My (almost) 4 year old Hunter

I cannot believe that in less than a month, this little boy is going to be 4. FOUR!  Have I really been a mommy to him for that long?!  He brings so much joy into our lives.  I haven't done an update on just him in a long time, so thought it would be nice to share what he has been up to.  It is also a bragging post, I don't feel like I brag on him very much.  I'll do an official "Four Year Old" post after his birthday.

Hunter loves school.  He asks to go every.single.day.  He was going 4 full and 1 half day, but once we had Gavin and our work schedules changed, he now only goes 3 full days.  At the beginning of the school year (about 4 weeks in) I received a call from his teacher about his behavior.  I had never heard anything negative about his behavior before (he had been there all summer, plus he had been in daycare before) so I was totally shocked.  I had a conference with his teacher and we put in place a behavior chart.  Worked wonders.  He was done with it in about 2 months.  His teacher has a ton of boys in her class and they are all boy.  Hunter is going to test his limits and if he sees other kids doing something, he tends to do that as well unless he is given guidance.  His teacher now tells me he will remove himself from a situation when one of his classmates is doing something they aren't supposed to be doing.  He is constantly telling me how he ignored "Billy" because "Billy" was telling him to yell in class or say "bathroom words" (poop, fart, etc.) or whatever was going on.

Academically he is doing well.  He is recognizing all his upper case letters, almost all of his lower case letters (mixes up p and q, and i and j), and is able to tell you the sounds quite a few of the consonants make.  He loves identifying rhyming words, making patterns, counting, and writing.

Parent-teacher conference in November 2013.

Parent-teacher conference May 2014

How he has changed in a few short months!

With how obsessed he is with dinosaurs, I wouldn't be surprised if he does go on to become a paleontologist!  His teacher said he just went on and on explaining what a paleontologist does.  His room is filled with all kinds of dinosaurs.  He knows pretty much every dinosaur name and what they eat.  If he doesn't know, he wants us to find out the answer for him.  Google is my best friend on those days.

We took him to the Mariners' Museum last weekend.  They have a dinosaurs of the deep exhibit.  It isn't all that big and I was a little bummed by it.  He had a great time!  Carl took him in to see the 3-D movie (I stayed out and fed Gavin) and he really enjoyed that!  We will be going to the Living Museum soon, they have the robotic dinosaurs back!  I showed him pictures of when we went when he was 2 and he was so excited!

Finally... I couldn't ask for a better big brother.  He has taken on this role without any complaints.  He is patient and never whines when he has to wait for something because Gavin's needs have to be met first.  He loves to tickle Gavin and play on the floor with him.  If I need something for Gavin, he will go get it!  If he can reach Gavin's pacifier while on a car ride, he sticks it in his mouth.  Gavin was super upset when we left Ashley's on Tuesday because he was getting hungry.  Ashley already had a bottle made and Hunter fed some of it to him in the car.  His arm eventually got tired and asked if he could stop.  When he took the bottle out of Gavin's mouth, Gavin, of course, started to cry.  Hunter said, "I know baby.  It's okay.  My arm really hurts and I can't feed you anymore."  Hunter is also very patient with Charlotte on the days that Carl and I watch her.  He may tattle on her a lot (we just had a discussion about when it is appropriate to tell on Charlotte), but he always holds her hand and makes sure she is having fun when we go places.  He walked with her up the driveway into the house today hand-in-hand.  I wanted to take a picture but had my hands full.  I can't wait for Gavin and him to hold hands like that.

Gavin at 3 months

He has been into his toes lately

3 months already?!  Seriously, where does the time go?  I feel like we just brought him home.  Sigh.

He is loving his time with Aunt Ashley during the week.  And she sends us lots of pictures and videos.  It is so nice to see his little face during the day, it makes my heart happy when I get texts from her.

Gavin isn't rolling over yet, although I'm sure he is more than capable of doing it if he could figure out his arm.  He will get on his side and hang out, and if you nudge his butt he knows how to move his head to go to his belly.  He has been getting so mad at himself when he tries really hard to get to his belly and can't.  The whole time he is trying, he is talking away as if telling himself he can do it!

We have a pretty good nightly routine.  He sometimes gets a bath (again, second baby syndrome, but he also has that bad eczema, so the less we dry it out in the water, the better) and a bottle at 7:30.  He falls asleep and we put him in his crib.  At 10:30ish I go in and put a night time diaper on him and feed him 4 ounces.  He falls back asleep and wakes up around 3:45 am for another 4 ounces (although Sunday night he slept from the 10:30 feed until 5:30) and then goes back to sleep. Carl and I have been taking turns getting up with him in the middle of the night.

Gavin adores his older brother and loves to just stare at him in the car.  He also really loves his daddy but loves to have his night time snuggle with me (or I might just monopolize that after 7:30 bottle snuggle time, but I think he likes my night time snuggles more).

It finally seems like we have his reflux under control without medicine.  It acts up every now and then, but nothing like it was.  Poor babe.  We trialed Zantac (didn't work at all) then he was on Prevacid for a while.  That eventually seemed to make him projectile vomit so we stopped it.  No more projectile vomit.  He is on Nutramigen, but at our 4 month appointment I'm going to discuss when we can trial sensitive formula with him.

