Thumb

Have I reported before that Henry has found his thumb? Can't remember -- I believe today might have been the first time. Parents divide on whether thumb-sucking is desirable, or whether a pacifier should be encouraged instead. On the plus side: you never lose your thumb, you never need to sterilize it (dirty as it might be), and you never need help putting it back in your mouth when you want to self-soothe. On the minus side: parents can't throw it out when they decide it's time for the kid to stop using it. One wants to ask: have you ever seen a guy in his 20s sucking his thumb? But one of our friends claims she has.

The funniest thing about this debate is that there's so little we can do one way or the other. For now he is happy with the pacifier at home, especially at bedtime, but isn't this so much more portable?

New Year fun

Our friends Josh and Mira managed to come down too, from Cambridge. We went for a quick Yale nostalgia tour. Here is Mira pushing four-and-a-half-year-old Abi on the swing in Yale's Old Campus quad. Abi is great fun: makes us look forward to when Henry is a little bigger and more interactive.

Later Abi played the shofar for us (it was kind of a do-it-yourself Rosh Hashana). It's really hard to do: you have to buzz your lips as if for a trumpet. She looks a little blurry but actually sounded pretty good. 

Liel

Our friends Ari and Lily had their daughter, Liel, last April -- about two months before Henry was born. Now she's a bright and active girl, already almost able to crawl, and absolutely not shy. She and Henry were really into each other: smiling, grabbing each other's hands (at one point Liel even grabbed Henry's arm and tried to take a big bite), and babbling a little. It's so nice that even though she lives in DC, they get to see each other once in a while. Someday they'll be very amused to see photos of themselves together at ages 3 and 5 months!

Outward-facing boy

We had friends in town all weekend. Here are Ken and Henry preparing to go do some last-minute shopping on Friday...
 

Chunky boy

Ken says the Henry presses are getting ever harder. The kid has certainly started to look older, especially since his Grandma Ann sent him a whole bunch of big-boy clothes (cargo pants!) last week. Now that he is in day care 3 days a week, he's also getting very sophisticated: the teachers report that they play peek-a-boo, sing Baa Baa Black Sheep, and do lots of other big-kid stuff. At home he still mostly eats, sleeps, babbles at his dad, goes out strolling, and pulls the little crinkly wings of the green parrot on his activity gym. (Sometimes I wonder if he'll grow up thinking that all animals' wings and ears make that special crinkly sound unique to developmental baby toys.) We've started looking forward to the Friday-to-Sunday period when he's ours.

Mr. Fussypants and Mr. Sleepypants

 

Big baby

Our friends Elias and Jen have a very cute 6-week-old daughter, Laila Rose. We went over for a visit on Sunday; for once, Henry got to be the big boy. Little Laila is sleeping in this picture (stolen from her own blog, by the way), but just look at these proud daddies!

 

Bath time with Mr. Hippo

Mr. Henry really enjoys his nightly bath. It's one of his most vocal times -- sometimes he and Ken will sit there and converse for half an hour. Henry's repertoire now includes several consonants: gh, g, b, th, and most recently l. His favorite word sounds something like "heureux" (if you interpret it as French) or "agha" (I think that's Urdu?)... it will be interesting to see what he grows up speaking.

On a completely different note...

I turn 32 tomorrow. It has been a heck of a year.

PS

Dirty diaper this morning. Phew.

Real tears

When he discovered that his callous parents had developed a tolerance for plain screaming, Henry started crying real tears. It is heartbreaking:



He celebrated his three-month birthday yesterday by developing his first cold. We blame the day care. (From now on, we blame day care for everything.) He was okay during the day but miserable during the night from Saturday to Sunday. He woke up every hour, crying. The only way he could sleep at all was in bed with us and nursing continuously. As soon as he came off the breast, he discovered he couldn't breathe right and started crying again. After an entire night like that, we were pretty wiped out yesterday. But took him for walks, played with him, did the whole regular thing. (One of us goes for a walk up Orange Street to the park, the other stays and prepares for class. School starts for us on Wednesday.) Fortunately last night he went right back to his old habits, waking up only once at 4:30 to nurse and again at 8. I don't know how we would have handled a second night like that.

In other news, Henry hasn't had a dirty diaper since about Friday morning. Weirdo. He doesn't seem to suffer about this (Spock says it's normal), but since he's produced at least three per day during his whole life thus far, we are puzzled. And apprehensive. When it comes, it will be a doozy. (When he is older I will surely apologize to him for posting information about his bowel movements on the Internet. In fact, I apologize in advance. Sorry, Henry.)

East Rock

The day care center gives us daily reports on Henry's eating, sleeping, and diaper changes. It seems he doesn't nap much there, but only takes 15-minute cat naps. No wonder - due to their SIDS policy they don't swaddle him, and of course there's lots of light and noise. (I also doubt they slow dance the babies to sleep.) So when we picked him up last Wednesday, after his second day there, he was exhausted. Slept right through our walk up to the summit of nearby East Rock. Then came home, bathed, ate, went to sleep again, and slept right through the night. (It seems weird, but people are telling me not to complain.)

 

A further photo from Minnesota

A picture of Henry with his grandma Ann at the breakfast table in Chatfield.

First trip to the museum

Our friend Rivi, who is about to leave for Taiwan for a year, came for a brief visit this week. On her previous visit, back in DC in June, Rivi happened to have dinner with us on our last night as a childless couple. That time we went to the National Gallery; later she joked that surely it was the Georgia O'Keefe paintings in the modern wing that had sent me into labor that night. This time we went to Yale's Gallery of British Art to see a special exhibit on Shakespeare portraits; it sent Henry into a deep slumber (in this picture he is already fading somewhat) and he had a long nap in the Baby Bjorn. Still, everyone at the museum commented on what a cultured baby we had.
 

Bumbo

This is a chair that claims to develop the back muscles of kids too young to sit up by themselves. Like most everything else (the activity gym, the stroller), Henry seems to like it well enough when he is in a good mood but sort of resent it when he is starting to feel tired and grouchy. The only thing he doesn't feel that way about is the bath, which can actually cheer him up out of a funk.