The Things You Love!

So lately I have been thinking about how I need to keep better track of Luke's likes and dislikes as well as his different preferences as he grows and gets older each month.  I want to remember which month he liked certain things so with our next baby I can see how similar they are to Luke.

Here is a list of things that you have loved  over the past 4 months......

You Love

*Hairdryers! The one thing you love most in life is the sound of a hairdryer. It has been a calming mechanism since the day you were born. If you are upset, we turn it on to calm you. If you cant sleep, we turn it on to relax you. If you are cold, we turn it on after your bath to warm you. It is definitely a little high maintenance tendency that you have developed but hey, It works!

*Being Swaddled! There are a few things you must have in order to fall asleep and stay asleep.  One being your nap nanny ( we are working on breaking that habit as we speak) and the other being you must be swaddled!  You love being tightly swaddled and can not sleep for more than 15 min unless you are.  Your little arms and lets still flail around so much that if you aren't swaddle, you will wake yourself up. 

When you were first born till about 3 months old, we loved the Halo sleep saks.  They had a v-neck so the material didn't come up to high around your face and they also had a zipper at the bottom that made diaper changes easier in the middle of the night.  The only problem with these was, once you turned about 3 months old you were able to break out of them and then you had a hard time going back to sleep.

Once you broke out of the Halo sleep saks, we tried the swaddle me sleep sak.  It worked like a charm!  It allows us to swaddle you tighter and it is much harder for you to try and wiggle out of.  So far, you have not broken out of it yet! wahoo!

*Bath Time! You absolutely love bath time!  You love the warm water and kicking your feet and making a mess.  You have honestly loved the bath since the first time we gave you one.  There is something so calming about the bath to you and you don't even mind when we wash your hair anymore. We gave you the nickname "Michael Phelps" because you love to kick and splash us so much!

*Your Fingers! At first you were a total Paci baby.  You loved your wubbanubs and they made you totally content and happy as long as you had one.  Then one day around 3 months old, you found your fingers!  At first it was not so much your fingers but your whole fist.  You loved to suck on you hand and occasionally you would happen to get a finger or two in there by chance.  Not you have found your fingers and you LOVE them! We tried to let you sleep without your swaddle because you love them so much but we aren't quite there yet.  For now, you just get your fingers during the day time!  Guess that means I get to wash your hands a whole lot more now!

* Your Jumparoo! What a lifesaver this fun contraption has been!  You absolutely love to jump up and down for hours on end.  It lights up and plays music, which you love, but more than anything it gives you the freedom to stand up like a big boy and bounce around on your own.  It has been the best tool when I need to get things done because I can just pop you in it and it will keep you occupied for at least 30 min. 

The Morning After!

Here is a picture the morning after this big boy slept through the night for the first time! Yay Lukey!!! (November 12,2011)

3 Months old already!

Hooray! We are three months old today!!
(Well actually on November 9th..I was a little late posting this)

