Week 29: More pictures from vacation

During our stay with them, Rob's parents graciously opened their home to Rob's birth family so that they could all meet Zack. It was a lovely afternoon, with lots of great food (mmmm...lamb shish kebob...) and wonderful company.

As I think I mentioned before, Rob and I managed to not take any pictures of the event, but Peri was kind enough to send us the ones that she took--Thanks!

Let's start with a lovely picture of our hosts, Anne and Mark.
At this point, what I really need is a family tree to keep everyone's relationship straight but we'll give it a go.

We'll start out easy with Rob and his birth father, Jim. I'm guessing you can figure out who the little guy is by now. The one that has a thing for beer already.
And this is Leslie, Rob's birth mother.
Here's where it gets a little trickier. This is Daniel, Rob's biological half-brother, and Peri, who is now married to Jim, mother to Daniel. Does that make Daniel a half-uncle to Zack?
Meredith (left) is Daniel's sister, Peri's daughter. Jessica (middle), is Leslie's daughter and Rob's biological half sister. Are they half-aunts?
Still with me?

Here's an easy one.
Regardless of everyone's technical relationship to everyone else, there was enough love and warmth to go around and I think it's fairly safe to say that everyone was pretty smitten with Zack.

Week 29 minus 1 day: Pictures from vacation

Just a few pictures from the first week of our vacation.

En route to Connecticut.
Kicking back.
First feel (and believe me, there was a first taste, too) of sand.
Hanging out with Dad in the ocean...
...on the beach...
...and in the pool.
Meeting Rob's biological family for brunch...

(L to R: Leslie, Kelly, me, Rob, Zack, Jessica and Jay)

...and either being bored or overwhelmed by the whole thing.
Coming up: more pictures of the party Anne and Mark had for Rob's biological family to meet Zack, and of our week in Cape Cod.

As for what our little guy is up to now: he's getting very close to getting up on his hands and knees. He's definitely traveling places by rolling and scooting. He has discovered that he can make very high-pitched noises and seems to enjoy practicing said noises very much. Rob and I may need hearing aids shortly. He continues to grow--last week he weighed in at 17 lbs 9 oz and measured 27.5 inches. He continues to be a super-sweet, happy little boy!

We're back

Let's recap:
::We went to Connecticut, then Cape Cod. Now we need a vacation.
::Zack turned half a year old on August 21. Let's not even discuss how it's not possible for half a year to have gone by already.
::Zack charmed everyone he met during his travels, and was told that he "is full of positive energy." His charm even got his picture in the newspaper.
::He is sitting all by himself and has resumed raspberrying in full force.
::He is doing a lot of arm flapping, even though I've told him that flying is not his best bet in terms of mobility. He gets his persistence from his father.
::His food repertoire now includes butternut squash, green beans, apricots and peaches (though he may be a touch allergic to those two), sweet potatoes and sand. Peas are on the menu for this evening.
::He does not seem to have a peanut allergy, as we discovered after he found a peanut shell on the beach and started munching.
::We got him in both the ocean and pool and he was fine with both, even though the ocean was downright frigid. He was probably in the ocean more than I was and was definitely in the pool more.
::He is also rather fond of the beach, as you can see from this little video clip that will have to tide you over until I get to a proper blog (imagine that it's turned the proper way).

Week 25: Channelling his inner narwhal...and Abi

He's stopped raspberrying and started making whale-like noises now. From the minute he wakes up, it's aaaaaaah.....aaaaah..aaaaaaaaah.........aaaaahhhaaa... He gets pretty shrill at times and also seems to be paying attention to how it sounds in the space he's in (it echoes in our new room). I'm a little afraid that when we're at the beach next week he's going to attract all the local whales and there will be a rash of beachings in Waterford and Truro.

He starts out the night in his crib and after a few hours wakes up for a midnight (1 am, 2 am? Who pays attention at that hour?) snack. At that point, Rob brings him into bed with us so I can feed him and sleep at the same time. For most of the night, he's cradled in my arm, but usually at some point I feel the need to readjust my position (or I can no longer feel my arm) and I put him in between Rob and I. This had worked well until about a week ago, when his ability (and inclination) to move increased remarkably. And I woke up to some feet in my face. Cute little feet, but they were, nonetheless, in my face. He was perpendicular to us and was perilously close to kicking me in the nose. We both immediately thought of Abi, who on cold winter nights would start out curled up in a small ball at my stomach and then, like those little sponges when water is added, would slowly expand during the night taking up more and more space, often at right angles to us.

He's now a big fan of apples.

All of a sudden he can pretty much sit on his own. He can adjust his balance if he reaches forward or to the side, but he still topples backwards pretty easily. He's also figured out how to go from sitting to his tummy so that he can start wriggling to whatever he has his mind set on at that moment.

Not many pictures this week, though I'm sure we'll more than make up for that while on vacation the next 2 weeks. If we remember to pull out the cameras. Just a few minutes before the one above was taken, he had his left foot on top of the high chair tray, but I wasn't quite quick enough with the camera. He had also just started pushing the block off the tray on purpose, watching it fall about half of the times that he did it. Look out, Cause and Effect, here he comes!

So he's on the floor, surrounded by toys within arm's reach and a laundry basket a little further away. Guess what he sets his sights on?

Week 24

Lots happened this week.

He met his first dog, a very gentle standard poodle named Henry. Zack was enthralled. Looks like we'll have to get another pooch.

(Imagine a picture here. As usual, Rob or I were totally unprepared for a photo op outside the house. I'm going to have to start carrying the camera with me at all times.)

He started rolling. One evening, I put him down on the kitchen floor while I was doing a few things. When I looked back, he was about 2 feet from where I'd put him. He's also started rolling over on his belly at night in his crib.

We had a nice jaunt on Saturday where he "helped" me pick out another pair of glasses (I wanted a 2nd pair because a certain someone is very interested in my current pair and I could just see where that was headed sooner or later. Probably sooner.), we ran a few errands and had a nice lunch. Sunday we went over to friends' house for dinner, where I barely got to see him. He was his charming self, as usual.

We went for walks.
We fell asleep on walks.
We read the newspaper with Dad.
"Hmmm.....what's this black and white stuff? It's kind of fun to pull!"
We chilled out before having dinner (We walked in to find him leaning over like this. And he wasn't stuck because he pulled himself up a minute later).
We played while waiting for Dad to make dinner.
We decided that avocado wasn't our favorite.
But other stuff?
Other stuff is a different story. Carrots are yummy.
And so are potatoes.
Hopefully they're good for the complexion, too.
Want some?

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.