A Note to O:

Oliver, you are getting big big big. I believe Aunt Cara referred to you as a “dense” baby. Your shirt in this month’s picture is the one Daddy and I bought when we found out there was a baby in my tummy. When we got it we didn’t know there were actually three of you in there!

You’re very serious a lot of the time, you seem to be contemplating and observing everything around you. When you’re happy the whole world is happy. You coo and smile and kick your feet and look at us with your big blue (yes, we finally know the color, blue!) eyes and everyone is so in love with you. You love to have conversations with us and your Grandma and Grandpa and Nana. You raise your eyebrows as if to say “Can you believe that??” And you’re very close to giving us some real chuckles. Sometimes if you’re in a grumpy mood all we have to do is hold you and tell you a story or sing and sway and you calm down. But sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you just want to be a Grumpus all the live long day. These days are hard, especially when there just doesn’t seem to be any reason that you’re upset, but I’m sure you have your reasons. You are a sweet boy so its hard for Mom and Dad to see you when you’re really upset, and sometimes all we can do is laugh at you when you throw your head back and go “Waaaaaah!”

Your favorite thing to do other than talk to us is to hang in your lamb swing and the rainforest swing. Even though baby swings seem like they would all be the same, you definitely have a sleepy time swing and a party time swing. The lamb is cozy and soft and you cuddle up with the fuzzy lamb head pillow and drift off to sleep in minutes, but the rainforest is bright and exciting and there’s no way you’re going to sleep through all the fun your rainforest friends Mr. Monkey and The Toucan and Senor Frog are having. You crack us up with the way you kick your feet and you really like having your foot rest in the rainforest swing.

One day while Zoey and Quinn were sleeping and you were having a bit of a grumpy afternoon we decided to read The Giving Tree, one of my favorite books. I held you in my lap and as soon as I started reading you calmed down and locked your eyes on me the whole time I read. This is one of my favorite moments with you so far. You loved it so much that I read the book again and you fell asleep. I know you’re still so little, but I hope that reading books like this when you’re small will teach you to love and respect nature as you grow up. God gave us a wonderful place to live and we want you and your sisters to appreciate it and care for it.

Growing and Feeding and Sleeping

Oliver’s official weight at 3 months is 12.4 lbs (between 10th-25th percentile), and he is 24 inches long (between 25th-50th percentile). And that’s for a normal 3 month old, not based on his adjusted age, which at 3 months actual is only 6 weeks adjusted!

We’ve had our eating challenges with O over the last couple of months. After trying three different formulas and removing dairy and soy from my diet, we seemed to get his tummy troubles cleared up once he started eating a super fancy hypo-allergenic formula called Neocate. By the time we got to Neocate we had him on formula alone for a week as sort of a control test. The GI doctor said we could try adding my non-dairy breastmilk back into the mix and guess what? The little dude refused it. He would throw a big baby temper tantrum any time we tried to give him his bottle when it had a mixture of the formula and breastmilk but he would still act hungry, so we experimented and gave him a bottle of just formula which he gobbled up as if he had never before tasted something so wonderful. After a couple days of that we decided that if we knew the formula worked and he would eat it without a struggle then that’s what we would give him. Bonus? I got to start eating dairy again (just in time for Memorial Day, hello cheeseburger and fried chicken and apple pie and ice cream). I like to think that little O was just watching out for his mama and knew how much I wanted that white chocolate mocha from Starbucks. “Don’t sweat this one Ma, I’ll take it for the team.”

Mr. O sleeps well, but still wants his midnight snack. His last feed is usually somewhere between 10 and 11pm and he sleeps until 3 or 4am most nights (sometimes he may go to 5am but that’s rare). Then he’s up again around 6 or 7am. He’s still sleeping in his lamb swing at night because we get nervous about reflux when we lay him flat in the crib. We’re going to have to transition him to a crib soon though so we’ll have to figure something out.

Happy 3 months, sweet boy! We love you!