One year ago today

We were sitting in Magee Women's hospital, very excited, very humbled, and very tired. We checked in at roughly 7 p.m. the previous night and Val did an amazing job through a trying labor that lasted until 9:34 a.m. Of course we were excited to finally have Henry here, but it was quite intimidating to hold your first child not really knowing what to do with him. He was very sleepy that first day and mostly slept after he ate and was swaddled. I think we'll elaborate more on that day later, but we marked today by opening a couple presents and thinking about how far we've come in one year. He's a pretty amazing little boy and I'm sure we'll be astounded at how far we've come by this time next year. Happy Birthday, Henry Leo.

Birthday boy!

Due date

One year ago today was Henry's due date. Astute readers will also recognize November 10th as the birthday of the Marine Corps, which made Adam hope the little guy would show up right on time. But alas, that was not the case. We reported to my forty-week appointment with the midwives only to learn that Henry was showing no indication of wanting to be born. So, we went home and then out to dinner. Then we came home to a very sick dog, who got progressively sicker as the week went on and landed herself in surgery on Friday night - just as I started having contractions. Her timing is impeccable.

Adam has been nudging me to get some semblance of a "birth story" down in writing before we both forget some of the finer details. Henry's first birthday seems as good an occasion as any to get it started, so we'll work on it this week.

Until then, we'll be enjoying our last week with an "almost one-year-old" baby boy...

Pittsburgh

We were out to dinner last night with my boss and a prospective new hire, so we were doing a little convincing of why he should relocate from the Southwest to Pittsburgh. As we talked about why we chose Pittsburgh and what has made us happy to stay here, I didn't view it as a sell job at all. Hopefully our sincerity was obvious, because we have lived in Pittsburgh for four years now and we have no intentions of leaving anytime soon.

Four years and a month ago, we had just returned from the Peace Corps and wanted/needed a place to settle down and stop being transient for awhile. We didn't have jobs, we weren't accepted into grad school and we had never darkened the door of Pittsburgh, but we made an appointment with a realtor and drove West. Much like others who haven't been here, we had visions of a run-down Steel town with not much going for it. We read statistics about how it has such a large aging population and wondered if it might not be a place for young-ish people like us. After two days of looking at houses, we put an offer down on a house (and got a loan thanks to all those high risk no-income loans that haven't worked out well universally) and moved the wagon here a few weeks later.

I could go on and on about why we like the city, but many of my reasons have to do with our points of reference, which may not resonate with others. For example, it's not as crowded or as hot in the summer as D.C. It's not as hot or full of garbage in the streets as Mauritania. It's not as cold and grey as Rochester, even though Pittsburghers want to claim it is. It's got more character and common folk than San Diego. Plus it's got three professional sports teams. Well, two and a half anyway, with that half being a great place to watch other teams play baseball.

Lest this post have nothing to do with Sir Henry, one thing that we think is pretty cool is that Henry will be FROM here as long as we stay here. After having lived so many places in so many years, we don't really feel like we're from anywhere anymore. But we'd like to think he'll grow up with an appreciation of all this city has to offer and claim to be a "yinzer" with pride. He did go to a Steelers and Penguins game in utero, so I think he pretty much bleeds black and gold...

Halloween!

Landshark! He's vicious.

Or not so much.

Neighbors!

Aran as baby Pubert from the Addams Family, Henry as Landshark, Jacob as baby chicken

Henry with Jacob

Trick or treat!

The zoo

A few months ago we got a family membership to the Pittsburgh Zoo, which is located in our Highland Park, about a five-minute drive from our house. We often go together on the weekends, and when the weather is nice Henry and I go at least once a week. My favorite thing to do is to take Henry on a weekday afternoon. The gates close at four and the zoo closes at five, so we usually get there sometime after three and it feels like we have the whole place to ourselves. Henry must like it too, because he's never complained. He laughs at the elephants and penguins, points at the gorillas and tigers, and seems to have a great time. Don't be surprised if "elephant" is his first word.

Polar bear, from underneath

Mama and baby sea lion, in the background

fish

Dance

A little dancing... just enough to momentarily make him forget how much he wants to hold the video camera.

Eleven months

Is Henry concerned that he is in some sort of underwater tunnel, surrounded by sharks? No, it's the woman vacuuming at the end of the hall that has him so worried.

