Tuesdays With Henry - Week Twenty-Seven

Sitting! Finally! 

And falling!

Tuesdays With Henry - Week Twenty-Six

Halfway through with this insanity!!!

Tuesdays With Henry - Week Twenty-Five

Tuesdays With Henry - Week Twenty-Four

I'm still managing to take the pictures every week but I'm not so good at getting them posted obviously.

Bonus brother picture:

Tuesdays With Henry - Week Twenty Three

With a special appearance by Oliver:

Tuesdays With Henry - Week Twenty-Two

Tuesdays With Henry - Week Twenty-One

Our lives have been crazy busy so I apologize for the lack of real updates. But at least I'm managing to keep up with this silly project, right? 

Tuesdays With Henry - Week Twenty

Inventory kicked my butt. I still haven't fully recovered from the nineteen hour shift I worked Sunday night/Monday morning. I swear these pictures were taken on Tuesday despite the fact that it took me until Saturday to post them. 

Tuesdays With Henry- Week Nineteen

Inventory week and Oliver's been sick so no time for an update but here are the pictures.

Tuesdays With Henry - Week Eighteen

Henry got to spend a few days with Grandmommy this week while I had appointments at the store. And we started a little sleep training (more on that later) and Oliver started soccer (post and pictures to come) and we celebrated my birthday, Father's Day, and our eighth anniversary all in the last three days. Busy busy. 

Tuesdays With Henry - Week Seventeen

Henry did two things this week for the first time:

1. He held his head up during tummy time.

2. He rolled over from belly to back.

And he did both of these things before I could go to the doctor next Monday morning for his four month appointment and freak out because he hadn't done either of those things. Thank you, Henry! You saved Mommy from looking crazy once again. 

Tuesdays With Henry - Week Sixteen

I survived my first trip away from Henry. Pumping for three days straight was no fun but it was nice to get a little more sleep than I have been getting. Brian had a busy week but I think really enjoyed getting to spend some time alone with Henry while Oliver was at school. He hasn't had much opportunity to be alone with Henry. 

Unfortunately three days on the pump did a number on my supply and I've been trying hard to keep up with Henry's demand since I got back. It didn't help that my trip seemed to coincide with a growth spurt on his part. I'm mostly having trouble keeping up with him in the evenings which means he's not sleeping very long stretches at night. In fact, since I've gotten home he's gone to bed around eight and woken up for the first time around 10:30 every night. And then he's up every two or three hours through the rest of the night. It's driving me crazy and has me counting down the days until we can start some sleep training. He's not ready yet but I sure am. 

Here are the pics from this week:

Tuesdays With Henry - Week Fifteen

I'm headed to New York early tomorrow morning for a quick three day trip and still have tons to do to get ready so I don't have time for a full post. Wish Brian luck as he embarks on a three day stint of being the sole parent on duty. Maybe I can convince him to write a post about what it was like. I'm sad to be leaving Henry and Oliver (and Brian) but I'm kind of looking forward to two nights of good sleep and three days of not wearing spit up on my shoulder. 

Tuesdays With Henry - Week Fourteen

Tuesdays With Henry - Week Thirteen

Henry is now officially three months old (as of Sunday). How is that possible?

We were down in San Antonio this weekend to celebrate my mom's birthday and Mother's Day. We had a lot of fun just hanging out at the house - playing games with Oliver and cooing at Henry. And on Sunday, Brian made eggs benedict. So delicious.

Henry's new favorite thing is the mobile my mom has hanging above the changing table at her house. When he'd get his diaper changed, he'd stare up at the mobile and kick his feet and coo and smile. Ever since we came home on Sunday, he's looked up disappointed every time I lay him down on our mobile-free changing pad. 

Here are the pictures from this week. He hasn't been sleeping worth crap the past few days (very few naps and terrible night sleep) and we are battling a bunch of really bad rashes - diaper rash, a gnarly looking red rash in his neck fat, and cradle cap - but he doesn't look too miserable, right?

Tuesdays With Henry - Week Twelve

We've had a good week. My insanity lead us to a few doctor's appointments this past week for Henry but, good news! He's not blind! (Long story - I'll post it later). 

I can't believe Henry is twelve weeks old already. The past three months have flown by and yet we still have no discernible schedule. Every day is different. Some days I take Henry into the store, some days we are at home. Some days I take Oliver to school but mostly it's Brian handling that. And it doesn't seem likely that we will have a regular schedule any time soon. Open Door called today and the good news is that Henry has a start date at school. The bad news is that the start date is the first Monday of September. I don't know how we are going to get through the summer. Being a work at home Mom is crazy stressful but it seems silly to try to find him a spot somewhere else for a few short months.

This week's Tuesdays With Henry marks a very important development - the first week in which he was awake, alert, and happy to participate! 

As Oliver says: "Look at that smile-lel!" (Oliver loves to add extra syllables to every word. His brother's name is Henarey in case you were curious).

Tuesdays With Henry - Week Eleven

In which Henry proves that he's still not a fan of this whole endeavor.

Tuesdays With Henry - Week Ten

Thanks to everyone for all of the kind words on my last post. I am still struggling with letting Henry be on his own timeline and keep finding my anxiety creeping up on me again. But it helps to know that people have been here before and come out on the other side and it helps to know I have so many people in my corner cheering me on.

We had a good week - managed to go a whole week without anyone needing to go to the doctor for a sick visit. Feels like a win. Henry, Oliver, and I went down to San Antonio this weekend. We took Henry to the zoo for the first time (he didn't really react to the zoo at all but when we took him on the train around the park, he smiled the whole time. He loves to be outside and feel the wind).

On Saturday night, my mom gave me the best gift ever. I set her up with a bunch of bottles and she let Henry sleep in her room. So, I got to sleep for four hours in a row. By far the longest stretch I've had since Henry was in the NICU. I went to bed at 11, woke up to pump at 3:30 and then went right back to sleep. Of course, at 5:30 I woke up to Oliver screaming for me but still... Almost five hours of sleep! In a row! I feel like a new woman. I came home dedicated to the idea of making this a more regular occurrence. So, Brian will take over night duty one night a week from here on out so that I can get at least one night off.

And, in case anyone wonders, even getting bottles all night, Henry woke up every two hours. I had a theory that maybe he wasn't sleeping long because he wasn't getting full feedings but apparently not. Apparently he's just still a peanut who can't go too long between feedings. Although on Sunday night, he went from 3:00 AM to 8:30 AM without eating. He woke up once there in the middle but we just changed his diaper and he went right back to sleep. I'm hopeful this means that longer sleep stretches are in my future and is not instead a reflection of the fact that he's still not feeling 100 percent.

Here are the pictures from this week: