Absent Minded Mommy

I decided to do a Christmas card/birth announcement combo this year, because Mr. H was born so close to Christmas.  I sat down to order the cards the day I received the CD of Hardin's newborn pictures in the mail.  He was about 2 1/2 weeks at the time.  I walked over to the fridge to look at Lillian and Paige's birth announcements, to see if the length of the baby was listed on the same line as the weight or the line below.  I must have gotten distracted at some point between the fridge and the computer (imagine that), because, by the time I got back and pressed order, I forgot to put his length on the card at all.  I just about cried when I picked them up the other day.  So, when you receive your Christmas card/birth announcement combo, please forgive me and know that the little man was 21 inches at birth.  Silly absent minded mommy...

The picture above is one of my absolute favorites.  He is growing so fast right now I can't stand it, and this just makes me remember how tiny he was a few weeks ago.

One Month Old!

Today is HP's one month birthday :) He celebrated by eating and sleeping. I CANNOT believe it has only been a month or that it has already been a month. On one hand it feels like we just went to the hospital to have him yesterday, but on the other hand it feels like he has been a part of our family forever. I can't imagine our life without the little guy. If you could only see the outtakes from our photo shoot you would be laughing. I took 57 pics, and that was the best one by a long shot!



His long arms hang out!

 He continues to stay awake a little more during the day, and sleep a little more at night. Yesterday he was awake a lot with all of the Thanksgiving commotion, and slept like a dream through the night. Seriously, you could have set your watch to his feedings last night. 10, 2, 6, 10... almost to the minute. He stayed awake until about midnight after the 10pm feeding, but went right back to sleep after 2 and 6. He is very alert now when he is awake and loves to look around and take everything in. Still no smiles, but we think he's happy under the solemn face. He is incredibly strong for such a little guy. He has been holding his head up for a while and will push up from his belly. I am terrified to cut his nails still, so he has been tearing up our chests with his clawing! I almost got up the courage to cut them, but then yesterday Cathy told me she cut Lillian's a little too short and it bled. I lost all faith in my ability to cut them. Cathy is a total super mom, so if she can't do it there is no hope in this world for me! The only other noteworthy event is that I put him down to nap in his crib for the first time Wednesday, and again today. He was in a bassinet, but lately he has been sleeping in his bouncy seat in our room. I know that is not the best thing in the world, but it is the only place he likes to sleep, and the pediatrician said it is fine until he gets a little more mobile. I looked into one of those fancy sleep positioners for his crib, but basically it was a bouncy seat at three times the price. He sleeps okay in his crib for a while, but if he wakes up he does not go back to sleep. I'm still happy with the results for the first two days. We'll continue transitioning from our room to his over the next few weeks, and I am confident he'll be settled in there for good before I go back to work in January.

We had an absolutely fabulous Thanksgiving week. It started with a visit with two of our favorite couples and their 4 month old baby girls. Hardin was quite the ladies' man. We had lunch and compared mama stories. It is just so much fun to have this many babies around! The boys are holding their own babies, the girls are not.

Next up was Thanksgiving at our house. This was our third year hosting and the smoothest on my end so far. I delegated a LOT of the cooking and purchased a deep fried turkey and spiral honey ham... and I didn't feel guilty about it at all! MiMi drove up from Ft. Myers to join in the festivities. We missed B as this was the first time in 27 years mom and I have not been with him on Thanksgiving. That said, the boy cooked Thanksgiving dinner for one-third of Hawaii so we know he was having fun and eatin' good.

Baby Lillian and her adorable hair :)

Phillip Hardin Thornberry

Saturday, we took a road trip to LaGrange to visit Hardin's namesake, my dad, and put flowers on his grave. I have visited his grave quite a few times over the last few years, and surprisingly have never been all that emotional. I suppose it is because I truly believe his soul is in a better place so I don't feel very attached to anything physical. I thought this time may be more difficult, but it thankfully wasn't. My dad's entire family is there and it was nice to walk Hardin around and tell him all about them, especially dad, uncle Johnny and Grandmommy.

