5 Months and Seattle!

So, our little guy is now officially 5 months... crazy.. absolutely crazy! I weighed him again at Kroger, and he is now 14 pounds - so double his birth weight at 5 months. I absolutely love this stage he is in. He is so excited and interested in the world around him. He loves solids, and now recognizes his bottle. As soon as he sees it his hands and feet begin to wiggle and his eyes get really big. He tries to hold the bottle, and usually pushes it down :) We noticed in Seattle that he especially loved red plastic cups and plates. He is hilarious. He tries to put whatever is of interest to him completely in his mouth. All I have to do is hold something where he can see it and his arms lift and he is immediately lured into getting the object. The problem, other than the size of the item, is that he still tries to bring his body to the object, rather than the object to his body.

Ezzie also is sucking his thumb again. He sucked his thumb in the womb, and now he is beginning to do it outside of the womb for the first time! It is fun to watch him suck and chew on this new-re-found discovery :) His hand coordination is improving with leaps and bounds, and he even can pass an object from one hand to the other!

Ezzie is also sitting up better and better and just wants to go. However, he really only can scoot himself around on his back - we wake up in the morning to find his fully rotated and on the other side of the crib... he only does this when we aren't watching :) And, speaking of sleep, Ezzie gave me the best Mother's Day gift - he slept for 11 hours straight without a peep. Sleep is something so amazing! I am not quite used to it yet - I tend to still wake up randomly in the night - as does Ezzie sometimes. It helps me to have patience with him in the middle of the night when I also struggle with getting out of the "waking-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night" sleep pattern.

Four Generations

So, you noticed Seattle in the headlines. We went to Seattle to visit Grandpa (or Great-Grandpa for Ezzie) Karl. He is the person who Ezzie's middle name comes from. We visited with Jon's parents, sister and brother-in-law. It was so much fun to see family, and Ezzie loved the extra attention. We also got to visit with Jon's friend Matt Knepper and his wife Amber. I was especially excited to meet Amber, as I had not met her before. We spent a lot of the time just hanging out, playing Wii, and going to Pike Market (where I got a drink and pic at the original Starbucks :)). The highlight of the trip for Ezzie was meeting his great-grandpa Karl Weber at the Weber reunion. Grandpa Karl was smitten with Ezzie, and Ezzie loved sitting on his lap. We are so glad we made the trip and got to visit with him... he is 96.5 and such a wonderful man.

This visit makes me think of my own grandpa Calvert and how much I wanted him to meet Ezzie, and to have Ezzie know him. My grandpa was such a loving, fun and gentle man. I miss him a lot, and hope that I can pass on some of the things I learned from my grandpa to Ezzie and any other future children we have.

Down

I knew that women often find themselves in emotional slumps after giving birth. I had moments of feeling down, but worked really hard to try to balance taking care of Ezzie and taking time for myself. However, I hit a patch about a month ago where I began feeling terrible and had daily bouts of crying. I was riding the fence between having baby blues and having postpartum depression. I am not sure about you all, but the thought of me getting it seemed impossible. Through a lot of support from Jon and friends, through talking with my nurse, and through not trying to do so much in the day, I have been able to really appreciate life and enjoy it more again.

The biggest challenge for me is to rest. I have this belief that I need to fulfill my checklist (which I tend to make very long) in order to be a good mom and wife. This isn't true - but as a mother who is staying home and not going back to working full-time, it is easy to buy into this belief. I have been meaning to write about this for a while, but just made the time. I just want to say thank you for supporting and encouraging me as I weather being a mom and figuring this all out. Without Jon, I am not sure I would have gotten through some of this - he is my best friend, and is so amazing in his love for me. I thank God each day for going beyond what I asked for in prayer, and giving me Jon.