Week 23

There's a list of about 10 foods that we're supposed to introduce to Zack first, to make sure that he's not allergic to anything. Then we can mix and match and try other things. We try one food for 3 days and move onto the next if he's been fine with the first food. We gave him bananas for at least 3 days and he was just fine and really seemed to like them.

So last night we moved onto avocados. He's been getting very excited when Rob sits down with the food and gets the spoon ready. Last night was no different.

"Bring on the food, Dad"
"Geez, Dad, hurry up!"
"Whoa, what's this?!?"
"What happened to the bananas?"
This went on for every spoonful--excitement, then questioning, then wrinkling up the nose. Every spoonful. But he ate it.

He's getting so big! He can roll from his back to his front now, though not quite as reliably as from front to back. He's trying so hard to pull himself up to sitting and keeps getting a little further. After I nurse him, he wants to sit up and usually has a gleam in his eye as if to say "Hmmm....what can I get into now?". And then he lunges for something. He's doing well at daycare. When I've gotten there every night this week, he's been sitting in a bouncy seat with the other older kids standing around him, just fascinated. I'm greeted with "You're here to pick up the baaa-bee!".

Update

Zack, being the clever boy that he is, has discovered that he can combine his two new skills. So, yes, he is raspberrying while he eats his bananas and cereal.

He weighed in at 16 lbs, 8 oz this morning--nearly 2 lbs in a month!

22 weeks + a few days

What a busy week!

Two big highlights: yesterday, he enthusiastically ate rice cereal with bananas that Rob made for him. (And yes, some did make into his tummy)
This just confirms what we already knew, that Rob is a better cook than I, since Zack was barely interested when I made it for him a day earlier.

He also learned to raspberry last Wednesday. And hasn't stopped since.
Grandma and Grandpa came down to visit this weekend, which was great. With the extra hands around, we got started on cleaning out the garage and digging a few more flower beds. I'm not sure why there aren't any shots of Grandma and Zack, but we got some of Grandpa.
I think they wore him out because he slept through the night last night (though I didn't; I kept waking up worried about him!)

He's studying everything much more closely these days, on the road to understanding relationships between objects. The tassel on his bear is the subject of much scrutiny these days.
He likes to read while I putter in the kitchen after we get home in the evening.
Bath time is a bit more challenging these days since he is quite the wiggly worm.
He's too big for our sinks, so we've just taken to getting in the tub with him.
This week we've also switched over to the regular strollers, rather than sticking his car seat in a frame. He seems to really like looking forward as we cruise along.

Last night he completely flipped from his back to his stomach. He's been working on this for awhile but kept getting stuck trying to figure out what to do with the arm that kept getting trapped underneath him. I suppose it's not long before he puts the tummy-to-back and back-to-tummy flips together into one big 360-degree roll. Uh-oh.

"Awww, Mom. Not more kisses!"

13 adults + 8 babies = 1 crazy afternoon

We hosted a reunion of our Bradley method class yesterday afternoon. It was fun to see everyone that we'd gone through 10 weeks of birth classes with, to see what had come of all the big bellies, to see how everyone was doing.

Of course, we had to line up all the babies* on the couch.
That's Ursula, our instructor in the middle. It was fun to see how the babies reacted to each other and how much variability there is among all of them.

Zack seemed to enjoy it all, even though he was asleep when everyone got there, and fell asleep in my lap before everyone left. We'll have to work on his hosting skills.

*one baby left before we got to snap the shot.

21 weeks

We haven't forgotten about the pooch.
He's grown a little, huh? And can do a few more things.

He started daycare this week. It's probably been harder for Rob and I than for him. We're still hoping for an opening in one that would work better with our commute, but this one works for now.

He's turning into a real wiggle-worm, reaching for everything, putting everything into his mouth (he's gnawing on my wrist and playing with the mouse as I type). We're really going to have to watch him or he's going to end up on his head. He can push himself up so that his entire tummy is off the ground. He wiggles and twists so that he can reach his toys when he's playing on the floor. He's getting closer to sitting on his own but isn't there yet.

We started putting him in his crib in his own room, which works for part of the night. And we tried a bit of banana this week. He seems to like the flavor and will suck on a piece broken off for him (don't worry--I'm holding onto it the whole time, very careful he doesn't put too much in his mouth), but isn't really interested in eating much of it. He still pushes it out with his tongue rather trying to swallow it, so it's still a little early for solids.

Have we ever shown you his comb-over?
We're hoping this isn't a precursor to what he'll look like in 70 years.


"Geez, Mom"
"If you're going to start showing pictures like that....
...this show is OVER!"

20 Weeks

It was Zack's first Fourth last week. It was also his first exposure to fire.
He seems to have the typical male reaction to it.

And this next picture? This has to be the direct result of those drinking songs...I mean nursery rhymes that Nonnie sang to him while I was away.
He didn't discriminate. He was after my citrusy tequila drink, too.
We watched the National Fireworks from the rooftop of a friend's apartment building in Dupont Circle. It's a great way to do it--no crowds, no traffic. Even though it was past Zack's bedtime, he was watching them, too.

So aside from turning into a mini-pyromaniac, what's he been up to this week? Well, he decided to totally throw us off kilter by changing his sleep patterns again--waking up every 2 hours during the night seemed like a good idea to him, not so much to us. However, last night he slept 6 hours straight, so maybe we're back on track.

He's making more noises, some reminiscent of a squeaky gate. He's reaching for everything, including my keyboard as I type this. Did I mention that he's scooting across the bed if we put him on his tummy? We tried a bit of rice cereal last weekend and you would have thought we were trying to poison him from the looks on his face, so we'll put off trying solids a little longer. He's increasingly easy to distract, both a good thing (when he's cranky) and a bad thing (when he's eating).

He starts daycare next week at a small in-home setting where I think he'll do very well.

Oh, and he found his feet.