5 months

5 months! I can't believe it! Maddox has changed so much this past month. He's getting to be very interactive and a ton of fun. One of his new favorite things to do is chew on his feet! It's adorable!

Maddox has started eating rice cereal. At first he just wore most of it but now he's an expert and opens his little mouth when he sees the spoon coming toward him.

For Easter we just decided to keep it simple because our weekends have been so jam packed. We just had an easy lunch at Chili's then Maddox was spoiled with three Easter baskets.  

Maddox got baptized this month. Our church here doesn't do baby baptisms so he was baptized at our church in Sherman by the same pastor that married Garrett and I. Maddox did great for the baptism then he was done. We went back to mom and dad's house for a lunch to celebrate with family and friends. Maddox missed his morning nap so he was really fussy and ended up sleeping through the whole lunch. (Which explains the reason for him being missing on pretty much all of the pictures.) We are so grateful to have such wonderful family and friends to help celebrate this special event.

Maddox gave us quite the scare this month. He'd had a runny nose for a few days then one night he woke up crying about every two hours which wasn't normal for him. I took his temperature that morning and he had a fever of 102.1. So I called in to work and made him a doctors appointment, the poor thing was miserable all day. When we went to the doctor she checked him out, ran test for the flu and RSV, and said everything looked okay so we didn't need to worry unless his fever got above 102.5. About an hour after I got home I took his temperature again and his temperature had gone from 99 when we got home to 102.9. Naturally I began to freak out. I called the doctor and let them know and they told me to bring him in immediately, which of course freaked me out more. The doctor explained that with a 4 month old their temperatures don't typically go that high and if they do it's reason for concern so they wanted to run more tests. So they stuck Maddox with a needle to draw his blood, gave him a catheter for a urine sample, and two shots of antibiotics. Talk about an upset mama. I think I cried more than Maddox did. The rest of the night was pretty miserable. We heard from the doctor about 10 that night saying the initial bloodwork came back fine but they were sending it to another lab to run more tests. We had to go back the next 2 days for another round of shots. Maddox did so good. We stayed at home with him all weekend and I slept sitting up holding him upright because he would freak out when laying down because of all of his congestion. Thankfully we had a ton of people praying for our sweet boys healing. Over the next few days we went round and round with no test results. Mom came up on Monday to watch Maddox because I had already taken off 2 days and was being docked full pay because I already used all of my leave when he was born. Then that same morning Garrett got sick and his doctor told him to stay away from Maddox for 24 hours which ended up being 2 days. Another long two days. Praise God I didn't get sick also, I don't think this house could've handled one more sick person. Finally we got the test results back and fortunately everything came back negative which was good but didn't really give us an answer as to why his fever was so high. The doctor said it could have just been a really bad virus. Whatever it was I'm glad it's gone and my healthy happy baby boy is back.

 

Maddox taking a ride on Mattie

Celebrating Daddy's Birthday

4 months

Our sweet little boy is 4 months old today and I'm not quite sure how it happened. He had his 4 month appointment today and got his 4 month vaccines. He is 15 pounds-40th percentile and 26 1/2 inches long-95th percentile! 


This past month has gone by super quickly.  I went back to work at the end of March and Maddox started daycare. He is staying with a lady at an in home daycare. It was really hard to leave him at first but it's gotten better. I'd still rather be at home with him every day, but I love rushing to him as soon as work is over and seeing his precious little face. He's doing really well at daycare and is napping WAY better than he was for me. 

Maddox has changed so much this month. He talks a lot more and he is very curious about everything around him. He has rolled over from his tummy to his back twice for Nonni and G-Pop but not for mommy and daddy. He also thinks Uncle Tyler is super funny. As much as Garrett and I try to be we aren't nearly as entertaining to Maddox as Tyler is, but that doesn't stop us from doing all kinds of stupid things to get to see him smile and hear him laugh. He's gotten a lot better at tummy time. We also introduced him to his jumper that Uncle Tyler and Kendall got him, at first he wasn't too sure but now he loves it! We've been pretty sure that Maddox has been teething but his doctor told us today that he wasn't. He constantly has his hands in his mouth and chews on them to the point where he will gag himself. He chews on everything he can get his mouth on and slobbers enough to fill up his bath tub. His doctor told us these are all just signs that he is getting ready for solids. 

We finally took Maddox to church for the first time this month. He did really well. I was worried because we are typically at church for about 2 hours by the time we get there and wait for the service to begin, but Maddox didn't seem to mind any of it. It could've been the fact that he got held for almost 2 hours! 

We're ready to see what his 4th month has in store for us!

