I'm 6 months old!

...and guess how I celebrated?? With a 102.5 fever! And pinkeye! And a throat infection!

I got sick on Thursday at daycare. Incidentally, the night before I also slept from 7:30 pm to 6:30 am WITHOUT WAKING MOMMY UP ONCE. I have only done that one other time and it was when I was like, 7 weeks old and Mommy had just bought me a new burrito blanket. Mommy's a little concerned now that I only did this because I was working on getting sick but ONLY I KNOW the answer to this, and I'm not telling! I was really not feeling well so I slept most of the day and went to bed for good at 4:30 (although Mommy didn't know I was going to bed for good so she had to wake me up later to change me into my PJs).

Anyhow, yesterday (my actual 6 month birthday) Mommy noticed that my junky eye was now junky with a special bonus of redness and often being completely stuck shut when I woke up from sleeping or naps. The doctor told her to bring me in today if it was still red and I was still sick. Which, I was! So Daddy brought me and the doctor told him what was wrong with me. Which is MANY THINGS. Now they've got some horrible eye drops to put in which I hate and the cleaning of my junky eye has ramped up to a zillion times its normal frequency and Mommy is completely paranoid that she's getting pinkeye, even though she's trying to wash her hands well and often.

A few new food tricks

I can sit up pretty well now on my own, so Mommy thought she'd give the highchair a whirl. I look very small in it, probably even more so because Mommy almost certainly doesn't have the straps set up correctly. Hopefully she'll get it together soon.

I'm still not all that nuts about SOLIDS. The teachers feed me every day at school and somehow they manage to get this to happen without me getting covered in goo. Mommy, not so much. We've been trying new foods. Mommy cooks them for me at home and at school I eat the stuff in jars stirred into my cereal. So far I have eaten sweet potatoes, carrots, green beans and peaches, and Mommy has peas, squash, apricots and pears in the freezer and some bananas in the kitchen.

Here are a few other things we have tried:
1. Avocado. Not sure how I feel about it. Kind of slimy and chunky. It sticks to the spoon real good so Mommy lets me try to feed it to myself.


2. Finger food I. Zweiback toast. This doesn't look like it would be messy but looks can be decieving. Mommy bought this instead of the teething biscuits because Rosco's Mommy said those were messy. Well, guess what? So is Zweiback!



3. Finger Food II. Sweet potato puffs. This didn't go so well at all. I can pick them up in my palm and bring my hand to my mouth but then when I open my hand the puff falls into my lap instead of my mouth. Mommy tried to help me and put one in my mouth but I didn't know what to do with it so I had a total conniption and Daddy thought I was choking.


4. Sippy Cup - the final frontier. Very little success on the sippy cup front, but I did manage to pick it up, bang it around and smear avocado all over it.

Taking a bath

The other day Daddy helped me take a bath.


Taking a bath now is a much different experience that it was when I was a little baby. Now I get to splash and chew on my rubber ducky.


Daddy helped me get out of the bath and dried me off with my giraffe towel.



Then we went to my changing table and started the bedtime routine: Diaper change, put on the bedtime lotion, PJs. Much to my dismay this also includes a step that I hate: cleaning off my junky eye and massaging my blocked tear duct.


You can see I'm a big help on the changing table. There are a lot of bottles that need to be chewed on!


Then Mommy feeds me and then reads me a book before she puts me into bed with my ducky blankie.


Nighty night!

Help Mommy

Mommy entered a photo in the Sam Adams photo contest. Please vote for her picture so she can win a prize!
Click on THIS LINK to see her picture. Its called 'Where's Mine?' and it is a picture of a baby praying mantis on a beer bottle. You might get taken to the Sam Adams main website to verify your age first - no babies voting! Then you can navigate to the 'Shots of Summer' area and to the 'Voting Gallery'.

This is what it looks like:


This week's contest ends on Wednesday (Mommy's photo didn't get put up until today though - no fair!), so please be sure to vote soon!!

