Getting off the bed

He can now get off the bed if his feet are at least as close to the edge as his head. If he's going head first toward the edge, he still tried to dive off.

Eating String Cheese

He just learned to take bites off of a banana or string cheese and thinks it's so amusing he doesn't want to waste time actually chewing and swallowing the bite. He just wants to keep biting.

Busy Sunday

A two Tabblo day! First we went to dim sum, then saw the lion dances in Chinatown, home for a quick nap, then Baby Loves Disco, and finally a walk to the North End for cappuccino and pastry.

See my Tabblo>

After dim sum, we watched the lion dances in Chinatown celebrating the Chinese New year.  The lions went to each business, dancing in front of the store, or even inside it, to bring good luck for the new year.  We got pelted with lettuce as the lions "ate" the offerings of fruit and vegetables left by the owners.  The firecrackers and gongs were loud, but didn't scare Xan.   For more on lion dances, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_dance
... See my Tabblo>

Bath time

CIMG1249
Originally uploaded by blahdiblog.

I loaded a bunch of bath photos to Flickr and tried to make a set so you could see all of them on one page a la Tunnel Babies, but I've already created the maximum number of sets (3) for a free account. Bummer.

White Birthday

Not exactly what I was dreaming of, but Grace did send us a cute e-card worth checking out.

Coming to drool on you

Fourth tooth

A corner of his right upper tooth poked through a few days ago. Unfortunately a couple of days before that the tooth grinding returned full force. It had abated for a week or two and I had thought he was over that phase.

Last night he returned to waking, but two nights ago he slept straight through until 5am, and for only the second time since he's been born, I slept with him, getting almost a full night's sleep.

Dad gets lost, Xan helps out

A phrase I was quite happy not to have to use

Until today, that is: "You're welcome to touch your penis, just wait until I get the poop off of it."

I have no idea what they're staring at

Seth came over to play, woot!

Comedian

All he needs is a rubber chicken and he could be as funny as Fozzie Bear.

His little old man outfit

High waisted pants and a cardigan

Eating Habits

There is now a procedure for taking a bite. Sometimes a step or more is eliminated if he's really hungry, but the full routine is as follows:

1. Painstakingly reach out and grasp the food between forefinger and thumb.
2. Hold up in front of face and stare at it.
3. Rotate wrist back and forth, crush the food between your fingers, or throw food.
4. Stick tongue out as far as you can and rub the food on it a couple of times.
5. Put food in mouth.
6. Stick tongue back out and let some of the food fall off.
7. Reach back into mouth and carefully pluck a piece of food out.
8. Return to 2

Needless to say, mealtime has become a lot more messy and wasteful.

New Vids

He's very into waving and throwing things. He especially likes the sound the top of the cocktail shaker makes on the kitchen tiles.

Kiss me

Valentine Smooches

Will you be my valentine?

... See my Tabblo>

Child Scientist

Working in daddy's lab.

At Stellabella

Playdate with Seth

Lauren just put up a great video of Xan and Seth playing together last week.

Eating

A couple of weekends ago Bill and I went on a baby food making spree. We made pureed sweet potato, spinach, broccoli, lentils, split peas, and applesauce. A couple of days later Xan decided he was over being fed by a spoon. Spoons are passe. He now prefers eating finger food, either from your hand or preferably by himself, now that he has the pincer grip down.

Before we figured out that he was anti-spoon, we thought his refusal to eat was a more general anti-food thing, and he had a few days where he didn't eat much solid food and just breastfed a lot. Now that he's getting finger food he is making up for lost time and eating huge meals. He ate an entire dosa by himself at Diva last weekend, in addition to he regular meal of peas, cheese, and Oatios.

Of course, he hasn't let up on the breastfeeding, but I think that might be due to teething, because we've got sleeping wonkiness, too. Lots of waking, refusal to nap, general bitchiness. One afternoon I just gave in an nursed him for an hour and a half straight. That's not going to be a regular thing, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to cope.

Cute Stuff

He's been blowing tons of raspberries and he sometime talks to himself in this husky voice that makes him sound like Marlon Brando in Godfather.

Yay

I think I've finally stopped leaking. Last night was my first braless night since Xan was born and no puddles!

