7 months old

Dear Leo,

Today you turned seven months old. Before we know it you will be in college. Let's see what's new this month. You are sitting well on your own, and even beginning to pull up on our hands to sit up on your own. You are still sleeping well at night (except this week where you woke up at 3:30am several nights in a row for no good reason), and napping fairly well, although still not on much of a schedule. You find some odd positions to sleep in--and sometimes rouse yourself because you are wedged in a corner of the crib (you could roll or scoot into a better position, but it doesn't always seem to occur to you).
Solid food is now something you really like and we can't feed it to you often enough. Most days you get a serving of banana, two servings of cereal, a serving of vegetables, and four bottles. We might even have to start feeding you more. Broccoli was not your friend, but you liked it.
You really like being outside and often mama takes you outside to sit on the stoop when we get home to wait for papa. You love to watch what's going on and you look really cute in your hat. You have two--one for home and a snazzy one for daycare that Aunt Cynthia bought you. You enjoy playing with the other babies at daycare and everyone jokes that Emma and Elliana are vying for your affections.
While you can amuse yourself you seem to get easily bored--time to start looking for some more interactive toys--we think you have 'played out' your favorites-all they do are jingle and make noise. You still like to put toys, bibs, burp cloths, fingers, and toes in your mouth (not usually all at once). While I don't want to head down the path of "our baby is the smartest ever," I did witness you being rather clever one day--a toy was on the blanket just out of your reach, so you grabbed the blanket to pull the toy closer. So, clever or lazy, I don't know.
This month you went to work with mama one day for Baby Day--there are lots of other babies your age in the music department, and every spring there's a Baby Day so everyone can ohh and ahh over the general accumulated cuteness. You were definitely the smiley-est baby there, that's for sure.

You are pretty much too big for your bouncy seat as you would rather sit up in it than lie in it. Although you do nap in the one at daycare--once you had been sleeping so hard in it in your favorite position (hands behind your head) that when I picked you up you had red hand imprints on your head. Heehee.

Time in a bottle

I wish I could buy time in a bottle--there is just not enough of it in a day! Sorry for lack of posts and pictures lately--Jeff has been using the laptop for work related purposes (gasp!) late into the evening these last many nights and so I haven't had a chance to show you anything new. Leo is fine--the broccoli seems to have been too strong for his system (or maybe it was a bug) and he had a few days with projectile vomiting and other explosive bodily functions. Let's just say I did lots of laundry and had to mop the nursery a few times. He's better now and broccoli is not going back on the menu for a while.

I've had several quartet gigs the last few weeks and so having fun playing again (and earning some money). Jeff is counting the days until the school year is over...

More later.

lip smacking good

Our first mothers day was kind of wacky. It involved rain, hail, a tornado warning, power outages (2), feeding Leo in the closet (during aforementioned tornado warning), laundry, cleaning, baking, and an adorable little boy who this weekend has learned how to smack his lips and is thinking about blowing raspberries. He also tried broccoli (mixed with butternut squash) and he liked it.

biological mathematics

Let me tell you, when more goes into the baby, more comes out of the baby. Simple biological mathematics, no? Well, who knew one little baby could poop so much with just one serving of vegetables (currently enjoying butternut squash) and one or two servings of rice cereal a day on top of 4 bottles. He used to have poopy pants (as we call them) once, maaaybe twice a day, now we are up to 4 and 5 times a day, and the diaper rash to go with it. Luckily he doesn't seem bothered by the diaper rash; we've been putting cream on at every diaper change so hopefully that will help.

Ms.Ete says that at daycare he's a rolling dervish--rolling across the room in the blink of an eye. He can also spin/scoot around on his tummy to grab a toy or look at someone. He's taking to sleeping on his stomach sometimes too, which makes me nervous, but since he can roll over on his own we don't move him. I wonder if he's been doing that to minimize discomfort from the diaper rash?

Jeff loaded more pictures into Flickr this last weekend, enjoy! One of these days I'll get around to tagging and organinzing them (haven't I been saying that for 6 months now?)

Mmmmmmm

The last two days or so Leo has been working on M sounds, so every so often he gets this adorable, concentrated, lips-pursed look and goes Mmmmm, mmmmm, mmmmmm. I'll try to get some pictures this weekend.

Ms. Ete at daycare more or less insisted I had to start bringing in solid food for him--I'd been waiting until we could get him eating it consistently at home, but hadn't had much luck. However Ms. Melissa said that many babies who won't eat at home pig out at daycare. So yesterday I took in some sweet potates. Ms. Ete's note on our daily update sheet said "I see what you mean Mom [about him not eating]. He doesn't know how to swallow, so I put in his pacifier after each bite and then he will swallow. He has to learn." He ate all of the potatoes. This morning when I talked to her she said he'll get the hang of it pretty quickly.

Mmmmm!

First vote & Jeff update

Today was primary election day in Durham, and we took Leo with us when we went to vote. I have distinct (and vivid) memories of my father taking me to vote with him almost every time that he went. Most of today's races were straightforward and non-partisan, although the interesting race is for the DA spot -- mostly because of the backlash publicity from the Duke lax case.

You might have noticed that Kirstin has made most of the posts around here lately. The short version of that is because about 2 months ago, a judge wrote a letter that included the school where I teach on a group that he threatened to not let open next fall. (Anybody who wants more details can ask in the comments, I won't bore anybody else here.) The immediate aftermath of that letter has had me going nuts at school.

The most pertinent part of this whole mess came at the ABSS school board meeting last Monday, when it was anounced that our current principal was getting moved to an assistant superintendent position in the district's central office, we were getting two new co-principals for next year, and everybody on the staff would have to reapply for their jobs. My interview is on Thursday -- I'll say something more when I hear back.