4 months!

I'm sorry I haven't been doing such a great job of blogging lately and keeping up with things.. here is a quick recap from the last month!

Caden is now 4 months old! Over the past month (October) a LOT has happened! First, the movers came and packed all of our things to move them to Korea. During this time Caden decided not to eat. I have no idea why, and neither does the lactation consultants I talked to... For two days he was basically on an eating strike! He would scream when I tried to nurse him, and he even refused a bottle of breast milk too. I thought maybe he was teething... who knows. But after two days, he started nursing again, but he is a man on a mission when he does so! It used to be nice, relaxing 40 minute nursing sessions where I could take a break and unwind as well. Not anymore! Mr. Fussy pants grunts and fusses the whole time and tries to break nursing world records with his speed and is done and full in a total of about 15 minutes max....usually closer to 10. It's crazy! I really miss our relaxing, bonding nursing times, but this is starting a whole new phase for us. He's become much easier to transport now!! :)

Speaking of transporting the little man... not long after the movers left we took our first trip! Caden and I flew up to Ohio to visit Grammy, Popples, Grantie Nellie, Uncle Josh, Aunt Misty, Gus, Izzy, and Addie (whew!)...

Caden was a perfect little traveler! He slept when I wanted him to sleep (mainly on the planes) and because of his speedy nursing feeding him was a breeze! I had so much fun seeing Caden with John's parents! I get to see him interact with my parents all the time and they get to experience his "cuteness" all the time, too... so it was a lot of fun to finally get to show him off to the rest of the family! A small taste of what it will be like to be reunited with John!

During our stay in Ohio, Caden started to consistently sleep through the night! Every night was at least 8 hours...and a few times 10!! It was heaven!! Notice I say "was".... little did I know that was all about to change once Dad got home!!

On October 28th John flew in from Korea! We picked him up at the airport! It was so heartwarming to see Caden reunited with his daddy! Of course, John couldn't get ENOUGH of Caden! It was like a mini-vacation for me! I basically had Caden to feed him and then it was back to Dad again! We did a LOT of errand running over the next few days. John got Caden to laugh out loud for the first time on October 29th! I was in the dressing room at the mall trying on clothes and heard it outside of the dressing room door! I can't describe the feeling of hearing your little baby laugh for the first time! Your heart gets all warm and you want to just squeeze him!

Caden's first Halloween was his last night in Huntsville, AL... at least for a while! He was the cutest little cow I've ever seen! (As always pics are on our shutterfly/photo page). It was very bittersweet saying goodbye to my family. They have been such a blessing to us over the last 4 months (well, 9 months if you include the pregnancy). They graciously opened their home and lives to Caden and I and I don't know what I would have done without them. Saying goodbye was hard, but it also meant that I was finally going to move on with my son and my husband...the way it should be.

3 months!

Caden is now 2 months old and changing all the time! He is an active little thing... always squirming, kicking, and now trying to do crunches, too! He started to sleep through the night inconsistently a few weeks ago, but I am pretty much guaranteed atleast one 5-6 hour stretch each night with only one middle of the night feeding and then back to sleep for a few more hours. It's not so bad and I get through the day just fine without feeling a need to take a nap!

I introduced Caden to a DVD series similar to Baby Einstein called "Praise Baby Collection" and he loves them! Every morning when we wake up I put one on for him to watch while I eat breakfast. It's a great routine! That is one of his new favorite toys along with his Bumbo chair and a new found affection for his swing! He is also very interested in this new little bird toy that I got him. It is solid black and white on one side and it crinkles when it's touched and Caden loves to stare at it! He discovered his feet thanks to this toy! I had it on the back of the seat in the car so he could stare at it while I was driving and it accidentally fell... Caden started moving his feet and realized that his feet made the bird crinkle and he spent 20 mintues doing this over and over while I drove!

He had his two month appointment and shots on Sept 21st. He weighed in at 9 pounds, 9.5 ounces and 22 inches long!

Caden's reflux issues haven't gotten any better... so I took him to the doc to try some different meds. It will be a few weeks until we see improvement!

As for John and I... we have been waiting to get word from the chain of command as to whether or not Caden and I will be joining John in Korea! The orders FINALLY came! We will be moving to Korea the first of November and it looks like John will be able to come home and get us and fly us back to Korea so I won't have to make the trip alone! We are SO excited!!!