Harlow-2months

I know I'm behind when Max sees our blog and says, "What?! Mom, you haven't even put Harlow's 2 month picture on here yet!" I love that he cares... actually, they all care. In fact, they care enough to give me a moment while Harlow is taking a nap so I can finish this during the day instead of  after they are in bed at night when I seem to have no control of my eyelids.

Here is a quick recap of Harlow at 2 months...

I don't know if Harlow is actually the best baby ever, but she sure is the best baby of mine.  Her sweet temperament and calm aura have been present since her birth and even 3 months into it I am in awe daily that the serenity continues.

She almost never cries, and, when she does, it is better described as a quiet whimper that can quickly be calmed. In fact, the only time I can really expect anything but smiles from her is in the car seat--which it turns out she is not a fan of. Even then, her car seat cry is pale in comparison to Ruby's consta-scream in the car seat when she was a baby.

She sleeps at night like a pro. She has slept for 5-6 hours at night almost since we brought her home from the hospital with little coaxing from us. In fact, it used to stress me out to have her sleep so long at night when she was so little, but now that I've been spoiled I don't know how I could do without it. After her 6 hour stretch at night she will wake up, eat and go right back to sleep for another 2-3 hours. This might be normal for some people, but certainly not for me. I haven't necessarily done anything too different this time either, so I'm going to have to give her all the credit for this one.

This was  a big month for Harlow. She went from being a squishy little bum-in-the air sleeping lump of a newborn to the full-fledged baby of our family (sorry Ruby!), melting our hearts on an almost hourly basis with her huge infectious smile and easy peaceful nature.

Here are a few other moments from Harlow's second month:

1. Max's adoration of her has only grown. He dotes over her and freely showers her with compliments as only Max can.

2. She's found her hands. It has been so fun to watch her surprise herself with what they are capable of. The kids go crazy watching her swat at her toys like she's the first baby to perform such a feat.

3. This month she also received her quilt from my Grandma. All my kids have a blanket from their Great Grandma and they were so excited for her when it arrived in the mail.

Here are all my kids with their quilts from Grandma. This picture definitely has me humming the Brady Bunch theme song.

4. When Harlow was born I was worried she looked too much like a boy. Sam always disagreed. When I took this picture, I sent it to Sam at work and told him that I was wrong about my sweet little girl. (Sorry Harlow...you're mother is a little crazy after she gives birth)

 5. Reed has been super helpful with Harlow and she is definitely recognizing him as one of her favorite people.

 6. Harlow is a super smiley baby, but she is still getting used to my camera. She'll be grinning from ear to ear and then when I disappear behind the camera she will wonder where I've gone. Sometimes I'm able to catch her joy and sometimes I catch her perplexed wonder instead.

7. Harlow has been an alert gal from the beginning. She may be the youngest, but I don't think she plans to miss out on anything if she can help it. 

8. During her second month, she also suffered through a rough bout of baby acne. It seemed to be worse and last longer than any of our other kids, but I don't know if that is necessarily true---any time with baby acne seems long.

9. She's the sweetest little talker. Sam and I both agree that she has been the most eager "talker" of our bunch. When we talk or sing to her she coos and oohs right along. It's my favorite.

I think it's Sam's favorite too.

10. She's a tall one. She started out tall (21. 5 inches) and seems to be keeping on that course. At her 2 month appointment her height was still in the 99 percentile, but I don't need a growth curve to tell me that she's a tall. The 3 to 4 inches of leg hanging out most of her clothes do a pretty good job letting me know she'll be passing me up one of these days.

11. If you think seeing Harlow hold Reed's scriptures is a funny sight you should hear him trying to explain what he's reading to her. I love that boy and he sure loves his sister.

12. First matching headbands.

A few other non-pictured things about Harlow at this age include the following; She's got super strong legs and loves to stand. Standing has always been her preferred position when holding her. 

While Harlow has been the "perfect" baby,  feeding her has not been so perfect. This month it was particularly difficult keeping her on a track with a steady weight gain. She started out huge, but for whatever reason (I've driven myself crazy trying to figure it out) I just couldn't keep her steadily moving forward from that point. It's been the only low part of my experience with her but thankfully it's something that at this point we have mostly resolved. I would never call her a chunky baby, but I think we have decided that she is going to be just fine doing what she's doing. (See mom, look at that double chin.) 

