4 months

Sweet Case Elijah,

I more often than not call you "Case Elijah", not just Case. I love your name!
Daddy will call you Case Elijah Birdseye-jah, or Caserton, or Casefert. Or this morning, a new one, Caser the Eraser...
Fun times!

You are such a sweet joy. You have started waking up later. At least 7am, sometimes 7:30. Some mornings I have had to wake you to get you fed and ready to take brother to MDO! You typically only wake up once in the night, around 2:30-3:30 to be fed, but last night, you woke yourself up twice because you rolled from your belly to your back in the night, and while on your back, that wakes you up. We sleep you on your tummy. Each time you woke last night, you woke me up with you babbling in the monitor. You weren't crying, but since you were on your back, you were wide awake, just talking and screeching. When I went in to get you, you were not your normal sleepy self in the middle of the night! But after a quick feeding, you went back down easily each time.
So, rolling!
You have yet to roll in the light of day, and for me to witness it. But you have rolled like that in the middle of the night once before. I don't know what we'll do, other than pray you can put yourself to sleep if you are on your back!
For your first two months of life, you slept in the bassinet in Mom and Dad's room, wrapped in a blanket, on your back. We decided we would start you in your crib right around 2 months old. I first tried you in the sleep positioner we used with Isaac, on your side, wrapped in a blanket. You would wake yourself after a couple hours. I also tried swaddling you with our Miracle Blanket swaddler, but you would scream and fuss with having your arms restrained. (Isaac loved being swaddled!) So since you were waking easily, I broke down and tried you on your tummy. (Going against all new research that new Moms are told to do these days!!) And guess what? You slept for hours on end! Like 4-6 hours straight! That was awesome! But, this does not come without much worry from Mommy - checking on you, your head position, making sure your nose is clear to breathe, no loose blankets (for the most part - sometimes I will wrap one tightly around your legs to keep them warm, and sure it won't come loose.) You sleep on an incline, on a crib wedge, and what will often wake you is when you, in your sleep, shuffle around and end up perpendicular in your crib. Your head will butt up against the edge of the crib wedge and that will wake you.
So.. your a tummy sleeper! That is how you nap in your crib during the day, as well as at night. You sleep MUCH better than Isaac did at this age, and I am sure it is because of that. We slept Isaac on his back his whole life (first babies... you care about them more...) I kid!  :)  He adjusted to it easily and did alright, well, he woke more often than you in the night, but I just dealt with it. But now with having 2 babies to care for, an important priority to me is my own sleep so I can be a decent mother during the day! So sleeping you on your tummy equals a better night's sleep for you and me both!

I feed you each time after you wake (during day and night). Then change your diaper. You have been in cloth diapers since about 10 days old. You have started leaking through your cloth at night. Well, at first I would change you each time you woke in the night, after you ate, but now at night, you eat, stay sleepy, and it's not worth it to change you to wake you up! I want you to stay sleepy! So now I no longer change you in the middle of the night, and you'll wake in the morning soaking wet. So I think we will start doing a disposable for your night time diaper, like we do with Isaac. But I do still love having you both in cloth all day long. We save so much money on diapers and it is so easy!
With you, we have only bought 3 small packages of diapers for you (not boxes, just the small bags) since you were born! I think that is awesome! Your cloth dipes have already paid for themselves with that savings! However...tomorrow you start MDO! So you will use disposable there on Tues/Thurs. Makes Mommy sad to leave you so young, but I have work piling up, & even though Isaac is gone on those days, having you home still keeps me pretty busy & I can't get as much done as I could otherwise.

Life is so busy right now. Having you & your brother so close together, & you both being so young right now, this is the hardest, busiest, craziest time in my life so far, bar none! I really try hard to hold you, cuddle you, & rock you as long as I can, each chance I get because you are already growing so fast. I feel like you should still be a newborn, but I can tell you have had a growth spurt lately, you are getting so long!!  :(
You go across my whole body & your legs dangle when I rock you before sleeping. Your face is really changing, and getting longer. When you were born, your face was a perfect circle and so round! You really looked like Mommy! But now your face is sooo much longer and oval shaped, and REALLy looking like Daddy! Just in the past month, I'd say.
You really follow me with your eyes when you are put down somewhere and I am walking around the room.
I lay you on your baby gym floor mat with the dangling toys, and you grab them (I think by accident), and they go straight to your mouth. Your hands are CONSTANTLY in your mouth right now and you are drooling all the time!
You do not really like a bath. You tolerate it for the first few minutes, and then end up crying the rest of the time until it is done.
Your thighs are so chunky and full of rolls! LOVE THAT! (Though they are hidden under your thick, cloth diapers.) When changing your diaper, I love your little naked body! I just want to pick you up and snuggle you! You are so cute, and I love seeing your little body. Only a small baby for such a short time!

