Baby Mac 4 and 1/2 months update

It seems like every day McKay gets stronger and learns new tricks. Now that he is 4 and 1/2 months old he is weighing in at 16 lbs. He is one healthy boy!

Some Recent Developments:

• He graduated into size 3 diapers two weeks ago. I am definitely loving them especially now that I am not washing poop explosions daily out of his clothes...my clothes :), and his blankets. 
• About a month ago we realized that the back of his head is getting flatter and flatter due to sleeping on his back, being in his car seat and swing, wiggling on blankets, etc... Yeah, bad mom award, I know.  I promise I really do hold him A LOT! So of course we started to panic and have been doing a few things differently.
• First of all, we got him a Bumbo. And might I add, he looks so darn cute in it! I think I have taken a million pictures of him in it! This is seriously the best purchase we have made for him to date and wish we had gotten him one sooner. His little neck, despite how much those cheeks must weigh, is getting very strong and he loves to play in it and see the world from a new angle. We love to take him from room to room in it so he can feel like he is part of the action, as he is a social little guy. His fine motor skills are really strengthening and he loves to grab toys and touch everything he can get his little hands around.

Playing in my Bumbo

• Next, we implemented side sleeping. This has actually saved my sanity because he became an incredibly worse sleeper when he graduated from his bassinet, because he was no longer snuggled up in the same position all night. Instead, he became really restless, and as a result, I became really ornery because he was waking me up more than hourly needing to be re-wrapped and was cold, wanting his Binky, etc...So I did a little internet research about side sleeping and found some good ideas I decided to implement. We rolled up multiple towels in his Pack N Play to support him front and back so he can't roll onto his tummy or back. Don't worry, we make sure none of them are close to his face! We also rotate him each day so he doesn't get flat spots on the sides of his head too! Since then, he has been sleeping his record high amounts of 8 hours! Which leads me to my next point.

Side sleeping

• With him sleeping so restlessly and crying for his Binky from 2:30-4:30 am, then practically swallowing his Binky whole each time I put it in while I tried so diligently to put off his feed until the proper time (because let's be honest, the kid isn't going to starve to death!) I decided it is time to give him a little rice cereal. The breast milk just was not enough for our 16 pound boy and mom was ready to put him up for sale during the night a few times. I put about 2 TBL in an 8oz bottle of milk during his evening feed. He loves it and I love it because now, combined with the side sleeping, he is sleeping like a champ! 

• Next, we have been much more devoted to giving him multiple tummy times a day to get him off his back and head. He doesn't hate it as much as he used to, but he doesn't love it either! However, he is getter better and stronger!

Tummy time!

Like every boy, he loves to hang out in his underwear!

•  His current schedule: Unless we are out and about, McKay is asleep at 9:45pm like clockwork. We feed him about 8:30-9:00pm and he wakes up around 4:00 or 5:00am to feed (with a few Binky calls before then). Then he wakes in the 7:00 o'clock hour for a short feed, and the 9:00 o'clock hour is his official wake-up time. He will stay awake for about an hour and a half then goes down for a short 30-45 min. nap around 11:00. We then eat, play, bathe, do infant massage, etc until he goes down for his long afternoon nap which goes from about 1:00-4:00pm. He wakes up ready to eat and receive a lot of smiles and attention! Between 4:00 and bedtime, he only falls asleep for a short 30 min. nap somewhere in between and can get fussy about 7:00 because he is overtired and over-stimulated, but does not want to give in to sleep. And go figure that just about everything starts around 7:00pm when every kid has had it with the day!
• McKay is either starting to teethe or is just extra drooly, but is constantly chewing on his hands, my hands, toys, blankets or whatever he can get in his mouth. 
• He is a really alert boy and loves to face outward and watch everything that is going on. He is a perceptive little guy and loves to study and take in as much as he can. His head follows whatever is moving round him.
• Wherever we go, people comment about how calm he is. I attribute his temperament to Les...definitely not to me! I also attribute his good looks to Les as most people say he looks just like his daddy. Although I think there is a little bit of Grandpa Hair in him.
• He still gets mistaken for a girl when we are at church or around town, so just for fun...I hope McKay and Les will forgive me... I decided to dress him up like a girl to see if he would make a cute one! haha Good thing Les isn't home! All we need to do is pierce his ears and put a bracelet in between the fat roll of his wrist and I think he could pass!

My beautiful little McKayla!

Not sure how he feels about being in girl's clothes

So prim and proper!

• He has discovered his feet and loves to watch them wiggle and grab them when he is practically folded in half.

What are these white things?

Chillin' on the couch

4 months

 Cute pics of my big 4 month old boy!

Hair up

Hair down

So precious

Look how long I am!

Big Buddha

Mmmm breakfast!

He hates the camera flash so I have to sneak the smiling pictures in when he isn't expecting it.

Hanging with daddy

Uni-brow!

Oh hey!