Hardin LOVES the car. As soon as we crank it up he calms down. He slept the entire two hours both ways. We are very happy about this. I even rode in the front seat with Jason this time, instead of the back looking at him like I have since we brought him home.

Over the years I am sure we will tell Hardin many stories about my dad, but I thought I would go ahead and write a few of my favorite things. Dad was a total character. You never ever knew what was going to come out of his mouth, but you could bet that it was going to make someone laugh, blush or possibly be offended. It took me a long time to realize that 90% of the time he knew exactly how inappropriate what he was saying was... he just did it to get a rise out of people. He rarely called anyone by their given name, except for mom, the one person who despised her given name. My mom is Harriett Gail but has gone by Gail her entire life. Dad called her Harriett Every. Single. Day. She hated it. My brother was "frog" and Lara was "gidget." Somehow the two of them ended up losing their nick names sometime in high school. I, unfortunately, never lost Fred. I don't know if I really looked like a boy or if dad just wanted one, but he called me Fred since the day I was born. I thought maybe on my wedding day or law school graduation I may get a "Tiffany" out of dad, I was wrong. Both days I got the ole "I'm proud of you, Fred." It didn't bother me in the slightest :) My friend Cortney can attest to how many times I heard the phrase "Whopty-Damn-Do Fred" in highschool. I would give dad the most well thought-out argument as to why I should be allowed to stay out late, or go to a party, or do a plethora of other things I knew good and well he'd never let me do, only to receive his signature phrase. Whopty-Damn-Do Fred. I would then tell him I was just going to go spend the night at Cortney's and sneak and do what I had asked to do anyway. I realized later that he knew that's exactly what I was doing, and since he bothered to listen to my pleas he knew where I was going to be and who I was going to be with. If he really didn't like it he'd say no to spending the night at Cortney's. It was a twisted system, but our system nonetheless.

The man never passed by a Shriner or a poor person selling less-than-honestly-acquired goods without giving them money. He really thought your luck was going to run out if you passed by a little old man standing on the street, raising money for children's burn hospitals, without giving them something. He had Jason so sold on this "Shriner curse" that Jason has been known to give much larger bills than we ever intended to the local Shriner, just so he didn't have to worry about the bad karma that follows you if you don't donate. For that reason, I try and keep a few dollars on me all the time. Dad was a Mason and a Shriner, but never got old enough to collect money at the four way stop :) He was very devoted to their causes and had a lot of fun as well. While working at the Shrine center in downtown Atlanta, Dad became acquainted with many folks who had a random assortment of items for sale out of their grocery buggy. He came home with all sorts of "must haves" including sports equipment, a surround sound system, an airbrush spray tan machine, and other useless stuff that ended up in the garage. Right or wrong, at least those street salesmen were eating (or drinking) well the week they ran into Dad.

Dad could not stand a bad driver. I mean really, really could not stand it. Looking back, I am so thankful he is who taught me how to drive. He took the time to teach driving etiquette, which is clearly a lost art in Atlanta. If I would stay in the left lane too long when there was clearly someone behind me who wanted to drive faster, I got in trouble. If only everyone was taught that. He would also randomly ask me what color or type of car was behind me without looking in my mirrors to see. It taught me to keep an eye on what was going on. I am knocking on wood now, and I am certainly not the best driver in the world, but so far his driving etiquette has served me pretty well. He said good drivers not only avoid causing accidents, they can see an accident before it happens and avoid it. His feelings towards bad drivers definitely resonated in my brother and me. We are both totally intolerant of crummy drivers. I have a few folks I would rather drive around for the rest of my life than get in the passenger seat of their car! Dad took his intolerance to highly unorthodox levels. He carried around Black Cat firecrackers in his truck. He used said firecrackers when anyone was riding his tail out on the country roads by his house. He would toss them out the window to give the person behind him a little scare. This mortified me (and my mom who would end up hiding on the floor board of his truck). In my effort to get him to stop, I protested as to how illegal this must be. His reply, "well Fred, riding my ass is illegal." Way to take the law into your own hands! Along with driving, he taught me how to change my oil and a flat tire before I was allowed out on the road on my own. That was the first and last time I changed either.

