keeping up

My last post was November 3rd? Wow. Sorry. That's pathetic!  But I suppose now that the drama of the adoption is all calmed down (2 months and still no contact from the birthparents - yippee!) regular life stuff seems pretty boring.

We've been on a road trip to Oklahoma, celebrated several birthdays (including Ryan's), hosted lots of visitors, dressed up for Halloween (not Luke's favorite), and have come really close to sleeping through the night! Basically, Luke is doing great. He seems huge to me now, though he was only 9 lbs 11 oz at his last doctor's appointment (we were guessing at least 10, if not 11 lbs). I've tried to use my time off to get prints made and frame some good black and white photos around the house, but that's been quite a project. It seems I've taken about 5,000 photos of Luke in the last 2 months. And looking back at them, I'm not sure I adequately captured his teeny-ness. I wish I'd done something consistent...placed him next to something...compared him size-wise to something...so we could see exactly how tiny he really was, but it's too late now. He'll never be that tiny again. And I have to say...at the time, my main concern was keeping him all swaddled and warm, as he had zero body-fat. It was hard to un-wrap him and lay him down without lots and lots of screaming.

Just look how tiny!

But now, he's grown out of his premie clothes. He's grown out of his newborn clothes. He's finally moved in to the 0-3 month part of his closet and he's too heavy to carry around with one hand anymore. He squirms now. He kicks his legs and throws his head around. He's strong!

Speaking of legs. Look at these! This was taken on the day we brought him home from the hospital:

And here are Luke's legs now:

Happy, chunky, strong, kick-ey legs!

My sweet boy:

How will I ever narrow these down?

2 months

Dear Luke,
Today, you turned two months old. And you demonstrated your maturity by sleeping for 6 whole hours last night! Daddy and I could not believe it when we looked at the clock and you were still fast asleep at 5am (a time when you would normally be waking up for your 2nd or 3rd bottle). When I weighed us together on the scale this morning, you added another 10 pounds to our total, which means your wrists are no longer the size of my thumbs and your legs actually have some meat on them. You are a ten pound baby boy! People still comment about how small you are and how light you are, but daddy and I can tell - you feel bigger. You look bigger. Your face is filling out and your baby hats don't fit anymore. You have a handful of outfits that we don't even try to squeeze you in to because it's just not worth the struggle. (It's really hard to get you dressed. You really hate it. I mean. REALLY. HATE. IT.) And it's not worth getting something stuck on your noggin just because we like the monkeys on the front.

I'm already starting to feel sad that the time is going by too fast. Before we know it, I'll be going back to work and we won't get to spend all day together - going on walks, baking cookies and watching home decorating marathons. I really love our days together. I love lifting you out of your crib in the morning and kissing your hot little cheeks. I love that you scream through your entire diaper change, outfit change and bottle prep, but you immediately stop crying when that bottle goes in your mouth. (Like you're just starving and you can't understand why we don't do the bottle thing first.) I love that you want to hold my hand while I hold your bottle and you immediately calm down when I brush your cheek with my finger. I love that we have had this precious time to get to know each other because I have had the time of my life getting to know you.

My friends at Hallmark threw us an amazing baby shower last week and they made the little birdie mobile that now hangs over your changing table. They also collected money so we could sit for hours in a new glider - feeding you bottles, reading you books, or lulling you back to sleep. You have an amazing support system around you and I feel so lucky and proud to show you off.

Your Hallmark baby shower:

Table decorations and games:

The insanely talented Katie Larson made this for you (still blows me away):

Our amazing hostesses (and you...snarfing down a bottle):

Mommy's take-home treat box (please ignore the ratio of fruit to sweets):

One little birdie from your mobile:

All of your amazing gifts:

In the last few weeks, you have begun to discover light and shadows. You like to lay on the floor in the mornings and watch the sun dance through the leaves outside. You like to watch the light cast shadows on the floor. You are awake more during the day than you used to be (though you wouldn't know it from all of my pictures of you, sleeping) and you've really started to study my face. You look at me and you reach for me and you try so hard to copy the faces I make at you. You are able to reach and grab and kick the things on your play mat and you even rolled over the other day!  Granted, you were furious at the time, but you lifted your little head off the mat and with one impetuous maneuver, you flipped yourself from your stomach to your back. And in that amazing moment, I saw an entire lifetime of moments - getting to cheer you on and celebrate your victories.

