Visiting Daddy at work

The new boss in town.

Caiden's first Halloween

Our sweet little pumpkin pie. We really couldn't resist putting Caiden in a costume for Halloween and laughing hysterically at him. Poor guy. He's going to love these when he's older. Perfect for that graduation or wedding slide show. You can see from the progressions of pictures that by the end he was not happy with us.

SeaWorld!

Marc's employer had an employee appreciation day at SeaWorld on Saturday. My sister came along with us so we could all have some fun and ride some of the rides. Caiden did awesome all day long. We were there for about 5 hours and it was a pretty warm day so we tried to stay in the shade and enjoy attractions like the in-door aquariums and polar bear enclosure. The aquariums were in his league, he would watch the turtles, sharks and fish swim by (the ones that were slow enough for him to follow anyway).

Marc, my sis and I took turns in teams of 2 riding the rides. The new Manta roller coaster is sweet and Journey to Atlantis, the log ride, you get soaking wet. I'm so glad we braved taking a 3 month old and a plus is that we all upgraded our passes and now get in free this year and all of 2013! SCORE! It's so nice that we live just a few minutes away and I can't wait for Caiden to get more and more out of each trip we take.

3 months

Caiden is getting so much more active and fun everyday. He's starting to play with his toys, and he really loves his play yard/mat and will kick at the stuff hanging, he'll smile at himself in the mirror on it (which is one of his favorite things to do). If he's in a bad mood, put him front of a mirror and he's instantly smiley. I'm pretty sure he's obsessed with himself. He is talking all the time. In the morning he'll go off for an hour just babbling to himself. It literally happened overnight.

He's the bomb at tummy time and doesn't mind doing it for 5 minutes at a time. He wants to push off on his left arm and roll over so bad, he will be doing it in no time!

We broke out the bumbo earlier this week and he's pretty good at sitting up. He can sit in it for a few minutes at a time which is great so I can get him off his back to try and round out his head.

So much for that full head of hair. I noticed this morning in his bed that his hair was all over the sheet. I guess it's finally starting to fall out. :( I wonder how much will fall out, he has so much I can't imagine it all will.

He's still on the same sleep schedule he's been on for quite awhile. In bed at 7pm, wakes up around 10:30pm, 2:30am and 6:30am and eats at all of them. Marc is still doing the 10:30 feeding with the bottle. Caiden had a set back a few weeks ago and hated the bottle and would scream for 30 minutes, so I started doing one feeding a day with a bottle to get him used to it again and now he's back at it. He eats so much. If I give him a bottle during the day I'll usually put 5 ounces in it and when he's done he wants more. I'm pretty sure he's getting probably 6+ ounces at each feeding and he's eating every 3-5 hours. No wonder he's such a big boy.

He loves the aquarium in his crib. He falls asleep to it all the time. It has a remote and you can turn it off outside the room so you don't have to go in and click the button on it and possibly wake him up. It was a great registry gift!

He's still eating about every 3-4 hours during the day with a nap after each feeding. Sometimes the nap is only 20 minutes and other times it's an hour. You can really tell when he's ready for a nap. He gets a little cranky and whiny and I know it's time to take him to his crib.

He's pretty awesome and I love that I can play with him more now. I also love being able to see all the new things he learns every day. I try to take videos so I can show Marc when he gets home so he doesn't miss out. I can't believe he's 3 months already. Boy have we come a long way since those first few nights at home...I really don't miss those at all. ;)

Our Anniversary!

We've been married for three years today! We met seven years ago at a Halloween party and never looked back. We've had a blast together and I couldn't imagine it any other way.
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Caiden's sleeping habits...

...or lack thereof.