Harry Potter Book 7 has a release date

Yay! The final Harry Potter book is definitely coming this year, July 21, to be exact. Bill and I are unabashed fans of the books (the movies less so). But check out the weird: Amazon is selling the hardcover for $18.89 (list price $34.99) and something called the "deluxe edition" for $39.00 (list price a ridiculous $65). I can't figure out what's so deluxe about it. Whatever it is, I can't see how it's worth that much more.

Starting to feel like me again

Last night I did a handstand for the first time since I got pregnant! It was awesome and gave me a total endorphin rush; I felt great for the next hour. It really hit me how much I missed my pre-Xan yoga practice. I went semi regularly after he was born from the time he was 6 weeks until he was 6 months, and that was nice, helping me feel stronger and regain some of my former practice, but many of the poses were inhibited by the baby weight I was still carrying around. Arm balancers, in particular, were much more difficult that they had been, as I was both weaker and trying to lift more. After Xan got more active, I couldn't really manage him in class anymore and the evenings were out due to either family time or exhaustion.

But I think it might be time to get back into practicing. A friend I hadn't seen in a few months recently called me skinny and I realized I'm now back to my pre-pregnancy weight (I gained 53 pounds, 30 of which came off in three weeks, and the rest just sat there for five months, when it gradually started going away). That inspired me to try the handstand and that inspired me to get going again. I won't have time (or the cash) for as many classes a week, but I'm hoping to go to at least one. I'll be doing a baby sitting exchange with a friend the next several weeks, giving me the time to attend. Marissa also had a great idea to do a collaborative moms yoga session with friends to figure out what we can do while baby wrangling. I'll try to get that going in the next couple of weeks.

Baby Fight!

We went to Lauren and Gerald's for some delicious veggie chili and a playdate. Bill kept trying to get a baby fight on camera.

Poor little guy

Xan's having a tough couple of days. He refused to nap yesterday and again this morning, finally falling asleep for just 30 minutes this afternoon. He woke up crying and the only thing that would console him was nursing, which I had to keep up for an hour straight until he was sound asleep again because taking him off, even half asleep, resulted in hysterical crying. He's up again now and still grumpy. After crawling away from me around the couch, I called for him to come back to the living room and took two steps backward. Apparently, that was call for more crying. He'll be playing along just fine and something draws his attention to me - bam, crying. The poor thing's a mess. I'm chalking it us to teething. I think the second bottom tooth is out now, though I can't be totally sure (he won't let me put my finger in his mouth for more than a second so it's hard to tell). The top one is still not through; maybe that's where the pain is coming from.

In other mouth-related news, I just realized I haven't heard him pop his jaw recently. He used to do that all the time a couple of months ago, but I can't remember the last time he did it.

Annoying

He only has two teeth and yet still manages to grind them together. Arrgh, this is so grating on my nerves.

Coupon for Magic Beans

If any of you are planning on shopping at the awesome kids toy and gear shop Magic Beans in Brookline, I have a coupon for $5 off a purchase of $15 or more. I've also got to coupon code if you'll be using their online store.

Banana-lovin' fool

He tried banana for the first time this morning and after wolfing down half of one, he was agitating for more. I was mean mama and denied him, since I didn't think his little stomach was ready for an entire banana.

last week it seemed that his appetite was down after the puking incident on Tuesday, but I think what was really happening is that he's going through an anti-spoon phase. He'll take a bite or two from a spoon to see what's on offer, then he's pretty much done. On the other hand, if you let him pick up chunks of food and feed himself, he'll keep going almost indefinitely. Accepting chunks from your hand is somewhere in between, a little closer to feeding himself than to the odious spoon. Now it's just a matter of figuring out what foods are firm enough that he doesn't squish them to bits with his vice-like grip, yet soft enough that he can gum them and they aren't choking hazards.

Yesterday he chowed down on peas, tofu, and rice with miso when Marissa went to sushi with Tess and Xan after their Music Together class (deserves it's own post sometime). She said Tess went through a similar I'm-feeding-myself phase at Xan's age.

So Sophisticated

He started occasional nostril exploration about a week ago. It's not an obsession yet, but every once in a while he's all, "Ooh, what's this?"