You rule:

The most important thing to happen this month was your finalization with the state of Kansas. You are officially Luke Adler Westhoff and a part of our family forever. We called it "Westhoff Wednesday" because the whole day celebrated our journey to permanently change our Westhoff family tree. We decided we would celebrate your birthday on September 3rd, but also your finalization day on October 20th because that's when our lives truly began. In honor of your finalization, I surprised daddy with a family garden in the back yard. I had three trees planted, one for each of us. Together, we will watch them grow tall and strong - leaving room in the garden for any other little Westhoffs that may come along.

We have had so much fun with you, Luke and we can't believe you're already 2 months old. We are so excited to watch you grow and become a little man - but not too fast, okay?

Love,
mom and dad

Cousin kisses:

Four generations:

the bright side

As a new mommy, nothing makes me feel like more of a disaster than getting a onesie stuck on my child's head. He kicks and screams and real tears well up in his eyes every time I change him. Every. Single. Time. But trying to pull an entire outfit over the growing noggin of a baby is like trying to shove a frightened squirrel into a grocery sack. It's hard. I used to pull his outfits up from the bottom, but as they stretched to fit over his shoulders, we'd just end up with a bunch of accidental v-necks. By pulling them over his head, I feel completely terrified that I'm going to scratch him with a fingernail or poke him in the soft spot. I know the whole process would go so much smoother if he would stop trying to wiggle his way to freedom, but on the bright side, my little squirrel has doubled in size. His little onesies are getting stuck because his head is growing - not because I'm a terrible mom. At least that's what I tell myself when I'm playing a reluctant game of peek-a-boo with the screaming parts of my child's face.

walking

Luke spent his first month of life doubling his weight and being awesome. He spent the last 2 weeks (how can I say this) "discovering his voice". He no longer wakes up quietly to (subtly) let us know that he's hungry. Instead, he wakes up screaming, so by the time we get down the hall to pick him up, his lip is quivering and he's practically shaking. Our routine is to change his pants and then feed him a bottle, but he HATES getting his pants changed. Like...seriously hates it (most likely because my hands are ice cold). So by the time we get a bottle in his mouth, his face is all red and he's crying like we've been jabbing him with hot pokers. And then he's fine.

As much as I love being home with Luke, there are days when I feel like I've exhausted all of my tricks to make him stop crying. He's been eating 3 oz at a time for several weeks, but lately he's been spitting up a lot. He likes to be swaddled, he likes to be rocked back and forth (left to right, not up and down...learned that one the hard way!) but my fool-proof trick is to put him in the stroller and go for a walk.

We've explored several routes in the last two weeks. All of my routes involve a quick stop at Starbucks, but the latest route was a complete accident. I didn't know exactly where we were going, but I knew the major intersections around me and I figured if the neighborhoods had sidewalks, we were in good shape. When I got home, I mapped it out on my favorite new website, walkjogrun.net. Turns out, we went 3.21 miles. Again, by accident.

Here's a quick little overview of our route:

By the time we got home, my feet had blisters and Luke was asleep. He slept for another two hours until it was time for a bottle. He woke up screaming (of course) but I'm hoping all of that fresh air means he will sleep well tonight. I know I will! 

cozy quarters

Luke's nursery has changed a lot, even since I took these photos, but we've been working on it a lot lately. Since we had to leave so quickly for Georgia, we didn't get to finish any of the little details until last weekend. There is still more artwork to hang on the walls and I have a different chair planned for the corner, but at least we've made some progress.