I feel like your face has always been with us. You have always been a part of our family. It's true what they say, that you don't remember life before the baby was here. I just know your little face so well, I feel like I've seen it my whole life.
 I'm so happy that Isaac was young enough, that he really won't ever remember life before you. We pray all the time for your bond of brotherhood to be strong your whole lives through.

We love that you got your Daddy's blue eyes. My pretty baby boy! Your hair is darker than Isaac's. We think it looks like it will stay a light brown, and not turn blonde.
You have bad cradle cap and that drives Mommy crazy! Though I know it's just a phase and will pass. Still drives me crazy!

You still have only chuckled once or twice in a row. Not like minutes on end. With Isaac, at 3.5 months, we had multiple minutes (one time) of him belly laughing over and over. It was magical! We have not had that with you yet. Anxiously looking forward to that! You will chuckle though, every now and then.  :)
You smile all the time though! I just have to look at you cross eyed and you'll give me a HUGE open-mouth smile. You curl your whole body in when you get those big smiles. We live for that!  :)

I can get a little bit of work done with you home when I lay the Boppy pillow on my lap and lay you on the pillow. (what we are doing right now as I type!) Though you are starting to get too long for this and your legs are kicking the chair arm rest!

I just LOVE having a baby in the house. I knew (hoped) that Isaac was not my last baby, but there is a good chance you will be my last baby. (If we could afford it, we'd have a 3rd, no question!) I really think when you are 3 years old, I'm REALLY gonna have baby fever... we'll see.
But, I have to love on you and enjoy you like you are my last baby, since there are no guarantees. And I sure do my best to do that every single day.
There is no way to know how you are going to love your second baby before they get here. While still pregnant with you, (as I'm sure all first time moms do), the baby in your tummy is still a figment, not yet real, while your first child is running around the house, and your life since their birth has been spent solely revolving around them. You have no idea how to love a 2nd child. You hear that of course it will come, but it's still so hard to imagine since you love your first born so much.
But it is amazing. To me, you and Isaac are two completely different people, different loves. You are not just both my "children". I love Isaac the way I love him, fully and completely. But I love you the way I love you, fully and completely. I love you both equally more than my heart can take, but yet when I look at each of you individually, I view each of you as my "baby". I love Isaac beyond words. But then I look at you, and you steal my breath away! How is that possible? To love two separate little people more than I could ever put in to words. I well up with tears thinking about it.
I am so happy you chose to come join our family.
You will always be our "gift". You just came to us all on your own. We worked long and hard for Isaac. We knew and anticipated and prayed for him for years. But you? You just showed up one day all "Here I am! Your perfect, (free!) gift to love on, to get to experience babyhood all over again, to give Isaac a sibling, and to complete our family."
In your room is the picture frame that we used at Isaac's first birthday party to reveal your name. Below your name it says the scripture "Every good and perfect gift comes from above". Then I put that same scripture on your birth announcement.
And at Christmastime, the only stocking holder I could find for your stocking was of a present. At first I didn't really like it, because it was sort of superficial, like Christmas is only about presents. But then I realized, it was PERFECT because you are our "gift", and that was a gift! That will forever be tied to you in my mind, our "gift".
You are more than we could ever hope for. I really never knew if we could have a 2nd child. I knew we could not afford IVF again, so to me, the only odds of a 2nd child was maybe *Maybe* adopting one day. But who knew that God had such a greater plan than we could ever have even prayed for. To think you came in to our lives all on your own, and that you are a boy, to give Isaac a brother and best friend, and the fact that you boys are so close in age, surely you will be best friends for life. My heart is full, and I am more than thankful for my two beautiful, smart, healthy boys. All a Momma could ever, EVER pray and hope for.

You are a blessing, Case Elijah!!!