July 2004

07/30/04

Well, yesterday was Tommy's 6 month birthday.  Half a year!  It's hard to believe it's only 6 more months until he's walking (maybe) and eating birthday cake.  Here's my list of random details for this milestone...

• We had his 6-month doctor visit today.  He weighs 19 pounds 11 ounces and is 28 1/4 inches long.  That's in the 75th percentile for weight and 95th percentile for height.  His weight was off the charts at birth, so he's really slimming down in comparison to his length.  That's normal for breastfed babies.  
• He's very dexterous by this time.  The "my baby this week" e-mail I just got indicated that my baby should be getting proficient at raking toys towards himself and that soon he'll be able to pass things from hand to hand.  Ha!!!  Tommy was passing things from hand to hand at 4 months.  By this time he's great at manipulating even small parts of toys.  
• Speaking of manipulating toys, he is very interested in seeing how two different things work together.  He'll get one thing in either hand and bang them together, rub them together, try to put one onto or over the other.  It's very interesting to watch his concentration.  He especially likes for me to help him put his ring-shaped rattles over the heads of his animal-shaped toys.  This makes him laugh every time.  
• The doctor said today that banging toys together is a nine-month skill so he's way ahead of the curve on this stuff.  The flip side of this is that he's not at all interested in babbling or combining consonants with vowels.  Babies often start that about now.  The doctor says he's probably focusing on the advanced physical stuff and will switch over to language later. 
• He's not crawling yet, but he's interested.  He can scoot forward with his belly still on the floor if he really wants to reach something.  David calls it his commando crawl.  
• He finds lots of things funny now.  If we do anything out of the ordinary, he laughs.  If we make funny faces, he laughs.  If I carry him down the hall AND he's facing backwards looking over my shoulder AND someone is following me, he laughs.  David spends a lot of time repeating random words that make him laugh over and over until he wears those words out and Tommy stops laughing.  "Whack! Maybe! Ha! Oops! Lollipop! Rutabaga!"
• His favorite toys right now are his Legos (thanks Christian!) and his wooden alphabet blocks...and his metal canister lid.  They all make superior banging noises.
• He takes his bath sitting up now.  We also use the highchairs in restaurants.  He can't sit in them for very long before he starts slipping forward, but it's easier to use them for a while and then hold him than it is to take the stroller in.
• He's very Mommy-oriented and opinionated right now.  He wants me near him all the time and vocalizes his displeasure anytime I leave the room or hand him over to David.  Poor David.  Luckily, he will calm down and play happily with David if I'm out of his line of sight.  He has a new high pitched squeal that means "I'm very unhappy!" and we've been hearing lots of it lately.  It's supposed to be a positive development in his communication and social skills, but it's kind of annoying.  I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what he wants or what is making him mad.  Usually it's pretty easy -- "don't set me down!"  but sometimes it's harder -- "no, not that lego, the other blue one!" 

David and Tommy rolling around on the floor.

07/28/04

He has another tooth.  Tooth number four appeared Monday afternoon a couple of hours after Mom left.  It's the match to tooth number three.  That means he has the two middle teeth on the bottom, two spaced on either side of where his front teeth will be on the top.  He had a horrible night Monday night and acted like he didn't feel well all day yesterday, so there may be more on the way.  It was pretty pitiful yesterday.  Every five minutes or so while he was playing he'd lay his head down to rest a while.  On top of all this, his 6-month doctor's appointment is Friday.  He'll have to have shots then.  We might have a very grumpy Tommy on our hands this weekend.  Poor baby.  I'll wait to do the birthday entry until after the doctor's visit Friday so I can tell you his weight and length.

Captain Pajamas rolls on the couch.

Captain Pajamas goes after the toy basket.

Captain Pajamas is very displeased that the toy basket is now empty.  (He tips it over and dumps them all out.)

07/25/04

Where's the monkey?  David was teasing the baby.  It was kind of like when a puppy chases his tail.  Very funny.

The first picture of all three of us together.

07/24/04 - later... (I'm adding so many pictures daily while my Mom is here so my Dad won't feel so bad about not being here with us.)

Stop taking my picture!

07/24/04

What do you mean I can't chew on the remote?

  David says, "Na Na [...] Na Na Batman!"

07/23/04

07/22/04 - much later...

Mommy won't let me go to bed yet.  She says it's too early, but I'm so tired.  Fix it, Grammy!

Smart Grammy!  Your glasses are a great distraction.  (I let him go to bed early about 10 minutes after this.  We'll see if he wakes up at 4 am because of it.)

07/22/04

Poor Tommy.  His favorite toy has been taken away.  My hair has not survived the machinations of Tommy.  Too much pulling, chewing, yanking out by handfuls, and rubbing sections into massive tangles led to a very frizzy, out-of-control head of hair.  Now it's all gone, and Tommy's not too sure of the result.  