Eleven months, folks. That's almost a year. Good grief.

Some things (because I doubt I'll have time for eleven things before he does something catastrophic) about Henry at eleven months:

• He's a dancer. As soon as he hears music, he bops his head and his body in a surprisingly rhythmic fashion. Video to follow soon.
  
• His interaction with the dog has really increased, to include: smiling at her when she comes upstairs, climbing in bed with her, imitating her bark with a really cute "ruff", and chewing on her tail. Though annoying at times, the dog is remarkably patient.
• In the morning, he usually sits on the floor and eats Cheerios (well, Joe's Os if we're being specific) out of a tiny cup while we make breakfast. This behavior, more than almost any other, makes it feel like we suddenly have a tiny person (rather than the baby we used to have) living with us.
• He has discovered stair climbing, and those of you who have been in our house know that we have a lot of stairs. Gates have been ordered.
• Like a good librarian's son, he loves his books. He'll often sit and page through books on his own.
  
• He stands really well on his own now, for minutes at a time. First steps can't be far off.
• Most importantly:
  

How can this tiny baby be a almost a year old?

Chompers

One thing Adam didn't mention in his last post - and really, how could he have forgotten? - is teeth. Henry has proved to be a pretty intense when it comes to teething. His first four teeth came in all in one week, back in the beginning of August. He got a little break, but in a few weeks the next four teeth started pushing through.

Right now, Henry has seven teeth - real, legit, all-the-way-out teeth. The eighth one is just breaking through, bringing with it a new pattern of night-wakings and thwarted naps. For his sake (and ours) I hope the next round of teeth don't show up for a bit.

punkin' patch

I feel like going to the pumpkin patch is obligatory if your child is less than one year old. At some point far in the future, Henry will be a teenager wanting nothing to do with going on hayrides with his lame parents. For now, we will sit you in the middle of some pumpkins and you will smile for the camera. Good, everybody's happy.

We're enjoying the fall weather this weekend, reminding ourselves that in a matter of weeks it may be a bit too cold to get out like this.

We missed our post to mark Henry's 10 month birthday, so I'll cover a few things now before we make it to 11. He has crossed some unmarked threshold from being a baby to starting to look and act like a toddler. This wasn't overnight, but he just feels older now. Now, when he's being bad, it really feels like he's being a little bit defiant and knows what he's doing is wrong. He is much more observant of us and is mimicking more and more of us. We've taught him the trick of asking him, "Where's Henry?" and he'll put his hands over his eyes, remove them and we'll say, "There he is!" and laugh. The funny part about it is that sometimes he'll do it REALLY fast, so we're just repeating the above phrases one after another. The other funny part is that he'll often miss his eyes, so he's staring at us through a finger or two with his mouth and nose covered. He gets it in theory anyway...

I recently bought a new commuting bike to be able to continue biking to work through the better part of the Pittsburgh winter. I at least partly based the decision on the bike I chose on being able to attach a child seat to it. We got Henry a helmet already, so we might take a ride or two on it (not on the streets, just trails) if we can convince him to not tear the helmet off his head.

Eating new foods continues to go well and he loves cottage cheese, Trader Joe's garlic hummus, grapes and just about anything we're eating when he isn't.

He is very mobile these days and I stayed behind him as he got himself up two steps to a landing and then about 5 steps more before getting tired. We have one gate, but we might need to invest in more. He doesn't seem to show particular interest in walking, but crawling is a given, pulling up on things is super easy and standing in place is going pretty well.

We have a Halloween costume picked out for him, but we won't spoil the surprise of what it is until closer to the real day.

Hope everyone is making the best of this fall weather!

Adam

Unintentional hiatus

Oh, hi everyone!

Sorry about the break. It's been a busy month - Henry started crawling, pulling up, and grabbing everything in sight around the same time that he essentially stopped sleeping. Could these things be related?

But rest assured, he's sleeping again. (Usually.) And still crawling and pulling up and grabbing everything. But also laughing, eating, mimicking our movements, voicing his displeasure, and being an all-around neat guy.

So. We'll be posting more often again, promise.

Love,
Us

Lately

Nine months!