Thanks!

Farmer's Market

Today Mommy took me to the Farmer's Market in Durham. We went with my friend Isaac and his Mommy and Daddy. It was fun. Mommy bought a lot of new vegetables for me to try: squash, green beans and peas. I've had green beans a few times at school actually, mixed in with my cereal. It looks NASTY, but I eat it anyway. I mean, the green beans don't look good when they're NOT mixed with cereal, so what's the difference?

These pictures are of me eating when we were in NH. The spoon was MOMMY'S spoon when she was a baby! It had her name engraved on it and everything. I think I was eating cereal with sweet potatoes.

Mommy's alarm clock

Mommy took me to the Carter's outlet last weekend to get me some 6-9 month size clothes (yes, I am already in 6-9 month! Well, I am almost 6 months old, so I guess thats not unusual but it still doesn't seem like I'm old enough to have already gone through two sizes!). She got me a bunch of stuff, including this shirt:

And in fact, this is what I'm usually doing when I wake Mommy up at 3 in the morning. Its the only way I know how to wake her up, actually. But then she feeds me and I do this:

(ok, really I go back to sleep)

Mobilization frustration

I have a new hobby these days which is: trying to crawl! I'm a little obsessed with it actually. I have been dragging myself around by my hands for a week or two now. But this does not get me around as quickly or as easily as I would like. First of all, sometimes the thing that I want is in front of me. Okay, a) sometimes I can't get myself to go forward, only backwards and b) it takes for freaking ever. So I'm like, 'Forget this! These knees have got to be good for something'.


What now? from meandertail on Vimeo

Okay! So now I've gotten myself up on my knees, now what? I have no idea. So what I do is just rock back and forth. Or stick one of my legs up and try to push off or something. So far neither of these approaches have been fruitful, but I'm optimistic. But it is REALLY frustrating right now! Its making me all grumpypants.

Me and my Daddy

Happy Father's Day!

Hey everyone! I hope that all the Daddies are having a good Father's Day. Now that its Father's Day, I can tell you about the rest of my trip to NH because one of the things I did there was make a present for my Daddy!

Like I said, Mommy, G-G, Sky King and I went to Vermont one day. We went to Simon Pearce, which is a place where they make glass stuff. They take hot, melted glass and blow through it with a big pipe to make stuff like glasses and vases and whatnot. Mommy loves to go there because you can watch them doing it and learn about making glass stuff, and also eat terrific food at the restaurant. And also shop, except the stuff is very fancy and expensive so Mommy never gets to buy anything. G-G has a set of wine glasses though, and Mommy and Daddy have a few vases and bowls that they got as wedding presents. Anyhow, Mommy saw on Ava's blog a few weeks ago that she went to Simon Pearce and made a cool present for her Daddy. So we decided to do it for my Daddy too!

We decided to make my footprints in the glass. Since I'm still pretty small, we were able to fit both feet on the plate. Here is a picture of Mommy and the man from Simon Pearce helping me make footprints in a bunch of damp, black sandy stuff.



See?


Then the man used a blowtorch to melt some of the sandy stuff so it wouldn't stick to the glass.


Next, another man went to the furnace and got a big blob of melted glass out of it.


He shaped it into a ball with a little, um, shaper thingie.


Then he brought it over and dripped it onto my footprints!


The other man cut the glass off with a big pair of scissors (it looked like he was cutting a stretched out piece of saltwater taffy or something) and smoothed out the top.


Then we waited while it cooled for a few minutes. He told us how hot it was, which was REALLY HOT. He let Mommy hold her hand over it so she could feel.


Obviously it was too hot to take home, so they had to send it to us. Mommy also had a lady at the store engrave my name on the plate.


Doesn't it look great? You can also see the 'pontil' mark between my feet. That is the symbol of Simon Pearce. When they are making glass things they hold them on big poles like this:


When they take the glass off of the big pole, it leaves a mark like this where it was. Obviously, since there was no pole involved here, they just put one on the plate so we would remember where we had gotten it from.