One night, I created these little bird pictures from craft paper. I cut them all out of coordinating patterns, glued them down and framed them to hang over Luke's crib:

I learned this trick from Martha Stewart. You just trace your frames with plain paper and position them on the wall exactly the way you want them. It's a good way to ensure you don't punch a bunch of holes in your wall:

Quick, cheap and super easy artwork:

Ryan installed a floating shelf over the changing table (that we purchased from IKEA):

Searched and searched for the perfect light fixture to replace that ceiling fan. Found a super-cute pendant light on CB2. Will install (and post new photos) as soon as it arrives:

Installed these two little bookshelves (from Land of Nod) and framed a collage of photos that my cousin (Shannon) took when she visited us in Georgia. We installed them like that so we could put a little wooden table and chairs where the bouncy seat is. I can already picture Luke doing puzzles and drawing pictures there some day:

All of the drilling and hammering in his room, sweet little Luke slept through the whole thing:

Rug is from Nebraska Furniture Mart. W pillow is by Jonathan Adler. Bird pillow is from Land of Nod. Crib is by Oeuf.

I made this little bird mobile from tiny, tin birds I found at Hobby Lobby and some sticks I found in the yard. The night-light is from Ikea and the elephant planter is an antique I bought 4 years ago on a trip to Omaha:

This side of the room already looks really different, but here's the direction it's going.

Two of the reasons I LOVE Land of Nod. This monkey and these blocks:

milestones

On October 1, 2005 - I married my best friend. We got married in the rain - an event that quickly sparked a trend, as every moment of any great consequence in our lives elicits a major thunderstorm. And while we are excited about celebrating 5 years together (what an incredible journey it's been so far) we are thrilled to simultaneously celebrate Luke's first month of life!

Luke is 4 weeks old today!

He had a routine check-up yesterday and Luke weighed 6 pounds, 5 ounces!!  That's after he peed all over the scale and before he took a huge dump in the doctor's office, so maybe he's more like 6 pounds, 3 ounces?  Luke was also immunized for Hepatitis B. I knew he would be getting this shot and I mentally prepared myself for the screaming and the crying (mostly me) but, just like every moment of this journey, it did not go the way I expected. The needle went in his leg and I watched his eyes open really wide. Luke opened his mouth like he was going to scream and I braced myself for the wailing. I quickly inserted the pacifier in to his mouth and it was like I'd given him a tranquilizer. He didn't make a sound. He just closed his mouth and relaxed like absolutely nothing had happened. The nurse looked at me and I looked at her and we just smiled. "Good job, mama!" she said. 

"I did nothing!  He's a rockstar!" 

And he totally is!  We had a couple of nights this week when he was up every 20 minutes or so...just restless and insatiable. But then we figured out he was freezing cold. He wanted to be swaddled and covered up. Once we figured that out, he returned to his usual "5-6 hours at a time" sleeping habits. (like I said..."rockstar"!) 

I'm actually sitting in Luke's room right now, listening to him grunt and squirm in his little cocoon. I anticipate some squeaks any time now to tell me he's ready for a bottle. I just love our feeding times together. I love picking him up and kissing his little face and watching him root around for a bottle. I love that he opens his eyes really big in the dim light - and for a good thirty-minutes, I feel like we "talk" to each other. Of course I'm completely exhausted and bleary-eyed the entire time, but there is nowhere else in the world I would rather be. It's exactly what I pictured when I dreamed about being a mommy.

Ryan and I planned to celebrate our big 5-year anniversary in Mexico with a bunch of friends, but we cancelled it when Luke was born. We're going to struggle enough as it is to leave the house for dinner and a movie tonight. I can't imagine leaving him for a whole week. I give it 20 minutes before one of us decides to call home and check in.  

There is so much to celebrate right now and it feels really good. We are one happy little family. Finally.