My first St. Patrick's Day

Cheering on G-pop for his half marathon 

Tummy time expert

All of mommy's pictures are making me sneeze! 

Love this face! 

3 months

Wow! Time really does fly by when you're having fun. Sweet Maddox is now three months old and I can't believe how fast this time has gone by. He has gotten so big!

 
Maddox's reflux has gotten better, he still has some issues but he doesn't wake up choking nearly as much as he did before and he is still spitting up just as much.

Maddox is smiling a lot more than last month and making all kinds of noises. He has the most adorable facial expressions. Even when I'm exhausted during his 3am feeding he can smile at me and I suddenly don't feel so tired. He's such a joy to be with. This past month he has started to roll over onto his side and then back to his back. He is constantly chewing on his little hands. When you hold his little hands he will push up with his chunky legs to stand up. I'm convinced he'll be walking next month. :)

He really hasn't liked tummy time for most of this past month but just in the last few days he's started to tolerate it more. It helps to have something in front of him to distract him. He particularly loves his Itsy Bitsy Spider book.

Maddox went to the doctor this month because he had cried for 2 days, refused to be put down, and had to be force fed. Of course the day we went to the doctor he seemed much better and the doctor found nothing wrong with him but a little congestion. He did however weigh 14 pounds!

I go back to work at the end of this month. I am not looking forward to being away from Maddox at all but know he'll be taken good care of.  I took him to meet Charlene, the sitter, and he did really well--me not so much. The other kids stared at him nonstop like they'd never seen a baby before (even though there's a 9 month old baby there). One little boy kept begging to touch his feet and wanted to know why he wasn't talking to him. :) Charlene kept telling him he wasn't allowed to touch the babies but when she wasn't looking he'd sneak his hand over and rub Maddox's feet. As hard as I know it'll be to go back it gives me a little comfort to know that he'll be loved on there as well.

Maddox's first Valentine's Day!

Cruisin'

Beautiful baby blues

Watchin' TV with G-Pop

Playing with cousin Bentley

Wearing toddler hats because baby hats don't fit!

2 months

Maddox is now 2 months old and I absolutely love being a mommy! He's a whopping 12 pounds 10 ounces and 23 inches long.

He has started to coo and it's incredibly adorable.  Occasionally when I make a cooing noise he will coo back at me. He loves to lay on his changing table and play on his play mat that Uncle Tyler and Aunt Kendall got him.

We went on our first trip out in public that wasn't the doctor's office to babies r us. Maddox did really well and didn't fuss at all. I however could use some practice. I'm sure it was quite comical to watch me try to put Maddox back in the car as the wind carried the shopping cart away and I tried to catch it while simultaneously loading the car seat into the car. Since then we've been out a few times and each time it gets a little easier.

After being home with Maddox for a few weeks I was already having a hard time thinking about leaving him and returning to work.  I had originally planned on returning to work in mid-February so I talked to personnel to see if it was possible for me to stay at home a full 12 weeks which I calculated to be the beginning of March.  She told me that it was possible and my 12 weeks would actually go through most of March.  At first, I really struggled with making the decision of staying home with him or returning to work. I felt a lot of guilt about leaving the kids at school with a sub for so long. After a lot of prayer, I decided to stay at home with Maddox through March.  As much as I love my job and the kids at school I love Maddox more. I want to take this opportunity to spend time with him while I can. I won't be getting a paycheck for 2 months but every moment I spend with him will be worth every monetary sacrifice.

Maddox had been pretty fussy and seemed miserable after eating and when he had gas. He also spits up after almost every feeding sometimes even out of his nose. The doctor told us to put him on gas drops to see if that helped.  After a week of trying the drops with no improvement we started acid reflux medicine. That didn't really work the first few days but it has finally started to make a bit of a difference. We have to keep him upright after each feeding to help the milk stay down and he sleeps at an angle so he doesn't choke on his spit up. This helps a little with his reflux but he still has times where the milk starts to come back up and will upset him in the middle of the night.

I took Maddox to go look at wedding dresses with Kendall. He did a great job and barely made a peep the entire time.  We also went to lunch and to look at tuxes and at each place he was great.  This was the longest he's been out since he's been born.

Maddox had his 2 month appointment and got his 2 month vaccines.  I was really dreading this because typically they get 5 shots in the leg one after the other. I spent the morning pretty upset not wanting my poor baby to be pricked with needles and saying lots of prayers. Once again God came through and we were very blessed to find out that Maddox would only be getting 2 shots. They were able to combine 3 vaccines in one shot--they said this rarely happens because they typically don't have enough medicine to this, he also was able to take one vaccine orally.

 

We are blessed with our sweet boy every day and look forward to more blessings in month 3.