Leaps and Bounds

I don't know if all the new people and places is good for him, if he was just due for some developmental steps, or if the new environment has given him the chance to display skills he already had and hadn't had an outlet for. But, whatever the cause, Nicholas has gotten much more expressive and interactive in the past couple days. He is a child who knows what he wants and is coming up with ways to express it.

It has actually been such a dramatic jump that I'm not entirely convinced that all of these things are intentional. In fact, when he answered "Yeah" when I asked if he was ready for bed tonight, I was positive it was not intentional. But when he was fussy and I set him down and told him to walk where he wanted to go and he walked straight for the high chair, I think he actually may have been trying to tell me he was hungry. He certainly was excited to eat when I then fed him.

He has also started moving our hands to get them to do what he wants. So when he couldn't figure out how to open a cabinet, he grabbed my hand and put it on the handle. And when he was sitting and playing and wanted to walk over to something on the other side of the room, he grabbed my hands to pull himself up. And when he thought I was holding him back, he pulled my hands off of him. (In this last case it was counter-productive, because if I had actually let go of him he would have fallen, but he didn't get quite that far in the thought process.)

He has also been talking up a storm in the past couple days. He has a couple sets of sounds that really sound remarkably like real words and phrases, but we really aren't sure about intentionality. He says "hi" a lot all of the sudden. Is it just his syllable of the week or is he actually saying hi? Who knows. The other two phrases of the day seem like they have to be coincidence. When Joe asked "How are you?" it really sounded like Nicholas replicated it. But that seems way beyond his capability. And he has been saying a string of syllables that sound remarkably like "I get it." He then does usually reach for something, but he is constantly reaching for something, so I'm willing to chalk that up to coincidence as well. Even the proud mother I am, I seriously doubt these are actual words. Mostly I'm just excited that he is babbling a lot more, likely from being around lots of people constantly for a week.

Another new discovery in Nicholas-land is that whoever is holding him when he is looking in the mirror is in two places. He suddenly has started looking at us in the mirror and then turning to look at us in person. And looking back again. It is as though he has suddenly realized that Mommy (or Daddy) is both holding him and in front of him and is trying to figure it out.

He has also gotten much more active at looking around the person who is holding him to see the people and things beyond. And squirming out of your lap when he wants to be somewhere different.

You can also see it in the peas incidents Joe wrote about. Nicholas figured out he couldn't cry with his mouth open, so was whimpering with his mouth closed. But when he grabbed the spoon from me and had his hand over the scoop part he started crying with his mouth open, having put together the pieces that if he had the spoon I couldn't sneak peas in while he opened his mouth. I've been outsmarted by a 7-month old.

I haven't done a very good job of articulating the change because in many ways it is hard to put my finger on. But at moments during the past couple days it has been like I could see the baby being replaced by the little boy in front of my eyes. These developmental changes seem to come in such spurts.

Roadblock

Peas are apparently over the line.

Nicholas has been, until today, an excellent eater.  He's tried sweet potatoes, carrots, sweet potatoes and corn, pears, applesauce, peaches, bananas, and a combo of bananas, apples, and pears.  When first trying each food, he would often make a bit of a face at the new flavor.  But each time he finished the container, and by the second container seemed to thoroughly enjoy the new food, whatever it was.

After two meals we're not even halfway through the first container of peas.  Nicholas has decided that he does. not. like. peas.  The first bite he took energetically (how should he know what's coming until it gets there?), but then made a face that says, in any language, "ew, gross!!!"  He clamped his mouth shut.  Then he started crying, and I snuck a second spoonful into his mouth.  So he started turning his head to the side so I couldn't reach his mouth, and was whimpering (since he couldn't open his mouth).  We gave up after a few minutes and moved back to his usuals.

At dinner, we tried again, and by then he'd learned even more tricks.  Not only did he refuse to take the mouthful, not only did he turn his head.  Now he wanted to grab the spoon to play with—if I keep this away from Mommy, she can't put icky stuff on it!  You could practically hear the gears working.  Grandpa Dan suggested letting him put some on his fingers so he could acclimate himself that way, but that just made him more upset; that meant he couldn't even suck his thumb!

