December | 2013 | Put on Love

On December 22, we welcomed Charles Marshall Baum to our family. He was born at 6:33pm, weighed 7 pounds even, was 20.5 inches long, and his head was 13.5 cm in circumference. The whole process went so smoothly and was so much easier than the first time around. I was so thankful for this as I did not feel too great before, during or after I had James.

I think it is safe to say that many people were surprised that Charles was a boy. Many of our close friends and family were pretty convinced we were having a girl this time. This included Austin, who I think was in a state of shock that it was another boy once he arrived. Either way we were so very excited to meet him and we still love having it be a surprise.

Family of four : )

Unforgettable moment.

It is amazing to me how much different from James, Charles seemed from the first few scans at the doctor’s office and throughout the whole pregnancy. James was always front and center as if he was waving to us saying ‘look at me!’ during our ultrasounds. No surprise now as James is Mr. Outgoing himself. Charles on the other hand was always hiding and reserved. During our big 20 week ultrasound we didn’t even get a good profile shot of Charles because he just wanted to stay put with his hands over his face right where he was. I have had a feeling that he had a very different personality from James and it seems to be true so far.

So far the transition home has been pretty easy, minus the chaos of Christmas. I must admit we have been overwhelmed by people and celebrations since the moment we got home. We LOVE having people over, but right after you have a baby is probably not the best time to be hosting events at your house. Lesson learned. I am excited that things are going to slow down a bit now and we can have some time with just the four of us.

My three boys.

First family Christmas photo.

Charles leading the March for the first time as the youngest in the family.

Back to Charles… He is a super sweet baby. He is extremely mellow and there is very little that seems to get him upset. He does not like to be rocked or bounced. Instead he likes to just be held calmly. I am not complaining as this is very easy to accommodate compared to a baby who needs constant motion. He is a great eater and at our first doctor’s appointment he had already gained enough weight to surpass his birth weight. He is also a great sleeper! What a blessing! He is sleeping three and four hour stretches at night which is so much better than one or two hour stretches. He is becoming more alert and is starting to inspect the world around him. He has a very serious look on his face when he is awake. It will be interesting to see if this plays into his personality later on.

When comparing him to baby pictures of James there are for sure some differences and similarities. They both have my button nose. It is one of the most dominant traits I have ever seen. It is from my maternal grandmother and almost all of my cousins have it. They also both have great skin coloring, that looks much like my dad’s. As for differences, their eyes are shaped completely differently, James had and still has big ole’ cheeks like his dad, Charles did not get as big of cheeks. Charles’ mouth is a bit smaller than James’. James’ face shape was much more round as a baby. Charles’ is more shaped like a V. Charles has fingers and toes that are super long, which neither Austin or I have so he got those from someone else. I would not be surprised if he ends up taller than James one day. I am so interested to see how much they will or won’t look alike as time goes on. Either way they are both super cute to me!

Baby James.

Baby Charles.

Baby James.

Baby Charles.

Baby James.

Baby Charles.

As for the name Charles Marshall, he is named after my uncle Charles Thaddeus Terry, who passed away when I was ten. He was a tremendous man who was so kind, humble and a servant in all he did. Marshall is after Austin’s maternal grandfather Donald Marshall Baker. I never knew him but I have been told that he was a wonderful man who loved the Lord greatly. We are well aware of the fact that we also have a dog named Charles. To be clear we did not name him after the dog. : ) Austin named the dog before we met and it just ended up that it was one of our favorite family names for a boy. For now we are calling the baby Charles and the dog Charlie. I am sure one day this will change but for now it will help to differentiate.

We are so thankful for another healthy baby and so excited to begin our adventure as a family of four. Welcome to the family Charles! You are so very loved already.

This is most likely my last post all about Sweet Baby James before Baby Baum #2 makes his or her arrival. I was not really planning on doing a 21 month post however, I cannot pass up the opportunity to document the sweet time we have had together before his little sibling comes a long. At this point my blog is more of a family photo/memory book than anything else. I created a book on Shutterfly of my blog from Tanzania and was so happy to be able to have a hard copy of our memories and pictures of our time there. Instead of the typical baby book or scrapbook, I plan to create a book each year for our family from this blog. It is just easier for me this way, as scrapbooks are so very time consuming for me. Maybe one day my blog will be something else but until then I am happy with it’s purpose. On to baby James…

Here are the most recent baby James happenings:

He is talking up a storm. He will repeat almost anything you say, which can be very entertaining at times. Some of my favorite sayings right now are, “pees mommy” (please mommy), “holdit” (as in pick me up and hold me), “hohoho’s coming,” (santa’s coming), “op barking,” (stop barking..directed towards the dogs when barking), “Hey Buddy!” (what he says every time he sees Austin as that is what Austin calls James) … and many more. He has a lot of expression and excitement when saying things too which makes it all the more fun. When Austin came home from work the other day, James and I were painting. James exclaimed, “I painting!” with great enthusiasm and pride.

He is a great helper. He loves to help with all things. He helps with unloading the dishwasher, particularly the silverware drawer. He helps mixing food up when I am cooking. He helps Austin fix things in the garage with a screwdriver and has had lots of fun helping with the Christmas decorations. He helps clean up spills by getting a towel and wiping it up. It is pretty fun to watch him imitate our actions and want to be such a good helper. For Thanksgiving, he was helping me make cinnamon rolls, by rolling the dough with a rolling pin. He and I were saying “roll it, roll it, roll it..” while working. A few days later in our morning cuddle time, he was saying good morning to the baby by giving my belly kisses. He then proceeded to take his blankie in a rolling pin position, rolling it on my belly and saying, “roll it, roll it.” Apparently he thinks my belly looks like a big ball of dough. Ha ha. I get it kid, I’m getting bigger.

He is getting into some trouble. He is intentionally doing things he knows he should not, and biting and hitting when frustrated. We have had to bust out the mean mommy and daddy side and time outs too. I can tell this is where the real difficulties of parenting are going to set in for me. I do not like being mean mommy and having to say no constantly but I am very aware that if we are not firm now it will become a bigger issue later.

He is very particular with certain things. When it comes to building blocks, coloring, or laying things out he has a way that he would like it to be done. He does not like help, until he needs it. I would call it more methodical than OCD, just like his daddy.

He is learning his ABC’S and 123’s. It’s pretty fun teaching him basic things like colors, numbers and letters. He is still just barely grasping the concept of most of them but he seems to be enjoying learning new things each day. He continues to love reading and is soaking up more and more vocabulary from books all of the time.

He was scared of Santa this year. Last year he had no qualms about sitting with Santa, but this year that was not the case. He was much more weary. I tried to prep him a bit with some santa videos and such but no such luck. I understand I was scared too when I was little. The result was a Santa picture with me in the middle and James looking like a deer in headlights. One for the books. Ha. He has not stopped talking about Santa since and I think if I took him back he might actually say hi on his own. Oh well.

As always, we are so thankful to be James’ parents and thankful for the joy he brings us. He is a blessing in every way. I am sure that having a sibling will be an adjustment for James and for us too, but I am confident that he will be a great big brother once he settles in to his new role.