Watch Me Grow: 2 Months

those are not bunny ears by the way ...  they're my feet :)

My sweet baby boy is 2 months old!!  Can you believe it??  I keep thinking that the 8 weeks leading up to his birth took forever and the 8 weeks since have flown by.  Here's what's new in life with Carter.

•  This month Carter earned a new nickname.  Captain Fussy Pants.  But after a chiropractic adjustment and cutting dairy out of my diet (sad), I'm happy to say he's doing much much better.  Now he's the sweet and smiley boy that I always knew he was.
• He's nursing about every 3 hours or so.  Sometimes less, usually more.  He's a pretty efficient eater now.  We can be done in less than 10 minutes.  
• Carter is sleeping longer stretches at night, usually only waking twice to eat.  And after eating, he'll go right back to sleep.  Awesome!  Despite his fussy-ness during the day, he's always slept well at night.  And after our early morning feeding, he just stays in bed with us and snuggles.  I love it!
• He's getting stronger every day.  He can hold his head up really well and when supported can put all his weight on his legs.
• Speaking of legs, they're super chubby and cute!  He's really filling out and I love his pudgy little rolls.
• When you look at Carter and smile, he'll smile right back and coo at you.  Melts my heart every time.  What mother doesn't love those huge toothless grins?  Usually when I pull out the camera Carter just stares at it in amazement rather than smiling.  But Chris was able to capture these few smiles before we headed out one evening.

Isn't that hat just adorable?  It's ok, you can say it.  He's pretty much the cutest kid ever!

No More Cheese

Wow, it's been a whole month since I've posted anything. I've wanted to, believe me, and I have several posts already written ... in my head. But given that Carter's new nickname is Captain Fussy Pants, most all of my time lately has been rocking, nursing and in general holding baby C.  I'm ok holding him.  Really.  In fact, I prefer to hold him rather than just set him in a chair for most of the day.  But even while holding, rocking, swaying, wearing, swaddling, bouncing, walking, and shushing him, he would still cry.  The only time he wasn't crying was when he was eating (all the time) and when he was sleeping (hardly ever).  Oh, the frustration.  And during this time his poops have been ... well ... let's just say less than lovely.  My purely breastfed baby is supposed to have sweet smelling diapers and his were anything but.  Something wasn't right.

So after a few weeks of this I took him to the chiropractor.  I figured I'd start there.  Dr. Marsh adjusted him and then suggested I start limiting my dairy intake.  I had thought that maybe my diet was contributing to the problem, but didn't really want to believe it.  I mean, do you know how hard it would be for this Wisconsin girl to stop eating cheese??  But it was worth a try.  So starting that day (which was exaclty two weeks ago now) I stopped consuming dairy.  No milk. No cheese.  No yogurt.  No sour cream.  No butter.  No cottage cheese.  No nothing.  (ok, I know that's not grammatically correct, but you'll have to forgive me ... I'm dairy deprived!)

I was hoping for an immediate improvement but we all know that didn't happen.  But Carter did seem to get a little better.  In fact he was on an every other day schedule.  One day crabby and fussy as usual.  The next, smiley and happy.  And then back to crabby.  This went on for a week.  Then this last week he's had more and more happy days.  And finally two weeks later, I believe we've solved the problem.  Carter has been an amazing napper!  He's smiling and cooing and it's fun to be around him again.  Oh and his poop??  (because you were all dying to know)  Yep, back to normal.  Which makes risning and washing diapers much more pleasant.

So I guess that makes giving up my favorite food group worth it.  And as an added bonus, I'm dropping the baby weight faster and saving money to boot.  Milk is expensive!  Now my my only problem is ... what do I make for supper????