We're trying to look on the bright side.  In about six hours, he learned a plethora of new skills and ways to communicate, all based on peas.  Of course, he still won't eat them, and I'm not sure what will convince him to do so.

(And, frankly, the peas were actually not the greatest.  I licked some off the spoon when we switched him to sweet potatoes, and the peas had a strange aftertaste.  So I can sort of sympathize with the child.  But don't tell him that.)

Anybody have any tips for smoothing the transition to the greens, short of holding his mouth open?  That is, we're looking for solutions that don't involve Child Protective Services.

Mommy's Happy Place

We went up to Cincinnati yesterday to visit with my college friends, which, as always, made me really happy.

Nicholas had fun too. He doesn't have any cousins yet, so my college friends' kids sort of serve that role. We get together a couple times a year and the dynamic is pretty similar to what I remember with my cousins growing up. The girls who all lived together are like the siblings (sitting around chatting, reminiscing, with our own culture), the husbands are the in-laws (sitting around watching football and making small talk), and the kids bounce around between all the adults (who they are familiar with and comfortable around and yet see so rarely as to be exciting).

Anyway, Nicholas loved watching the "big kids" (Matthew, 4, and Emily, 2) run around and made friends with Audrey (11 months). Not to mention all the toys that Audrey has that he hasn't seen before. And a bunch of adults who love to play.

Here the kids are playing nicely:

From Louisville Dec 09

We tried to get a group picture, with only marginal success. First they were too distracted by toys:

From Louisville Dec 09

And then we made the mistake of putting the two littlest ones next to each other. Audrey grabbed ahold of Nicholas' collar and pulled him down onto her lap.

From Louisville Dec 09

The kids were stunned, but the adults couldn't stop laughing.

My Grown-Up Christmas List

There are various points when it becomes increasingly clear that we have officially entered parenthood, and that I am officially a father.

Getting a tie and a belt for Christmas definitely qualifies.

Now, to be honest, Sarah and Nicholas were trying to be sweet and helpful.  As those who know us know, in about two weeks we're headed to a conference where we'll both be interviewing for jobs, and they wanted me to have a fun new tie to wear.  Plus Sarah noticed that my dress belt wasn't looking its best anymore.

Despite that, I've been having a chuckle the last few days noting that I got the most stereotypical Dad present ever, even if I do kind of like the idea.

Baby's First Christmas

From Louisville Dec 09

Nicholas had a very busy and exciting first Christmas. I'll spare you the blow-by-blow, but here is the condensed version.

We spent Christmas Eve at my dad's parents' house, where all but a handful of the over 75 family members were there. To give you some indication, Nicholas is one of 3 great-grandkids under the age of 1, out of a total of 18. So it gets a little crazy there at Christmas, but in the good way of a large close-knit family and decades-long traditions. In fact, there were some times when I looked at Nicholas and could see pictures of me and my brother in the same spots as babies.

After keeping Nicholas up 3 hours past his bedtime last night, we had a pretty mellow day today, hanging out with my mom's parents at their house. Nicholas was very interested in the toys Santa left in his stocking. He is also thrilled to be the only kid with 6 adults. At one point he insisted on walking to each person one-by-one. After he did that he then very deliberately walked back over to his toys. Actually, now that I think of it, he spent a lot of the day walking around exploring the house. My knees are pretty sore.

There are dozens of pictures in the gallery, but here is my favorite:

From Louisville Dec 09

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

We hope you all have a wonderful day!

From Nicholas - Month 7

From Baptism Weekend

All the best,
Joe, Sarah, and Nicholas

Ah, vacation

We have arrived in Louisville, where we will be for the next week, celebrating Christmas and the 60th anniversaries of both of my sets of grandparents.

Nicholas didn't do as well with the 600-mile drive as he did in August, but with the exception of one 45-minute screaming jag he was pretty good.  But, man do carseats take up a lot of room.  Even in my parents' minivan, sitting next to his carseat for hours is extremely uncomfortable.

But here we are, safe and sound, and I can feel the stress and tension melting off of me in layers.  In case you hadn't guessed from my recent blog silence, I've been up to my eyeballs (or beyond) in work of late.  And although Joe and I both need to get some work done while we're here, the pace necessarily must relax.  In fact, we've declared the next three days work free.  Yay for Christmas!

