person that is half you and half the person you love more than anything in the world!!!!! I look forward to E's continued growth and development, and really enjoying his little milestones. He's growing so fast, going to be asking to borrow money in a blink of an eye :-)

T  

Nursing Notes

Usually when Tieba leaves for work in the morning he is lucky to get a "have a good day" out of me.  But not this morning... today when he came to say goodbye I was eager to tell him that Ezzy had been asleep since his last feeding at 3 am!  I was so proud of him for sleeping such a long (4 hour) stretch!  At the same time, I was a little nervous since it was so unlike him... With that I asked Tieba to check to see if he was breathing before he left.  Unfortunately, the breathing check woke him and he became quite perturbed! Considering that it had been four hours since he ate last, I had no problem springing out of bed to feed him- I figured the poor guy  must have been starving! 
Once we settled into our morning milking I opened up my Nursing Notes on my phone to record the feed. To my complete shock, it had only been two measly hours (as usual) since I fed him last!  I had somehow blocked out our 5 o'clock snack... 

Right when I was beginning to wonder if I still needed to record every detail of my nursing life...

At least I'm not carting around a notepad anymore! or recording diapers and temperatures- hahahaha!

M

First Phobia

For whatever reason (me not being in plain sight) Ezra is deathly afraid of riding in the car.  Every once in a while I can get him into the car seat with out too much of a fight... but once he is in the back seat by himself, he begins screaming at the top of his lungs.  His brow furrows, his skin turns a shade of purple, and by the time I get him out of his seat he is drenched in sweat.  Occasionally he has worked himself into such a tizzy that he covers himself in spit up and even has it coming out of his nose (very sad).

(arms flailing)

This phobia is making it very difficult for me to get the motivation to go anywhere, but is grooming me for the cry it out method...  I'm not sure who is in more pain?

I may need to hire Levi to join us on all car rides. He seems to have the magic touch!

Thankfully, on our way to Mukilteo yesterday, Ezzy self soothed with his fists and enjoyed the scenery (almost) the whole way there.  Instead of being frazzled by his wails, I was distracted by staring at him in the rear view mirror in awe! Not sure which is more dangerous...

Let's hope this is the new trend!

M

Milk

Curiosity got the best of us (me) and we decided to try some of Ezra's milk... 

Tieba was surprised that it was warm- I guess he thinks I am a reptile....  I had heard that it was sweet, but it was even sweeter than I expected.  Curiosity = satisfied, won't do that again! 

M

New Student

Today was supposed to be my first day back to work.  If my memory serves me correctly, I should be teaching math right now.  Based on what I am helping the girl I tutor with, I would be teaching elapsed time. Probably only eight of the kids would be paying attention, five would understand it, and three would willingly participate.

The thought of 

• getting in the shower after my 5:00 feeding, 
• wearing something other than sweats or leggings, 
• having pumped enough milk to last Ezzy an entire day,
• remembering all of my students names,
• mustering up the energy to entertain teach 26 kids for 7 hours, 
• saying goodbye and missing this precious face 

is completely unfathomable. 

I am so grateful to be able to be at home with Ezra for all of his tiny moments.  His huge smiles, loud laughs, extensive babbles, explosive poops, volcanic spit ups, non stop costume changes, crazy faces, and all day snuggles.  

I have a new student now! 

M