The Past Two Months

I'll admit, I feel pretty guilty about not giving Henry the face time that I've always given Asher on here. In my defense, Henry, this should show you what a good parent I've been - my time and attention has been pretty focused on more important things, like feeding you every 2-3 hours, changing your diaper every 2-3 hours, soothing you when you cry, picking up the house, doing laundry, wrangling your monkey brother...you know, parent-y things. Of course, there's also been the fact that I ran out of storage space on Google over a month ago and couldn't upload anymore pictures. Oops. Well, we've finally resolved that issue, so now I can slowly start sharing pictures from the past couple of months. That is, if you boys can coordinate a long enough nap at the same time for me to accomplish such a feat...

As I expected, my maternity leave is totally flying by and leaving me in the dust, struggling to slow things down and enjoy every precious second. Fat chance of that happening. For one, because I'm off of work, we've been trying to cram all the visiting with family and running around in that we can since we won't be able to do once I'm back on a grown-up schedule. Two, because Stephen works during the weekends, I've been packing up and spending many of these weekends at my mom's, so I can get some much-needed assistance with caring for two little ones. Surprisingly, that adjustment hasn't been as tough as I thought it would be. Luckily, Asher is, usually, a pretty good little boy who doesn't require constant attention from us, and he seems to understand (usually) that Henry needs more care from us than he does, so he's been good about sharing his parents with his brother. I've been so much more calm with Henry than I was when Asher was a newborn. Like, I know that a poopy diaper can wait a few minutes until we reach our destination in the car. Or, there's the fact that Henry isn't going to shrivel up if he has to wait ten minutes for me to finish my dinner before he gets fed. I also know that a little crying is normal, babies are a lot tougher than they appear to be, and they don't have to be held 100% of the time. Of course there are still things I'm struggling with...like how to entertain a newborn. I'm feeling the exact same frustration I felt when Asher was a newborn - how do you play with a slug? I want to interact with him, to teach him, to play with him...but, all he wants to do is sleep, eat, poop, and be cuddled. It's starting to get better, though...he's beginning to smile and coo, so I know he's starting to come out of the "blob of baby" phase.

Asher is still totally in love with Baby Brother and constantly wants to hug, kiss, and pat Henry on the head. Our biggest fight right now is keeping Asher off Henry...his love sometimes hurts. He's a very caring big brother: he fetches pacifiers, sings Henry songs, and shares his toys with him. Now I just need to teach him how to change diapers...

Henry has been a great little baby. He's very easygoing, cuddly, not too fussy, and doesn't treat me like a chew toy when I feed him. He's sleeping for 3-6 hours at a time at night, and I usually end up getting around eight hours of sleep total, so I haven't been too much of a zombie. He's really chubbed up nicely over the past nine weeks, too, and has managed to keep his head full of luxurious hair. He has his two-month check-up on Monday, and on Sunday he's going to be baptized. Yet another busy weekend is ahead of us!

Here are pictures from April and pictures from May.