Look Who's Talking: 2 Months Old

Today at The Aberdeen Wife, we are welcoming guest blogger Forest Alexander. Forest is a 10 lb, 15 oz, 2 month old resident of Aberdeen, Scotland. His hobbies include eating, pooping, and fighting sleep. Here he is to tell you in his own words a little bit more about himself...

Hiya. It's great to be featured here at The Aberdeen Wife. My mom wants me to tell y'all a bit about my likes and dislikes, and since she's so generous with the milk, I guess I'll oblige her. There isn’t much that I like 100% of the time. I’m sure my momma has already told y’all that  I’m pretty persnickety. But most of the time, these are things that I kinda sorta like: 

-Bathtime. Never met a bath I didn’t like. It’s being taken out of the bath that gets my goat. 

– When my mom makes up silly rhymes. Especially when she says: “Super-Duper-Pooper-Scooper”. Hilarious. 

– Florence and the Machine. True Story. Wanna get me to stop crying? Dog Days are Over. Simple as that.  

– Car rides…sometimes. My mom doesn’t want me to tell you this, but she’s become one of those desperate parents who takes the long way home just so I get a good nap in. The other day I heard her ask my daddy if he’d take me for a car ride so that she could take a nap. I’m soooo gonna tell ‘The Baby Whisperer’ on her. 

- Stroller rides…sometimes. It’s pretty cold in Scotland and sometimes my mom bundles me up too much and sometimes not enough. Sometimes she gets it just right and I sit back and enjoy the bumpy ride. 

Dislikes: 

-Mainly naptime. Whenever my mom or dad dim the lights and I see that that swaddle blanket come out, I start hollering. You can sleep when you’re dead, you know? I’m here to play until I’m so tired that all I want to do is scream and scream and scream. Sometimes naps are ok, as long as they happen in my momma’s lap. But for some reason, she thinks she has better things to do or something, because as soon as I start to fall asleep she puts me in my bed. Not cool, mom. Not cool. I let her know just how ‘not cool’ this is by instantaneously screaming for the next 2 hours or so while she hilariously keeps trying to get me to fall back asleep. No way, woman. You had your chance. 

– The Baby Whisperer. Apparently she put it into my momma’s head that I am supposed to take a nap after every meal. And apparently naps in the car seat or the stroller don’t count so my mom keeps insisting on trying to get me to nap in my bed. You wanna know her success rate? About 1 in 40 naptimes. Hahahaha. 

– Baby Wise. See above. Hahahahaha. (Although, I am sleeping 8 hours at night so I guess the joke is on me.) 

– My puppy sister, Bailey. Sometimes I give in to naptime. I’m like ‘Okay, okay, mom. I’ve lost the will to fight and I guess I am kinda tired now that you mention it.’ And almost as soon as I drift off, that mutt starts making a bunch of ruckus and wakes me right back up. And this makes me ANGRY. It apparently makes my momma real angry as well. She keeps threatening to take Bailey to the pound, which is a bit harsh. I mean, I didn’t even really want to nap that much anyway…

Well that’s about all my likes and dislikes. After all, I’m only 2 months old and my world consists of eating, pooping, and occasionally (like once or twice a week) taking a good nap. I haven’t developed any hard core hobbies or anything yet. I get my first round of shots tomorrow. From what I hear, those will probably be going on my ‘dislike’ list pretty soon... 

Our Christmas Adventure

Back when Jonathan and I visited my parents in Scotland, they took us to this photogenic lookout point on the foothills of the Grampian mountains. It’s got a great scenic backdrop and a rustic painted Scottish flag making it the perfect photo op for tourists passing by. 

We have a picture of ourselves taken there from our 2009 trip, and Jonathan was determined to get a family photo of the 3 of us  in the same location. 

On Christmas morning, the sun was shining so we decided to capitalize on the decent weather and head west into the mountains. It was about an hour drive to get there but in that hour the clouds rolled in, the temperatures dropped and the wind picked up to obnoxious speeds. We bundled Forest up in his North Face fleece onsie and got ready for picture time. 

We really lucked out that another family had pulled over at the same time and was willing to take our picture for us. We dashed out with the baby and got a few shots before bringing him back out of the wind, though I have to admit, he didn’t seem too phased by the miserable weather conditions. A true Scotsman. Here are the photos we took:   

They are among my favorite photos from our time here so far.

