The Drool Monster

In the past couple of weeks I have discovered a second universal truth in parenting. And that truth is, despite the small size of a baby's nose, he can still produce grown-up sized boogies. Don't ask me how this could possibly be true, but it is. It is amazing that Austin can breathe through his nose at times, because we have removed some BOULDER boogies from his nose! Just amazing...

Sleepy Boy

I have also learned that bibs are not just for spilled food. Yes, call me naive, but prior to Austin, I believed bibs to be used exclusively for keeping baby food off of the cute baby clothes. Much to my surprise, my little two-month old is secretly a drool monster. This monster rears its wet head periodically even though my son is too young for teeth. When the monster appears, you have two choices, dribbles on the clothes (which very quickly SOAK whatever he is wearing) or dribbles on the bib. So we go with dribbles on the bib. It keeps him dry and is much easier to change than changing his clothes!! A secret weapon against the drool monster is to put the bib on at the beginning of the day. It doesn't keep the drool monster at bay, but it seems to reduce the amount of drool. Go figure.

But enough about the bodily functions. Austin has achieved a milestone - he now sleeps an average of 7 hours in one stretch when we put him to bed at night!! Yay!! We have not gotten the full advantage of the 7 hours sleep ourselves since he goes to bed usually between 8 and 9, but nevertheless, we are very excited by this new development. We are also super fortunate that he is pretty good at going to sleep on his own. We put him down when he is drowsy and he lays there quietly until he falls asleep. I count my blessings every day, believe me.

And now, some pictures at 2 1/2 months....

Tummy Time!!


Just Chillin'

"Are you done taking pictures yet??"



"I see you!!"

Lean and mean!

This weekend was a busy one in the Carr household. Sunday was Austin's baptism at church. Both sets of grandparents came down for the event and even Aunt Jessie was able to make it from Indiana. Three generations of Carr boys

Austin was such a good boy for the baptism - no crying whatsoever. What a trooper!
Aunt Jess, Pastor Steve, Mommy, Daddy and Austin

On Monday we went to Austin's 2 month check up. The doctor said Austin is perfect, of course. He weighed in at 11 lbs 15 oz (this was after two wet diapers) and was 23 3/4 inches long. That puts him in the 50th percentile for weight and the 80th percentile for height. The circumference of his noggin measured at 16 inches which is the 85th percentile. So he is still long and lean with a big head (much like his daddy!). He got three immunization shots and one oral immunization. He was hungry going into the visit, so he was less than thrilled about the shots. There was alot of crying but when the shots were over and I was able to pick him back up, he calmed right down. As a result of the immunizations, he slept almost all day long yesterday. We were afraid that with all of the sleeping during the day, baby boy would not sleep last night. Luckily we were wrong and he slept fine!

I am super happy to report that Austin is sleeping incredibly well. He has been waking up only once during the night. He typically sleeps in 4-5 hour blocks which is really nice. The past couple of nights we have been able to put him to bed while he is still awake (drowsy but awake) and he has gone to sleep on his own. This is a vast improvement over the first few weeks of his life when going to bed was an ordeal that involved much rocking, singing, putting to bed, rocking, putting to bed again, and so forth. Overall, we are very blessed that Austin is an easy, happy baby.

8 weeks old!

Austin is now 8 weeks old! It's hard to believe that he has been around for eight weeks already. It seems like yesterday that we brought him home from the hospital. And yet, at the same time, he is growing and changing so fast. He now weighs more than 11 lbs and is filling out and getting longer. He has begun outgrowing the newborn size outfits. In theory he should have outgrown these outfits much earlier since they are designed for babies from 5 to 8 lbs but then again, these outfits were too big when he was born. I don't claim to understand the sizing of infant clothing. Some of his 0-3 month outfits fit and others look big enough for a two year old. Go figure.

Austin has also learned to smile and is awarding us daily with beautiful smiles. There is nothing in this world like walking up to him and having him give you a big old goofy smile. He has been smiling at us for about two weeks but it took awhile for us to catch it on camera. See the slideshow below. (I was going to include just a couple of pictures but he is just so darn cute that I had to put in several!)

The weekend before last we went to a movie without Austin. This was momentous for a couple of reasons. First, it was the first movie we've been to in probably a year and then secondly, we were able to calmly leave Austin with his surrogate grandmother, Anita, and enjoy ourselves. Anita works at one of my audit clients and while I was pregnant offered to be a surrogate grandmother. She has two boys in college and says she cannot wait to have grandchildren. In the mean time, she babysits for a couple of babies to get her grandma fix. We did really well leaving him - no freaking out occurred. When the movie was over though, we both were ready to get back to him. He, of course, was an angel for Anita, so it seems to have worked out well for everyone.

On Monday I took Austin to meet Karie, the lady who will be his sitter when I go back to work. Austin will be one of four children that she watches. The other children were there as well as Karie's older daughter and another little girl who are starting full-day voluntary pre-school next week. Austin was rather wide-eyed at the kiddos (this was his first experience being around other children) but didn't get upset at all. I think he will be fine there. I, on the other hand, will be a complete wreck. I think I will need to take my whole makeup bag with me to work for the first couple of weeks so that I can redo my makeup after crying all the way to work!! It is a strange feeling. I don't want to be a stay-at-home mom (or "domestic manager", as a friend of mine calls herself) but it is going to be so hard to leave him and go to work!