It has been a busy month. Here are nine things about Henry at nine months:

• He's crawling! We saw him do it for the first time last weekend. He'll often switch back to the army crawl on our hardwood floors, I guess because he can drag himself around pretty efficiently without friction. But he's moving around, and as we suspected he is into everything. Time to get serious about this whole baby-proofing business.
• This has been the month of teeth. Four teeth in one week, and the next two look like they'll be here any day now. He is handling it quite well.
• He's just starting to pull up on us... this one might take awhile, as he has a lot of weight to throw around!
• At his nine month appointment, Henry weighed 25 lbs 1 oz and was 30 inches long. He hasn't gained much weight in the past three months but has gotten quite a bit longer. Still, he's at the 97th percentile for weight (so, back on the chart!) and 94th percentile for length. Oh, and 75th percentile for head circumference. A big boy, indeed. (The other day, a stranger guessed he was two years old.)
• He's doing a fair amount of mimicry these days, which is pretty cute.
• He lost his appetite for solids a bit when first teething, but we think it has come back. Around the same time he seemed to develop an aversion to purees, and would rather feed himself chunks of food. So, most of his meals these days consist of small chunks he can feed himself - current favorites are eggs, avocado, peach, chicken (he LOVES chicken), beans, and blueberries.
• Diaper changes have become more challenging, as he'd almost always rather flip over and scoot away.
• Looking at pictures almost always makes him laugh - photographs on the refrigerator, pictures on our phones, magazines, whatever.
• He loves being outside... we are dreading winter for this reason!

Happy birthday, Henry! You're awesome.

Working on his backstroke

Teeth!

Well, after putting it off for as long as possible Henry entered the world of teething with a bang - four teeth in one week! His first tooth popped through last weekend while we were visiting friends in Buffalo. Right now, the two center teeth on the bottom are through, the top left center tooth is through and the top right center tooth is almost all the way through. He has two more teeth on top that look like they're on their way. For all the turmoil going on in his mouth, he's doing remarkably well. He definitely has more moments of fussiness, and he's had more trouble going down for naps, but overall he's pulling through like a champ.


Yes, that's our darling boy gnawing on a chicken bone. At least it's from a local, organic chicken, slow-cooked and smoked by his papa. :)


Teething biscuits make an unholy mess, but he does like them. You can see his little bottom tooth here, if you look closely.

New swim duds

Eight months

Henry is eight months old (plus a week, if we're being specific). How did that happen?

Eight things about Henry at eight months:

• He still doesn't have any teeth. Once in a while we'll think he's definitely teething, and maybe he is, but so far he has nothing to show for it.
• His weight gain has slowed a bit, as our pediatrician assured us it would. Last week he weighed in at 24.5 pounds. That's still above the 95th percentile, for those of you keeping track at home. Some of his 12-18 month clothes are starting to get snug.
• He's eating two meals a day of solids now, breakfast and dinner. For breakfast he usually has some variation of what we're having - maybe some egg yolk, yogurt, or fruit. Today he had whole milk yogurt, mango chunks, avocado and a few blueberries. Dinner is usually some pureed veggies. I made him some turkey pureed with carrots and avocados, which he seems to like.
  
• He likes sitting on the front porch. We usually go out there for a while after breakfast.
  
• If he fusses in the car, a rousing round of "Wheels on the Bus" (or its alternate version, "Waves on the Beach") is almost guaranteed to cheer him up.
  
• We've become regulars at baby lap-sit at the public library. At first he was sort of bewildered at all the singing and all the babies, but now he "sings" along and claps his hands, and smiles at the other kids.
  
• He's not quite crawling yet. He can roll around the house, and has lately started using his feet to pivot around while sitting up. He's really close to getting on all fours - he'll rock forward while sitting up but can't quite get all the way there yet.
  
• Things that we can count on to make him laugh: tickling, the dog, peek-a-boo (with mama or papa, with strangers it can be sort of scary), fake sneezing, splashing in the tub, the line in "Waves on the Beach" where the crabs go pinch, pinch, pinch, belly and neck zerberts (coined by The Cosby Show, who knew?).
  

First Pirates game ends with a win!

I'm not sure how they pulled it out, but the second-to-worst Buccos beat the Astros (and a decent pitcher in Roy Oswalt) with 19 hits and a superb performance from Pirates pitcher Paul Maholm, who threw a complete game shutout. Before you get too excited, though, the Pirates are dead last in their division and will certainly end the season still perched in that position.

