mouthball

Munchie in his superfan suit. He's in the stage where he has to taste and chew everything.
Everything!

tummy prop

Stephen was only happy for maybe 15 minutes out of the entire day yesterday, but I was fortunate enough to capture some of those minutes on memor card. Tummy time is much more enjoyable when a giant plush peapod holds you up; leaving hands free to grab and chew.

Folding laundry

Mystery rotations

Stephen's newest trick is rotating 180 and even 360 degrees in his crib while he's playing. The funny thing is he does it so quickly (as in like the 3 or 5 minutes that I'm at my desk typing a blog post) that I've never actually seen him in action. But I'm pretty sure he jackknifes and hooks his feet into the crib bars then kicks himself around...

I should set up a Stephen-cam. Anyway, this photo was taken of him after he had rotated 180 degrees while I wasn't looking.

Tasty toes

Yick!

Rice Excites...

I'd been keeping Stephen's diet to milk this week because he seemed to be having trouble swallowing solids with all the congestion. But on his 5-month birthday, we gave him some rice cereal (his favorite of the solids) to celebrate. Joe tried to make things more interesting.

Snuffly but awake at 5 months

Stephen is feeling better and he's almost back to his old self as far as waking before the crack of dawn and doing his daily kick aerobics.
Today marks 5 months for the Munchie!

Traumatic day

My poor baby had a rough day yesterday, but he's all sunshine and smiles today. Stephen has had a cough since the beginning of the week-- and his late night hacking has kept his parents up even though he seems to be sleeping trough it.
Around lunchtime yesterday, the little guy started coughing and couldn't stop. He was trying to eat, and that made things worse. I made a work-in appointment at his doctor's office and we began waiting in the "sick child" waiting room around 2:45. (you can imagine my relief that there were only two other sickies in there and neither exhibited any signs of contagion)


Stephen was called in and weighed -- this time only 12.4 pounds :-( He had a mild fever too. He started crying when I stripped him down and didn't stop for the rest of the afternoon, with the brief exception of calmness as I let him crumple the paper lining on the exam table. His crying exacerbated his coughing, so the doctor got to hear him at his phlegmiest. Doc said we'd need to get a chest X-ray at Jennie Stuart... so back into his carseat, back out to the sub-freezing temps and around the corner we went to the hospital. Even if he isn't 13 lbs yet, I was totally winded and wishing for a tunnel and moving walkway to connect the two buildings!

Joe arrived as I was filling out forms and together we took Stephen to the radiology lab. He wasn't fond of being extricated from the carrier yet again and partially stripped and placed on the hard table. He had three X-rays and then we were sent back to Pediatrics Associates... so back into the carseat, back out to the deep freeze and then back to the office full of screaming and wimpering children, back out of the carseat and then the poor kid got his finger stuck and squeezed until the nurse collected what seemed like a huge amound of blood (OK, probably only a couple of milliters, but it took a while)

When it was finally over, Stephen's chest X-ray was clear and his blood test said he doesn't have RSV or any of the more sinister winter bugs going around. Just a bad cold. We let him sleep in his carseat when he got home. Sigh.

Reading

Weight update: 13 lbs!

Oh yeah, yesterday Munchie got weighed with his clothes and diaper on and he was 13 lbs 2 oz. I'm gonna say at least 2 oz. of that was the pee-filled diaper.

He's also enjoying the Snugli, especially now that his head is at the perfect height for chewing on the cushiony wings that cover the clasps.

Just say "no!" to carrots

Never mind that your mom made this food from scratch... boiling baby carrots until tender, then pureeing them with some bottled water, even taste testing them to make sure they were satisfactory. Today is the second day Stephen -- aka the kid who's eaten everything put within inches of his mouth to date -- has refused my homemade carrot baby food.

Is it something I did wrong? Are carrots really so repulsive? I thought they tasted pretty good, and I don't even like cooked carrots. Or is it because he's feeling a little under the weather?

The poor little guy was coughing last night and seems generally sedate today. And if you know Munchie, the kid is always intense. I knew something was wrong this morning when he just wanted to cuddle and rest his head on my shoulder instead of being ready to seek, kill and destroy innocent newspapers.

newspaper neurotic

Some happy faces

Little artist

Stephen had his first finger painting experience this morning, right before his bath :-). I was so proud of him for not putting his fist, covered in a non-toxic rainbow, directly into his mouth. After letting him smear around in squirts of primary colors on a plastic plate, I dangled him over several sheets of sketch paper. He clawed at the paper until each page was covered in his version of "Blue and Green Music" (Any other Georgia O'Keeffe fans out there?).

One of the splotches reminds me of a Leo-Lionni-esque fish, maybe a beta? I might take a black ink pen and create one. We'll see :-)

Eating Squash

On New Year's Day, Stephen tried and liked squash for the first time :-)