The Many Sides of Nolan

I have very little experience dressing a boy...but I try hard and that counts...right?

Nolan The Duck

Nolan The Blue Bear

Nolan The Polar Bear

Nolan The Cow (I also have a brown bear jacket, which means I'm officially cut off of things with animal ears on it!)

Nolan The Surfer Dude

Nolan The Cat Farmer

A New Woman

Pat got me a gift certificate for a 1 hour massage for my birthday. I got a free upgrade from the spa for a 90 minute massage! It was wonderful. I truly believe that a massage should be part of the standard post partum treatment plan. I came back from my appointment today feeling like an entirely new person. I felt 6 inches taller, 10 pounds lighter, incredibly well rested and ready to take on anything Nolan could dish out.

Thank you Pat T for the PERFECT birthday present!

Nekkid Nolan

As I look through the hundreds of pictures I have taken of Nolan in the last 8 weeks I realized that there are quite a few of him with no clothes on. Here is one of many:

You might think to yourself that I'm a neglectful mother, leaving her infant son naked in the winter. There is a very good reason for this. Nolan has always been a very impatient guy when it comes to eating. When I was pregnant, if I got even a little bit hungry he would give me a quick jab in the side to get me moving a little faster. Now that he is not hooked up to the 24 hour umbilical quickie mart he is even more impatient.

Parenting books say to look for non verbal hungry messages that come before crying. These messages include lip smacking, clicking their tongue and turning their head from side to side. Well he gives these messages but he goes from content to non verbal messages to screaming in 2 minutes flat and usually I am right in the middle of changing his diaper when this transition takes place. I try to be patient and rationalize with him that if he lets me put his onesie back on that we will get food right away but that is when he starts doing his deep lung screaming which requires him to take a big deep breath and scream until he turns purple-y. I give in, grab a blanket and feed him just as he is. Then when he's good and full, he is a happy baby and so I start snapping pictures or in this case take a quick little video.

I was trying to catch him "talking" which he refused to do once I hit record but it's still cute! I'm thinking I might need to just get him dressed and let him scream for 30 seconds longer if it means he is warm. Who am I kidding? When it comes to eating he always calls the shots!

He is my baby!

I was beginning to wonder where this beautiful, well proportioned, olive skin toned, full head of hair baby had come from and where my bald, translucent skinned, alien looking baby was. I don't have any baby pictures of myself that i can post here but my family can testify that I was pretty funny looking. Long neck, bony fingers and wide eyes dubbed me the name ET as an infant. My sister, a fellow baldy had better luck as a baby, she at least had equal proportions and her daughter Clementine turned out best of all (although she did lack in the hair department until her first birthday).

I thanked the stars for the strong Clingman genes that gave him all that hair and beautiful skin but began to wonder if I would ever see any of myself in him. Well yesterday it finally happened...he started to look...well...a little awkward.

Note the bony fingers, long neck and slightly buggy eyes...that's my boy!

I'm Sorry!

I apologize for being MIA on here lately, we have been super busy with the life happenings and haven't been able to post all of our adventures. Luckily Auntie Em reminded me to post some dang pictures already! So out of shear fear that she will post embarrassing stories about me on her blog (camandemily.blogspot.com) I am making the blog #1 priority for the evening.

This week I started my new job. It just so happens that this is a job that I can do from home and my employers even let me bring Nolan in when I do happen to need to come in to the office. So we headed in this week to get situated, meet our new coworkers and organize the office. Nolan was a huge hit of course and it definitely doesn't hurt to have an adorable 7 week old strapped on to you when you are trying to get to know people.

The first day was rough as Nolan was in a new place and meeting new people to charm. He recently discovered that if he spits out his binky at just the right time he can wake himself up and drive mommy CRAZY! So he was using his new trick all day long and getting grumpy. Then he had one of those "diaper blowouts" that we discussed in previous posts so that required a full outfit change right there on my office floor. I was exhausted by the end of the day!

Luckily things were all up hill from there. He became more comfortable in his new environment and I became more relaxed. I'm just so grateful that we were able to find something that would allow me to bring in an income and avoid putting Nolan in childcare, I'll make this work if it kills me!

Naptime with Nolan

I snapped this picture of Nolan as he was sleeping since I noticed he had kicked the blankets off of his feet just like daddy....so cute! But I accidentally woke him up.I thought maybe if I just keep taking pictures he'll fall back to sleep as if this was all a dream.

He made funny faces instead.

But eventually fell right back to sleep.

Tummy Time

Nolan has been doing tummy time from day one. Usually it's on mom, dad or sometimes YaYa but no matter what he gets plenty of tummy time. From day one he has had incredible head control but last week when he rolled over I decided that he needs to have an official tummy time area. Who knows maybe he will be crawling by 3 months!

He had a great time hanging out with his new friends...

and checking himself out in the mirror.
So much fun that he was conked out for the next 4 hours!
Cortez saw how much fun Nolan had and decided to try it out too...he was not impressed.

What a day!

I was officially welcomed to motherhood the other day when Nolan not only threw up on me...twice but also pooped all over the place in what they call a "diaper blow out". This day required 4 outfit changes, 1 long bath for Nolan and 2 showers for me.

I just had to document this momentous occasion ...good times!

The Next Generation

I completely blanked on posting this a few weeks ago....sorry!

When Nolan was a week old, Nolan's Aunt Carolyn, YaYa, G.G. (great Granny), Auntie Em and Cousin Clem came to meet Nolan. We were especially excited for the cousins to meet as up until now, Clementine has been the only baby. At first she didn't seem to mind, as long as I was holding him but as soon as Emily got him, the claws came out. Not really but there was definitely some concern from Clementine who suddenly wanted mom to hold her. Needless to say Emily had her hands full.

We had lunch, chatted about babies and Emily snuck cuddles with Nolan when Clementine was distracted. When it was time to go we decided to do a next generation photo with the babies. So we posed ourselves and hoped for the best. Before we knew it Clementine was rubbing Nolan's head like it was a crystal ball...gently but with great velocity. Emily said that this is the way they taught her to pet Jack, their Boston Terrier. Everyone was cracking up but the cameras kept shooting. Here is the end result...
Oh memories!

Play Dates & Outings

Now that we are starting to get into a routine and I'm able to shower and eat on most days. We have started to go out on little field trips. Last week we had our very first play date, with Nolan's friend Sebastian who was born 6 days before Nolan. Sebastian shared his elder wisdom with Nolan, and Nolan shared his Mylicon drops. On Friday we went on a 4 hours shopping spree so that i could get a few pieces of clothes that actually fit me instead of falling off (maternity clothes) or cutting off my circulation (pre pregnancy clothes). Nolan slept the entire time, allowing me to find a new pair of jeans which are now too big (yeah breastfeeding!) and a few tops.

On Monday we drove down to Tacoma to visit YaYa so that she could show off her grandson at work. Nolan mostly cooperated but since i left his new best friend binky in the car he lost his cool 45 minutes in so we headed back home.

Then on Wednesday we went back to the mall to hang out with Erin, Sebastian and her 5 year old son Sam. I needed to take back the previously purchased jeans and get a few birthday items. My new mother mentor, Erin showed me her favorite kid/baby stores and didn't judge me for getting that pretzel...thanks Erin!

Next week is not so exciting. Since Nolan is a month old on Monday we both have our one month check ups. But I'm sure we can squeeze some trouble in there somewhere!