Everyone needs some dessert every now and then.

I am convinced that if Paul and I had decided to have children a few years ago, my parenting style would be totally different.  I have no doubt I would have been high-strung, stressed, and reading every parenting book I could get my hands on and attempting to follow every command and suggestion without a doubt or question.  Instead, we decided to wait until we were a little older, more settled, and I had started my career.  This has resulted in me skimming parenting books and judging a lot of the authors.  I mean, do you seriously think I'm going to set an alarm at midnight (because what new parent doesn't crash around 8:00 p.m.), wake my sleeping child up, and try and force feed him so he skips his 2:00 a.m. feeding?!?!? I found my 28-year-old cynical self mumbling, "Obviously this book was written by a man who never actually had to feed a newborn child himself." 

This same cynical self (who is now embracing her last year in her 20s!) has taken the same semi-lax approach with the rule that you're not supposed to feed your child anything but breast milk in the first 6 months.  As a self-described food-a-holic, I can't imagine how boring that menu must be for infants!  Now before I get any lectures from fellow mom friends, I very rarely sneak Henry a little treat.  But when I'm making homemade icing for cupcakes, could it really be all that harmful?

That gigantic grin is telling me Mr. Henry Louis Meredith himself approves of my decision! I am counting down the days to his 6 month birthday - I can't wait to bust out my Baby Bullet and start whipping up some real food for this growing boy!!!

Rollin', rollin', rollin'...

Our boy has gotten so big!! Sometimes we forget how little he is, which can result in us doing things like putting him in his jogging stroller long before he's ready (please note the extremely loose shoulder straps).  Fortunately, Paul was only testing it out for a walk, and didn't have his heart set on a run yet.  Maybe he'll be ready for a light jog next month......

 

Chewing is his new favorite hobby.  He generally prefers toys, but decided Gigi's finger would do since there weren't any toys within reach.

And although I've kinda sorta maybe come to terms with the fact that I can't stay home with Henry, I continually remind myself of our blessed situation.  The daycare Henry attends is run by Paul's school, and is in a small little house right across the street.  Paul drops him off, picks him up, and runs by to see him every day at lunch.  My only rule is that Paul has to send me a daily lunch picture.  95% of the time, Henry is doing one of his two favorite things:

Sleeping, or

 Eating!

The girls at the Baby House take such good care of my child, and I couldn't be more thankful!  Henry has one other male friend in the infant room, Sebastian.

They are heavily outnumbered by girls, though, so these two are going to have to stick together and hold their own.

On a much, much, much more exciting note, Paul and I witnessed little bit rolling over for the first time tonight!!  I can't remember the last time I squealed like that!  Every night when we're getting him ready for bed, we have to grease the little monkey up to make sure his eczema stays under control.  I always have to roll him on his tummy to make sure I get one super sensitive spot on his lower back.  

The past few nights, he's been leaning a lot to one side, and tonight, we decided to take him off of his changing table and put him on the flat floor to see what he could do.  Before I could even get my stupid iPhone to think about waking up so I could videotape it, he'd flipped right onto his back! Yay!!  He did it a few more times in a row, which leads me to believe that he figured this trick out a while ago at daycare and was just holding out on us.  Fortunately, the girls at daycare have kept this one to themselves, so Paul and I will pretend we saw him roll for the first time.  But really, deep down, we are reassured that whatever they're doing at ESD's Baby House is some sort of magic.  Before he started daycare, I seriously thought this stubborn child would be doing tummy time and screaming the whole time at 2 years old!

So when I have rough days - rough days that only fellow working Mamas can understand - I continually remind myself of the wonderful situation we're in and the developmental pluses that come with daycare.

But really, the only thing that gets me through the day is knowing I get to come home to these two. 

The two loves of my life.

Auntie Gracie

My sister and I have been inseparable from the start. 

[Sexy, eh? No shirt on one, a wedgie on the other, no socks by either. Classic.]

My parents always say that from the second I was born, she showed nothing but love. No jealousy, no competition. The older I get, the more I see what a rare gift our relationship is.

Unfortunately, since becoming responsible adults, we do not get to see each other nearly as often as we would like.  Thankfully, she was able to make a quick stopover in the DFW area this past weekend before she and my Dad left for Honduras this morning. 

The last time she saw Henry, he was 3 weeks old.  He was completely unaware of his surroundings, and only knew how to eat, sleep, use the restroom, and cry.  He's quite a bit more fun now, and he immediately fell in love with his Aunt.

This video will make my heart smile until the day I die.

Happy 3 Months, Henry!!

My sweet boy turned 3 months old last week.

We have had an eventful, but fun month!  There has been a lot of traveling and hanging out away from home, but Henry kept this toothless grin on his face and has been such a joy!

2012 began with us heading to church, where Henry and all the 2011 babies received the church's blessing. Our Sunday School class made a decent showing, since over 50% of our couples had a baby in 2011.  What a blessing! We wanted to snap a few pics immediately after church, but Henry decided he wanted food instead.....

We managed to distract him for a few minutes, though, which is difficult to do when he's ready to eat!

We were also thrilled to have my brother and sister-in-law come into town for New Years.  Lauren got a lesson in bottle-feeding a baby (Step 1: Shove bottle in hungry baby's mouth; Step 2: Let chunky baby do all the work).

Clifton spent most of the time making ridiculous noises and body gestures at Henry, which got quite a few grins and giggles out of the little guy.

In fact, Clifton managed to get Henry to belly laugh for the first time while we were all eating dinner.  We aren't even really sure what he thought was so funny, but we all ended up laughing hysterically.  There is absolutely nothing more contagious than baby laughter!

Since becoming more alert of his surroundings over the past few week, Henry's discovered the magic of television.  He especially seems to notice football (which is pretty much all that's been on our TV lately), and becomes mesmerized once he catches sight of it.

The biggest event of Henry's my month, however, was Henry's first day of daycare.  School had not started back up when I went back to work, so Henry stayed home with Paul.  Since Henry's attending the "baby house" at ESD with Paul, he went on Paul's first day back.  Though I had faith in the girls' ability at the baby house, it's still indescribably hard to have other people watch your child while you're at work.  Henry didn't seem to be nervous about his first day, though.

I will say that the transition to Henry being at the baby house has been fairly seamless.  He isn't getting his typical 4-5 hours of napping in each day (tough life, eh?), but he's getting a ton of attention and brain stimulation!  Paul walks over and visits him every day at lunch, and he makes sure I get a photo via text message and full report on Henry's morning activities.  The situation couldn't be better!

And I don't know if the baby house worked some magic, or if Henry finally figured out he was strong enough to do it, but he FINALLY picks his head up when we put him on his stomach! YAY!!!  Sadly, we figured this out when we rolled him over the other night to treat the eczema (ugh.) on his back.  [Yes, I'm sure every Green out there is shocked I have a baby with eczema.] I was dreading going back to the pediatrician and confessing to him that Henry still laid there and screamed every time we put him on his stomach.  Now I just have to confess that I've likely passed on the dreaded eczema gene.  When will those crazy scientists come up with a cure for that?!?



[Please excuse Henry's drool in the above picture - this is another trick he's developed over the past few weeks. Drooling everywhere.]

Here are a few pictures of Henry after church this past Sunday.

Can't you just sense Oscar's nervousness in this picture?  Is it obvious that he knows he's not supposed to be on our furniture? :)

And here are a few more from bath time this past Sunday.  I could have just eaten him up he looked so stinking cute. 

He seemed to approve of the shark towel as well. :)