3 Months

Remington is 3 months old today! I don't feel like many mothers do when they say, "Wow, my baby's growing so fast!" or "Where did the time go? It went by so fast." Instead, it feels like it's been 3 long months to me. When I think that he was born in October, it seems so far away.

Remington definitely likes to smile. He smiles at strangers all the time and is cooing more and more.  I haven't noticed him preferring us over strangers, but we haven't had him around anyone new in a while. We will tomorrow, though, when we celebrate my Grandpa's 90th birthday!

And according to HealthyChildren.org, which is a website affiliated with the American Academy of Pediatrics, these are the 3 month milestones:

Movement Milestones

• Raises head and chest when lying on stomach- Remington is still working on this, he gets so mad when he's on his stomach (probably because he can't look around yet).
• Supports upper body with arms when lying on stomach- Not quite, he doesn't like to lift his head yet.
• Stretches legs out and kicks when lying on stomach or back- He's got this down, like from the day he was born.
• Opens and shuts hands- Yep
• Pushes down on legs when feet are placed on a firm surface- I think he's going to be a kickboxer.
• Brings hand to mouth- He likes sucking on his hands and ours if we're holding his hand.
• Takes swipes at dangling objects with hands- A little bit.
• Grasps and shakes hand toys- Doing much better recently. Yesterday he held a rattle for at least 5 minutes.

Visual and Hearing Milestones

• Watches faces intently- Yes, but he doesn't turn very often when we talk to him or call his name, he just looks around. Once he decides to watch you, though, he does so intently.
• Follows moving objects- Getting much better at tracking. He will follow past midline and up and down.
• Recognizes familiar objects and people at a distance- He'll look at me or Landon from across the room.
• Starts using hands and eyes in coordination- He's able to shake a rattle and he watches his hands.
• Smiles at the sound of your voice- All the time! It's adorable!
• Begins to babble- He's becoming more talkative everyday, which is good considering my occupation as a speech therapist. :)
• Begins to imitate some sounds- Mostly just vowels. I haven't heard any consonants yet, except maybe a g (guh).
• Turns head toward direction of sound- Sometimes, it's very noisy in our house, I'm sure he's overstimulated at times.

Social and Emotional Milestones

• Begins to develop a social smile- He has this down. Like Landon says, he's picks up on misery. When you're the most frustrated with him, he'll smile and then you just don't know what to do.
• Enjoys playing with other people and may cry when playing stops- He likes playing, but I haven't noticed him crying when we stop.
• Becomes more communicative and expressive with face and body- Yep, he's a little talker.
• Imitates some movements and facial expressions- He's getting better at imitating me when I stick out my tongue.

You Capture- Colors

This week's You Capture theme is Colors. There's not much color around here and it's too cold right now to go outside and check. Anyway, here are my photos. Check out I Should Be Folding Laundry for more great pictures.


The following two pictures are a set of chopsticks that my sister-in-law brought back from her home town in China. She met my brother as an international student here and they got married last summer. They also took a trip back to China and brought back some amazing gifts for everyone.

I know I just posted this photo in my previous blog post, but it matches the color theme so well. Here's Remington on his first trial run of the exersaucer.

And finally, here's a picture of Remington's feet in his green alligator outfit.

Life and Our Daily Routine

I've noticed that I haven't actually written a real blog post in a while. I've added pictures and participated in photo carnivals, but you haven't heard anything about our life recently. Here's what's going on...nothing much.

I've been busy with work and taking care of Remington. He's been sleeping through the night most of the time and is over his cold. I still think he's going to have problems with allergies. His next doctor's appointment is at the end of February, when he's 4 months old. I've checked about physical developmental milestones and he's right on track except for lifting his head when he's on his stomach. He still hates tummy time and gets mad because he can't move anywhere or look around. I've been propping him up with the Boppy, but he only likes that a little bit more than the floor. He loves sitting on your knee, lap, or in the Boppy. He just likes to look around and watch everything.

We got the excersauser out the other day to see what he'd do. Granted, it says for 4 months and up, but we figured he holds his head and body up well enough to try. Wow, the thing just engulfed him. He's still so tiny that his legs didn't come close to reaching the bottom and he couldn't reach any of the toys if he tried.

Now that we have a 3 month old (Remington's 3 month birthday is Friday), we've gotten into a routine for our daily endeavors.

5am- Remington wakes up. Sometimes this can be earlier or a bit later. 3am-7:30am
5:45am- I have to be up for work during the week.
6:00am- Landon gets up when Remington does and feeds him at 6am.
6:15am- I'm usually downstairs. I take Remington while Landon finishes getting ready.
~6:30am- Landon leaves for work during the week.
6:45am- I leave with Remington to take him to daycare. We get there by 7am.
7:00am-7:25am- I commute to work.
7:35am-4:00pm- I'm at work. I leave as soon as school ends and commute back to pick up Remington from daycare.
4:00pm- When we get home I usually feed Remington again.
5:00pm-6:30pm- Landon and I chill out in the living room or basement watching TV, getting online, watching movies, or just talking and playing with Remington.
7:00pm- We usually eat between 6-8 depending on what's going on. Remington is usually hungry again at this time too.
7:30pm- After Remington finishes eating, I hold and rock him in my arms. He will often fall asleep or he just sits and smiles and watches the world.
8:00-9:00pm- Landon and I watch primetime TV and head to bed at 9pm. Remington is usually asleep by this time and we slide him gently into the crib. If he doesn't fall asleep right away or wakes up, we lay with him and rock him to sleep in his room. Most nights we're ready to go to bed by 10pm.

