5 months

Okay, so I'm a little late (again) on the Cian update, but I wanted to get it up before we fly over to the states for 6 weeks.

Right, so my little man is huge. He's pretty much on the same growth rate as Liam, which is big. At his 5 month check up he was a big 18lbs and 70cms. He's in US size 9months and UK size 6-9 month clothing. We changed him to the active baby pampers because he's such a mover. He spends most of his time on his tummy- he rolls over withing 2 seconds of being put down. At this stage (5 1/2 months), Liam was showing signs of crawling- he would be planking and putting his wee bum up in the air. Cian is showing this same signs and I think he'll be crawling around the same time.
Cian is eating all different types of vegetables- he's not very keen on fruit at this stage. He's tried carrot, parsnip, turnip, butternut squash, sweet potato, avocado, banana, apple and pear. We are going to continue with other fruits and veggies and start to introduce fish and chicken after 6 months.
This is what I find most of the time, Liam and Cian together.

Cian is getting better at sitting up. He still needs a bit of assistance, but he's well on his way.

My cuties.


We are off to the states tomorrow morning! I'll make sure to update the blog with loads of pictures from all of our adventures.

4 Months

Yes, I know, this is a really delayed update (as per usual these days). So the little man was 4 months at the beginning of the month. He is getting bigger and stronger with each passing day. I have him in US size 6-9 month clothing and he's outgrowing his UK size 3-6 month clothes already. He really is a big bruiser. I am visiting the baby clinic next Monday to have him weighed and measured but I think he's around 17 1/2 pounds and probably 70 cms. He is the same size, if not bigger than Liam was at this age. He's a pretty calm baby, but has his moments. He has found his hands and feet and spends a lot of time playing with both. He's mastered taking his dummy out and popping it back in. He is also rolling over back to tummy and tummy to back, something I found out unfortunately with a thud as he rolled off the bed- a good 4 rolls. Needless to say, he's no longer on my bed for anything. If I have forgotten something and I need to pop into another room, he goes straight on a blanket on the floor.

He started waking up in the middle of the night at 18/19 weeks for a feed, something he hasn't done since 3 or 4 weeks. So, I have started weaning him. We started with baby rice at 19 weeks. He was getting a bit constipated with just the rice and I also noticed a bit of eczema on the backs of his thighs and behind his ears. It's not severe and doesn't seem to be bothering him at all. I'm just making sure he's well oiled up after baths. We progressed at 20 weeks to a baby cereal in the morning and he didn't really like the taste, but after a few goes he seems to be taking to it. Last week (21 weeks) we started steamed pureed organic carrots which seems to have cured the constipation. This week we'll go for organic butternut squash and organic pureed apples. I love making him all of the little baby foods and watching as he tries something new.
The little man also seems to be teething. I bought him a Baltic amber teething anklet at 3 months because he was showing signs of teething then. He seems a bit better, but has very red rosy cheeks, is drooling constantly and gnawing away at anything he can.
He loves tummy time and flips onto his tummy pretty much as soon as I put him down. He grabs for everything, especially my hair, and loves looking at himself in the mirror. He is starting to babble a lot and loves to hear the sound of his voice. He has one piercing screech!
You can see his lovely eyes in this photo. They are getting bluer by the day. He has beautiful long and curled eyelashes- I'm very jealous!

Aunt Linda's visit

My aunt came over for just over 2 weeks at the end of May, beginning of June. It was so nice to have her here to help entertain Liam, love up Cian and help me organise the house a bit. The weather was less than impressive with low temperatures and mostly rainy or cloudy days... damn Irish weather!
She helped me get things prepared for the christening and was the official photographer on the day. We visited with Anne and Aunt Annie, hit the shops, visited the farm and the park. She introduced Liam to Banana ice cream, which is now his favourite ever!

I love this shot of Aunt Annie and Cian...

