At nine weeks, Roman is: loving being outside (he loves going for walks in the Bjorn and taking naps in his bouncy on the porch); punching his arms and kicking his legs with wide open eyes in his awake time; enjoying music and the noise of his brothers; and moving his whole body in agreement with his light-up-the-world smiles.
In his twenty-second month, Xander is: doing a lot of pretending in his play kitchen (so adorable); starting to be quite the little provoker; narrating his activities throughout the day; comforting the baby when he cries by saying “Kay, baby…Mommy here” and bringing him his pacifier; valiantly giving up his bottle of water (his own pacifier); and talking up a STORM (saying things like funny…”fuddy”…JoJo, careful JoJo, uh oh Pooh drop honey, see that, JoJo milk all gone, Mommy knee hurt, look Mommy more owie, please open…”pease ope”…bag, more buttercup, honey pot dump out, look Mommy egg, sure Mommy, like apple pie, green…”geed”…light Mommy, get honey pot, hi bug, I do rope swing…”ope sing”, oh great…”gate”, etc.).
The boys and I have been having so much fun working in the garden…they love helping me plant, water, and check on the seeds and plants to see how they’re growing.
We picked up a book at a yard sale down the street for Jonas called “Zinnia’s Garden” by Monica Wellington. Jonas really enjoys reading it, and I thought it would be fun to try to plant some of the same flowers in our garden (zinnias, sunflowers, cosmos, asters, and sweet peas).
We also planted some bulbs (daffodils and anemones) that have already bloomed, some herbs (rosemary, lavender, oregano, and chamomile), some vegetables (spinach and cherry tomatoes), and some fruits (strawberries, watermelons, blackberries, strawberries, and raspberries). Yay for gardening experiments!!!
In his eighth week, Roman is: suddenly realizing mommy is there and wanting to socialize at 4 and 5 o’clock in the morning; increasing his awake, alert, and socializing time; giving us a glorious 5 and 1/2 hour stretch of night time sleep (it looks like it was just a one time thing, but here’s hoping there’s more where that came from…).
At seven weeks, Roman is: continuing to stretch out his daytime and nighttime feedings on his own; falling into a fairly consistent routine of sleeping and eating; smiling, cooing, and laughing; and developing a thing for sucking on the knuckle of his forefinger (it’s really just so adorable…when it falls out of his mouth, he lets out a little squeal…or a big cry…and goes right back to being perfectly content when he finds it again).
My dear friend, Lizza, invited the boys and I out to visit a baby goat farm with her and her two precious little ones, Bennett and Isabelle Leigh (named after me…hehe!!!). It was so precious watching the boys…here’s a picture of Bennett helping feed and of Jonas and Xander holding a baby goat.
At six weeks, Roman is: seeming to feel a little bit better in the tummy (now that Mommy has cut out the dairy from her diet and that he’s taking probiotics twice a day) and passing out the sweetest middle of the night smiles (when Mommy needs them most).
Jonas has been really excited about the appearance of the bulbs that we planted in the fall…so much so that he stripped them all of their flowers in the few short days of early spring (oh well, they were beautiful while they lasted, and it was worth the wasted wait to see the excitement on his face when they finally bloomed).
He transitioned quickly and well to sleeping in his big boy bed without the safety rail and loves using big boy toothpaste now to brush his teeth.
He’s starting to get crafty…like when you leave the room and Xander starts crying and you ask him what happened and he says, “I don’t know” with a smile (we’re currently in talks about “telling the truth”) and when he deliberately does things he knows he’s not supposed to do while all the while making eye contact with you (we’ve been discussing the difference between doing things “on purpose” and “on accident”).
He LOVES his new baby brother, Roman. He likes to hold and hug him, read to him, help give him a bath, and share his favorite things (like his Thomas jammies and his Pooh bear) with him…so sweet to watch.
In his fifth week, Roman is: packing on the weight; amazing us with how many facial expressions he goes through in one minute; winning the loudest, most spirited eater award; getting really good at lifting his head (he loves to look at the beautiful pictures of Jonas and Xander that my dear friend, Marcie, took that hang above our living room couch); adding a heartbreaking, turned-down, bottom lip sometimes when he puckers up and cries (bless him); and giving us a four hour stretch of sleep two nights in a row.