From Nicholas - Month 7

Christmas Eve may not be until tomorrow, but Christmas started early for this very-loved little boy.  Since it didn't make sense to drag a lot of stuff to Louisville and back, we opened presents that had come by mail and exchanged presents with each other and my parents and brother ahead of time.  We actually let Nicholas start on Saturday as a way to occupy him during the snowstorm and have done a couple a day since then.  He is starting to get the hang of unwrapping (slowly but surely), although I think he sees the goal as pulling the paper off so he can put it in his mouth, rather than to discover what is underneath.  There are some more pictures of this, as well as a video of him enjoying one of his new toys, in the Gallery.  Thank you, aunts and uncles.

The other big event in Nicholas' life this past week was snow.  And lots of it.  I don't know what the official total was near us, but somewhere around 20 inches.  I really wanted to take a picture of Nicholas standing in it, with snow up to his shoulders but since he doesn't own snowpants or boots I decided that it wasn't a good idea.  So instead you are stuck with these:

From Nicholas - Month 7

From Nicholas - Month 7

Nicholas mostly just seemed baffled by the snow.  He really enjoyed looking out at it, but he seemed more confused than excited.  It makes sense, though.  Every time he starts to feel comfortable with the way the world looks and knows what to expect when he looks outside, the seasons go and change on him.  Suddenly everything is white and he has no understanding of why.  I think playing with the snow will have to wait until next year.

We seem to have left the snow behind in Maryland, so no white Christmas this year.  But the practical part of me is okay with that--we have a lot of driving around to do.  Yay Christmas!

Thoughts for a Snowy Afternoon

Every time I look out the window, the snow seems like it's really intense.  Then I look again an hour later, and it's even more intense.  This storm, apparently, is the real deal.  Forecasts call for somewhere in the range of 15-20" by the time we're done, which would make the top ten snowfalls in Baltimore history.  And it has me thinking about various things snow-related.  This year, snow has taken on a different valance, because we just don't know where we'll be living this time next year.  Our map of possible jobs is beginning to narrow as we move into interview season, but it still spans a rather broad geography. Some jobs are in particularly snowy areas of the country, such as Upstate New York, interior Pennsylvania, or Maine.  Others are in the Southeast, where there's little snow at all.  Because it's hard to gauge right now how interested in us any individual school is, that leaves us random factors to think about when considering where we might move.

Like whether it snows.

Snow is beautiful, and makes the Christmas tree and Christmas music seem all the more appropriate (though I only remember one time that it actually snowed on Christmas Day ... thank God Santa Claus decided to re-stock the game shelf that year!).  When I was in college, I loved it.  Our campus looked picturesque, there were hired staff who cleaned all the walks, and I didn't own a car that needed to be cleaned.  Now, from our window, we have a good view of much of the parking lot at our complex, and for a while this morning a whole bunch of kids were out playing.  I hope Nicholas gets to experience that, because when you're a kid (if you let yourself be one), snow is just plain fun.  Even just looking outside at the snow gets him excited, so I'm looking forward to the chance that next winter he'll get to go out and play.  (There's over a foot of snow on the ground here, and he can't walk, so if we went out to "play," it would involve mostly putting him in the snow and watching him slowly vanish).

But when I look outside, I can see across the parking lot as our cars slowly disappear, and remember that at some point they need to be cleaned off, and the areas around them shoveled out.  That makes me hope we get a garage if we live in the north, even though I don't relish the thought of having to shovel a front walk and a driveway.  We'll just have to make sure we train Nicholas (and Cashew and Macadamia) to be more helpful than my brothers and I were when we were kids.  And having our own house looks positively wonderful when I realized this morning that the person parked next to us was cleaning out the parking space by moving the snow in front of our tires rather than putting it on the grass just a few feet away.  It didn't seem malicious, just unthinking, but it still rankles, and it's not usually a problem you'd have in your driveway.

Besides, not having snow means we've probably landed somewhere with a miserably hot and humid summer.  And I'd probably take the snow, even though I might get outvoted one to one by Sarah.

