Caleb: three months

Time flies when you're having fun... or when your life is insane... so Caleb is already three months old.  He's still totally adorable.  He's moving from looking more like Sabrina as a baby to Celia as a baby.  He's still a pretty easy-going guy.  He hates being left alone, but he's always happy if someone is talking to him.  He still smiles a lot - but not just at anything... you have to engage.  And we hear talking occasionally, but he really makes you work for it.  You have to really spend time working him up to talking.  He still gets all worked up smiling before he's ready to talk.  His eyes get all watery and then he'll give you a few coos.  It's adorable.  And we've heard the preliminary laughs that sound more like he's choking a bit while smiling.  He does this when you play with his arms and talk to him or kiss his neck (though this is a hit or miss move).  He's getting pretty good at holding his head up.  His schedule this month looks like this: Sleeps from 9-9ish eating around 6am.  Lately we've been camping out in his room from 4-6am giving him the binky.  He's not hungry until about 6, but he's just awake talking (more than we ever hear during the day!).  We're working on this.  The past few nights, we've put him down around 8:15 and he's slept until about 9 with a 6:30ish feeding without waking up before that at all.  We hope that continues.  Look at this little darling!

As for my health... as we know, this has been the hardest pregnancy and recovery ever.  I was finally cleared for exercise the day before Caleb turned 3 months old.  My abs never came back together after Sabrina, so this pregnancy involved my pelvic muscles substituting for my abs and trying to hold everything up.  By the time Caleb was born (with this head sideways and his hand by his face, mind you), my muscles were shot.  After recovering from a uterine infection post-delivery (and the three rounds of antibiotics), I started physical therapy.  I had to relearn diaphragm breathing and how to walk without using my hips.  Anytime I would eat something wrong or walk too much or turn the wrong way, all of my muscles would seize up like I had another uterine infection.  This happened daily.  It has slowly gotten better.  I haven't had that happen for about two weeks (knock on wood).  After 6 weeks of physical therapy, I can do a single leg-lift.  I can't yet do a sit up.  And they said it will probably take me about a year to be able to do a double leg-lift.  Everything in recovery has felt like one step forward, two steps back.  I still have periodic pelvic muscle pain/hip pain, but I'm getting a bit stronger every day (or so I keep telling myself).  I can now do 5 minutes on the elliptical before nearly passing out and we did a 10 mile bike ride this weekend, which I successfully finished, but am still feeling.  My gut is still trying to recover from the antibiotics and it seems like a new pain/problem pops up weekly.  So are we back to normal?  Not even close.  But we're getting there slowly.  And Caleb is pretty easy (such a blessing).  And I hope to one day not live in constant fear of what I'm flaking out on.  It's tough maintaining house, work, transportation for the all-state girls camp in June, shirts/devotionals for youth conference next week, and running the stake young women's presidency as secretary, and getting Celia off to school.  She only has 8 more days left!  I am blessed to have some amazing friends here that have helped so much.  My friend, Sarah takes Celia to and from school everyday (even though the weather is gorgeous and it's only 2 blocks away... I just can't seem to make it both because of health and schedules).  My friends Jessica and Vickie have watched my kiddos for a million doctors appointments and whisked Sabrina off to a home preschool every Wednesday for an hour and a half.  And cousin Taylor watches the kiddos during my physical therapy appointments.  Without them, we wouldn't have made it this far.  So... here's to recovery.  Hopefully I'll start feeling normal in the next few months and then we can start feeling a bit more like we've got a handle on our life!  But Caleb is worth it and I'm so glad he's here.  (And he just wanted to ensure he would be our last kid.  He loves the attention!)