Three Months

Truman has officially left the 'fourth trimester' in his life and is entering 'big boy-hood', according to me at least:) Three whole months have been packed full of growth, change, a ton of firsts, and a ridiculous amount of smiles. He's changed so much even in the past month and I've heard a lot of my friends say, 'He looks like a different baby now!' when they see him in person. Although change usually freaks me out and makes me anxious/sad, the changes that Truman is undergoing are exciting and fun---no sadness here. It seems like every day he gets more interactive and happy and I am SO looking forward to his next three months.








Some of Truman's favorite things include, but are not limited to:
-Being in the great outdoors. Seriously, this boy loves to look at the trees and smell the fresh air so much that just by stepping foot outside, we can usually calm him down from a near meltdown. Just like his daddy he'll probably be an outdoorsman. :)

-The 'visualizer' option on I-Tunes. Specifically, the 'jelly' version. And more specifically, anything by Dave Matthews or Coldplay. I didn't catch the screaming fit going on before we asked Dave and Chris Martin to soothe our baby boy, but imagine him sobbing his eyes out and being totally inconsolable. Then as soon as we hit 'play' his eyes glaze over and he is immediately content. I kid you not, it's absolutely hilarious and crazy and awesome. Dave and Chris are my babysitters sometimes, for real.



-Recognizing his mommy and daddy and then flashing his gummy grin, which of course, makes our hearts melt. Loveitsomuch.

-Napping in his cosleeper, with his 'sleep blankie', like a big boy. No rocking or soothing needed.

-Bath time outdoors on our new front porch (did I mention that my father-in-law built an actual railing, so we can go out to our porch without fearing a catastrophic fall?) Awesome. And baby Truman loves to splash his naked bootie in his tub while watching the leaves move.

-His hands. They are still the bomb, apparently.

Also, we've stopped swaddling Truman and usually we don't even need a sleep sack at night anymore with this warm weather. I was SO nervous to ditch the swaddle but he's a champ and seems to enjoy sleeping with his arms freed. It didn't make a difference in how long he can sleep at all. It's still all over the place anyway:) Plus, he's accepting the pacifier more often now, especially after he's eaten and before a nap, which makes me happy to have another soothing method for mister T. It's still not his fave and most of the time he just spits it out but at least it helps some of the time.

My little Zoolander:




The other day I was visiting Andrea and baby Eli (he is so stinking tiny and cute, by the way) and she had a baby scale, so I weighed Truman with clothes and diaper on. The boy is 16 pounds now which is insane to me. He's more than doubled his birth weight and is obviously still loving the boob and tolerates the bottle when he has to. Looking at baby Eli I can barely remember when Truman was 7 pounds. And looking at Erin's Henry, who is 7.5 months, I can barely imagine Truman being that big and mobile. And yet, it keeps happening with a blink of the eye.









I got a nice little surprise this week when I got called off at work on Tuesday. We were overstaffed and I was up next to be canceled which meant that I had Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and my regular Wednesday off with baby boy. I enjoyed the crap out of our time together and managed to snap approximately 700 pictures in those days. :) So my father-in-law was off the hook on his first babysitting day but Thursday will be his day to start watching Truman for the summer. And of course, Friday is our first day of daycare (eek! I'm kind of excited for some reason??). Nate also started his clinicals on Tuesday and I'm so proud of him for beginning this last leg of his graduate school journey. He's going to blow them away I'm sure.





We've made a huge decision and are planning to make our first road trip down to St. Louis with Truman. I am totally freaking out over here, you guys. I mean, the logistics of having a three month old breastfeeder in the car for at least 6 hours is stressing me out. I'm sure the drive down and back will include multiple stops and hopefully not infinite amounts of crying (on my part at least:) ). But once we are down there, I'm worried that T will be ALL out of sorts and will refuse to sleep at all. No matter what, I want to go down there and see all of our friends and let them meet Truman so we are just going to suck it up and give it a go. But I'm trying to make a list of stuff to bring and it's a bit overwhelming. Like anything else, I'm sure it will be just fine once we just do it. And I can't wait for Truman to get his first taste of Missouri summers!

(a little gray here, but too lazy to edit)










I'm finding that being a working mom and a blogger leaves little time for updates, witty posts, or anything other than tons of pictures of baby Truman. I still enjoy blogging and know that this is a great way for family and friends to see Truman's progress and for that reason I will likely continue to blog. But I can't help but feel like my blog has become watered down, boring, and rather stagnant at times and it does bother me a bit. If I'm only blogging for my friends and family, then wouldn't Flickr pictures and Facebook updates do the same thing that this blog does? I know how great it feels to get comments on posts but I'm not able to do the same for other bloggers out there like I used to do (sorry guys!), and thus I don't get as many comments in return. I mean, I'm not blogging solely to get comments and feedback but it is one of my favorite parts of the blog. I guess I just need to look at it differently, with me putting posts out there for myself, for friends and for family and any feedback from the public world out there is just a bonus. This blog has been alive for almost 3 years now and it's bound to evolve a bit over time, right? I guess I've just been asking myself the all-important question that every blogger must ask herself: Why do I blog publicly? I don't really know the answer to that question right now and I don't expect anyone to answer it for me. I guess I'm assuming that since I love to read about growing babies, and to see their pictures on other mommy blogs then my readers probably like it, too. Enough rambling and over-analyzing though, how about I just show you two million pictures of baby boy now?

I had an 'ah-ha' moment yesterday when I realized that I always use my kit lens for pics of Truman. I used to love my 50mm f/1.8 for pics of Henry but then with Truman I've gravitated to the kit so that I can zoom in and out easily. Well, the 1.8 is a much better lens than my kit and I decided to get some practice moving my body closer or farther away to zoom. I really like the results. :)







and a little Photoshop time always helps, too! Such a luxury to have the time...








And our photoshoot from today, in my favorite 'muscle shirt' outfit: