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June 30, 2007
Movie: Self-Feeding Baby
How helpful is that? A self-feeding baby! Now if he would only start producing his own milk....
Boy was I pleased when he started doing this. And now that we are giving him a lot more bottles (I’m writing in August, at the beginning of his seventh month, when we are busy weaning him) I am that much happier to have him do (some of) the holding. He is proving a bit fussy about which bottle he uses though, and unfortunately his preference is for the bottle type that comes from the US and of which we have only three. The Avent bottles, of which we have about a million, is for some reason a distant (though narrowing) second choice.
Posted by talia at 4:03 PM
June 23, 2007
Movie: Early Baby Crawling, Early Baby Bribing
Yes, he is crawling! And responding to enticement! This is a long video but worth it for the soundtrack alone.
We kept telling people “he’s crawling” and typically they would ask “military man crawl”? No. “Crawling backwards?” No. Standing on his head and pushing with his legs crawl. Well, everyone has their own way of doing things. In this case, it appears to be the bulldozer approach.
This did turn into proper crawling very soon thereafter. He never did military man, which is too bad, it would have been cute I’m sure.
Posted by talia at 4:20 PM
Movie: Look, Ma! No Hands!
Big deal, you think, he's sitting on his own. Actually, what we're trying to demonstrate is his precocious appreciation of quality folk music.
Early to crawl, but it took him a while to figure out how to sit. In fact, he learned crawling first. The result is that despite having learned to sit, he almost never does so. He is basically always on the go. Or, more recently, always trying to stand up.
Posted by talia at 4:10 PM
June 19, 2007
Month Four (May 19 – June 19)
So much has happened in just a few short weeks.
Having returned from Portugal we realize that you are just too darn large to be bathed in the bathroom sink, time for a change: The Big Bath. We’ve started a nice little nighttime routine you took to really well: we take a bath, all three of us in the tub together. It’s relaxing for all of us. Sometimes you kick and sometimes you chill. Sometimes you nurse, it’s super cute, though really I’d rather you nurse after the bath since the removing the baby from the bath and dressing the baby for night time never quite goes smoothly and all our efforts to calm you are thwarted and you can only be soothed by a good feeding, which if I’ve nursed you in the tub, you’ve already had. I really appreciate how your father gets out of the tub first, even without losing at rock paper scissors, to deal with this transition, since frankly, by the time 7pm rolls around, I really cannot manage another one of your breakdowns.
Anyway, after you are clean and in a fresh onsie, you snuggle into your wonderful sleep sack and come on up for a good long drink. Very often you are willing to be placed in the crib and quickly drop off for a long slumber of four hours. Sometimes you continue to fight sleep and put up a bit of a struggle.
You’ve gotten really very good at grabbing things, holding them, and stuffing what you can of them into your mouth. Everything goes into your mouth. Except the Ball of All Frustration which you can grab exceptionally well, yet not manage to get into your mouth. Parents deserve to be amused too.
You are busy each hour it seems trying to sit up. When I lay you down to change your diaper, you lift your head and strain your neck in an attempt to be up-right. With only very slight help from us, you do indeed make your way up. And let me tell you, Milo, all those sit-up are really paying off. Aside from the mini six-pack you’ve developed you started to roll really well from one side to another. I think even sometimes you mean to do it. And scoot. Each time I go to you in the night you are in a completely different part of your bed from how I left you. I haven’t witnessed this movement, but I suppose you inch your way around the mattress like a worm.
Today you napped for a grand total of one hour, pooped a grand total of four diaper changes and maintained a sunny disposition nearly the entire day. What a guy. You slumber now, soundly, deeply, and perhaps also for a long time. They say sleep begets sleep and indeed these past few days in Israel you have been napping well and sleeping well, tonight we shall test the theory. My love, we have accomplished something great with this nighttime routine. Thank you for liking it as much as I do. Now, if we could just eliminate the crying post bath while getting dressed bit, we will really be aces. I think only once you awoke in the past week for something non-feeding related. My champ.
You’ve also been quite a wonder in meeting all the new relatives. They come right up to you and pinch your delicious cheeks and as if on cue you smile back. I do miss the sweet little pout followed by silent crying you used to greet new people with, but seems you know that a smile will garner love and friendship.
Your smile has certainly hooked me.
Love, Mama
Posted by talia at 4:05 PM
June 17, 2007
Oerol
We took Felix to an island for a cultural festival, but really, of course, we went to hang out with our friends. We shared a house with Sophie and Frank and their lovely daughters Julia and Jasmijn. Cisca and Jorge were there as well, with Yone of course. All much more experienced parents than we, able to get enough sleep, to go where they want with their kids, to live life just as they like…well, not quite. But we certainly did learn a number of new tricks. A couple of favorites: Upon arriving at a particularly crowded event at the festival, Cisca and Jorge grabbed Yone and a marker and wrote their cell phone number on his little tricep. Very smart, given his penchant for wandering off and making new friends. (Actually, given this penchant I’m surprised they haven’t had it tattooed on him.) Frank and Sophie were an inspiration, as always, in the patience with which they correct their children, but what we had not previously seen was their at-home gymnastic lessons. Our attempts to imitate them, either as patient parents or as gymnastic ones have met with only middling success thus far.
Posted by talia at 5:50 PM
June 10, 2007
Israel
Talia took Felix to Israel to meet his great-grandparents when he was four months old. She can tell that story elsewhere. For me, what was remarkable about the trip was the use to which I put my ten days or so of free time. I worked. I didn’t sleep, I didn’t do much socializing, I just wrote up a multi-page to do list and went at it. It felt so good to be able to get things done. It felt better than sleeping in, or going out, or just relaxing.
You lose control over your time when you have a baby, but you respond by getting a lot more efficient with how you use it.
Posted by talia at 5:51 PM
June 7, 2007
Mother and Son
They are quite a duo. Felix is very fond of both of us, but there are certain things only a mother can offer, like a clear explanation of html syntax, so their connection is special. Also, Talia talks to him a lot more than I do. It’s something either one has a knack for or not, and if not it is kind of hard to do. But important to do; he owes her for this (and for one or two other things, like providing him 100% of his sustenance for the first six months of his life directly from her own blood, and let’s not even get into the whole shared bloodstream thing pre-birth). Hey, he owes me, too. I trust he won’t forget that, ha ha ha.
Posted by talia at 5:53 PM
June 1, 2007
Movie: Desperate for a bite to eat
You think you're doing everything right, and then you discover your child is so desperately protein deficit he'll eat insects.
His new-found ability to consciously manipulate objects was immediately put to use not in batting at things or shaking them around—it was quite a while before he found a rattle really interesting—but in bringing things to his mouth. Many babies have a period when their depth perception isn’t working well with the result that they can’t tell how far away something is. They typically react to this by trying to hug things to themselves. I don’t really recall Felix doing a lot of that; my memories are dominated by this movie, which displays his single-minded grab-and-stuff technique. You will see the same degree of concentration in the “wax on, wax off” movie, and to the same end.
Posted by talia at 11:02 AM