Nine Months Old

Unbelievable to me that he is this old already. Everyone cautions you how fast time flies, but you just cannot imagine how fast it really does go by until you are watching a child grow. (Exept for the first couple months...those do not fly by, those drag on and on in a sleepless haze.)

Henry is amazing. He is getting so talkative, so busy, so curious. His newest skill is clapping his hands which he has learned elicits an excited "patty-cake, patty-cake!!" response from us. He also is loving feeding himself lots of finger food to the point of sometimes refusing food that is fed to him by us. He loves to eat bread, egg, fruit pieces, cereal, turkey, graham crackers...pretty much anything we'll give him. Not crawling yet, but we think it will be soon. In any case, I'm not in any hurry - I like that he still stays where I put him.

Here is a picture of him sitting in his Uncle Geoff's old rocking chair that our grandpa (his great-grandpa) made for him when he was little...enjoying a little Christmas cigar (not really, of course).

Happy Holidays!!

More Snow!

A week ago Henry saw his first snow; now a week later he sees one of the biggest snowfalls we've seen in Portland in decades. Plus, today, the ice on top of that! I got some great videos of Wilbur going nuts in the snow and ice.

Must watch video of us as elves!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

38 Weeks Old

This week's picture is also his Santa picture. We had to take him to see Santa Claus on his very first Christmas... I thought he would scream his little head off, but he actually really liked Santa. He tried to touch his beard and smiled and laughed. So now he's had the requisite commercial Christmas experience I suppose. Since neither Brett nor I are religiously affiliated maybe we'll have to come up with our own holiday traditions. I'm leaning towards the Festivus model as proposed by George's dad on Seinfeld. We didn't get a tree this year...maybe there's still time to go get a Festivus pole. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQFLqMyo0fo

PS I know I am prejudiced, but isn't he the cutest kid you've ever seen?

SNOW! SNOW! SNOW!

They said it was coming, but, as those who live in Portland know, the news sometimes like to make a mountain out of a molehill in regards to snow. However, we woke up this morning and it was coming down hard and it hasn't let up since. So we took Henry out in his first snowfall. Hard to say whether he thought it was anything special or not... Wilbur, on the other hand, loves the snow as we found out the first year we had him. He goes crazy - running around and sliding into things. We bundled up and went down to Starbucks which is usually only a 10 or 15 minute walk each way but it took longer of course today. Here are some pictures of our walk and the snow around our house. The lake looks absolutely beautiful. Hopefully it will just keep snowing so Brett won't have to go to work tomorrow!

37 Weeks Old!

I should have thought about this last week, but for some reason it didn't cross my mind until this week - but Henry was born at 36 weeks gestation; so he's now officially been outside longer than inside! :) I love that in the first picture he's excited and leaning forward and in the bottom one he's just laid back, chilling.

More Milestones

First, the second top tooth has poked through! Just like on the bottom it was right followed about 4 days later by left. These top ones haven't seemed to bother him as much as the lower ones did, so let's hope that trend continues. Second, we (finally) got the crib set up in the spare bedroom for him. Of course, the old mattress is still in there, pushed up against the wall, but it's a start. I'm going to try to transition him into it by putting him down for naps in there and then move on to overnights. I love these pictures because in the first one he looks stunned to be in the crib, but then he likes it.

Vital Stats Update

Henry went in to meet his new doctor today and get some more vaccinations. After meeting the doctor, I felt very comfortable with her as she is very supportive of our philosophy in regards to breastfeeding and vaccinations. Henry got a three-in-one shot of DTaP, Hib, and Polio. The doctor in Savannah would have given him the DTaP and Polio together so I knew those two were safe to do together and I knew from my own research that the Hib vaccine does not have any aluminium in it and since he's had that one before and did not have an adverse reaction to it, I figured it was okay to do those three....especially because he only had to get stuck one time for all three! He weighed in at 17 pounds, 8 ounces and was 27 inches tall. Measured against other 8 month old that puts him in the 13th percentile for weight and 55th percentile for height. Measured against other 7 month olds obviously he's even higher up on the percentile charts. She said that he's right where he should be developmentally. While I think Dr. Ramos will forever be my favorite pediatrician, I am so happy to have found Dr. Gopal and I think this will be the beginning of a long relationship!

Milestone Alert

Henry's top right tooth poked through on Saturday! I've felt like one was coming for about a week now and on Friday and Saturday he kept running his tongue over his gums which is what he did before the bottom ones came in and, sure enough, by Saturday I could see it coming in. This one didn't seem to bother him as much as the bottom ones did, thank goodness.

36 Weeks Old!

Henry is getting so big! Probably the most profound change in him is that he is asserting his own desires much more - protesting, in the form of crying, when he wants to do something different than he is doing at the moment...and moving (or trying to move) all over the place to try and get things that interest him - as seen in the top photo. Gone is my quiet, content little baby! But, as I told my mom the other day, he seems like a real baby now. What I meant was that he's active, messy, loud, moody, etc. I love it!!

Feeding Frenzy!

Last night I let Henry try to feed himself some mashed potatoes. Here is the result.

8 Months Old!

Henry turned 8 months old right on Thanksgiving day. We had a great dinner over at Gigi's house and Henry even got to eat some turkey, mashed potatoes, and asparagus. Strange, I know...but he really seemed to enjoy the asparagus and we have the pictures to prove it!

Our sign language class is continuing and it is amazing to see some of the kids signing. Henry's vocabulary is definitely increasing. He recognizes more and more words all the time. Most recently I realized he knows "more" and "bubbles." "More" I could tell because he was sitting in his highchair looking down at a toy and I said, "More?" and he opened his mouth. He does this also when he's looking at me but I didn't know that he actually recognized the word and wasn't just responding to the spoon coming towards him! "Bubbles" I can tell he knows because I ask him if he wants bubbles and he looks up to the shelf where I keep them. Exciting stuff!