Christmas

We celebrated AJ's first Christmas. He was fortunate to be spoiled in both gifts and attention from his relatives. Like most 6 month olds, he was intensely interested in wrapping paper and ribbons and would have been happy as a clam to just get a couple of boxes of tissue paper. Several people have told me recently that having a baby makes you realize that Christmas is all about children and their wonder and joy at the holiday. Although AJ is a little bit young to understand what Christmas is, I think I can already see what they mean.

Tubby Time

AJ seems to love bath time more and more every day. No matter how grouchy he gets at the end of the day, he is always happy to get in the tub. Joe's favorite maneuver of AJ's in the tub is when AJ bends down toward a toy floating on the water as if he is going to pick it up and then-- slurp--takes a big drink. In the picture above, AJ is wearing his washcloth as a fashionable chapeau pour la bain.

Big Snow

This post is a little late in coming, since the Big Snow of 6-8 inches is already dirty and melting, but here is a picture of AJ checking out his first major snowfall with snow angel-eligible snow. We are supposed to get another one on Saturday. If it comes through, I am going to try to take AJ out to play in it with Uncle Will's puppy, Wrigley.

Peekers

I have a confession to make. I let AJ play with one of his Christmas gifts today. Look at how darn cute this elephant is--how could I resist!?! I am only getting away with admitting this on a blog because my husband never reads these postings anyway. Plus, I figure that AJ hasn't developed object permanence yet and so won't miss the elephant now that I put him back in the box and will be genuinely surprised to see it again in a week.

I justified it to myself by saying that AJ was crabby and I thought it would be a good distraction. Plus, the box has been sitting in our living room for almost a week now, and it has been killing me to sit there looking at it every day without giving it to him. As my family knows, I love to give gifts so much that I have a hard time waiting for the designated gift giving time. I think it comes from my love of surprising people. My sister even gave me a print of a woman saying something about how she has to buy all of her gifts at the last minute or she will give them all away too early. So true! I won't get away with this next year when AJ is old enough to talk and lets it slip to daddy that we were peekers, so I decided to live in the moment and enjoy it this year. We had so much fun!

Red Balloon

AJ was crabby all afternoon, so I finally bundled him up and took him to the grocery store for a change of scene. Our local store gives little kids free balloons at the checkout. AJ hasn't been offered one before because he is too little, but the lady at the counter offered today so we took home a red one. It completely made the rest of his day. He was delighted to tug on the string and bonk himself in the head with it over and over, giggling the whole time. (Don't worry--I kept a close eye on him and didn't let it get near his mouth.) The balloon improved my day considerably, too--no more crabbing. Since I have to bill my time in fifteen minute increments at work, it felt luxurious to spend an hour and a half playing with a balloon.

Six Month Update

AJ celebrated the six month mark last week. At his checkup on Saturday he weighed in at 23 lbs and 29 inches, 98th percentile on both. He is doing fine on his developmental milestones, such as sitting up, bringing toys to his mid-line to play with them and passing toys back and forth between his hands. If he ran a personal ad at this point in his life, it would say something like: "6 m.o. male seeks buddies for playtime. No hair, hazel eyes and solid build. Enjoys drooling, stroller rides in the snow and squealing with delight at silly things."

The pictures are from 6, 3 and 1 month to provide a basis of comparison.

Holiday Party

AJ and I went to our holiday party this week with our tummy time baby and mom buddies. See if you can spot our little guy in the picture above with his other bald pals. I'll give you a clue--when we went to take the picture, most of the babies started crying, but AJ flashed a huge smile every time we said cheese. We are joking that he is a show business baby who is just waiting for his parents to realize his true calling. That or he has a mom who takes way too many pictures of him.

It is fun to see how much the babies have all grown and changed since we first met in September. Some have more hair, some have teeth, and they are all much bigger and have new tricks they are working on. A couple of the older babies are pulling up on furniture and crawling already.

We have much to be thankful for.

