7 Months!

I almost missed posting tonight because things are so hectic around here! Tonight i made it back to quilting for the first time in awhile but then had to run home and get preparations underway to host our neighborhood playgroup tomorrow afternoon. This mostly involved getting the house into decent shape and prepping some food that i can throw together tomorrow afternoon. Still, it's a bit after 11 and i've still got a mountain of laundry to fold. Unfortunately there's so much of it i don't think i can just shove it in the laundry closet! We'll see how much i get done otherwise i'll be shutting the door to the folding room/guest room.

Henry did indeed turn 7 months old today. He didn't celebrate it in any particular kind of way but just had a happy normal day at Brenda's and then ran to the grocery store with me after work. He charmed the clerks and couldn't take his eyes off all the produce. We played at home and managed to all three eat dinner together as a family. That happens about once every 6-8 weeks as we usually eat well after Henry's gone to bed. It's kind of fun to be all together though so it's a happy turn of events when we can swing it.

All 6 month pictures are up on yahoo.

6 Months, 30 Days

Well, i think i found a food that Henry doesn't really like-- yellow bell peppers. He ate his avocado with flair and then ate about 3-4 bites of bell pepper just fine. With the next bite he grimaced and turned away. He also seemed to be getting full and distracted by the cats. When he'd look back he'd respond to my query of more, but would then make the terrible grimace face again. We did this for a few bites and i decided to call it quits. I've got an entire ice cub tray worth so i'll be trying them again with him soon but so far they are most definitely not his favorite!

Today was Henry's first snow-- mostly flurries but it was freezing, windy and snowing which i believe should count as his first official winter day. He's been trying out his various snowsuits the past few days. Here's one that i love but that he's almost outgrown already.

Fluffy

I've never been so happy to hear a euphemism for fat before in my life. When i was dropping Henry off this morning we were talking about how he's really outgrown all the baby buntings (snowsuits) that i got for him before the season even hit it's stride. The one i put him in today had feet built in and it was so tight he was almost doing a forced back-bend when the hood was up. I made a comment that he was growing so long and was such a long skinny baby.

Brenda kinda of laughed and said that she thought he was kinda fluffy. First of all i think she's nuts because while he's not skin and bones, he's certainly no round bellied little chubby baby. But since i'm a little over-paranoid about his tiny stature i was positively glowing from the comment. Now if she had called me fluffy it might have been different but call my baby what you like big-boned, strapping, corpulent and i'm liable to give you hug.

6 Months, 28 Days

Hopefully no one is looking too closely but i got a bit off count with Henry's months and days. We're caught back up and soon to be seven months old (this Thursday!).

When i went to pick Henry up there were two other moms that arrived at the same time so while they were busy getting their kids coats on and gathering their stuff i chatted with Brenda a little. She told me that Henry was just such a good baby and that he all the other kids just love him because he reacts with such big smiles when they say hello or talk to him. We said it was like Norm going to cheers because as soon as he arrives a chorus of voices yells "Henry!" I thanked her and let her know how happy we were with our arrangement. To show this in a practical manner i gave her an amazing Tamra-creation-- if only i had pictures because i'm not sure you're going to believe it.

Brenda had asked each family to donate one box of tissues now that cold season is in full effect. I decided i want to give her something else that would be useful and settled on batteries because i know how many of the babies' swings, toys, etc. gobble them right up. I went to Costco and bought packs of C,D and AA batteries but felt i couldn't just hand over these mega-packs of batteries; clearly i had to do something to liven them up without going overboard.

First i played around with arranging them in different shapes and settled on the larger D cells in a circle surrounding the smaller C batteries. Then i lashed them together and cut out a base for them to rest on. Next i cut out tail feathers, a gobble, and little feet-- you guessed it, i made the battery sculpture into a turkey. Just to temper things a bit i just put the AAs in the bag in their own packaging. She was appreciative although perhaps a little freaked out by the turkey.

30 Weeks

Becoming a mother has profound implications, not least of which is the re-introduction to social pecking orders. Not since i was in highschool have i been thrust together with groups of women that i would normally not come into contact with... ever.

In highschool (and i'm basing my comments here on a public school experience) you have no choice about the people with which you are confined to a building day in and day out . Students do what they can to mark themselves as part of a group, but it's impossible to completely avoid the jokers plaguing your yearbook class.

College provides a much larger pool from which to find kindred spirits. Move along the non-profit route and generally you find yourself surrounded by people that share many of your social, intellectual and cultural markers.

One day you're blithely mocking urban hipsters (welcome to the world Henry!); the next you're sitting on the floor of someone's living room exchanging parenting tips with a woman in oversized sunglasses and manolo blahnik boots.

True story, a group of us with babies 6 months or less are gathered in a neighbor's living room exchanging stories about meltdowns our babies experienced while we were out. The woman across from me began by recounting the time her newborn son had a fit while she was shoping in Sacks 5th Avenue. It didn't even occur to me what a contrast my story of Henry's freak-out in Walgreens was until well after the fact.

All of this to to say that motherhood is a much stronger forced commonality than high school district ever was. The fact that you can make absolutely opposite choices about 99% of your life and still find a fierce 1% of parenting topics to hash over with strangers is a really new experience for me.

6 Months, 25 Days

As far as milestones go, i have a few to catch everyone up on. For probably the past week or so Henry has been babbling-- adhering to the strict definition of the word. Since mid-summer he's been experimenting with o's and ah's and then moved on to blowing bubbles and running his lips in the fall but now he's finally embraced vowel consonant combinations. For many babies the ma-ma-ma or da-da-da sounds are often first which lead many people to brag that their child said their first word at 6 months. Henry doesn't want anyone taking credit for something until he's ready so he's going with ba-ba-ba.

Baby book wisdom seems to be that you should encourage your baby by following along,inserting uhuh's into the conversation as if you were participating, and making the sounds back to them. If you follow the experts lead, Henry will just clam up. If you initiate the sounds yourself Henry will look at you like you're a complete idiot. If however he's content (happily playing in the bath or on the changing table) he'll babble away.

Tonight also marked the first time he intentionally splashed in the tub. If only our excitement wasn't tempered by the need to recaulk.

6 Months, 23 Days

I've been putting Henry down on the hardwood floor in the evenings on his stomach. He isn't crazy about that unless he's distracted with toys. This evening i moved his toys a fair distance away from him and he was really trying to get to them-- trouble is he either turned in circles as if his stomach was the pivot point on a protractor or scooched backwards. This made him very unhappy. I just kept clapping and cheering him on the farther away he got which would temporarily make him happy and then confuse him because although i was excited he was farther away from the target. From what i've read, moving backwards-- even on the belly is one of the first steps to mobility. I have a feeling it's going to be a long process with Henry because he's not particularly interested in moving around but it's fun to see him making his first moves.

Can't remember if i told you that he had blackberries yesterday for the first time.