Andrew’s first Christmas was awesome! We went to Andy’s dad’s side on Christmas Eve for the traditional Goin celebration. It was a hard one this year being the first without Granny, the mother of the 6 siblings that are now becoming grandparents. But it was a happy one too to have Andrew as the new baby and to find out one of our cousins is pregnant again and we’re getting another boy in Andrew’s generation. No girls yet, they have all been boys.
Andrew was so good. He was tired but he let people hold him and he nursed in the downstairs bedroom no problems. Grandmomma was there with us for the first year and she enjoyed time with him more than meeting new relatives! She played with him on her lap several times while he looked at tree lights and the older kids playing with their toys.
It was his first time to see other babies, though the other babies were all over one year old they seemed quite interested in each other.
I hope we don’t have to wait a whole year to see them again!
He even took a short nap on Grandmother Lorna’s shoulder. It is so funny to see her with Andrew. He’s her first grandson and she seems to go right back to what she did with her youngest son and just bounce him and rock back and forth with him. It worked and he slept for about 20 minutes and was good to go for another hour after that!
Then that night Grandmomma stayed with us in Sanger and we all opened our presents to each other. Andrew was awake for most of that. He went to sleep without a bath that night too.
We were so anxious for the next morning and still processing through the evenings events that I think Andrew was the only one who got much sleep that night! I fell asleep before Andy though.
I got up with Andrew a little after 6 so he could spend some time with me and Grandmomma and get in a nap before going to Grandmother and Granddaddy’s for Christmas morning.
We had fun and opened stockings and got Andrew all dressed up in his cute little Tree jammy’s from Grandmother before we left.
He did take a short nap at home and one in the car on the way there. He even slept through it when we drove past a farm where a calf had gotten out of the barbed wire fence. Andy pulled over and turned around. It could have been very dangerous for a driver had the calf wandered in to the road! It is a very curvy 2-laned back road. So Andy “Ya-ed” the calf until it ran back through the hole in the fence. Then he scared all the cows back away from the fence so they might not try to get out again. At least not right away. It was chilly and windy and Andy had a good time doing it anyway!!
Then we got to Grandmother’s and Andrew was still so sleepy. He wanted to spend time with Grandmother and Meema though so he didn’t want to sleep right away! Grandmother tried to put him to sleep in her room but he needed to just be rocked on his own. We didn’t have his trusty bouncy seat with us but she has an infant carrier that he likes to lay in too. I put it by me at the kitchen table and rocked him and he fell asleep pretty quickly. He even slept through his cousins (2 and 6) coming over very excited and yelling.
We all enjoyed Granddaddy Ken’s famous Christmas breakfast. We look forward to it every year!
Then we moved to the living room for gift time. There were so many presents under the tree, they weren’t even under the tree!! Andrew woke up for a short while and sat in his bumbo and looked at a few of his gifts. Then he got hungry so I sat in a couch corner and fed him under a blanket while his Daddy opened gift after gift after gift from his grandmas for Andrew! Andrew eventually fell back asleep and nothing we did would wake him again. He slept through pretty much the whole present opening!!
Grandmother and Granddaddy and Meema gave Andrew so many gifts! He got tons of toys and clothes and things. I am still un-packaging the toys and washing the clothes. Can anyone tell me why they put so much packaging on those toys??? Such royal pains in the you-know-what!
Meema gave him the cutest little rocking chair. It isn’t one of those stuffed chairs that are all over now, he’d have had that squished in a month! It’s a nice wicker type white rocker that is sturdy and I can see him spending many hours rocking the thing to its limit! He’s still a little small for it now, but I am sure it won’t be long until he’s filling it out!
He had such a busy weekend before Christmas too. We took him to Lake Ray Roberts Friday night and Saturday afternoon to visit some other relatives on the Goin side, Andy’s aunts and uncles. They were all enjoying holding Andrew. He did pretty well. He napped at the site in his stroller both days! We can’t wait to take him camping. We’ll be in a tent of course not nice RVs like they had. But we plan to get started as soon as the weather turns nice again.
Andrew also turned 12 weeks old on Wednesday this past week. Huge birthday I think. Sad that time is already going so fast. He seems to learn and do something new each day, whether it be a new noise he can make or just longer in his exersaucer or at tummy time. He has been grabbing things on the exersaucer and trying to put them in his mouth. He stays in tummy time for a very long time now, though he prefers it on a lap! He was on his tummy for quite a while this morning as we put the tree away, he and I, and we talked about everything we were doing. He talks so much now! I wish I could spell the things he says. Mostly ‘Naaaa’ and ‘Nnngaaaa.’ And several various vowels.