Books

AJ recently has started to show more of an interest in books. Like most kids, he is especially into books that have rhyming phrases and/or singsong chants. His hands-down favorite for several weeks was Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr. with illustrations by Eric Carle. We could even get him to stop crying in the car just by reading this book to him. I am sad to say that he has started to loose interest in that one, because I haven't been able to find a replacement book that works nearly as well.

As a parent, the repetition of reading the same books over and over and over takes a lot of patience. After a few readings of the shorter books, I start to feel like I am on autopilot. My sister was an early childhood education major in college, and she recently told me that a study showed children need to hear something about 38 times before it goes into their permanent memory. I guess that explains why kids love repetition. It made it easier for me to read Brown Bear for the 37th time, though.

Score!

AJ finally figured out how to get his toes in his mouth. He previously had been grabbing them, but they hadn't made it to his mouth yet. Some of his tummy time buddies have been doing this since late summer, so I was starting to think that it was a feat that might pass him by (no pun intended). I read somewhere that babies are able to be so flexible because they are born with a higher number of bones in their bodies than adults, and these bones allow more movement until some of them finally fuse together in early childhood. So enjoy them now, buddy, because this will not last for long.

Teeth

Here is the long-awaited picture of AJ with teeth that I promised. I finally gave up on getting him to show off his own teeth for the camera and provided him with a little assistance in showcasing his new smile. He has been a big crab apple for the last few days, so we think he is probably getting his upper teeth, just in time for Christmas as the song goes.

MJ

AJ is officially an MJ wannabe, as in Michael Jordan. He has recently started sticking his tongue out in a way that reminds me of MJ in his heyday. Now we are just waiting for him to execute a one-handed dunk.

AJ even obliged us the other night and did it on cue for this photo.

Mom Exercising = Hilariously Funny

I put in a mommy-and-me exercise DVD again today that I haven't used since AJ was about 2 or 3 months old. Okay, let's be honest--that I used once previously when AJ was about 2 or 3 months old. It confirmed for me that he has little long-term memory, because this was clearly a new experience for him and one of the funniest things he has ever seen in his life. It is hard enough for me to get up the energy to exercise and the nerve to put on spandex. Then the little guy goes and laughs at me like the sight of mom exercising is gut-busting comedy. Truth be told, I couldn't help but laugh with him.

First Snow

How fitting that AJ's first snow came on December 1st. We had about 3 inches today in the Chicagoland area. I took him for a stroller ride at the height of the snowfall, and his little cheeks quickly turned very pink. As for the snow, he seemed a little unsure of what to make of it, but he was definitely interested in watching it.

The Aquarium

AJ's Chicago grandpa took the week off from work, so AJ and I went with him one day to the aquarium. AJ was into the large fish tanks and loved looking at all of the big fish floating by. The highlight for him was definitely the Wild Reef exhibit that had a clear glass ceiling to view the fish through. He craned his neck around in all sorts of positions that would give any adult a neck ache. The dolphin show, on the other hand, was not a hit. AJ wasn't able to anticipate where the dolphins would jump, so by the time he turned his head toward the noise, all he saw was the splash, if anything. He let his displeasure be known, and we had to beat a hasty retreat out of there for an early lunch break.

My mom, brother and I have been talking about taking AJ to the aquarium for a while now, so I am looking forward to going again with them when they come in December to visit. The first two pictures are AJ's reaction to the Caribbean Reef exhibit (fish! rays! sharks!) The other two shots are of AJ with his grandpa.

All I Want for Christmas...

is a Red Ryder BB Gun. AJ looks like the little brother from The Christmas Story in his winter coat. His sleeves keep his arms stretched out to his sides at all times.

Sunset

AJ and I enjoyed this gorgeous sunset tonight. The photo is my first attempt at a mother-son self-portrait. I need longer arms.

The Blueberry Face

For awhile there I thought it was going to be very hard to find a food that AJ did not like. He's into all sorts of crazy fruits and vegetables that his dad wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole, such as carrots, winter squash, apples, avocados, bananas and prunes. Everything that went into his mouth was met with the same bouncing in his seat and opening of his mouth like a little bird who wanted more, more more.