Parlor Tricks

One more video. Nicholas and I have been working on this little trick/routine/game for a while, and we finally are letting it out for public consumption.

From Nicholas - Month 7

It all started as a way to distract him when he was crying or yelling. He'd get so interested in what was causing the funny sound that he'd forget why he was upset in the first place. Now we just do it for fun. He likes to modulate his sound, which is especially fun to listen to. He'll start very soft and quiet, and then get loud and change the pitch.  And other people find it entertaining, which is really what we're looking for.

The Battle of the Sexes Begins

We went over to our friend Katie and Wes's house last night for some holiday cheer, latkes for the seventh night of Chanukah (Y. U. M. !), and to hang out with friends. And to see what sort of fun we could have taking videos of Nicholas and Alice (Katie and Wes's daughter) playing.

From Nicholas - Month 7

Can you say jackpot? (click above for hilarious video)

I'll also post one other photo (there are more in the galleries, Grandmas of the world!), since Sarah has been trying for months to get both babies to (a) look at the camera and (b) smile while doing so. We finally have success!

From Nicholas - Month 7

A Bullet Point Post

Over the last few days, I've had a number of two-line thoughts that seemed worthy of sharing (or that I'm narcissistic to think others would be interested in), but nothing for a full blog post.  So you get bullet points!

• We have now lost our coffee table from the living room, and it was high time.  Nicholas has gotten far too mobile, which means he either ends up under things, or runs the risk of banging his head against a hardwood table leg if we look away for thirty seconds.  So the coffee table is now in the Great Furniture Storage in the Sky, or as it's more commonly known, my in-laws' attic.
• Nicholas is going through a bit of a mommy phase.  He only wants Sarah.  And if he's with someone else and sees me, he'll be okay to come to me ... as long as I understand that I'm to take him to his mommy immediately.  One morning this week he woke up from his nap (Sarah was out working), and he raised his arm toward the bedroom when I got him out.  If he can't see her in the living room or kitchen, that's where he assumes she is, and I'm to take him there, like pronto.  It's a bit frustrating, especially for Sarah, but we also realize (most of the time) that it's a phase, and he'll move on to some other obsession in a few weeks or months.
• But, one unforeseen consequence—and one that Nicholas surely doesn't welcome—is that this phase has cured Sarah of a bit of her "new mommyness."  In other words, crying no longer automatically breaks her heart.
• Nicholas is so much like me, he even has the same scrunched-up shoulders!
• Nicholas is so little like me, he loves to play "flying baby!"
• That just means that I'm holding him high in the air and saying, "flying baby!"  It doesn't involve throwing of any kind, I assure you.  Because of that game (and a few others), he's starting to learn that when someone says "1 ... 2 ... 3!" something fun is usually about to happen to him.  Which reminds me also that it's interesting, and an absolute societal good that most adults seem to agree that "3" is the proper count on which to do things, like, say, pass off a baby.

That's about it for now.  Things are pretty crazy here at the moment, what with preparing for Christmas, conferences, the job market, and trying to feed and clothe ourselves.  But we're managing, and Nicholas is thriving, so we're doing okay.

A Future Minister of Silly Walks?

Until his balance improves and he gets a little more stable, watching Nicholas walk will remind me of this Monty Python sketch.  Enjoy!



Monty Python Ministry Of Silly Walks - The best video clips are right here

Salon Style ... Or Not

A mental image (since I don't usually have the camera out circa 7am) for your Friday morning:

Nicholas has taken to refusing to let us dry his hair after his bath, which has led to some pretty funny early-morning hairdos.  (Today it's a simply spike towards the front.)

Our Little Vampire

From Nicholas - Month 7

This picture reveals two important things:

1) both of his vampire teeth (I think they are technically called canines, but "vampire teeth" is much more fun) have now cut through the gum

2) he was a much happier baby today.

It has been a rough week and a half with all the shots and teething and rash, but today he finally seemed to be feeling like himself. And the rash is looking dramatically better. Not completely gone, but a big improvement. And he was in a good mood--smiley and agreeable most of the day. He very patiently helped me get some Christmas shopping done and we had a lot of good playtime (including a marathon rolling session, where he rolled to his left 7 or 8 times in succession and then when he reached the edge of the living room started rolling back and forth in place--the very end of this hilarity is on film in the gallery)

If it's not one thing . . .

