L+O: 4 Month Update

The Bug (Liam) and the Tug (Owen) are rocking and rolling and have changed so much in the last two months it’s crazy. It seems at my two month update the main things that changed were their weight and length and me coming out of the fog that is the first two months of parenthood but man in months 3 and 4 these little dudes are changing on a daily basis. And I have fallen even more in love with being a mom, specifically their mom.

At his 4 month checkup, Owen, weighed in at 14 pounds and was 26 inches long. Both of those measurements put him within normal percentiles on a full-term baby scale so the dude is doing his job. The Tug can light up an entire room with his smile which also takes over his entire face. Like Elf, smiling is his favorite and he will give anybody a smile and tell them his stories. He is still the chill little nugget of the two and will for the most part sit back and let Liam call the shots. However, we have come to experience what I call Omageddonn where in an instant his world ends and he has to tell the whole street about it. The boy can scream. The worst is in the middle of the night where I hear a blood curdling scream on the monitor and can hear it all the way from the nursery. I jolt straight up out of bed and haul ass to the nursery only to arrive to a sound asleep baby with the sweetest smile on his face. I look over and Liam is undisturbed and I’m left standing in the hall with Jak trying to get my heart rate to slow down. This happens at least once a week. You gotta wonder what a 4 month old dreams about to make him scream like that? Government ordered formula rations is the only thing I can think of.

Liam gets a gold star this month. He weighed in at 12 pounds and is 23 inches long which just barely puts him in the normal percentile limits so he’s still my little peanut for a little while longer. The weight and length changes are great but the biggest changes we have seen in him are in his disposition. Liam was a little pissed off the first two months of his life. You can’t blame him though, he spent his entire time in the womb being constantly kicked in the head by Owen and when he couldn’t take it anymore he decided to bust out 6 weeks early. At the time he probably thought that was the best decision but shortly after realized that the real world can sometimes suck.  Luke and I would worry about him because he was so rigid and uncomfortable. He also would consistently spit-up like the exorcist and we worried he wasn’t getting enough to eat. Slowly he started to keep food down and was able to eat more at each feeding and eventually was eating as much as the Tugboat. Then one day it seemed like a switch flipped and I woke up to the happiest baby on the planet. Liam was very selective in handing out smiles and telling stories but in the past few weeks he’s throwing them out there at a record setting pace which just warms my heart. His smile is the cutest too, it starts off as a little half smile like his dad, then spreads to his whole face and then bam you get hit with the cutest little dimples.

The boys are both talking up a storm and I love it! The best is when I go to get them in the morning from their nursery. Once they realize it’s me they both get the biggest smile on their face and just start blabbering non-stop. It’s crazy how much I miss them just from them going to bed at night and waking up in the morning. Am I a total mom or what? In the beginning, I would stress about the days I was I was home with them; I had no idea how I was going to pass the time and keep everyone alive, fed and happy. But now, I love my days home alone with them more than anything and love the routine we have fallen into. I still watch the clock for the time Luke is going to be home because I am just dying to tell him every single cute thing they do each day and he is so excited to hear about it. Luke and I went on a date a few weeks ago and we made it a whole 20 minutes before the only thing we could talk about were the boys. When I’m at work I try really hard to not talk about the boys non-stop and have set a rule for myself to not talk about the boys unless someone asks but I am dying inside waiting impatiently for someone to ask me so I can blabber on about them instead of working. At lunch (or every 15 minutes when I get bored) I watch the most recent videos of them on my phone over and over again. It’s insane. I haven’t been this obsessed with something since Luke and I started dating and before that the south beach diet. However, unlike the south beach diet, my obsession with all of my boys is sustainable!

Luke is doing great. He is still working from the office in town and is home every night to help me and kiss the boys goodnight. I can tell he is itching to get out in the field and build something but he is doing a good job being grateful for the opportunity to be home. Just this weekend, Luke, coined a new nickname for himself, Cuatro, because as he walked by the couch where Owen, Liam, Zeus and I were bunkered down waiting out the storm he realized (finally?) that he was fourth in line for my attention. At least he still has Jak who is definitely in last place since he keeps stealing and shredding the boys’ toys.

The last couple of weeks have been a little challenging for me because it was year-end at work and I also realized I was about 30 hours late on continuing education for my license. When I went back to work I planned on working 20 hours a week plus a few hours from home monitoring emails. The past four weeks I have worked nearly 30-40 hours each week getting in my training and helping out in the year-end crunch. I’m not gonna lie, the extra income has been great but the extra work to get the extra income has been taxing. The silver lining has been that I realized that I made the correct choice in coming back part time and really do enjoy being home with my boys and being able to keep our household somewhat together.

Oh! I almost forgot to mention and it’s the biggest change yet…THE BOYS ARE SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT!! I probably should have opened with that line. When my mom left at the end of August, I was dreading asking Luke to help with the night feedings. I had so much guilt about asking for his help since he works full time but with my mom gone and me going back to work there was no way I could do all of the night feedings all of the time. Luke, of course, was on board and actually grew to liking his one on one time with the boys at midnight. I swear within one week of my mom being gone the boys were only up once at midnight and then at 4 as opposed to 8-10-12-2 while she was here and within two weeks of her being gone they were sleeping through the night.  I think we were so sleep deprived that without my mom there we just slept through their cries and inadvertently sleep trained them. Regardless, we feel like humans again and it is wonderful.

It should be no surprise to you that I think the boys are cuter in their Halloween costumes than the online models, hello motherly bias 🙂 We are looking forward to hosting Luke’s family at our home and taking all the kiddos trick-or-treating in our neighborhood.  Hopefully, I can get a Halloween post up before Christmas but no promises!