Munching and pseudo-crawling

In the past week, Malcolm has figured out a couple of things. First, that solid food is actually good to eat! He still mostly doesn't want to be fed by spoon, but give him some appropriate finger foods and he now goes to town! At least until he gets sick of it and rubs his eyes... we've had an interesting time at bathtime recently!

To demonstrate, a quick video of pear-slice-noshing that occurred Saturday night:

Malcolm noshes a pear slice from Alison (& Andy & Malcolm) on Vimeo.

And the other big development - as of Sunday night (yes, it was a busy weekend) we have forward motion! The legs are not really involved yet, but he manages to drag himself where he wants to go by his arms and sheer force of will. The little dude is going to have very strong biceps, that's for sure! As you'll see in the following video, grown-up glasses (the drinking kind) are one of his favorite things. When he sees us take a drink, he often gets very insistent until we give him a sip (if water), or distract him. We're working on sippy cup use, but so far he is not very good about tipping it up enough to get much - or about not tipping it over to pour everywhere! (we're trying them without valves since he doesn't seem to get the concept of sucking on the valve yet)

Here's the pseudo-crawling video. We're not sure what to call this - pull-crawling? Dry butterfly stroke? Please don't mind the dirty floor, it was just fallen bits from dinner.

Malcolm almost crawling - 8 months! from Alison (& Andy & Malcolm) on Vimeo.

Edited to say - if the videos aren't showing up in the blog post, click on the video title link to go to Vimeo and view it there. Not sure why it doesn't appear to be working at the moment...

Rugrat!

Continuing the rug replacement recap...

While we were tearing out the old rug, padding, and baseboards, Malcolm spent some time hanging out in the livingroom in his Pack-n-play, filled with nearly all his toys:

Then once we were down to the subfloor, he was allowed back in for a snack:

And a gander at the naked floor:

Once the new carpet was in, he had a fun time in the big empty room on the fun, clean, patterned floor. It's loop-style (berber), great for small baby fingers to feel the textures, and hopefully better at staying clean than a plain cut style would be.
And eventually we got the furniture back in (note nicely sorted knitting stash in the cabinet behind his head...)!(the ball is one of Malcolm's favorite toys right now, just squishy enough to pick up with one hand, interesting enough to chew on for a while, and light and bouncy enough for Mommy and Daddy to induce giggles by bouncing it off of his head!)

Bits and Pieces of March and April

I'm at that point where it's been so long since I've blogged that it's a negative feedback loop - something neat happens, or I take a great picture, and I think "I should blog this!" but then the thoughts of all the other things I haven't blogged crowd in and the whole task just seems overwhelming. So I'll just jump in with some this-n-that and pictures of late March and the first bit of April.

Malcolm got an ear infection (preceded by about a month of daycare colds) and spend more time than usual napping on us.He was back to his normal self after the first dose of antibiotics, thankfully. And we have now learned that the best way to get said antibiotics into him is to lay him down, have Mommy perform a manic rendition of the Itsy Bitsy Spider while dancing about, and have Daddy squirt the stuff in a bit at a time any time he opens his mouth to grin.

KT had her baby boy, and we sent him a knitted, stuffed bass drum (KT and I met in the marching band in college). Malcolm test-drove it and pronounced it yummy. I did wash before sending :)

Malcolm turned 7 months! And he now pulls Bo the Bear completely in front of him, which makes the picture not so great for showing his growth...Bo knows babies...

Sans Bo.

In early April we got new carpet in the family room - the old was in pretty nasty shape by the walls where, well, the cats (ours and probably previous owners' too) had had their way with it. We figured something new before Malcolm got mobile would be ideal.

Here's a before, in the process of clearing out the room:

And Malcolm, having a last roll on the old carpet:This is all I have time for tonight - new carpet in the next post!

Beware the Turtles!

Just another quicky post. Malcolm's daycare notes today were funny. He got his first "incident/accident report for parent". It's a very official looking form which had to be signed by the director of the center. Here are the details (don't worry, it's amusing):

Nature of Incident/Accident: Malcolm hit himself in the forehead with a turtle (plastic).
Action Taken: Picked him up and comforted him. He recovered quickly. Slight mark.

(we couldn't see a mark and he was fine when I picked him up)

His daily sheet (which lists his diapers, bottles, and naps, and has a space for a day summary) said "Malcolm sat and played and played with the stacking turtles. Then he smacked one into his forehead (see accompanying accident report) - after that, bottle and bed"

Poor guy, attacked by a turtle at daycare. I'd want bottle and bed too, after that.

Really, it's all good. See?

Belated Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Malcolm had the following to say to the loyal readers of this blog, after having a meal of sweet potatoes on St. Patrick's day:


Malcolm's first St. Patrick's day from Alison (& Andy & Malcolm) on Vimeo.

That's our boy!

Half a year old!

As of almost 2 weeks ago (I plead illness for the delay in blogging- the first daycare cold, of course, hitting me worse than Malcolm, but hitting Malcolm enough that his sleep has been a bit rocky some nights) - Malcolm is half a year old! He's experienced the end of summer, all of fall, and most of winter. We took him out in the stroller today during a brief "sunshower" amidst the rain, and he squealed with joy to see the sun and be out and about. He's loving daycare - "wow! They have babies here!" - and his teachers love him, and always rave about his smiley and observant disposition. And he's rolling all over the place!

Let's see, what else has he been up to recently? The 6 month bear photoshoot pictures aren't that great, mainly because he would grab the bear and wrestle with it before I could get set to take the picture. So we have the great half-yearly bear-chair wrestling tournament:

ding ding! The match begins!

Bo is off to an early lead. Where's the baby?

Malcolm recovers (with some help from Mommy) and goes on the offensive...

Malcolm for the win! 6 month olds always beat stuffed bears :)

What else has he been up to lately?


Video-chatting with Grandma and Grampa in Wayland. Pixelated area is a knit gift-in-progress which I don't want to spoil for the recipient('s mother). Grandma's on TV and plays peekaboo!

Snoozing in the carseat... (note the lovely hat, and the corner of a knitted blanket from KT!)

Sitting in the box in which two pairs of baby shoes arrived. We were proving the ridiculousness of the size of the box, which could contain both pairs of shoes (in their fancy cases no less!) plus the baby!
Attempting to eat banana pieces (with Mommy and Daddy keeping a close eye!) - making this face ("what the heck was that? Eeew! or, mmmm?!?" - then squishing pieces back into his mouth - lather, rinse, repeat... He does seem to like the idea of finger foods, though of course we're only letting him try a few very soft things. But he also likes one puree in particular:

Sweet potatoes!

We can't believe that in less than 6 months he'll be eating off the table with us (well, with modifications, of course)!

6 months - preview

We got some professional photographs taken today to celebrate Malcolm's upcoming 6 month birthday :). The photographer, Jennifer of All That Jazz Photography (click "family and wedding" not "boudoir"!), shot us in her garage-turned-studio, and we got digital copies and rights to all 300+ photos. She was great and we had a great time, with just a few tears. It will take me a while to go through them, but here is a small sample:

Cute!

Cute and snotty! (we may be able to photoshop out the runny nose)

Where did he get his blue eyes?


Not more pictures (loooove the pout) !!

ZOMG!


Cuddlin' with Mommy...

Half smiles with Daddy...

There are tons more good ones - if you want a link to all 300+, drop me a line and I'll send it to you. Now I need to go get stuff ready for his first full day of daycare tomorrow!!! (eeps)