There is never a dull moment here. This round of teething isn't necessarily done, but it seems to have hit a less painful phase, so he has been in a much better mood the past couple days. Unfortunately, almost immediately a rash appeared, first on his chest and now basically everywhere. The doctor didn't think it was a food allergy, but had us stop the squash that Nicholas had begun a couple days earlier just in case. It doesn't seem to be bothering him and he doesn't have a fever, so neither we nor the doctor are very concerned. However, it also doesn't seem to be getting any better on its own and so we may need to go in to the pediatrician's office sometime in the next couple days.

The positive side to all this is that the rash appeared on a Sunday night and it is still only Tuesday. It seems things like this always usually appear on Friday nights or on holidays or right before a trip--any time it is difficult to get to a doctor.

This boy has had more skin issues than I knew existed. Although I guess in terms of a set of health issues to have, skin issues are one of the better ones.

Happy St. Nick's Day

For those of you who don't know, St. Nicholas' feast day is December 6th. In some traditions (I think German and Dutch) St. Nick brought kids presents on his feast day each year. This is a tradition my family continued during my childhood. (No, we're not German or Dutch, but that is what happens when you live in enough different areas of the country over generations--you pick up things.) And, yes, Santa Claus still comes on Christmas.

And so today our little Nicholas experienced his first St. Nick's Day.

From Nicholas - Month 7

Growing up St. Nick used one of our socks rather than the larger stockings, but Nicholas' socks couldn't hold anything that wasn't a choking risk.

And what did St. Nick bring?

Some sippy cups since Nicholas is so interested in trying to drink out of our glasses.

From Nicholas - Month 7

And a few bibs because we can't do laundry quickly enough to keep up with his meals.

From Nicholas - Month 7

He was pretty nonplussed by the whole thing. He was interested in the sippy cups, but mostly in trying to chew on the spout. We may need to wait and try again when he isn't teething. (There will be a day eventually when he goes more than 2 weeks without teething, right?)

Another Christmas Card Picture

From Nicholas - Month 7

Apparently all it took to start getting good Christmas card pictures was to order the cards. Oh well, at least we have the blog as a venue where we can share them with you.

Last night was the annual department holiday party and, as is our tradition, we took pictures in front of the Christmas tree beforehand. There was really no hope of getting Nicholas looking at the camera and smiling with the self timer, so we also took ones of each of us with him. (I then joked that it was Nicholas' turn to take one of the two of us. But since he would just try to eat the camera, we didn't try that.) The individual shots are in the gallery.

It's Snowing

From Nicholas - Month 7

Nicholas was fascinated by the snow he could see falling when he looked out the window, so we took him outside to look at it. He wasn't up for playing with it at all yet--he was too busy staring intently trying to figure out what in the world was going on.

Christmas Card Pics

If we hadn't already ordered our Christmas cards, I think we'd have a new front runner for the picture to put on them.

From Nicholas - Month 7

What picture did we choose, you ask? Well, you'll just have to wait until it arrives at your door. You know, once we find the time to address them and get them in the mail.

That Makes More Sense

As readers of the blog know, little Nicholas has had a rough week, needle-wise.  He got his regular 6-month vaccinations on Monday, the H1N1 shot on Wednesday, and seasonal flu yesterday.  (Just typing that makes me feel a little cranky.)  Yesterday, and overnight, he's been very cranky and inconsolable relative to his normal self.  This had me mildly concerned that his body might be just a bit overwhelmed at the moment at the massive immune response we've asked of it.  Mommy has ranged from upset to apoplectic.

However, this morning while changing his diaper and getting him dressed, I happened to look inside his mouth at his upper gums.  Lo and behold, there's another tooth coming in, this time on top!  I put him down to wash my hands (as always), and then went over to tell Sarah.  Her response?  "Well now I'm glad he's in pain!"

Ahem.

Since then, I've discovered that he has two teeth coming in simultaneously on top, the ones just off center (which is odd, but apparently more-than-theoretically possible).  Plus, the center of his top gum looks pretty swollen, so I wouldn't be surprised if the center two teeth follow close behind.  So he's definitely double-teething, and possibly quadruple-teething.  No wonder he's been fussy.

