Monday Morning Mia

Happy Halloween!

King of the jungle

Sometimes he's a pain in the butt, but every now and then he can be the greatest, most forgiving dog around.

A new use for Gerber Baby Puffs

Mia has recently discovered a taste for Gerber Puffs, which are little Cheerio-sized snacks that are designed to melt in a baby's mouth and teach them how to feed themselves.
Mia is typically successful at maneuvering the puffs into her mouth, but there are a few obstacles along the way.



Oh, and she can crawl now. Video to come soon, once we edit it.

Monday Morning Mia

We're all still sleepy here after the weekend. Mia is currently going back for a catnap before babysitting, in fact.
Uncle Matt came to visit on Friday.

Saturday afternoon we made our way over to Boston Common to see the Jack-o-Lantern lighting competition. Boston attempted--and succeeded!--to break the record of the most lit jack-o-lanterns in one place, over 30,000.

After we left the Common we went to see the Make Way For Ducklings ducks in the Public Garden. There were several other families there with small children, but we managed to sneak a photo. We have been reading Make Way For Ducklings to Mia since she was just a few weeks old, and we can't wait to take her back to the ducks when she's old enough to recognize them.

Saturday night was the third annual chili cook-off. While Ben's entry, called "Slap yo Mama Chili," was really really good, it unfortunately lost to "Kim Jong Il's Underground Test Chili," the fiery creation of a friend of ours. Hopefully just typing the name won't get us in trouble with the Authorities. The trophy no longer resides in our home.

Yesterday Mia got to play with Jack, our friends' one year old son. They were each fascinated by the other, and it was adorable to see them interacting. No pics, as we forgot our camera, but we guarantee it was a sight to see.
All in all, it was a great weekend.

Uncle Matt

Monday morning Mia is still coming, but as a preview, Mia's uncle came to visit this weekend, and got to play with her a bit. Good times all around.

I call that half a crawl

She's officially 8 months as of tomorrow (the 19th that is), and just itching to start crawling. Thought we'd provide her some traveling music this time.

Monday Morning Mia

On time this week!
We have returned from a short trip to visit the Grandparents in CT this weekend. Mia and Walter both had sleepless weekends but recovered once we returned home. We are slowly learning that we CANNOT interrupt the bedtime schedule or we will pay. Ah, to be at the mercy of an almost eight-month-old.
This coming weekend is the third annual chili cookoff at our friends Grant and Amy's home. Last year Ben captured the title from Grant and is hoping for a repeat performance. We've been eating "test" chilis for weeks now and Ben thinks he might just have his secret ingredients all settled. We will update on Monday with the results--fingers crossed for Ben!
Yesterday we had family photos taken in Arnold Arboretum. We just did a short mini-session. Hopefully the photos will turn out nicely--it was a bit dark, but the leaves are almost in their full glory in the park and Mia really knew how to work the camera. Hopefully all of the dog hair on our sweaters will be edited out. We'll post links to the photos once they're up, assuming we can do that.
The photos above were taken on the new swings at our local park. Mia and her best friend Isabella can sit back to back in the swing, which is huge amounts of fun for both of them. How cute are they??
Have a wondeful week!

Walter, boy genius?

Over the years, Walter has resorted to several rather crafty ways to get us out of bed. When he was smaller, he used to stand on Ben's chest in the bed. As he aged, he got even more wily. He would eat the paper in the trash can in our room, knowing we'd jump up to stop him and thus be out of bed. Even more sneaky, he'd steal our glasses off the nightstand and walk away with them, again knowing we'd jump up and thus be at his mercy.
This morning Walter bested even his own previous efforts.
The scene: Our bedroom, 5 am.
Walter comes to the side of the bed and whines to be taken out. Whine, whine, whine, but to no avail. He paws the bed, walks in circles around the room, whines some more, but no luck. He tries for about 15 minutes but we're not getting out of bed.
We then hear the pitter patter of his feet as he walks out of our room. Strangely, we then hear the pitter patter of his feet in the baby monitor as he walks into Mia's room and whines. She wakes up and cries. He knows we'll respond to her cry. We're up.
He's a genius.




A side note: Mia can now get to sitting by herself. She did it sort of accidentally Friday night, but now she can deliberately do it. Big changes around here now, folks.

loving the fall

Take your spring and summer. We're happy with the fall, particularly in New England. Leaves are changing, hasn't gotten too cold yet, and we're introducing the kid to the bounty of the harvest



We firmly embraced the world of parenthood last weekend with a trip to a "family friendly" farm for hayrides, petting zoo, and pumpkin pickin'. Mia of course got the best one. There's more we could say about the infinite patience on display at the checkout lines, with many a dad carrying well over their own body weight in pumpkins, while junior beats his sister, who spends her time tugging mom's pant leg for another candy apple. Mia of course was a joy throughout though, so we're not too scarred from the experience.



Carved up a jack-o-lantern for her this morning, but more than anything I think it just confused her. She's at that wonderful stage now though where she can't yet criticize my technique.



For those I haven't bragged to about this yet, I started my new job yesterday, and am loving every minute of it so far. I'm still with the City, but instead of doing single & 2-family homes:



I get to work on bigger, juicier projects:



Our girl is going through a bit of a sleep regression, waking up every 2 hours screaming to nurse. A phase we'll be happy to see the end of, sometime in the next week or two. Until then, just living off less sleep. People do it all the time.

As a final note, she is now comfortable with "Da" sounds. And yes there was a proud moment when she pointed at me and exclaimed, "DaDa", but then turned around to watch Walter pooping, pointed again and said "DADA". Maybe she just has a wry sense of humor.

Priority Mail

Just had to post this one.
It's been a crazy week here. Mia is now the proud owner of two front teeth. They have just popped through the surface but they are very much there. On the right side a third is about to come through. I don't see any on the top, but I'm sure they are lurking. For the most part, Mia seems fine during the day. At night, however, the pain must really kick in. She has been pretty unhappy the last few nights. We have tried Tylenol, homeopathic teething tablets, and Motrin, but nothing seems to help much. At least we know that eventually the teeth will be through and she'll feel okay again. In the meantime, all we can do is hug her and stay up with her.

Also learned something interesting and not terribly surprising today. For the last two months, we've tried to feed Mia the standard baby foods--squash, peas, pears, rice cereal and the like. She'll eat a few bites here and there but has never been really thrilled about anything. We're lucky if we get four bites in. At lunch today, we learned the reason why. She wants REAL food. We gave her a few fingertips-full of guacamole and beans, and she smiled and ate and begged for more. The girl needs Mexican food! Why didn't we think of that earlier??

Have a happy weekend!

sorta standing

Not really, but she's getting the idea. The rule around our house is, make sure there's a hound butt nearby to break her fall should she tip over.

Monday Morning Mia

Quiet weekend here. Grandma came to visit, but it rained so we didn't do too much.
Mia has her first tooth coming in. It's just below the surface--you can see it pretty easily. She doesn't seem to upset, luckily.
Still no crawling, but progress is being made.
Here are pictures until we have something more monumental to say. File these under "Proof of paternity."