I hope that we’re able to take Forest on many more Scottish adventures, though I will say that weather is way more of a factor now that we have a baby in tow. This winter has been pretty mild, but then out of nowhere, all of a sudden this will happen….

....which makes me hesitant to get to far away from home with the little guy and risk the elements. Jon's parents will be visiting in two weeks, and while their trip is mostly about meeting their grandson, I'd still like to show them around Scotland a bit. Hopefully both Forest and the weather will cooperate for some day trips around the area to tour some castles, distilleries, forests and such. Keep your fingers crossed!

Happy Birthday Jesus and Happy 8 weeks Forest!

Happy birthday Jesus! And also, happy 8 week birthday to Forest. Our 8^th week was a bit of an improvement over the past 2 weeks. His naptime routine is still a struggle, but nighttime sleep is starting to fall into a pattern. Jonathan puts him to bed around 8, I wake him up to eat again at 10, put him right back to bed and he sleeps around 5.5-6.5 hours until around 4, I feed him again and he’ll generally sleep until around 8. It’s not sleeping through the night, and there are definitely some nights where he doesn’t quite cooperate, but it’s nice to have some sort of confidence that a good night’s sleep (i.e. 6-7 hours of disjointed sleep) is ahead of me. 

Moreso it’s the light at the end of the tunnel that makes me think that one day this baby is going to sleep long chunks at night, and each day we are getting closer to that goal. The other night he even slept until 5:15, nearly 7 hours straight! This week we are planning to make the transition to the crib for nighttime sleep, and once we have that down, we will start moving him there for naps as well. Wish us luck! 

Forest continues to astound us with his physical strength. Holding his head up ain’t no thing, and he rocks tummy time. Here he is rolling over:

And holding his head up:

And just chilling: 

 

With our assistance up top, he loves to use his legs to stand. 

When I burp him over my shoulder, he always pushes his legs against my lap so that his head is clearing my shoulder by a few inches. It’s a great angle for projectile vomiting all over our glider (and his momma’s back). He also stands up in his bucket tub during bathtime. 

I predict he will be standing earlier than most of his peers. 

Last night we took him to Jill and Ryan’s for ‘A Mexican Christmas’ where we enjoyed fajitas and game night. 

Forest had a grand time getting passed around and doted over. We took some pictures by the tree, and then Jon took him upstairs to give him a bottle and put him back down. 

He slept like a champ which allowed us to have some adult time together for the first time since he was born. We did run into some difficulty in getting him back to sleep once we got home, and again in the middle of the night. Naptime this morning wasn’t pleasant either, and this afternoon took a bit of defying Babywise and letting him sleep in my arms to get him back on track (I didn’t mind the snuggles). 

But sometimes you gotta break the routine and pay the consequences in order to have some semblance of a life. It was so good for our souls to hang with friends, drink margaritas, and laugh until I peed my pants (partly because I’m still lacking total bladder control after child birth…TMI?).

Christmas at our house was a bit lame. Our BOB stroller is occupying the space where our tree would go, so we skipped the Christmas decorating this year. Also, I’m far too logical of a person to wrap gifts for a human who has no capability of opening them, so Forest didn’t get any traditional gifts from us this year. We bought him a North Face fleece onsie for outdoor excursions and a children’s book about the nativity. 

We plan on going all out next year, I promise. But this year it just sort of snuck up on us and when I finally had the energy to get into the spirit we were 2 days away and it just didn’t seem worth it anymore. Luckily our friends and family have given and sent plenty of gifts for Forest for his first Christmas. 

Next year we are determined to spend the holiday with family. Of our 6 Christmases as a married couple, we’ve spent half of them away from family. The worst was our first Christmas in Midland when Jon was on the rig and I was all by my lonesome. Plus, my DVR broke so I didn’t even have TV to watch. And I was sick. It was the worst!   

Tonight we spent Christmas dinner at our friends Liz and Greg’s house. Forest was not so cooperative tonight so we turned in early. Cross your fingers that his night-time sleep doesn't suffer! His parents are super tired and could use some quality rest. 

I hope you’re spending Christmas surrounded by people you love! Here are Forest’s 8 week photos: 

And some bonus ones from his 8^th week of life: 

FaceTime with Nana and Pops. God Bless technology!

Fist bump with Daddy

He is getting so big and his cheeks are deliciously chunky!

Merry Christmas. I hope it was full of joy and deliciously chubby cheeks. Stay tuned for tales of our Christmas adventure...