In his twenty-first month, Xander is: saying “ticka” for “tickle” and “follah” for “flower”; starting to emerge as the funny guy; saying “sure” (or “um” while he considers it) when you ask him if we wants something/wants to do something; really getting the spirit of kindness behind having manners (it just wells up naturally from his heart)…saying “pease” when he wants something, “taku” when you give him something, and “besshu” when he hears someone sneeze; turning into a big boy all of a sudden; being a good big brother to his new baby brother, Roman (bringing him his pacifier when he cries, saying “besshu, baby” when he sneezes, and learning how to give gentler pats); starting to give Jonas a taste of his own medicine with all of the pushing, taking, and hitting (ugh); and running to time out when he does something wrong (and even sometimes when he doesn’t) and running back to give pats and say “shawee, JoJo”.
(I was trying to distract him the other day from something he was wanting to do that he shouldn’t and said, “Xander, can you go put Petra’s collar on her?”. He said, “No, shi”…he knew she was outside…and just went back to what he was doing. Ha!).
Xander had fun hunting Easter eggs in our front yard while Jonas was at school, and Jonas enjoyed dyeing Easter eggs after he got home from school while Xander was taking a nap.
In his fourth week, Roman is: starting to stretch out his feedings a little bit (thank goodness…he’s been going strong on the every 2 hour day and night thing since birth); enjoying his first bottle of mommy’s milk; being very attentive to voices; taking a keen interest in the patterns on my shirts when he’s nursing (he was so into a black and white floral shirt that I had on one day that he went cross-eyed momentarily); and starting to smile (up until now, he’s been very serious).
(P.S. I was so excited to discover the other day that Roman loves Ray LaMontagne as much as I do. He was sleeping in his swing to “Jolene”…one of my favorite songs EVER…and every time it rolled over to the next artist/song on my iPhone he would wake up and cry until I put “Jolene” back on…that’s my boy!)
At three weeks, Roman is: confusing his days and his nights (he likes to be up and eating every hour when everybody else is ready to sleep); winning the gruntiest baby award; trying to work through some gas issues and thus much preferring to be held most of the time and close to the warmth of Mommy and Daddy; and very much enjoying car (yay!) and Bjorn rides (where he gets some of his best sleep).
In his second week, Roman is: enjoying his first full body bath in the baby tub after losing his umbilical cord and giving Jonas a run for his money on being a vocal infant.
We had our first really warm day today (more summer like than spring like), so we busted out the water table for the boys…they loved it and got soaked (next time I’ll put them in their swimming trunks).
At one week, Roman is: nursing like a champ (thank you, God…it’s what we prayed for) and one ounce shy of his birthweight only three days after birth; sleeping through the night his first night in the hospital (the five hour kind…I had to wake him up to feed him); and letting out a little squeal when there’s something he really wants.
Here are a few more great one-liners from Jonas…
“Mommy, I found a cloud that looks like an ice cream cone.”
“Mommy, I wish I had a long, long, long hand with a paintbrush to reach the ceiling…then I could paint it.”
“Mommy, I like your new flower called ‘daffodil’.”
(On a side note, Jonas played a VERY important role in helping to rescue a stray dog this month…he basically had Tom and I both close to tears on the way home from the restaurant where we found her, saying things like, “I think she’s sad because she needs a friend” and “I don’t want her to eat grass”, so we turned back around and picked her up.)
Petra loves to guard Roman…
At twenty months, Xander is: surprising us every day with his expanding vocabulary (see, cut, lap, hide, cup, top, dip, honey, catch, “lot” for “a lot”, “dump” for “jump”, “cose” for “close”, “seeze” for “squeeze”, “sup” for “syrup”, “muse” for “music”, “mesh” for “medicine”, “bit” for “big”, “phot” for “phone”, “bat” for “back”, “cabi” for “cabinet”, “shool” for “stool”, “tash” for “trash”, “XanXan” for “Xander”, and “JoJo” for “Jonas); outing with more and more two and three word combinations (get it, did it, do it, “pease ope” for “please open”, “moh pease lot” for “more please…a lot”, “appuh deuce” for “apple juice”, “mess keen it” for “mess clean it”); and using words to show us his silly side (saying “cheese” when you take his picture and “cool” when you put him in a shirt he likes).
Welcome to the world and to our family, precious baby boy.
Roman Cole Seyfried
Thursday, March 1, 2012 at 1:30 am
7 pounds, 10 ounces, and 20 inches