Then we discovered blueberries. I went to the grocery store and was so excited to make them for him that I came home and had them cooked and on his spoon in less than 30 minutes. I made a big batch, too, because one of my Tummy Time friends reported that blueberries were her favorite food as a baby. Who doesn't like blueberries? My mouth waters just thinking about blueberry muffins, blueberry scones, blueberry pancakes, and (the best of all) blueberry pie. Perhaps what these all have in common would be blueberries + lots of sugar for baking purposes.

Back to AJ, the first spoonful of blueberries went in, and we got the faces that you see in the pictures above. I even tried sneaking them into his cereal this morning, but he was not having it. My friend, S., recommended that I keep track of AJ's food explorations in a win/loss column. This one is definitely a loss.

The only other loss goes to pears. AJ's Chicago grandma cooked a batch for him on Thanksgiving. Joe fed them to him in front of the entire family at the dinner table. AJ made his pouty face and then started to cry when everyone laughed at him. Oh, the shame.

Thanksgiving

For the first time since I left for college, we stayed home on Thanksgiving. It was an odd feeling not to be heading home to Iowa, and I definitely missed my family a lot. But then we woke up and didn't have to rush off anywhere, spend 12 hours round trip in the car, etc., and it felt really nice. We had celebrated Thanksgiving with my family in Iowa the weekend before, so I did get my family fix in. AJ spent Thanksgiving Day soaking up all of the attention from his uncles, Chicago grandparents, great-grandmother and great-uncle. He was in heaven. The highlights of his holiday included rolling a red ball back and forth on the floor with his uncles, eating sweet potatoes, getting licked on his hands and face by Uncle Will's dog, Wrigley, and "wrestling" with his dad (see photos above). Life is good.

Surprise

AJ is into a new stage where he loves to be surprised. His favorite game is peek-a-boo because he loves the surprise of things popping up, but he keeps upping the ante on what it takes to get him to laugh. The regular old hands-in-front-of-the-face version barely elicits a bored half-grin from him now, so we keep going to new heights to top ourselves and really surprise him. When you do find something that he is not expecting, though, he physically startles with his arms and legs jerking upward and back, and then he dissolves into giggles as if he is saying "boy, you really got me that time." I personally hate scary movies, but based on his enjoyment of being surprised, I have a feeling that AJ is going to like watching them with his dad someday. The only thing we have to be careful about is really surprising the heck out of him, which happened one time when we jumped out from behind the opposite end of the couch and startled him so much that he cried.

The pictures above are the before and after shots when his Grandma Julie jumped out from behind a bush on her front porch.

All Grown Up

We just spent another week in Iowa with my family, and Joe commented again when he came to pick us up that AJ had changed so much in one week. His manual dexterity is getting noticeably better, and he likes to try to feed himself. AJ is also finally growing some hair. As his Grandpa Liss told him, "Hey, you're not follicle-challenged anymore!" The hair makes him look more like a little boy and less like a baby.

Moles

Recently my brother visited us in Chicago. AJ and his Uncle Andy were playing in the other room when Andy called out to me "Hey--these two little moles on his neck are super-cute." My first reaction was to think how sweet it was that my uber-hip brother would comment on something like that. Then I wondered what the heck he was talking about, because AJ doesn't have any moles. So I inspected AJ's neck, flicked off the two "moles" and told my brother that they were just dried peas from AJ's dinner. We had a good laugh about it!

The picture is of AJ with a faceful of dried prunes, which may have later dried into new moles.