We used to actually get to bed (after getting ready and getting Remington to sleep) by 10:30pm at the earliest, but now he's doing much better at going to sleep. We usually feed him quite a bit right before 8 or 9pm.
On weekends, the schedule is mostly the same in the morning and late at night, but we could be doing any number of things during the day. Remington eats about every 3 hours during the day regardless of where we are.
That's our daily routine recently. I like it because we're actually getting quite a bit of sleep. Hopefully it stays that way.

i ♥ faces: Texture

This week's photo challenge theme at i ♥ faces is texture. I thought about trying my best at a Photoshop texture that I haven't done before, but I ran out of time. Here's my entry. Remington, of course, has the super soft baby texture and here is a picture of him with the soft texture of his baby blanket that my mom knit for him.

Picture Time

You Capture- Love Around Your Home

This week's You Capture assignment at I Should Be Folding Laundry is Love around your home. I spent a little bit of time walking around the house for things I love.

I Love Remington's crib and nursery. His name letters turned out really well.

I also love our Pizza Hut lights above the bar downstairs. The Pizza Hut in town was knocking down their old building and selling their fixtures. I got a great deal on these and they take me back to eating there as a kid.

When we bought our house, this doorway was something weird and quirky about the house built in 1917. Yes, it is on the stairs. It's just a closet that also has a doorway in Remington's room. I expect him to have lots of fun playing in there when he's older.

With a new house to fill with furniture and being just out of college, we looked at lots of garage sales and even some antique and flea market stores. This couch came from an antique store that was going out of business.

We're big on having a modern take on antiques. Here are a few more. The lock picture is from a secretary desk and the S is for our last name.

It wouldn't be my house without a million of these. My favorite are Yankee Candles.

And finally, I wouldn't be the obsessed new mother without including a picture of this little guy, whom I , of course, LOVE.

Check out the button for more great pictures.

Changes

I'm in the process of making some changes to my blog to make the site easier to find and simplified. I was going to change the url, but that would make it very hard to find me since many of you already have my old url address. I may change the title of the blog to match, though.

As you can see, I have a crazy new layout. I'm still tweaking some things (like the header), so bear with me. I now have a menu bar. Click around and see what you find.

I will continue to update to notify you of any other significant changes. Thanks and hope you all continue reading. Please tell me what you like or don't like about the new layout too.

We Are Family

This week is We Are Family at i ♥ faces,. My entry is Remington with his Great Grandpa during Christmas. Remington was the first grandchild for both sides of the family and the first great grandchild for Landon's family. Photo edit by me.

WubbaNub

Some of you may have noticed a stuffed animal thing attached to Remington's pacifiers and wondered what the deal was. Well, it's called a WubbaNub. WubbaNubs are Soothie pacifiers with a stuffed animal attached. I found them online before Remington was born. "The plush animal provides maximum comfort for babies and makes it easy for them to grasp and manipulate the pacifier themselves." Their creation story is something we've experienced with Remington:
"Carla knew she needed to take matters into her own hands.  She found the hotel sewing kit and took her baby's favorite soft plush toy and sewed the pacifier right onto it. Thus, a happy ending for the Schneider family's vacation and the birth of the first WubbaNub!"

So, it sounds cool, but do they work? In my experience, yes. When we first started putting Remington in the crib (the day we brought him home), he would fall asleep, but as soon as he lost his Soothie pacifier he'd wake up crying. When we used the WubbaNub, we could prop the animal next to his head and it kept the pacifier close. His arms are really active, so he'll sometimes get ahold of the animal and fling it away, but it's helped a lot. It's also great in the car. You can easily reach back, feel the animal and put the pacifier back in his mouth. I also like using it in church, because you can grab it before it hits the floor when he spits it out. Remington is starting to hold on to the animal more, and it looks absolutely adorable. We've gotten so many comments about it. He stared out with the monkey and we've also bought him a dragon. They're so cute that I plan on keeping them as keepsakes after he's done with pacifiers.

The WubbaNub retails between $10 and $15. They have a monkey, red dog, blue horse, pink horse, duck, frog, bull, dog, cat, and bear. The dragon and lion are limited editions, but I found the dragon on Amazon. I definitely recommend the WubbaNub and plan to give them to other expectant mothers as baby shower gifts. I'm not getting paid by WubbaNub or in any way connected to them. I just love their product.

Sweet baby smiles

Remington has been smiling so much lately. It's so adorable and I have a million pictures of him smiling. This last week, he has slept through the night 4 days. I don't know what we did differently, maybe he's just getting old enough to sleep longer or we just get up earlier (5:45am to get ready for work). Either way, I hope it lasts. Now, enjoy some cute pictures of our little boy and his smiles. Click on the picture to view it larger.

Winter You Capture

Over at I Should Be Folding Laundry, this week's You Capture theme is Winter.

This is what our winter used to be about: Siberian Huskies Playing in snow.

 

 

Now, our winters and lives revolve around this little guy: Remington all bundled up and with Daddy before Christmas,