We are still struggling to get Caiden on a sleep schedule of any sort. I know it's early and a lot of my friends say it really doesn't work until they are at least 3 months old but I just keep hoping I go to sleep one night and not wake up until 5 or 6. We've been trying to get him down by 7pm, which is totally doable unless we go out to dinner or something, and he will usually fall asleep by 8pm. He then typically wakes up around 11, which is about 5 hours since he last ate, so that's not too bad. But then he wakes up again at around 2 or 3 and then again around 5 or 6...which just seems way too much. A few people have told us that since he weighs so much that he probably doesn't really need to be eating at that 2/3am wake up call, that we could just change him and put him back down and that eventually he won't wake up anymore. Or he'll wake up but then maybe just fuss a bit then fall back asleep and we don't even need to go in there. People are saying that he's just used to eating every 3 hours during the day so at night he's expecting the same thing but doesn't necessarily need it. So we'll see, maybe we'll try to trick him at the 2/3am wake up call. My only concern is that I'll try to do it and after 30 minutes of struggling to get him to fall asleep I just feed him anyway...and then I just wasted 30 minutes of golden sleep. I am just so exhausted when he's getting up this often and feel like a zombie all day long. OH, and I swear all you people out there telling me your 10 week old is sleeping through the night...I'm pretty sure you are lying to me ;)

One thing is for sure. He loves to sleep in our bed. Marc gets up around 6:30 so when Caiden wakes up around the 6/7am time I will usually bring him in our bed and then he sleeps like a champ. Sometimes he'll sleep for another 2 or 3 hours, until 10 or 11am. And I'll sleep right along with him!

Nice and comfy on Daddy's side of the bed

***UPDATE: Last night he woke up at 12:15 (and he ate about 3 hours before that) and we tried to give him the paci and calm him back to sleep, it worked...for about 15 minutes until he woke up again at 12:40 and we tried it again, then woke up again at 1:20 and we tried it again, then woke up at 1:45 and tried it again. Finally at 2am when I was so exhausted and just lost almost 2 hours of prime sleep I gave in and fed him.

My girlfriend Davida said it well, "There is exhausted and then really exhausted and it's totally not worth being really exhausted." She has a 10 month old that still isn't sleeping through the night and getting up every 3-4 hours and she has just accepted the fact that her kid isn't going to sleep through the night.

What we're up to

We've discovered all kinds of new things to do with Mr. Caiden these past few weeks. He really does love to go on walks in the Baby Bjorn. These past few weeks I've probably taken him out two or three times a day. Sometimes he'll fall asleep in it which can be a challenge when I get home and I want to get stuff done because when you try to take him out he wakes right up. He's also desperately trying to stick his whole fist in his mouth. He can entertain himself for quite awhile trying to figure out how to keep it in there and suck away. He really likes to be outside or I'll prop him up on the chair so he can look outside. Sometimes when the wind is blowing and the plants outside the window are moving he'll watch them and giggle to himself.

He's become a slave to the pacifier when he's tired and wants to nap or go to bed. The minute you put it in his mouth his eyes roll to the back of his head and he's out. The problem is if it falls out too soon he wakes right up and isn't happy. Not sure how I'm going to break that down the road. I wish I could leave his hands free without the mittens so he could find his fingers at night but he will scratch his face because his eczema is still pretty bad. I've tried almost all eczema products out there and none are working. I have a feeling it's what I'm eating and everything I've read says I need to cut dairy out of my diet. It's almost impossible, I realize almost every single meal has some sort of dairy in it. I feel so bad for him because I see him trying to scratch his belly and legs but we keep him pretty lubed up so his nails just slide off.

On a brighter note the thrush seems to be going away. At our last appointment the doctor said it will probably eventually just go away and it has! We did an entire round of the antibiotics last month and it didn't do anything. We finished it 3 weeks ago and just this week I noticed its almost gone from his tongue.

Also at our last appointment the doctor said we need to keep him off his back as much as possible, only keep him there when he's sleeping because he's developing a flat head and may need a helmet :( if it gets any worse. It's exhausting carrying him around all day or trying to get him to do tummy time. I think, like all newborns, he's not a big fan of it and if the wind isn't blowing in exactly the right way he does not like it. We'll see what happens at his four month appointment, if he's going to wear one earlier the better so it will probably happen right after that.