Final story for this day is about his secret love for the Christmas festivities. Every year growing up he would pitch a fit about how many decorations mom had, how much money she was spending, how many people she invited to the house, the lines at the stores, the traffic on his way to work, etc, etc, etc. He complained about it all. BUT, if mom for one second even hinted that she was going to restrict her decorating or not buy as many gifts, he lost it. He loved all of the festivities just about as much as he loved to complain about them. He was also a one-stop shopper. Every year at the last minute he would go to one store, usually an electronic store, and buy us all one thing on top of everything else mom had already purchased off of our lists. We all ended up with some random electronics!

After our visit in LaGrange we went to Roopville to see one of my best friends in this world, Mary Ellen. I can't stand the drive to LaGrange but there is no one else I would rather live 20 minutes away. Unfortunately, her little cutie had a cold so we couldn't get her and Hardin together just yet but we had a wonderful visit with Mary Ellen and Ben.

3 Weeks 5 Days

That's how long it took for me to choose blog over sleep :) That's also how old my absolute favorite little miracle in this world is. We are just so in love with him... and so far it appears the feeling is mutual. I have always loved babies. And there are a few babies that I have really, really loved. That said, I had no idea going into this how it would feel to love one of my own. My good friend Libba has a 5 month old, and warned me about this very feeling. She said it is shocking how much fun it is to be able to love on them and kiss on them and know they are all yours. She was right! Between the two of us I would venture to say Hardin gets no less than 200 kisses on any given day.

Along with all the love has come an enormous amount of gratitude for this gift we have been given. I keep saying prayers of thanks, over and over and over. When I am not thanking God for our precious baby boy, I am promising I will never take him, or being a mama, for granted. While I am sure there will be many bumps in the road, my hope is that one day Hardin will be even half as thankful to have us as his parents as we are to have him as our son. We have really got our work cut out for us!

Hardin made his grand debut October 26, 2010, at 11:13am. He weighed 7 lbs, 15 oz, and was 21 inches long. He is absolutely adorable and nothing like what I had pictured in my head. I always assumed he would be a little mini-Jason, because his brother's son was a mirror image of Justin when he was born. He's actually quite a good mix of both of us. He's has Jason's eyes, ears and body, and my (read my father's) nose, mouth and cheeks. I never really thought a baby could look like dad, but it is so comforting that he favors him as much as he does.

We brought him home on Thursday the 28th, and so began the first week roller coaster! I have asked my girlfriends with kids why no one properly warned me for how you feel that first week. Overwhelmed, sleep deprived and crazy does not begin to describe it, but it's a start. It is amazing how much more confident Jason and I feel just a few short weeks later.

Little man had his days and nights mixed up for a solid two weeks. He slept like a log (a very cute log) all day and then partied all night! He was good, just awake. He did not get fussy unless you tried to turn the lights off and put him to sleep. So... we talked, and walked, and danced, and rocked a LOT between the hours of 11pm and 5am. Fortunately, he is getting into the swing of things now. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that he is just shy of 4 weeks, and we are able to keep him awake for longer periods during the day. We try to play or bathe him after daytime feedings and keep him up for a little while. At night we keep the lights down low and try to feed him and put him right back down. It works about 60-70 % of the time.

These two pictures pretty much sum up his normal expression. He's pretty serious looking most of the time. He's a very content baby, and rarely fusses for no reason, but is always serious. He stares at us with a very concerned look. He smiles in his sleep some and we can't wait for the day he starts smiling at us when he's awake!

Here's a picture of his first bath, he hated it! The boy hates to be cold. Combine that with the fact that his mama forgot to plug the tub so the water drained out while we were trying to bathe him, and you have one unhappy little baby. He's a little better now, but I am telling you what... you better have a warm towel and a warm outfit to put on him the second you pull him out of that water!

Finally, one with daddy. Jason has developed an extraordinary ability to rewrite impromptu lyrics for every television theme song to include Hardin's name in them. H loves when daddy sings to him... which is a testament to his love, not his ears :)

Thank you for all of the love, prayers, visits, food, gifts and calls over the past few weeks! A very special thank you to my wonderful friend Shauna who took his newborn pictures above. We love them!