We sure love this happy girl...

...and even when she's not so happy too. (Actually we see this face so rarely that I think it's pretty cute too.)

Happy late 2 months Harlow! Now on to your 3 month post...

Shiner

I could be wrong, but I don't think either one of my boys has ever had a black eye. This is number two for Ruby. I don't know what that says about Ruby or my boys, but it looks like lifeguards have good reason for saying, "No running at the pool". In fact, they should probably add, "No running to the pool" because that's all it took for Ruby get shiner number two. Metal railings are not very forgiving when you run into them.

There were definitely some tears involved, but thankfully no stitches. The cut was pretty close to her eye so they used a special kind of super bandaid to hold it together for the week while it healed. With her  eye injury she looked just like a little boxer--so much so that Sam asked me to be sure to take some pictures of her. I happily obliged since it was actually one of the first thoughts I had when she and Sam returned from Urgent Care.  I wasn't the only one happy about the photo shoot.

A few days later her eye looked even worse as it continued to drain. The pictures didn't really capture the depth of the black eye, but they sure do catch my little drama queen. When I told her I wanted to take a picture of her eye she promptly threw a forlorn gaze at the camera.

Don't be fooled by her antics...this was two seconds later.

I'm happy to report that after about a week her eye is just about completely healed and back to normal. Final Score: Metal Railing 1 Ruby 0.

Harlow-1 month

Even before Harlow was born I knew keeping up on life with four kids was going to be a challenge. What I didn't realize was how much of challenge. We are still mostly in survival mode, but I'm not willing to give up on this record keeping.  If these past two months are any indication of how fast life passes by, I figure I better get these memories down while I can.

Yes, Harlow is already two months old, but I am still going to try to fly through a recap of our first month with the sweetest, most peaceful, and easy going baby we've ever welcomed into our home.

Bringing Harlow home was such a joy. The kids were truly elated to have her here, and I'm happy to report that the elation has yet to die down. Most of the month was spent getting to know and loving on our new little princess. The kids have have given her no shortage of their attention and watching them shower her with their affection has definitely been a highlight.

Max has been enamored with Harlow from the moment she arrived. 

He's also very vocal with his admiration. I can almost guarantee in that first photo he is saying, "Isn't Harlow so cute?" He says that a lot. Interesting...since she definitely seems to resemble him the most. I think my favorite was when he asked me a few weeks after her arrival, "Is Harlow a lot of work?" I answered honestly to the affirmative to which he replied, "Well...at least she looks good."

Reed is our resident baby expert (as far as the kids go) and loves being the one I can count on to hold her and help me out. Aside from being a little too eager to show me how he is capable of holding her while walking around, he has been the perfect extra set of hands for me.

Ruby, amazingly enough, has shown very little jealousy so far. While she's happy to limit her "Harlow holding time" to a few minutes at a time, I do see a budding sisterly bond beginning to develop. I'm pretty sure in this picture she's saying something like, "Girls to girls to girls." Ruby definitely likes having another girl around.

The girl spent much of her first month sleeping like a champ. (A little too much for my worry level.)

When she wasn't sleeping, her eyes were wide open. And I do mean wide. During her first month she seemed to always be asleep or startled.

Asleep...

and startled.

Actually I lied...during her first few weeks she did also grace us with a few smiles...and we were giddy when she did.

 

 Sometimes she even appeared to have some ideas of her own...even while looking a bit jaundiced.

It's never too early for a fashion statement. Just when I thought Ruby had exhausted all of the opportunities for adding ruffles and frills to clothing, Harlow broke new ground with these socks from my mom.

During her first month, Harlow also began what Max refers to as her daily "crawling practice". He is anxious to help her get moving as soon as possible. He likes to use toys to motivate her. She seemed pretty interested in the mirror he was inticing her with.

Check out Harlow's leg action. Not bad coach Max.

Harlow's first month was filled with visits from her Grandmother, Grandfather and Nana. I only have a picture of Nana (Sorry Mom and Dad.) We all appreciated the generosity of our visitors and I'm pretty sure we couldn't have made it without their help.

Wow! What a month! Thank you Harlow, for going to be early so I could finally get this done. I love you more than sleep.