We gave it to Daddy this morning, and he loved it! We had a lot of fun doing it too and, surprisingly, it was practically the cheapest thing in the shop (well, except the ice cubes)!

A tired Buggle

When Mommy and I got back from the airport on Monday, we went for a walk with Daddy. We used my new backpack carrier that we got for $4 at a garage sale the other weekend.

I'll tell you what, I was TIRED. Mommy tried to make me take a nap before we went for the walk but I was not interested. You know how sometimes you're not tired at all one minute and then the next minute you are EXHAUSTED? Yeah, that was me. Come to think of it, thats me often. Mommy LOVES that about me. Anyhow, once we got walking and I was getting jiggled (still my favorite thing even though I'm not a brand new baby anymore) I couldn't keep my eyes open. Eventually I just fell asleep on the back of Mommy's neck.

Dude! I have two teeth!

This picture is about a week old, so they're even more toothy now!

(and Mommy wants you to know that it was VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE to get this picture and she hopes you appreciate it!)

My trip to New Hampshire - part II

Here's some more about my trip to New Hampshire. On Sunday, we drove out to Nashua to meet my Uncle Jim and my Aunt Sara. I think I said before that they had come over to visit me on Thursday night but I was asleep already and I missed them. What a bummer. Anyhow, they just bought a new house - their first house! Everyone was pretty excited to see it but I was more excited to see my Uncle Jim. Here's a picture of us:


I know its kinda blurry but it was my favorite picture. Here's a picture of me, Mommy and Uncle Jim in his new driveway:


After we had seen the whole house we went to lunch in downtown Nashua, which was only a few minutes from Uncle Jim and Aunt Sara's house.


I wanted to eat too!


Then on Monday Mommy and I flew back home.

My trip to New Hampshire - part I

Whats up everybody?? I just got back from my trip. It will probably take me a few days to tell you about it, so here goes!

So, on Thursday Mommy and I went to the airport. Daddy came with us to the airport but he stayed there while Mommy and I went on the airplane. We had two exciting moments before we even got on the airplane:
1. Mommy forgot to bring my birth certificate which she needed to check me in for the flight! Luckily they let me go on anyway.
2. When we went through the security checkpoint, the lady asked Mommy if she had any liquids, and Mommy said 'No'. The lady pointed out that Mommy actually had a) a 16 ounce bottle of Diet Coke and b) a 32 ounce Nalgene bottle filled with water. Oops! So Mommy and I ran through the airport to catch Daddy so he could bring those back home with him.

Anyhow, by the time we got done with all of that it was time to get on the airplane. We got to get on first and Mommy got to bring my carseat on even though she didn't pay for it. There were some extra seats open. Here's a picture of me on my first airplane trip!


You can see that Mommy gave me my special naptime blankie and my special naptime pacifier because she was hoping I would take the hint. I did!

The next day we went to Vermont. I'll show you those pictures another day.

On Saturday, we went to Mommy's friend Melissa's house for her baby shower. She has a Studs right now, except she doesn't call him Studs. I don't know why not. Here's Mommy's friends Matt and Melissa holding me, the practice baby:


I got to meet a lot of other friends who read my blog. Here's me and Laura:


...and here's me and Mrs. T. She's showing me her doggie! (I got to see LOTS of doggies this weekend, by the way):


I didn't get a picture of myself with Matt and Alicia. They also have a Studs on the way and they want to make him a blog when he comes out too! I can't wait to read it! I'll even put a link on my page.

The party was fun! I took a nap in my pack-n-play for part of it. For the rest of it I got passed around to everyone. I smiled a lot and had a good time!

Anyhow, today has been a long day so I'm going to end here. I'll tell you about the rest of my trip later!

Airplane!