It's also funny to note that the doctor on Monday had told us that by the time we saw him next (at the beginning of March for Nicholas's 9-month appointment), Nicholas might have "two to four more teeth."  I don't think he meant by the end of the week.

The Horse Says "Neigh"

Nicholas has recently taken an interest in one of his books that involves animal noises. His favorites are the cat and the horse. Almost without fail he will smile when I do those two, and occassionally he laughs out loud. Apparently Mommy is a funny horse.

Germbusters

We really didn't mean to turn this blog into one of those "Look how wonderful our child is!" blogs.

But today he was pretty impressive.

After his check-up on Monday, we looked around to see if any agencies or other entities had the H1N1 vaccine so that he could get the first dose.  (Apparently, for children under 10 years of age, they give a half-dose, followed by a booster half-dose at least 28 days later.  We obviously wanted to get him started so we could get the calendar moving on the second shot.)  As it turns out, the Baltimore County Department of Health was having a clinic today, by appointment, at their offices.  And since I'm on duty today, I got to take him.

I did not anticipate the crowds, which is my fault.  But Nicholas handled himself marvelously through the whole process.  He didn't notice that there was no parking (as long as we're moving, he can't really tell that we're just circling the parking lot, and circling, and circling ...).  The DOH did a good job, considering that this is probably a more massive public outreach than they're used to, and the fact that they had to reconceptualize all of their office space to do it.  There was a logjam at the door, because they weren't letting people upstairs to the offices unless they'd made an appointment.  Then there was a logjam in the elevator lobby upstairs because that's where they set up the paperwork.  Then we had to stand on line to wait to be admitted to the waiting area.

Notice how I haven't mentioned Nicholas's behavior once yet, because he was totally fine through all of this.  When I sat down to fill out the form, he tried to grab the form and the pen from me, but otherwise he was perfectly content.  He watched the older kids (meaning 2-5 years old) moving around.  Actually, now that I mention it, all of the kids were well-behaved.  Almost none were crying on the way out, after having gotten the shot.  The only one my part of the line noticed was one who only got upset when his father tried to put his jacket on.  These kids definitely earned their "I'm a Germ Buster!" stickers today.

Once in the waiting area, I finally got to sit down (by the way, he is getting heavy).  As an aside, they had an episode of Sesame Street on for the kids, and the only thing I noticed was how young Bob looked compared to seeing him on the Thanksgiving Day parade last week (he has his own website ... who knew?)  Turns out the episode was from 1985, which explains it.

Anyway, things moved pretty well.  They even handled our detour to get an OK from a physician pretty well.  Nicholas got flagged because of one of his shots from Monday, but it turns out that it's fine for the shot rather than the nasal spray.  He cried for about 30 seconds after the shot, and then was happy again, at least until I tried to put him in the car.  All told, it only took about 40 minutes, which is not bad considering how many people (and especially kids) they were moving through.  But it involved sitting and waiting patiently, which are not often traits associated with six-month-olds, so Nicholas has earned a gold star for the day, and the admiration of his father.

A Night of Firsts

Nicholas had a night full of firsts tonight. We started off with carrots. Yay for food with taste! He actually was a little skeptical at first, but polished off the entire container and, as you can see, was quite happy.

From Nicholas - Month 7

He then got cleaned up through two more firsts: his first solo bath and first time brushing his teeth. He was not a huge fan of being in the tub by himself and pulled himself up a couple times trying to get out and into my arms. But, he quite enjoyed the tooth brushing. I think it basically amounted to "Oh, cool, something fun in my mouth to chew on."

The other fun new thing in Nicholas' world is the Christmas tree. We've put it up and decorated it gradually over the past few days when we had a few minutes free here and there.

From Nicholas - Month 7

I am really glad he is 6 months old for December rather than 9 months old because if he could get over to the tree on his own, we'd be in trouble. As it is, he enjoys exploring it, but can only do so when we are standing right there to supervise. We put all the soft ornaments on the bottom, but I'm actually more worried about him getting a fake pine needle off and in his mouth than I am about him breaking ornaments.