Wow, what a crazy, exciting and blessed three months we have had! I can not believe my little boy is already 3 months old . It has been the month of changes and firsts. We have truly seen a little personality in our sweet baby and life with him just keeps getting better with each passing day! He is such a happy baby and loves to be held and interact with people. He will smile and talk to you and melt your heart while doing so. I will say that at the beginning of the month, he was stingy with his smiles but with each passing day he smiles more and more. His newest development is babbing. He is not longer cooing. He is having a full blown conversation with you in his words. Most of the time it sounds Chinese but non the less, he will talk to you for hours. I only wish I knew what he was saying because the look on his face lets me know that he knows exactly what he is saying. I have a feeling he might take after his mom in this department because most of the time I can barely get a word in! ha. Our biggest and most exciting development of the month is.......WE FINALLY LOVE EATING AGAIN!!!! For those of you who didnt know, we have had a MAJOR struggle with eating the past few weeks. Well actually since he was about a month and a half old. Since I am using this blog for a refrence to track Luke's stages in life, I will give a brief summery of our food ordeal. Here it goes....When Luke was first born, he had Jaundice so we had to supplement with formula to help push out the Billy Ruben through his bowel moments. The more we fed him, the more bowel moments he would have and the lower his Billy Ruben levels would be. In the hospital the gave us Similac Advanced formula and he seemed to love it. He was interchanging formula and BM perfectly so we continued with this when we went home. Around the 3rd week of Lukes life, he began to get extremely fussy late at night (by extremely I mean dirivng around town in the middle of the night and not coming down from about 1am-5am) so we heard from a lot of people that Soy was supposed to help with fussiness so we decided to give it a shot. It worked like a charm! He was loving his new formula and it also fixed the middle of the night colic. He used Soy for several weeks and then started eating a lot slower (1+ hours to feed) as we neared his 6 week mark. This continued till he was about 2 1/2 months and then he decided he didnt want to eat much at all. So it went from fussing to eating slow to not wanting to eat at all. Each time we would feed him, he would scream bloody murder and thrash around and refuse to take the bottle. He would use his tongue and push the bottle out of his mouth and only eat if he was extremely hungry. So this began the serch to figure out what in the world was going on! We decided to change bottles (Tommy Tepee to Dr. Browns.). That didnt work! We changes reflux medicines (Zantac to prilosec) and that didnt work. We had numerour Doctors appointments and they too were scratching their heads in confusion. What baby didnt like eating?!?!? Then we saw one doctor who had a daughter who did the same thing and he suggested that since we changed both the bottles and the medicine it was time to try changing his formula to one that was for infants with a milk protien allery so we changed to Nutramigen. Bust again! He hated it! At this point, I was at the end of my rope. Luke was only eating barely 13-15 oz a day and was supposed to be eating anywhere from 24 oz to 32 oz a day. Back to the doctor we went. This time we saw a woman doctor and she thought that he may have a slow emptying (underdeveloped) digestive system and refered us to a pediatric gastroenterologist. Ok, we were finally getting somewhere. Maybe he could figure out what was going on. We were on week 2 of barely eating and some or something had to figure this out! We had to wait three days to get an appointment and on the 2nd day Luke decided he didnt want to eat at ALL! He only at one oz in twelve hours and just as we were getting ready to head to Childrens hospital, God answered our prayers! John tried one last time to give him a bottle of BM and HE TOOK IT! He ate it like it was ice cream! It was the single most wonderful sight I have ever seen! I can not explain how frustrating it is for your child to have a food adversion at such a young age. I have honestly never been more frustrated or scared in my life. I had a problem that was effecting my childs health and I could not fix it and neither could any of my family members, friends or doctors. It was hell! So when I saw Luke finally drink the bottle, I cried tears of JOY! Since that bottle, Luke has eatten like a champ! He takes every feeding and is polishing off bottles of 4-5 oz routinely! He drinks both BM and Similac Sensitive and loves to eat! I dont know what took so long to figure out that we had a picky eater on our hands but I am sure gald we did! Needless to say, If my 3 month old will starve himself for 2 weeks because he doesnt like the taste of the formula, how much trouble am I when it come to introducing him to peas or broccoli! I am going to be the parent bribeing him with toys to eat his veggies! ha. Needless to say, it has been smooth sailing since we have figured his eating out! I am loving every minute of being his mommy and enjoying all of our time together! Above is a collage of all our pictures from his third month! Enjoy!

Lukey's Newborn Shots

Here is a little sneak peak at Luke's newborn shots. If you happen to get a christmas card/ birth announcement with one of these pictures on it, just act surprised! ha. Hope you love them as much as we do!

The Taylor Kiddos

Two Months **October 9, 2011**

My sweet baby is growing up so fast! While I absolutely love to watch how you grow and change every day, I am a little sad you are growing up so fast.  Your dad and I jokingly call you our toddler because you are so big and no longer look like our little newborn that we brought home from the hospital just two short months ago.  You are growing like a weed and are so smart already.  You amaze us daily with things you do and milestones you reach.

 *You weigh 12 lbs 13.5 oz. (90%)
*You are 23 1/4 inches tall. (65%)

*Your head circumference is 16 1/4 in (80%)

I think it is pretty safe to say that you are one big baby

 You are starting to become quite the little sleeper, which your dad and I love. You sleep 6 1/2 - 8 hours a night without waking. You normally get your last feeding in at anywhere between 11:15pm to 12:00am and sleep until anywhere between 6:45am to 8:00am. We swaddle you now which is why I think you are sleeping much better. You love it even tough you look like a little burrito.

 During the day your naps are anywhere from an hour to three hours. You are not the normal napper. You like to stay asleep for long stretches of time and then awake for long stretches of time. Your best nap is usually in the morning around 9am and it is normally for about 3 hours. Later in the night we try and keep up awake as much as possible so that you will sleep well at bedtime.