I took my first airplane trip yesterday! Mommy and I flew up to New Hampshire to visit everyone. I was very good so I think Mommy was happy. We met another Mommy and her child at the airport and they flew all the way to New Hampshire with us too. On the first flight I slept a lot and on the second one I sat in my carseat and played with Mommy. Then when we got off of the plane, G-G and Sky King were there! Uncle Jim and Sara came to visit me last night, I hear, but I was sleeping so I didn't get to see them. Its hard when you're a baby and you have a really early bedtime! We're going to see them at their new house on Sunday.

Today Mommy and I drove out to Vermont with G-G and Sky King. It was pretty neat! We went to a place where they make glass. We saw them making some glasses and we had lunch! Well, everyone else had lunch. I sat there and chewed on a pamphlet. Mommy had some Vermont cheddar cheese soup that she has also made at home. But she was bummed that they didn't have the white chocolate mousse cake today because it is GREAT. She has made that at home too and everyone always says its the best dessert they've ever had. You can make it too if you go here.

Anyhow, I'm getting off track here. We came back home and got to meet some of G-G and Sky King's friends and neighbors. This all really wore me out, so I'm going to hit the pack-n-play. Talk to you soon!

Two tricks

This is the video I was watching the other day. In it you can see me do two of my tricks:
1. Rolling! This isn't a new trick though. I've been doing this for a while.
2. Using my tongue to make new noises! This one I figured out this weekend.


A whole bunch of noises from meandertail on Vimeo

UPDATED: I forgot to add that another noise you can hear on this video is my Daddy snoring. He was sleeping on the couch right behind us and he slept through ALL OF THIS.

A few pictures from this weekend

This weekend I did a few other things other than being King Grumpypants. Lets see...

First, Mommy, Daddy and I walked around our neighborhood and the one next to ours. It was yard sale day (or garage sale day, as Mommy calls it). Mommy spent $17 and got:
4 outfits for me in the next size up
5 workout DVDs including Winsor Pilates
and this!


A backpack carrier! She paid $4 for that. It was a pretty good deal. Daddy ran the purple part through the wash and it looks good as new. Daddy said it was a lot easier to carry me in this than in the Baby Bjorn because I'm getting so heavy.

The other thing we did, like I said, was go to a baseball game. Before I got all grumpypants, I got to try to grab another one of Daddy's beers.


This other thing didn't happen this weekend really, but close enough. I am getting a lot better at sitting up all by myself!


Mommy has to GET me into the sitting position obviously. I'm not that good. But once she gets me there I can stay up for a while on my own. Here's a picture of me doing it today. You can see Mommy's leg is sort of behind me - she curls it around me a little bit to sort of "spot" me and keep me from toppling over completely when I start to go. But she doesn't have to help hold me up all the time anymore.

They call me Grumpypants

Today I was totally grumpypants. Mommy and Daddy took me to another baseball game for Daddy's work picnic. Again, I wore my baseball outfit and my Red Sox hat. But we had to leave before the game even started because I was grumpypantsing all over the place. There were a lot of people around and it was loud, but this doesn't usually bother me much. Maybe it was the teething (I'm getting the other bottom front tooth right now too - it is about halfway broken through!), maybe I was tired. When we got in the car I SOBBED all the way home! I didn't stop until we got into the garage and Mommy took me out and held me. And then I went to bed about half an hour early.

King Grumpypants!

Watching stuff

Today Mommy and Daddy and I were sitting in the den. There was a bunch of stuff to watch. First, we were watching out the window. There were bluebirds flying in and out of the bluebird house, and we also saw a woodchuck/groundhog (Mommy didn't realize that these are two different names for the same thing! Silly Mommy!) walking around behind our house.


Then I was sitting on Daddy's tummy watching a video Mommy was playing on the computer. It was a video of me! I have to say, I'm a pretty interesting baby to watch. I was making some new noises in the video. Its a new trick of mine. Maybe I'll put the video up tomorrow so you can watch it too.