I think he may be hitting another growth spurt. Either that or his tummy is just bigger. He used to never nurse from two sides in one sitting and the last couple of days at more than one feeding I have had to switch sides. Plus he’s sleeping on average 12 hours a night and still napping 3-4 hours during the day. He does play hard though and when he’s awake, he’s very alert.
Everyone at Christmas couldn’t believe he was only 12 weeks old. They all said he was so big for one thing but also so alert and really looking at people and things. Trying to learn as much as he can.
I love taking him with me around the house as I do chores and talking to him about what I am doing. Sometimes he’s in his bouncy, sometimes bumbo, and today he was in his exersaucer watching me do dishes and sweeping up tree mess. I think he learns a lot just watching me be. I also talk with him and he answers.
Andy works hard most of the day on his computer taking care of the various sites we have but once he turns around and starts talking to Andrew, Andrew’s face lights up and he giggles and gives one of those big open mouthed baby smiles. You know the ones, they take up the whole face and have no teeth! The cutest for sure!
One of our favorite times of the day is bath time! We all spend time together as a family and it’s so great. Andy and Andrew usually in the tub though sometimes we switch and Mommy gets in the tub. Andrew likes to go ‘swimmin’ and this week he prefers to swim on his tummy and kick his feet out behind him. It is seriously the cutest darn thing. He only gets soap every other day but we bathe him every day to keep with the routine. After bath he gets his swaddle and nurses to sleep. Most nights go just like that for now. The time may be different but the routine remains the same.
Andrew is also really exploring his voice. It seems he’s making a new sound every day. He definitely talks to me.
I am also very lucky to have a good sleeper. He fights it sometimes if he’s over tired or too excited about something. But on a normal day he’s only awake for almost 2 hours in the morning before he’s ready for another nap! Great chance for me to sweep the floor or finish dishes or whatever. He’ll only sleep 30-45 minutes usually but it’s just what he needs to keep up his good mood!
Tummy time is becoming more of a favorite and less of an exercise. He can roll from his tummy to his back when he is on a bed or the futon. Sometimes he needs a little help but he’s done it several times on his own. Scared Daddy one day when he set him down and turned to do something and Andrew rolled himself right off the pillow. Good thing it was in the middle of the bed! We are keeping a much greater eye on him when he is on a bed now.
He still sleeps with us at night. I want to put him in his crib to start the night, after bath and all, but it is so cold in there and I worry the cats will jump in the crib. And I just cannot shut the door on him. Even with a monitor. It’s hard enough to be away from him in the same room when he’s asleep. I miss him. I couldn’t bear him being in the other room with the door closed. Now he sleeps in his swing by Daddy’s desk until I go to bed. Daddy is always sad when I take him too, but by that time he is ready to eat again so I just nurse him in bed. If I even suggest to Andy that we put him in his crib, he immediately shoots it down too. He says he’s still too young to be so far away from us, especially at night. I will admit I do not sleep as well as I could with no baby in the bed. But I do sleep better than I would if the baby was in the other room! Plus we can stay in bed much longer. Andrew may not sleep the whole time, I feel him kicking me a lot as he works out his farts, but at least we get to lie down for a long time. We are often in bed for 10 hours. It’s hard to get much sleep when he wakes me up with farts, kicks and needing to eat, but I know I’d sleep less if I just heard him doing it on a monitor from across the apartment. Especially since I’d be getting up to feed him and check on him! And if I am not there to pat him right away he may wake up entirely and then neither of us would be getting any sleep at all! I do sometimes worry about how we will get him into his own bed someday but I try not to obsess about it. We may just have to put his bed in our room or something. Once we have another baby, the newborn will be in bed with us and Andrew will be too big to share the bed with a new baby. But for now he’s only barely 3 months old and still has a long way to go being a baby!
I love just holding him. He sure isn’t lacking any loving in this family! In the mornings I have a hard time waking up so after his diaper change I will just sit in my computer chair with him and hold him. He doesn’t always need to eat since he often nurses right before we get up, that’s usually what wakes me. But I will just hold him and he holds his head up and looks around the room. I hug him and tell him he’s so awesome and I love him.
Yesterday he gave some super cute open mouth kisses. We got it on video too. He used to just open his mouth after I gave him a kiss and now he’s opening it preemptively. He did it to Daddy which is too adorable for words, and then he gave his Santa toy big open mouth kisses too! Thank God we have a video camera!
Speaking of which. We gave the grandparents all a DVD with various videos of Andrew for Christmas. I will try and get Andy to upload a couple of them to youtube or something so I can post them here for everyone to see.
Remember to check the photo album. I can’t keep up with it as much as I’d like, I have a baby to hold you know! But I do try. We didn’t get many pictures at Christmas but we got good video so again, I will try and get them uploaded. I’d do it on my computer but my video editing software crashes my machine!
Happy New Year everyone!! Be safe.
