The First Five Months

The first few months after Teddy's birth were fairly uneventful. Our older son AJ adapted well to becoming a big brother, and we all managed just fine despite being tucked tightly into a small duplex. We had moved to Oshkosh from Denmark (Wisconsin) in January 2013 when Dave took a new job. Because we had less than a month to find a place to live, and a house in Denmark to sell, we rented a nice, but small, 2-bedroom duplex. Our hope was to sell our Denmark house and be moved into a new house before Teddy was born. That didn't quite happen since our house didn't sell until right before Teddy was born, and then life happened. We lived in that little duplex for about 19 months, which was at least 12 more than I had intended. Guess what, we all survived.

Teddy's baptism with the Kassie side of the family.

 

Teddy's baptism with the Blondheim side of the family ... juggling cousins!

The biggest issue we encountered was that Teddy was not a happy baby. Although most of the pictures I've included with this post indicate otherwise, he was not all smiles and giggles. In fact, he was more screams and cries.

Brotherly love

It seemed that often he was only content if I walked around carrying him, and he wasn't that tiny of a baby that he got heavy after a while (or so I thought at the time. His current Jan 2016 weight of 35 + lbs. and carrying him now puts that idea of heavy into perspective.) He cried so much that my mother-in-law insisted that he hated her, and we simply told her that Teddy hated life in general, not her specifically.

This was reality most of the time unless Teddy was held while walking around.

I distinctly recall coming home from a late work dinner to find David in the rocking chair with Teddy screaming at the top of his lungs. Once I took him, he settled down, which I know frustrated Dave to no end. (And my stress sky-rocketed from an evening away from the boys only to be greeted by piercing screams.)

That smile, though, was his saving grace.

For whatever reason, around 5 months Teddy magically became a much happier child. He was content to actually chill out on the floor without screaming. He didn't need to be carried everywhere all the time. Life was good ...