He talks up a storm!  I've never seen a kid his age so vocal (not that I'm an expert or have been around a ton of kids his age).  He loves to have the give and take vocalizations with you.  Super cute.  And his facial expressions kill me!  And he is so advanced for his age, he is saying "ma" and "hi".  It's so nice to have a speech pathologist for a mother.  Only kidding, I'm well aware he is not actually saying those things.

Does he not have the cutest little belly button?!

I'm a slacker

Or I just don't have a lot of time... I'm going to go with that.  I don't remember feeling so rushed at night when Hunter was a baby, but during that time I was working in the schools and leaving work no later than 3:30.  Now I'm getting off at 5, picking two kiddos up, then heading home.  We get home around 6:30ish, I fix dinner, Carl and I get the boys ready for bed, pack lunches, make bottles for the night, and every other night I'm either washing diapers or stuffing them (not complaining because I absolutely love cloth diapering).

I digress....

This little guy was 2 months old in this picture (and Hunter likes to join in on the fun).  He will be 3 months old in 3 days.  So much for monthly updates.  Sorry Gavin.  I call it "second baby syndrome".  Are you alive?  Have you been fed?  Is your diaper clean?  You're good!  At his 2 month check up, he was 13 pounds, 1 ounce and 23.82 inches long.  His head circumference was 42 cm.  What percentile ranks was he in each you ask?  I didn't exactly write that down, but if I chart it correctly on the CDC website, for his head he is between the 90th and 95th, his weight is 84th, and his height is 93rd (which sounds about right to me when I try to recall what the nurse practitioner said).  Gavin is drinking 4 ounces every 3 hours, give or take, and was waking up once a night for a feed.  He is a chatty little thing!  I don't remember Hunter being so vocal.  He has wonderful eye contact and loves to giggle (just not very much for me) and smile.  He unfortunately has terrible eczema, so so much worse than Hunter has ever had it.  It covers his whole body.

Gavin also landed us in the emergency department the week before last.  Tuesday Carl said he barely slept and was super cranky.  He slept 9 hours that night!  Mommy did not.  I woke up a few times and had to make sure he was breathing!  This child does not miss a feeding!  Wednesday he was fussy for Ashley and started sounding congested.  That night I noticed some retracted breathing so Thursday morning we went straight to the pediatrician's office.  His pulse ox was good so they gave him a breathing treatment which helped some.  Diagnosed with bronchiolitis. Told me if he spiked a fever to bring him back.  Of course this happened at 3 am Friday and the triage nurse wanted us to go to the ED to be seen.  After a deep suction, a breathing treatment, getting a urine sample from a catheter (yeah, that was fun), and constant monitoring (we were there 4 hours), we were headed home just to head back to the pediatrician's office in an hour.  They discovered an ear infection with puss (so I have no idea how the ED staff missed that one) and we were put on antibiotics.  I'm pretty sure Gavin maybe got 3 days worth of the medicine.  I've never seen a baby spit medicine out so fast!  Stinker stinker!

Hunter was a trooper through it all!  He started to ask to go home around 6 am, so Carl called Meemaw Swann around 7 and she came and stayed with him at the house.  She then took him for a sleepover so Carl and I could sleep while Gavin did.  We slept most of the day and it was glorious!

My BFF Ashley started a community garden on her church property.  I've never gardened before, but purchased a plot.  She has been helping guide me.  Last Thursday I took the three kids (we watch Ashley's daughter for her on Tuesdays and Thursdays and she watches Gavin Monday, Wednesday, Friday) to the plot and we planted our food!  I have tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers, strawberries, watermelon, and something else that I can't remember what it is, but it is growing in the dirt.  Ashley gave me some potatoes to plant this afternoon so they are now in the dirt as well.  Hopefully I have a little bit of a green thumb and we get some good veggies!  Interested in a plot?!  Here is the link to Dig.Grow.Eat.

Saturday I attended a baby shower in honor of one of my other BFFs that I grew up with.  We are so excited because our little guys will grow up together like we did.  She would like to keep her privacy so no pictures of her in her pregnancy glory will be posted.  She received a ton of awesome things!  Her little man is going to be super loved and super spoiled!  One of the girls I grew up with had a baby a few weeks after I had Gavin and was also at the baby shower.  We were able to get a picture together with our kiddos.

On Mother's Day my car broke down with all of us in it.  Womp womp.  I'm not going to attempt to explain what parts aren't working, but the computer in the car thought something wasn't running properly for the engine and thus shut the whole car down (even though nothing was wrong, it just stopped reading).  Luckily, my dad came to the rescue, had our car towed to his shop, and had us over for dinner.  My mom was also super gracious and let us borrow her car (thanks Mom!) while it is being repaired.  The rest of the day was uneventful and I got to spend it with my boys.

Hopefully I will be on the ball and post Gavin's 3 month update on time.  Fingers crossed!