Aunt Lin and the wee man...
The weather got nicer towards the end of Aunt Lin's visit and we were able to get to the park for some fooling around...Spiderman...
We went to Springvale farm to see the animals. The weather was a bit crazy- one minute sunshine, the next clouds and rain. It was a nice day getting to see all of the little animals. Here's Liam hamming it up with me and Cian (wonder where he got that from?)
Big boy gets to go on his own in the barrel ride!
Nice shot of the boys.At the start of our development there are a few shops- hairdressers, tanning salon, chemist and village store. The village store was celebrating it's 1 year anniversary and threw a little family fun day with a bouncy castle, sumo wrestling, dj, etc. Here's Liam showing off his prize for being such a great dancer...
I realised how much I missed her, my mom, grandma and the rest of my family and friends so... I'm heading home to the states for an extended holiday at the end of the summer! I'm off on maternity leave until November so the time couldn't be better. I'll have 4 weeks there with just me and the boys and then Ollie will join us for the final 2 weeks. I'm looking forward to not having to cram a million visits into 2 weeks and get to enjoy a holiday at home for once!

Cian is 3 months

Cian is 3 months (well was a few weeks ago... he's nearly 4 months now) and boy is this little man growing strong! He's still a brilliant sleeper and is normally in bed from 9-10pm until 7-8am. He takes 2 set 2-3 hour naps during the day and is very alert for the remaining 7-10 hours! We have stopped breastfeeding completely now- I stopped at 12 weeks. My milk was just not there and that combined with his reflux and huge appetite just meant we had to stop. I was a little disappointed, but we did our best and 3 months is better than nothing at all! He is taking 210mls/ 7ozs of formula 5 to 6 times a day. He loves his food and is taking a real interest in what we are eating too. At his 3 month check up and injections he measured a big 65.5cms (25.8 ins) and 15lbs 9 ozs. He's in the 91st-97th percentile for both weight and length. He's pretty much exactly the same as Liam was at this stage, but considering he started out over a pound lighter and an inch smaller he might just be bigger than Liam soon! He has beautiful medium blue eyes and brown hair. Here's a pretty good shot of his eyes...
I have brown eyes and both Ollie and Liam have a hazel green, but everyone else in my family (apart from my grandmother) has blue eyes so I'm hoping they stay blue. He's a wee dote as they would say here- meaning he's a little cutie. He is a really good baby and I cannot complain one bit. He is a great sleeper, good eater, and for the most part has a great disposition. He seems to have outgrown his evening colic which makes for a more pleasant evening for everyone. He is so strong and loves to stand up (supported, of course) and is starting to enjoy tummy time, sitting in his bumbo chair and loves baby yoga. Cian is a wee wriggler and you cannot keep him still. I think he'll be rolling around and crawling in no time! He smiles all of the time now and has started laughing too. He loves his big brother and Liam loves him. I was a little worried that Liam would be jealous and be a bit rough with him, but he is so gentle and loving that it makes my heart melt. I know they are going to be best buddies.

Some recent photos of my little cutie-pie.

Cian's Christening

We celebrated Cian's christening on a sun filled, windy Sunday afternoon. He wore the same christening gown as Liam, one that I hope his own children will wear one day. I was getting a little worried he might not fit into it as it's 3-6 months and he is a little porker these days, but thankfully he fit it perfectly. We had Cian's christening at our parish church, Christ the Redeemer and Father Raymond performed a wonderfully personal service for us and 2 other babies. Cian, of course, was the cutest and most vocal... and from what my arms felt like after the 45 minute service, the heaviest. Here he is with his daddy after getting dressed in the crying chapel.
He wasn't that impressed with the water, but only fussed a wee bit.

We stayed for a few photos in the chapel before heading around to the Balmoral Hotel for his party. Here's the best family shot we could get.
Cian was stood for by one of Ollie's best mates, Joe (who according to Ollie would raise Cian in the religion of Man United) and Ollie's sister Susan.We had around 40 people join us for a hot buffet lunch of vegetarian pasta and garlic chicken with rice, salads and fresh breads. I made a cake and cupcakes for the kids. We had a friend, Warren, sing and play guitar. He got the kids all dancing to the Jungle Book and loads of funky wee tunes. Here's me with the wee man of the day.
Liam was in fine form, running around the ballroom and shouting, singing and dancing his wee heart out. He didn't even want a story that night and fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

I'm a bit proud of Cian's cake which I made from scratch using fondant icing for the first time. It was a Madeira sponge cake with buttercream, strawberry jam and fresh strawberries. It turned out really well and I'm going to try and get myself a few commission jobs to improve my skills.