For us, it was still a chance to get out and enjoy the (hot) weather and expose young Henry to our national past time. He was a real trooper, even though we kept him from being able to take a real afternoon nap. In many ways, he does better when there's excitement and stimulation rather than just staring at his two boring parents all day long. We got some discounted tickets to some club level seats, which was the best decision we could have made (thanks to Val). We received not even a free hot dog for these seats, but they permitted us access to a large indoor air conditioned area and a place to roam to keep Henry happy.

We had fun, the Bucs won and the sun shined all day. Hope everyone else had a good weekend! Now, if only the Pirates could win about 36 straight games...

My virus has a first name...

It's roseola! Henry's fever was gone by Thursday, and then Friday he woke up with this rash. He'd never had a rash before, and he hadn't eaten anything new recently, so we were pretty sure the rash was related to the fever. A quick trip to the doctor confirmed what we suspected - roseola. He's feeling much better now, though I think he's starting to have some teething pain. Poor guy!

Poor little bunny

Henry has come down with his first fever (except for the little one he got after his first vaccinations). I took him to the doctor today, where I was assured that his ears and throat look perfect and it must be a viral thing that just needs to work itself out. He has remained in pretty good spirits, though he's obviously not feeling like himself. Lots of nursing, lots of sleeping, and a little acetaminophen when he gets really hot, and hopefully it'll break in a day or so. Guess we should feel lucky that it took him this long to get sick for the first time.

Then and now

What a difference five months makes!

Rolling - Act III

As active as Henry is now when we put him on the floor, we got the idea to take a bunch of video and speed it up so you could see the rest of the world staying still while he cavorts back and forth. We've watched it a time or two and, without fail, the part at 1:26 of his mouth and orange donut in hand moving at rapid speed makes us laugh every time. (You're not allowed to fast forward to that point!) Tunes courtesy of Jack Johnson and his Curious George album, which both parents and kids can get behind. Hope everyone had a great 4th!

A boy and his dog

Seven months

Our little man is seven months old (plus a few days, if we're being specific). Some things to remember about this stage:

• He's still big. He hasn't been weighed in a few weeks, but he has probably broken the 25 pound mark by now. Typical conversations with strangers go something like this: "Oh, how cute. How old is he?" "Seven months." "OH MY GOODNESS!" (Seriously, this happens every few days, at least. At first I was self-conscious about it... but no longer.)
  
• He sits up like a champ. This was a big development for us, because he's now content to sit on the floor or in his highchair by himself for a bit.
  
• We started giving him solids a few weeks ago. We typically do one "meal" a day, and we'll probably increase that to two in the next few weeks. So far he is a good eater (no surprise there!) and has liked everything we've offered him. That list includes: rice cereal, oat/barley/spelt cereal, apples, pears, mango, sweet potatoes, carrots, spinach, green peas, banana, yogurt, avocado. We've made nearly all of his food at home, using our food processor. He's also had "bites" of random things off our plates: chicken, black beans, rice, potato, cucumbers, celery.
  
• His napping and sleeping schedule has become more predictable, which is nice for everyone involved.
  
• He loves the trees outside our front door. Every time we carry him outside he reaches up to grab the leaves as we pass.
  
• He is very ticklish. And his laugh is irresistible.
  
• Most of his interaction with objects right now involves banging. It gets loud.
• We spend some portion of every day outside. He still loves going for walks in the Ergo carrier, but is also content in the stroller and backpack.
  

Happy seven months, Henry!

elephants

Back to the pool

This time, it was all about the splashing.

You know what's funny?

Sneezing!

First cereal

No surprises here -- he loved it. Solids, here we come!

Six months

Yes, he's sitting in a bathtub on the kitchen floor. He likes it.

Henry is six months old. Half a year. It's a bit hard to believe.

At his six-month check up, he weighed 22.5 pounds and was 28.5 inches long. For those of you keeping score at home, that's 95th percentile for height and... well... off the charts for weight. Or, to look at it another way, his weight is the average for a 13-month-old. Ahem. Our pediatrician isn't concerned, so neither are we, but jeez Louise.

He's still a pretty happy kid. He has been vocalizing more, trying out new sounds, and he's a pro at sitting up. We'll probably start introducing solid foods in the next week or so.

Happy six months, kiddo!

Lately