He was a little happier with it after his bath.

07/21/04

My mom is visiting.  More pictures coming soon!

07/19/04

Some cute things Tommy has been doing lately...

He loves the picture of the sheep best on his animal quilt.  If he can reach it, he'll always scratch its face.  If it's covered with toys, he'll carefully move each one until the sheep is revealed.

He wants to share toys now.  If he's chewing on something, he'll occasionally lift it up to my mouth until I grab it with my teeth and shake it.  He did it to David last night too.

Knocking over blocks

07/16/04

RICE CEREAL!!!! YUM!!!!

Tommy had his first baby food today.  He was really ready and loved it.  He lunged for the spoon, bit the spoon, sucked on the spoon, sucked cereal off his lips, and got really excited about the whole thing.  We'll do this for a couple of weeks and then try applesauce, bananas and carrots.

First Bite

Is there any more?

07/15/04

Well, it was his teeth.  Tooth number three showed up yesterday morning.  It's the one right next to where his front teeth on top will be.  He's been less fussy now that it's through the gum.  

Here's a picture of Tommy and Claudia Sinars.  Cindy took it when I was over at their house visiting a couple of weeks ago.  What cuties!

07/13/04

Look Mommy!  I'm strong enough to tear this castle off the ExerSaucer.  Is it supposed to do that? (no)

I had to get out of the house this evening, so I went to Borders and then ate dinner by myself.  I'm feeling much better now, thank you.  When I got home, David told me he got a cool picture and that I must put it on the website.  This is it.  I'm not sure what this implies about David's parenting style.  Hey, at least I had an hour away from Captain Irritable the Prince of Fuss 'n Grump (who is definitely working on more teeth).

Close up of the picture above.

07/12/04

No new teeth yet.  He's happier today though, so maybe it was something else.  

In other news, I've purchased and washed a new set of clothes in the 12-18 month size.  His 6-9 month clothes were just getting too short in the torso.  He still has a few 6-12 month things that fit for now.  I'm skipping the 9-12 month size because it seems silly to spend money on clothes he'll only wear for a month or two.  Hopefully the new 12-18 month clothes will fit for a while.  (He's only 5 1/2 months old after all!)  

Thanks to David, he now successfully sits alone on the floor without help.  I always sat next to him to nudge him in the right direction when he started tipping over.  I went to a movie yesterday afternoon and when I got home Tommy was sitting by himself on the floor playing with toys and David was on the couch watching TV.  I guess he just needed a chance to try.  He still tips over from time to time, but doesn't seem to be upset by it.  He just rolls over onto his side and continues playing.  Of course, I can't sit on the couch and watch TV.  Oh no.  The boy won't allow that.  J

David has also taught him to respond with a loud hhhuuu sound if one says "Ha!" loudly over and over, to anticipate something really fun if one says "are you ready?", and to laugh maniacally if one says "oops!".       

Awww!

Coy Boy

07/11/04

Ack!  I expect to announce a few more teeth sometime in the next week or so.  He's teething like crazy -- cranky, chewing on lots of stuff, drooling.  I hope it's over soon.

Goofy Expression

Monkey toes can do all sorts of things.

07/08/04 - later...

Here's an example of the fake cough in action. (He was drying off after a pee incident and didn't think I was cleaning up fast enough.  "Pay attention to me! Hack, Hack!")  

07/08/04

His fake cough is back.  He picked up the habit about six weeks ago, but had abandoned it.  David (who has a perpetual allergy cough) was home four days over the holiday.  I guess that was enough to reinforce the idea of coughing as communication.  It's absolutely hilarious.  We try not to laugh because it could be a really annoying thing to reinforce, but I'm failing miserably at ignoring it.

Playing with Baby Legos (thanks Christian!)

Sometimes he can put them in the box.  More often he wants to dump them all out of the box.  Of course, he always wants to chew on them.

This canister lid is a really cool toy.  It smells like chocolate.  I can bang it on stuff.  The metal is cold on my itchy gums.  Much better than the fancy toy mommy bought me the same day I reached for this lid.  I don't like that fancy toy at all.

07/04/04 - later...

Yes, I must take all of my books off the shelf.  How else will I know which one to chew on?  (He's quite obsessed with this activity.)

07/04/04

Happy 4th of July!

These are 12 month size clothes!

It's really hard to get a profile shot of Tommy, but David finally succeeded.

07/01/04

Let's turn him upside-down and see what falls out.  (No babies were harmed in the filming of this image!)

Toothy Grin

My mom complained that we never have pictures of me with Tommy.  That's because I take most of the pictures.  I handed David the camera for this one.

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