More posts to come...

Cian is 2 months!

Wow, that was fast! These past 2 months have flown by quicker than I would like. It is nice to see him starting to get into a routine and to watch him get more alert and interested with each passing day, but it reminds me that my maternity leave is also flying by. I mean, I still have 6 months left but it's moving by too quickly!
**special mention for my BFF Heather who made the lovely blanket in the picture above**

So what's our little man up to... he had his 8 week injections last Thursday and was not impressed. He did the whole crying so hard he didn't make a sound but turned beat red. It broke my heart- I think I'm going to see if Ollie can bring him next time. We also saw the doctor for a check up and she thought he was doing brilliantly. He's got great head control and is very sturdy. Everything is where it should be and she was charmed by his flirty little smiles. I discussed his spitting/throwing up with her and she confirmed that she thought it was reflux. We now have to add a milk thickener to his bottles and so far it's really doing the trick. He was never too distressed by throwing up but this way he gets all of his feed and it stays down. I have to wait for the thickener to work which gives me enough time to nurse before his bottle. He is a great sleeper at night and has been from the start really. We now usually give him his last feed around 8/9pm and he wakes for his next feed at 5/6am. I suppose that's one of the advantages of combination feeding and the thickener might be helping as well.
He's for the most part a pleasant baby- I've started playing him the baby Einstein dvds and he's really into them (they are only 30 minutes). He still is pretty cranky at night, but we have seen an improvement with this as well since starting the thickener.
We started yoga yesterday and he did great. He got a little fussy, but was easily calmed down with a quick nurse. He was noticing all of the other babies and mommies and enjoyed the singing and tummy time. I enjoyed the yoga, relaxation and meeting the other mommies and babies. I'm really looking forward to the remaining 8 weeks of the course. I'm looking into a baby massage course too.
Some pictures from the past week...
Just thought this picture was cute. Cian thinks Liam is pretty amazing and he gets the most smiles after me.

Tummy time...
He is one long boy.
Big and little brothers...
My big eyed boy. I really have to try and get a good picture of his eyelashes. They are so long and beautiful.

Updates

The health visitor was here on Wednesday (one day shy of seven weeks old) to check on Cian's growth and development. He's a big boy measuring 62cms and a whopping 12lbs, 6ozs. He's around the 91st percentile for both his height and weight. Cian is full of smiles and cooing like mad. He's starting to lose his hair around the back and sides from moving his head around so much to see what's going on. We're still doing the combination feeding- nursing for 10-20 minutes and taking 4-5ozs of formula. I'm really struggling now with expressing and hardly manage to get an ounce out these days, but I'm probably just producing enough for his feeds. The health visitor was really impressed with his development and growth. We have his 8 week immunisations on Thursday and I'm really not looking forward to it! Poor little thing is bound to be cross with me for letting the doctor stick him with a needle.

Luckily, Bronagh (the health visitor) had a stadiometer in her car and the baby scales converted into stand on scales so we were able to see how big Liam is now. He is huge! 40.5 inches tall (91st percentile) and a massive 41.5 lbs (98th percentile)! She was so impressed with his development- he was talking to her like mad and wrote his name and Cian's for her. She couldn't believe he was only 3 years 4 months old.

Our big, beautiful and genius boys ;-)

Easter

Liam woke up very early and wanted to see if the Easter bunny had been. He was super excited to see a basket full of yummy chocolate treats and some colouring books.
Cian's basket had some new dummies, gruffalo onesies, some formula and a bib.
After a packed 11 o'clock mass, we headed down to Great Aunt Annie's house for Easter dinner. We had a little egg hunt while we waited for the festivities to begin. Here's a nice picture with my new little man.
Best buds...
Liam's looking what's in his eggs... mmm, chocolate.
One of Liam's prizes for getting all of the eggs in his easter egg hunt... Gruffalo pajamas!
Modelling his Easter crown.Auntie Susan cuddling with a sleepy Cian.
I was in charge of desserts and made another tasty victoria sponge, yummy carrot cake and some little egg cookie sandwiches with buttercream. My baking skills were hailed a great success... always nice to impress the inlaws!

It was a very long day and we all were very ready for our beds when we got home!