The Basham Family: Tyler's Infant Seat Graduation

I finally broke down an bought new car seats for Tyler so we will be rid of the infant carrier! I've been delaying this as long as possible for several reasons:

1) The infant seat is just soooo convenient when I'm getting the kids ready in the mornings by myself, especially now that Tyler is mobile. I can strap him in the car seat, then load up the car and Lily and then come back for him (and he's safely in the same place I left him). I know what you're thinking...."Why don't you just do that in reverse and put Tyler in the car first instead of last?" Because Lily has a COMPLETE AND TOTAL MELTDOWN if I don't "carry her first" to the car. Every morning, it's "Carry me first! Carry me first!!"

2) I can carry the infant seat by the handle in the crook of my arm, freeing up both of my hands. This is pretty "handy" when I'm walking through a parking lot and need to carry Tyler, plus something else, plus hold Lily's hand.

3) Tyler still falls asleep in his car seat from time to time and it's convenient to be able to bring him in the house (or a restaurant or where ever) and let him finish out his little nap in the car seat.

4) I'm in total denial that my baby is approaching the 30 inch length limit for the infant seat (if he hasn't hit it already). Why is he growing up so fast???

5) Car seats are expensive!! $300 in additional car seats. Crazy!

6) Having a forward facing and a rear facing car seat in Joel's truck is going to cause someone to become contortionist. Either Joel's going to have to figure out how to bend over backwards to strap Tyler in or Lily's going to have to figure out how to crawl in and around car seats or center consoles to get her to car seat. And you can forget about any passengers riding in the front seat because it has to be scooted all the way forward. Maybe we will have to buy Joel a new vehicle (or he can take mine and I'll get a new one)! At least we only have to keep Tyler rear facing for 3 months or so.

So, is it any wonder I've been delaying it?! But it's not all bad news! Tyler + infant seat = 29 pounds of solid heaviness. And I'm pretty wimpy so I'm really not that sad to stop lugging that thing around.

What else has been going on with Tyler? He's my little doll baby and I love him more and more every day, if that's even possible. A couple weeks ago I mentioned that I had finally cut out the late evening feeding but I've had to add it back in. He wasn't sleeping all night and I'm not a fan of that. Honestly, that sleep feed is probably the best nursing session of the day right now! At the other nursing sessions, he often only nurses well on one side and by the time I get to the second side, he's pretty much lost all interest in eating and is ready to play. He gets distracted very easily - which frankly, wouldn't you be distracted if your sister was batting at your head, using your body as leverage to climb and is screaming "Tyler's not sleeping! He's AWAKE! He's FEEDING!" right in your ear??

His reduced nursing time is wreaking havoc on my pumped milk supply. It's dropped dramatically in the last two weeks. I was consistently getting about 15-16 ounces a day (he was consuming 18 ounces/day at daycare so I was already at a deficit every day but was supplementing with frozen milk). Now I'm getting only about 11-13 ounces of pumped milk a day. I'm still sending 18 ounces to daycare but in the last several weeks he's rarely finished a 6 ounce bottle. So in light of the reduced milk supply and given that he almost never takes a full 6 ounces anymore anyway, I need to start sending less. It's been so nice to not have to worry about milk supply all this time, but looks like for the next ~3 months, until the coveted 1 year mark, I will have to watch more closely to try to prevent any formula supplementing at the very end.

He's really starting to get the hang of crawling especially when he wants to get to me. Which, is so sweet and pitiful at the same time. He'll be totally bawling and crawling one little "step" at time and looking at me with these BIG sad eyes. "Mama, I need you! Come get me!!"

Watching Lily and Tyler together is getting interesting! Each one wants whatever the other one has. I completely understand why there was always three of EVERYTHING in my house growing up!!

I painted Lily's finger nails the other day. Can you believe she's old enough for this?? She's pretty cute about it but the sitting still while it dries part at the end is a little bit of a challenge for her. And, within a couple hours, she picks off all the nail polish and wants me to paint them again.