Ezra's Daddy

Believe it or not, Ezra is ONE today.   Reminiscing over the past year, I can’t help but think of how wonderful his daddy is. 

Fletcher was an absolute rock during a long, difficult labor, not once pressuring me to get meds and supporting the decisions I made.  Massaging and holding me and praying for 17 hours.

He has been nothing but supportive of nursing, never even mentioning formula during the painful first two months, as he knew that would be even more upsetting to me, and he’s completely supportive of nursing until Ezra makes the independent decision to wean himself.

When we’re having a rough night, he’ll get up and rock Ezra back to sleep, even when it takes an hour or more.

He leads our family, prays for and with us every day, and is willing to take leaps of faith that most would think absolutely ridiculous, but absolutely perfect for us. 

He takes time on his days off, the mornings he’s home, and when he gets home from work around 9pm, to just play with his son, give me time to shower, think, read, and have adult conversation with him.  He’s always looking for things we can do as a family.  He has never once said that he'll "babysit" Ezra.  He is his daddy and loves spending time with him when I have a meeting or run errands by myself.

  

He has been a huge cheerleader while I work towards a Labor Doula certification and is encouraging me to get a Certified Professional Midwifery license when the time is right.

He’s my amazing husband and Ezra’s wonderful daddy.  And we both love him so much.

Ezra is One!

Ezra is one today.  I’m gonna say it—this year flew by.  Well, parts of it did.  I never thought we would survive the first month.  Nursing difficulties until week 7, never really catching up on sleep after being awake for close to 36 hours by the time he was born, feeling absolutely zero connection to this creature that wanted to be constantly attached to me until he was right at one month old (no overwhelming feeling of love the moment I held him).  It was exhausting and hard.  But, we lived, my hormones eventually got their act together, and here we are 365 days later.

 So much has happened in the past year.  We moved halfway across the country, back to Virginia, when Ezra was 4 ½ months old.  A week of intense packing (so thankful my cousin was able to come out to be an invaluable extra set of hands, driving 1100 miles in 3 days.  Fun times.

While it wasn't what we were expecting, we were blessed that Fletcher was able to be home full time with us from mid-March until July 1^st.   Ezra and I were a little spoiled with that, and we’re still not used to him being at work all day. 

Ezra has grown like a weed.  He was never tiny, but here’s the year at a glance:

Birth: 8lbs 8.8oz, 20.5in

Discharge: 7lbs 13oz

2 weeks: 9lbs 0oz

8 weeks: 13lbs 10oz, 22.5in

4 months: 17lbs 8oz, 25.75in

6 months: 19lbs 3oz, 28in

9 months: 21lbs 4oz, 29in

12 months: 23lbs 6oz, 30.25in

And what’s going on now:

He’s eating 3 solid meals a day—loves avocado, peaches, chicken, pork chops, scrambled eggs, grits, green beans, corn on the cob, potato wedges, yogurt, cottage cheese, apples, spaghetti, and veggie chips.

He’s nursing an average of 8 times in 24 hours, including 1-3 times at night.  No plans to stop until he decides to wean himself.

He’s taking water from a straw cup.  I haven’t tried pumped milk in the cup, yet.

He’s cruising EVERYWHERE.  He’ll take a few steps between two people, or let go of a wall of the play yard and walk to another wall, usually falling into the other wall to stop himself.

He still loves to look at books and be read to.  He’s a cuddle bug and I like for him to stay that way as long as possible.

We love our baby boy.