8 Months

Oh, he's cute alright. But nighttime?

Nighttime is BRUTAL. Brutal, I tell you.

Abram slept through the night early on, but then he had all his ear troubles and nights were ruined for a couple months. Then hallelujah -- he got his tubes done and I looked forward to sleeping again. 

But it was not in the cards. Maybe he's still getting used to the feeling of the tubes, we thought. Give it a couple of weeks. 

Then he learned he could scream. Really, really loudly. So instead of waking up crying throughout the night, now he SHRIEKS. I'm not exaggerating here, I promise. It's ear piercing. One night, Mitch had to move from the couch into J's bed because Abe's screams were keeping him up. The living room and my bedroom are on opposite ends of the house, mind you. 

I've considered making a little video so you could really get the sense of it, but unless you turned your volume up to the top level and held the speaker next to your ear, you wouldn't get the full effect. And I wouldn't want to cheapen the experience like that.

At his 6 month appointment (when he was nearly 8 months), he was 27.8 inches and 58th percentile, and 17.5 lbs, only the 18th percentile.

Our latest guess is reflux. I guess I'm so used to my babies having it (both J and Evie did), I missed the symptoms from Abe. He's scheduled for an upper GI scan Monday so we can figure this thing out. 

I just want to sleep somewhat normally again. Please. 

7 Months

Playing catch up a little, but here's Abe's 7 month picture. He might be teething, but I'm not sure. All I know is I couldn't sit him down without tears until I handed him the spoon to gnaw on. 

He got his tubes in a couple weeks ago. It was much easier than I imagined. No needles, no recovery to speak of. As soon as he got back to mama and got to eat, all was right with the world. 

    Still a little groggy, but feeling better!

Daddy just put his crib together last night and we'll give it a shot tonight. It's not that different than being right next to me really, we're putting it up 3-sided beside the bed like a co-sleeper like we did with Evie. I tried letting him sleep unswaddled last night and it lasted a whole hour and a half. He woke me up so often in that short time, I thought it must be almost morning. Yeah, it was 11:30 pm. So...I guess we'll keep our little baby burrito a while longer. 

        (Yeah, he uses Evie's old wraps. He's secure in his masculinity.)

      He loved the swing at the park. He laughed the entire time he was in it. 

Looking back on old posts, I see Evie got a tooth around 8.5 months, J started standing while hanging onto furniture around then, and both started eating more adult foods. Looks like we've got some big stuff coming up for Mr. Abram! 

Kindergarten

How did we get here?

I can remember the day we went to the hospital, so excited and nervous, to meet our baby boy. We knew a few things about him, he was big, he had hair, and we had seen glimpses of his sweet little face on the ultrasounds. We had heard our lives would change and we thought we understood. (Of course we didn't.)

The moment I heard him cry and the nurse showed him to me, I was forever changed. He was mine and I'd do everything I could for him.

He's become a big brother twice over and is fantastic in his role. His siblings look up to him and he loves them, sings to them, reads them stories, wrestles with them, teases them (he has to -- it's in his job description), calms them, and cracks them up. I'm most proud of his empathy and tenderheartedness.

He's welcomed two cousins in his (nearly) five years. He's learned to read, spell his name, get dressed on his own, sing on stage, tell a joke, and speak to adults. He's moved on from his first love of Mickey to bigger kid stuff like National Geographic for kids and shows about waterparks. But he's not afraid to sing along to Doc McStuffins or catch the occasional Sofia the First either.

He will be one of the younger kids in his class, yet a head taller than most of them. He seems to have no fear going into his first day tomorrow, and for that I'm thankful. I think I'll be emotional enough watching that baby walk onto the school bus and wave goodbye to me.

(Video has some glitches that I'm too tired to stay up and figure out...sorry!)