Baby Mommy

My great-uncle Naum and his family just sent a few slides from a vacation we took together in Lithuania 3o years ago. Here I am, 20 months old, in the chilly water of the Baltic. This facial expression strikes me as somehow Henry-like.

Snowstorm in Massachusetts

In Andover for New Year's. Yesterday Ken and Henry went out for a walk just as it was starting to snow. (Note my mom's wool socks, functioning as leggings for Henry.)

Coming back from the walk:

Red-cheeked boy with Grandma:

Happy Henry:

The feast

Our last day in Madison there was a big feast with all the siblings. Henry's cousin Roman was there with his parents, Jess and Lisa. Everyone (including Henry) stayed up late, received many presents, and ate a lot! Ann has her eyes closed here, and Roman's running around, but here's everyone. Clockwise from Henry: Ken, Pro, Joe, Ann, Kate, Jess, and Lisa.

Roman opens a DVD of Cars (at 22 months, anything with wheels is his favorite).

Kitchen sink bath

Between courses of the Christmas dinner, Henry managed to squeeze into the kitchen sink for a bath. As usual, he enjoyed sitting up and splashing.

We're lucky he's such a social kid and not easily embarrassed!

Uncle Joe

Ann has been keeping bees since last spring. Henry can't taste any honey until he's 12 months old, but meanwhile he listened attentively while Uncle Joe read to him about beekeeping.

Later, they played peek-a-boo:

Henry and Sandra

Henry was very popular at the temple. Sandra, a caseworker who works with the Cambodian community, volunteered to hold him all through the delicious noon meal. He had fun flirting with the ladies and watching the little kids run around.

At the Buddhist temple

Yesterday Ann and Roger took us to the Buddhist temple built by Madison's Cambodian community. Henry got to play with the hangings...

...and meet the monks!

Grandma's back!

We're at Ann and Roger's house in Madison. Henry is having a great time hanging out with his Grandma, who just returned from three weeks studying Khmer in Cambodia. Today Henry got to go for a walk to the lake. Check out the Kidoppotamus contraption keeping him warm in the Bjorn carrier. And there's Trudy, the amazingly kid-friendly dog.

Later he sat by the fire reading the Penzey's pepper catalogue.

Mmmm... spicy!

Sunset with Aunt Kate

Shadows on the road

Cows!

Actually the cows were far more interested in Henry than he was in them. They stared at us as we walked by.

Inevitable sing-along with Dad

A walk around the farm

Three generations

Grandpa watches Henry while Dad catches up on some reading. Henry, meanwhile, is adjusting to the new time zone (by gnawing on his Grandpa's watch!).

Henry Pasha

Blogging from Grandpa's house. The last couple of days before we left were a marathon of grading, packing, trying to wrap things up. Now we're at Ken's dad's place in Wisconsin. But before we left, Ken decided to let Henry model his fez...

As you can see, Henry loves to be charming for the camera. But he wasn't all that eager to keep it on for very long.

Ceiling walker

Henry and Santa

Our landlord and neighbor, Ralph, volunteered to dress up in a Santa suit today to go skate with kids at the ice rink. On his way back he stopped by to ho-ho-hold little Henry. (It was like 60 degrees out, as you can see by Henry's lack of a jacket... poor Ralph, dressed for the north pole, was probably roasting in there.)

Face time

Our baby-neuroscience book says six months is some kind of developmental milestone.

Their little brains become capable of feeling emotion, not just mimicking the facial expressions for it.

They start to develop attachment to their parents.

Everyday miracles.

Sleep experts - thbbbbt

According to today's New York Times (is anyone surprised that this is one of their "most emailed" articles?), Henry is way ahead of the norm on learning to sleep. The study they reported on (actually a review of many studies) predicted "at least three to five nights" of bedtime wailing. It took us exactly two nights, and no wailing. Today we put the kid down wide awake at 8 (smiling and making faces, in fact) and by 8:10 he was out cold.
Clearly he takes after his dad.

Raspberries

Henry's first real call-and-response activity.

Are we going to regret this one day?

High chair

More on the big boy front: My dad also helped put together Henry's high chair.

It takes up like half the room. But now we can start giving him Cheerios!

New regime update

After just that one crying night, Henry slept from 8 till 5:45 last night, no wakeup. We'll see if it lasts.

Sitting up

My mom and dad were in town last weekend. My dad found that while Henry can't sit up by himself yet, he can stay up for a few seconds if you help him get there. They spent quite a while practicing.

Doesn't this make Henry look like a big boy?
 

New regime

So Ken met some people at a party who described a sleep-training process for their baby that included not feeding her during the night. We decided to try it. At six months, Henry certainly can hold enough calories to get through the night. Better for everyone if he can do it.
To be honest, I kind of loved our night feedings. He is so soft and sweet to hold, so nicely fell asleep on my shoulder right afterwards, and made me feel so needed. And the nighttime quiet was good for thinking. BUT having one, two, or often three such rendez-vous nightly (try 12, 2:30, and 5) hurt my daytime concentration and made me totally unable to stay up late. I've been in bed by 9 or 10 almost every night for six months -- totally out of character. All semester I've barely managed to do anything except teach my (one) course -- a 1/2 to 1/3 workload -- even with 3 or 4 days of daycare. And now that classes are over, there is real work to be done.
So last night Henry ate all evening, went to bed at 8 as usual (we've got that part down like clockwork), and woke up at quarter to two. He had wet the bed because of a diaper that came unfastened. We changed him and the bed but put him down without feeding. (Of course I had to pump so as not to explode.) He screamed for half an hour and then fell asleep by 2:30. My ears rang for about another hour but then I fell asleep too. Hopefully it will be easier tonight.
Experiences with this, anyone? The people Ken talked to said it took their baby only two nights to stop waking up before morning. That would be good.

Doctor visit

We saw the doctor today. Henry is 26 inches long (40th percentile); weighs 16 pounds 10 oz. (30th percentile); has a head circumference of 44cm (50th percentile) and is now immunized against the flu.
The doctor seriously wants us to practice sitting him up (because all he does so far is "tripoding," holding himself up with his hands) and looking at books with him. Also to "introduce some texture" into his food. It's weird -- she seems to expect us to get most of our basic information about baby care from elsewhere (books? the Internet?), but then she feels the need to give us these random info nuggets. Oh well. Fortunately he's healthy, so we were more curious about the vital stats than anything.

Flying

Avid consumer of parenting advice

Don't worry, I didn't let him eat it. (Aren't those eyelashes amazing?)

Sideways

Henry is definitely interested in sitting up. Watch him gnaw on one of his dangly friends:

Now here's the same picture, but right side up. Good thing the chair comes with that little leg-harness.

 

Six months old (funny bunny)

Just six months ago, there was no Henry. Now he is the center of the universe. It is so fun to watch him learn to giggle and interact, reach out and grab things (the sandwich I'm eating, the book I'm trying to read), and discover his own body (his toes are in his mouth a lot these days). As I write he is shredding a copy of Parenting magazine, systematically tearing out and crumpling up the pages. He's a funny kid, self-directed in some ways but very eager to be with us and to please us (which is great, because it's mutual). I wonder what the next six months will bring.