 You love tubby time (taking a bath). You love the warm water and hanging your little leg over the outside of the sling in the bath tub. You also love to pee in the bath! Go figure! Little Boys! Lucky for us, all you have done is pee but im sure one day you will surprise us with the other as most little children do. ha. Hopefully we have a while before that happens. After baths you love to be hair dried. Our routine is bath, wrap up in a towel, put on a diaper, hair dry you while we put on your lotion and then put your hydrocortazone on your face for your baby acne.

 Your eating habbits change with the day. One minute you are the best eater ever and will suck down a bottle and the next you fight us for 2 hours just trying to get in one feeding. You dad and I have spent many feedings on the couch watching full episodes of a show, just trying to get you to finish one bottle. You will literally stick your tounge out trying to block us from putting your bottle in your mouth. While I probably should not care because you are so big, I just cant seem to let you get away with out taking your bottle. Next month, I am going to try and let it go and say you will eat if you are hungry. ( ha I say that, but I bet I will be sitting there trying for hours then too.) You are probably just stubborn like your Momma!

 You have officially out grown all your newborn clothes! You are in 0-3 month clothes and will probably be in 3-6 month clothes before we know it!

  You are in size one diapers and they fit you perfectly.

  You love your tummy time mat but prefer to lay on it on your back. You love looking up at all the animals and kicking the different animals that hang down to hear the rattle inside them. The lights on the mat fascinate you and you get so mad when the timer turns them off. Your favorite song that the mat plays is "skip to the lou" and you kick your legs like crazy when it comes on.

 Your swing and bounce seat are either a hit or a miss with you. You have to be kind of tired for us to put you in them. If you are not tired, you want nothing to do with them. You would prefer to be held over anything (you are kind of spoiled). ha

 You have started to love your Bumbo seat. You are still a bit young for it since your head is still a bit unsturdy but we put a pillow behind your head and it works perfectly.

 My favorite milestone that you have reached this month is that you are SMILING! It absolutely melts my heart to see you smile!  You love to smile at your daddy and me and we love to watch you do it! 

 Whenever you are tired, you hold your ear for comfort.  You have done this since you were a few weeks old and continue to do it now.

 Recently you have been trying to suck your thumb.  You have always loved pacifiers when you are upset and this week you have tried to soothe yourself with sucking your hand.  There were a few times when I thought you may have found your thumb but you have not quite got the hang of it yet.  I bet you will soon though...you are so close!

 You talk and coo all the time when you are happy.  You love to coo when someone is talking to you and when you are playing on your tummy time mat. It is so sweet!

 You are getting stronger every day.  You can basically hold your head up on your own now with it only flopping forward every once and a while.  I cant wait till you can fully support your neck so we can try out our Bob stroller at Lake Shore.

 You have seen your Nana and Papa almost every week. We went to visit them in Atlanta 2 weeks ago and your Papa walked you around Buckhead and showed you off to everyone.  You are so loved by them and I just know you are going to love to go visit them and play in the pool and elevators in no time. 

 You went to your first college football tailgate and slept through the whole thing.  Mommy had you dressed in Auburn colors at a UT tailgate and thought you looked adorable.  You dont know it yet, but one day you will be a huge Auburn fan! ha.  Just because we live in Knoxville doesnt mean you cant be the biggest Auburn fan around!

 Your sister Gracie (our Lab) is very interested in you.  She loves to come up to you and lick your face and is very concerned when you are crying.  She lays down beside you wherever you are sleeping and isvery protective of you already.  I bet you two (along with Dale) will be big buddies in a few months.

 Today you had your two month doctors appointment and had to get your first round of shots.  You had three shots and an oral medication and were not a happy camper by the end.

 Here you are smiling away before your shots.....

 Sad little guy during the shots.....

 And loving your bubby after your shots.

It truly broke my heart to see you so upset during your shots but I know its to keep you healthy.  You slept most of the day after your shots and were a little sore but all and all you did a great job today buddy!

Daddy and I love you very much! Happy 2 month birthday Lukey!

xoxo,

Mommy



Luke trying out his bumbo!

Today we took a little video of Luke trying out his new bumbo.  He is still a little small for it and needs a little assistance holding up his head (thus the pillow shoved behind it) but over all he loves it! Take a look.