Five Month Update

Although we didn't have a pediatrician's appointment this month to get AJ's official height and weight, I weighed him on my friend's baby scale, and he is somewhere around 22 lbs. His latest milestones are cutting two teeth, rolling over to push up, and sitting unsupported for a few seconds at a time. He is into eating, likes to try to feed himself and is fascinated with trying to drink water from a cup. He has yet to reject any food that has been set in front of him, much like his mommy as a baby. His favorite food is "picado," which is a homemade mixture of peas and avocado invented by his Grammy Julie. I like to tease Joe that AJ now eats more vegetables than he does. I am hoping that in the next month AJ will be able to sit up, sleep through the night and maybe grow some hair. We'll see!

The pictures from top to bottom are months 5 through 1.

Sleep

We are trying to make more progress on the sleep front, but it is very hard for all of us because it involves so much crying and sleeplessness. AJ generally goes down now at bedtime with relatively minimal crying, but our main issue is that he still wakes up 5-6 times in the night. The sleep books indicate that he should be waking up once a night at most at his age. Last night we tried feeding him only three times in the night and letting him cry it out the other times he woke up. The plan is to eventually weaning him down to two feedings and then one. This seemed to work okay with only 2-10 minutes of crying during most of the wakeups. The only glitch was after I fed him for the third time at 5:15, he cried all the way until I went in to pick him up at his normal wakeup time of 7:00. The worst part was that his jammies were wet around his neck area from all of his tears, and instead of being a happy, smiling boy ready to greet the day, he wanted to be held and did 10 minutes of the gulping and jagged intake of breath that all little kids do after crying. Even though I believe that we are doing what is best for his long-term ability to sleep, I feel awful listening to him cry when I know that I could give him short-term comfort.

Genes

People often ask me if AJ looks like me or Joe. I am posting pictures of both of us so that you can decide for yourself. The pictures from top to bottom are AJ, me and Joe each at about 4 months old. For fun, we will run a little poll for a week to see what everyone thinks--you can vote on the right hand side of this page. As they say in Chicago, vote early and vote often.

The results are in--3 out of 4 people (including me) think AJ looks more like his daddy.

Have You Ever Seen a Tiger Snuggle Up to an Elephant?

We were hanging out with our friends from our tummy time group, C. and J., on Halloween. Little J. is about a month older than AJ, so I am always looking to him to see what AJ will be up to next.

Nicknames

When Joe and I were choosing a name for AJ, it was important to us to find one that had a nickname we liked. I love the idea of nicknames, because it is like having a second identity with the people who are closest to you. So we chose Andrew John in part because we liked the nickname AJ for a family name. Then, like half of America, we started referring to our baby as the Peanut after seeing that first ultrasound image. When he was born, the nickname stuck at first, in part because Joe used it and I thought it was so cute that a guy like Joe would call his son a peanut. It also seemed to just fit, since AJ was a tiny newborn. After it became clear that AJ was a relatively big baby, he seemed to outgrow the nickname Peanut, and others came along. So far they have included Bubba (due to his large size), Messy Marvin or Marv (due to his lack of table manners), and Squealy Dan (due to his love for testing out his voice, loudly and often). Odd nicknames seem to have a way of sticking in families, so I am curious to see if any of these are still in use 20 years from now.

The cute Lil' Peanut onesie was a gift courtesy of my Dad and Susan.

Go U! NU!

AJ attended his first Northwestern football game today. It was a big family grudge match of Northwestern v. Iowa. Joe, Uncle Dave and I went to Northwestern, and Uncle John, Aunt Annie, Uncle Will and Uncle Andy all went to Iowa. We tried not to completely brainwash AJ and so dressed him in an Iowa t-shirt, although it was concealed by purple pants, purple booties, a purple hat and a purple sweater. We offered to bet any family Iowa fan that the loser had to streak the winner's campus, but since AJ was the designated streaker for Northwestern, we seemed to have an unfair advantage. Something about a baby running through campus in his diaper is not very embarrassing. When Northwestern was up by 14 in the first quarter, I offered to bet Uncle Will that the loser had to clean the winner's bathroom, but he did not take me up on it. I lucked out that he did not take the bet, because Iowa roared back in the fourth quarter to win 28-17, and Uncle Will's college house bathroom could use a good scrubbing!