Working hard to sit up

Baby Blessing

On Sunday, December 5 we blessed Lester McKay Essig, making him 4 months old. If we had waited much longer he could have crawled up there! It was such a special day to have both of our families, including extended family, there to support us. I can't express the joy I felt seeing our sweet boy surrounded by the Priesthood and by so many people who love him. I am so grateful to have a worthy husband who was able to give him his name and blessing. I woke up at 3:50am on Saturday night to feed baby and noticed Les wasn't in bed. I found him on the couch studying the scriptures and writing in his journal, preparing himself for the blessing. McKay was blessed with a healthy body which will serve him well all his days, and with patience, kindness and charity. He was given the ability to have a sound understanding of the gospel and will be a good example and leader as the oldest child of our family. He was blessed to serve a mission and to marry a righteous girl in the temple. It was a beautiful blessing. Les' dad stood next to Les and had the assignment of keeping the Binky in Mac's mouth, since my biggest fear was that he would cry through his blessing. Thankfully, he didn't make a peep! In fact, my dad (yes his eyes were open...it is an inherited trait in our family) said McKay was wide-eyed looking around the circle at everyone. He was probably wondering what in the world was going on! I was an emotional wreck during and after the blessing, my heart was so full. I leaned over to Shauna and said, "On days like this I totally get why you had 11 kids! These are the pearl moments of life. Les and I both bore our testimonies. I was so happy to hear Les' thoughts. He too was emotional and said, "Let me assure you, I have cried in just about every corner of the church today!"  It is crazy what a baby does to a tough guy, because Les rarely cried before McKay. We are so crazy about our little boy and had such a wonderful day. Following the service, we all drove out to my parent's house for the funniest dinner. The ham was "shoe leather," the potatoes were burned, a batch of cookies were spilled and thrown away, and a whole salad was dropped outside. Someone was trying to get us down after such an uplifting meeting!  Even still we had enough food to go around and it was a nice evening spent with family. 

In his blessing outfit

On the way to church. I wasn't taking any chances on him pooping through the pants. Those were put on minutes before the blessing.

Baby Mac 3 and 1/2 months old

Our big boy

It is crazy how fast baby is growing! He was born weighing 5lbs 9 oz. and was 17 in. long, and now he weighs almost triple that...according to my bathroom scale...at almost 14 lbs and is now 2 feet long!  I don't think that surprises anyone, however, with his chipmunk cheeks and thunder thighs! 

Some recent developments:

• He is now eating about 6 oz. each meal and I am still breastfeeding, which I love, and feeds are down to about 12-15 min.! Which is amazing considering the first 3 months he took on average 45 minutes to an hour to feed. He is getting much more efficient!
• He is on a 3 hour eat, wake, sleep schedule up to the minute most times.
• When he hit 3 months old I decided I could finally fully implement Babywise. However, instead of McKay sleeping better with an 8:00am wake-up time and an 8:00 pm bedtime, he slept incredibly worse, waking 3 times a night like he did as a newborn!  Since that miserable, sleepless week of dedication, I have since sworn off Babywise for the past 2 days and have gotten 7 beautiful consecutive hours of sleep each night...go figure!
• With him sleeping through the night, he has dropped 2 feedings, his dream feed which was around the 10 o'clock hour and his middle of the night feed which was in the 2 o'clock hour.. I am looking forward to more much needed beauty rest!
• Not only is he dropping feedings, but he is also dropping naps, mostly in the evenings. Which means he also gets very fussy and cranky about 7:00pm after he has been awake for 3 or 4 hours.  When his fussy time hits there is not much we can do except swaddle him up as quickly as possible, give him his Binky, and hope that he will finally give in to sleep. During this time he refuses to be put in his bed and will cry and cry. He knows daddy is home and he doesn't want to miss out on any fun or attention!
• Speaking of crying, we also cannot implement "cry-it-out" tactics with him as we live in a condo with residents above and below us with paper thin walls in between. In fact, our neighbor above us has a one year old and when she hears McKay cry she will check on her daughter, thinking it is her!
• Mac is definitely my child! He is quite the talker! When we play with him and ask him questions he talks back with his "oohs and ahhs," smiles, and giggles. It is one of my favorite things! 
• Another reason he is my child...he loves attention! If you stop playing with him he rustles his legs and makes a little noise so you will look at him and keep playing! For this reason he also loves baths and diaper changes, because he gets your full attention! 

Bath time!

Diaper change

• He is a total car baby and will fall asleep as soon as we start driving and will wake-up within 5 minutes of getting out of the car.    
  

Our car baby

• Sadly he is also a tv junky and loves to watch with us and see all the flashing lights.
• He is holding up his head really well and only bobbles just a little now.

• My favorite time of day with him is mornings. He is sooo smily and happy when he wakes up! We pull him into bed with us and he puts on quite the show until he breaks into tears when he remembers how hungry he is.

All smiles!

