baby cole :: five months

so cliche, but i cannot believe that cole has been here with us for five months already! it seems like it’s been years. seriously, years. it’s so funny to think back to life with one kid. ohh, how it seemed so easy. and life with no kids — what did i do with all of my free time?! wouldn’t trade it for the world, because those tiny humans are the best. i have started referring to joey and the kids as my “home team.” how cool is it that i literally get to CREATE my own team to do life with?! so awesome.

anyways, today is about baby cole. someday he’s going to get really annoyed we call him baby cole, but right now, he’s got two first names 🙂 ask logan anything about him, and she will answer you along the lines of “no, that’s baby cole’s” “SHHHH BABY COLE IS SLEEPING” or “YOU BRING BABY COLE BACK HERE! HE’S MY LITTLE BROTHER!” most of the time screaming the latter of the two. we are so lucky that “baby cole” continues to be a sweet, loving, and calm baby. i keep saying this, but he balances out the headstrong, sassy big sis he’s got by being this strong, calm force of nature in our lives.

the good

i mean, it’s all good, right? but let’s start off with the REALLY good stuff. the first time around, i don’t think i appreciated the baby stage AT ALL with logan. this time, i know it really is a season, so i’m enjoying all of the:

• giggles. buddy loves to laugh, and he smiles with his whole body when he does. he’s super ticklish and busts out laughing if you start saying “mama,” so it’s pretty easy.
• sleeping. no, he’s not sleeping through the night. and lately he’s been teething, but overall, he’s pretty easy to get to sleep without much rocking or coaxing. trust me – you don’t think about this, but that makes life much easier when you have two kids you’re trying to put to bed and your s/o isn’t home.
• eating. like, so good i couldn’t quite keep up, and we started supplementing with formula. i’m ok with it! still looking forward to the day i can retire the ‘ol pump, but right now, i just want to keep him fed and happy.
• solid food. we started him on oat cereal recently, and he’s adapting to it decently. i’ll likely start some veggies in there soon … maybe he’s more of an avocado guy? i can’t imagine the oat cereal is that exciting anyways.

the tough stuff

• teething. like i mentioned above, he’s been teething for a while now, and along with that means broken sleep, fussiness, and a nasty drool rash on his neck. you forget that drool is acidic and intended to break down food until you have a baby and they get a bright red, painful rash anywhere they have drooled on themselves. ouchers, poor guy. we’ve actually been putting a rotation of aquaphor and diaper cream on it, since they’re both basically barrier creams (don’t worry, doc told us to). i’ll be honest, the diaper cream on his neck smells nasty, so i’m actually excited for those teeth to pop through.
• outgrowing his dockatot. this isn’t that tough, but right now you can tell he’s a little uncomfy. we still have the dockatot in the halo bassinet, but will likely look at moving him into his crib once he’s 6+ months (per doc’s orders). we waited until logan was almost a year, and she didn’t sleep through until we moved her.
• managing two. joey and i are both really busy with our careers, so that means there’s a lot of times where it’s just one of us with both kids. it’s so hard to give them both the attention they deserve while tending to the physical needs of someone. cole needs to eat, but logan wants to play. logan wants to eat, but cole needs to eat. both require me, and to be completely honest, i don’t want either one to go without whatever they need. i know it’s normal and i’m not ruining them (at least i keep telling myself that), but i’m looking forward to the day i don’t physically need to be in two different places at once.
• this is actually a good thing, but how fast he’s growing! cole keeps outgrowing clothes like crazy. he’s easily in 6months and comfortably wearing some 9 month clothing. for context: his christmas outfit i got him fits him perfectly now.

five whole months. seems like no time at all, and it seems like a lifetime. i heard something the other day in regards to motherhood, basically saying that whether you stay home with your kids, work, or are somewhere in between … no matter what you do, there will NEVER be enough time with your kids. it’s so true. i will never get enough time with them, especially with how quickly they change. what i do know, though, is how grateful i am for them and the time i do get. and yes, that means i’ll continue to sit there and stare creepily at their perfection while they do their thing, because i’m their mom and i can. 🙂