• He still sleeps in our room with us...oops! It is going to be really hard for me emotionally to move him into his own room, but for now I am doing it in the name of convenience of breastfeeding. Thankfully that is enough to pacify Les for now!
• He can do independent playtime for 20-30 min at a time, but after that he is ready for some interaction and lets me know it!
• He is gaining good control of his hands and fingers and loves to grab anything from my shirt, hair, necklace, or his blanket or binky strap. He is also staring to not only eat his hand as a sign of hunger, but is learning how to put his thumb in his mouth...which is so cute to watch now but won't be as cute when he is 3 years old with buck teeth. So I am constantly shoving his binky in his mouth instead. Also, he likes to put his thumb in between his pointer finger, it is pretty cute!

Look what I can do with my fingers!

Holding my Binky strap

• Because he is learning to gain more control over his hands, he is also very helpful and loves to help hold his bottle or binky in 
• He has gotten more saliva in so now one of his tricks is to blow bubbles with it.
• He loves to pump his legs and is quite the wiggler!
• He is incredibly ticklish!
• He officially has brown eyes.
• He is rubbing some of the back of his hair off but has grown in a ton of hair in on the hairline of his forehead. I have also given him a trim because the tips of his hair were getting so long!

Growing some new hair!

Before my much needed haircut!

After my haircut!

The mushy mom post

All I have to say is I love being a mom! It is the BEST thing I have ever done in my life! It has been so neat to have my heart expanded and filled with so much love for our little guy. He is so much fun! I love nothing more than seeing that huge gummy smile. It melts my heart and yes, it even makes me cry sometimes! I am a total sucker for him! He has completely taken over our lives...he is the king and has us totally wrapped around his tiny fingers! Nevertheless, he makes me so incredibly happy. I love knowing that he is our boy I want to do everything in my power to live so that he can be ours forever. When I was pregnant, Les gave me a blessing and one thing that has stuck out to me ever since was that McKay would be a "light in our lives and bring great joy into our home." Truly, he is our little ray of light and I know that he will continue to spread that light and joy to the people around him. I love to stare at him and see what a miracle he is. Sometimes when he looks back at me, his spirit shines right through him and I can sense that a very mature spirit is within his little body. I know he is a special child of our Heavenly Father and sometimes I wonder how Heavenly Father can love him more than I do, but I know He loves him with a perfect love. Which makes me so grateful that parenthood is a calling and with it comes a mantle of power that helps us become the kind of parents Heavenly Father wants and needs us to be to His children. I am so grateful to be a mom and to be trusted with such a wonderful and sweet little boy and hope and pray that I can be a good mom to him. I love you baby Essig!

A Killer Halloween

This Halloween was one of our funnest to date! Hollie Derosa and I put on a 1920's themed murder mystery party for a bunch of friends in our ward called, "Murder At The Four Deuces." Everyone came decked out in their costumes and got way into their parts! We had such a blast spreading rumors and making up lies about each other. Les ended up getting murdered, Hollie was the killer, which we had no idea when we planned it that she was, and I am proud to say that I won best costume! Yes!! I love this dress! I bought it at the D.I. 4 years ago because I thought it was so awesome. I had no idea where or when I was going to wear it, but I knew I had to have it. It finally came in handy for our party as I was the jazz singer, Carrie Crooner. You gotta love homemade prom dresses with sequence and puffy sleeves. I am definitely a fan! So Les and I are total losers and forgot to charge our camera so these are all the pictures we got of the night. Hopefully we can get a few from friends.

All the gangstas

All the Ladies

Big Jim Ravioli and Carrie Crooner-Ravioli

Meme Wannabe (Sadie Anderson) and Carrie Crooner-Ravioli (Me)

The radio station DJ and Vicki Ravioli (Big Jim's ex-wife), The Jamesons

Mr. Smith and Color Pencill, The Strongs

The Politican and his wife, The Wassons

Penny Cheatum the lawyer and Sly Sleaze the Horse Race Gambler, The Mausdleys

Waiting for the guests to arrive

Eating and chatting

Big Jim

Michael Jackson Jam!

Our cute friend in the ward, Donna, and I both love to dance.When we realized this fact I was 8 months pregnant and not able to move so gracefully! We thought it would be fun to throw a Michael Jackson Jam listening to only his tunes once McKay was no longer a fetus. Here are some pics of the party! We had so much fun even though there were only about 4 of us dancing the whole night! This jam was almost as good as the D.R. (Dominican Republic) Michael Jackson! This past summer Les and I went to the DR with some of our good friends, the Andersons and the Furnisses. The first night there our entertainment was an entire DR Michael Jackson production! Although very talented, I swear this guy thought he was MJ resurrected! Following the production, he even did photo shoots with the fans! Of course we had to get a pic with him! It was probably the funniest night of my life!

Please notice MJ's  green face make-up and the angel girl behind him. Too bad she wasn't flapping her wings behind him in the pic!

Jammin'it up at the MJ jam!

Please notice the awesome MJ cut outs!

McKay's designated babysitter for the night

More dancing!