Comic relief

This is a photo from last week of Henry trying to gnaw on a table leg in my parents' living room. Don't worry, we didn't let him do it! He doesn't have teeth yet, anyway. Those bite marks in the wood aren't Henry's doing - they're from a puppy we once had.

Sleep training - partial retraction

Well, tonight it took 40 minutes, I think because I didn't put him down when he first started to act sleepy at 7:15. Maybe he got overtired. But it was a very humane 40 minutes, just quiet fussing, none of the full-throated wail that makes your insides churn and every individual hair on your neck stand on end. (It's especially great when he does it in the rear-facing car seat -- guaranteed to improve anyone's driving.) Fortunately, we seem to be getting off easy.

Sleep training

We were planning to sleep-train Henry this week, and dreading it. This is when you put the kid down and let him "cry it out" to teach him not to rely on parental help in falling asleep. Apparently it triggers some kind of neurological reflex and from then on your child can "self-soothe" without needing to be nursed or rocked -- some of our friends say their babies actually reach out for the crib and ask to be put down when they're tired (something no baby I know has ever done -- hell, I never did it myself till I started pulling all-nighters in college). But the process is supposed to be excruciating: hours of crying, several nights in a row.
Anyway, we started at 8pm on Sunday. To our amazement, Henry turned out to be sleep-trained already. He fussed quietly, almost conversationally, for about ten minutes, and then conked out. Same thing last night.
It turns out that he is a perfect baby in this respect as well. Our erratic "routine" of 6:45 bathtime and then nursing or dancing to sleep sometime between 7:15 and 9:30 had somehow given him the idea of falling asleep on his own. Of course he retains the right to make me take all this back later this evening (Ken is saying good night to him as I write).
And it gets better. This morning he got fussy at 9am so we tried putting him down (no rocking or anything) for a nap. A few minutes of complaint, then... he fell asleep and stayed out for two hours! (He took another 2-hour nap this afternoon. Normal for some babies but a veritable sleepathon for ours, unprecedented until last week he started taking these mega-naps on my parents' living room rug.)

Happy Birthday, Grandpa!

Yesterday was my dad's birthday as well as Thanksgiving. Henry helped him receive some congratulatory phone calls...

...before sittting down to a turkey dinner.


He even ate some sweet potatoes right off my dad's plate!


Afterwards, as usual, he listened to some music with his grandma in order to fall asleep. Tomorrow it's back to the New Haven routine. But what a nice vacation it's been!

To the North Pole?

On Tuesday we went for a walk in Andover. It was just a little bit cold, but we decked out Henry (and Ken) in a lot of winter gear. Even so, Henry has been sniffly lately, so yesterday and today, as an experiment, we are keeping him inside. Probably his first two days without a walk since he was born!

Thanksgiving vacation

After a hectic few weeks (teaching, conferences, etc.) it is good just to loaf around in our pajamas for a while...

Yogurt!

Now we are up at my folks' house for Thanksgiving break. A good chance for Henry's Grandma Maria (hereafter known as "Baba Masha") to practice feeding him yogurt. Henry is still getting the hang of the spoon; unlike the nipple, it produces a frustratingly non-continuous food supply. More, more! What's with the breaks between mouthfuls?

Tiring day of socializing

Despite a lingering cold, Henry has been very patient as we drag him up and down the east coast to meet various of our friends. Here he is getting to know our friend Ilana during a brief visit two weeks ago; the two of them quite enjoyed each other's company.
After an exciting morning and afternoon, though, Henry was definitely ready for an early bedtime...

Meeting Nina-Rose

Henry recently met Nina-Rose, who belongs to our friends Sascha and Leontine.
Nina-Rose is a big girl. She lives in Astoria. She has tried falafel already.

Among her favorite activities is riding on her daddy. Actually Ken recently tried carrying Henry this way too -- it seemed to work. For the first time, he was able to keep his back straight and really support his weight...

New babysitter

Today was Henry's first day with Archana, his new babysitter. He went to her house -- a brisk 15 minutes in the stroller. Besides Henry she watches two other babies, her own 5-month-old and a 9-month-old girl (who is hardly bigger than Henry). Anyway, I don't know how she does it, but he napped for three hours! One in the morning and two in the afternoon. He also ate only one bottle of formula (and two of breast milk and some squash) -- about eight ounces less formula than usual. Hurray! Of course, the big thing with babies is to get excited about some new habit or trend, only to find out that it is just an aberration. Still, it bodes well.

Sitting up?

Seriously now -- I think Henry is almost ready to sit up. He is so strong. Here he is taking a bath in a big bucket at our friend Ebru's house over the weekend. He was really trying to climb out!
And during dinner tonight he leaned way forward in his reclining chair, sitting up perfectly straight, not supported by the chair back at all. While I ran to get the camera, he leaned forward even further in an attempt to eat his shoes!

Squash baby

Note the ongoing power struggle for control of the spoon...

 

Asleep at the dinner table

Henry conked out early yesterday, but I wanted to finish dinner before getting up and putting him to bed.Here's what he looked like from my point of view:
 

Squash!

We baked a big butternut squash in the oven and stuck it in the blender with some apple juice. Henry gobbled up a lot of it -- a quarter of the squash between breakfast and lunch today (this in addition to nursing in the morning and later drinking 26 ounces of milk/formula). Of course his whole face turns orange. Super cute -- photos soon.
Today was Henry's last day at the day care center he has been attending. Starting Monday he will go four days a week to a babysitter: a nice lady I met in the park who has two girls of her own, 3 and 5 months. Closer, less expensive, more homey (e.g., dim room for sleeping, possibility of going for walks in the park, no paranoid anti-SIDS policy forbidding blankets in the crib). But we are a little sorry to leave the nice teachers at the old place.

Visiting Liel

On Saturday we stopped in to see our friend Lily and baby Liel (7 months). Is this what having twins would be like?

Pablo & Esther's wedding

Henry attended his first wedding last weekend: our friends Pablo and Esther got married in Gainesville, Va.
They put the wedding canopy in one of the most beautiful spots on their farm, with a view down the hill through the fall foliage. The weather was perfect and the atmosphere was joyous. Esther was wearing an absolutely spectacular dress that had taken her mom, a dressmaker, six weeks to put together.

Henry nursed quietly through most of the ceremony and then napped in the Maya Wrap; he only woke up when the bride and groom were kissing at the end.
Here I'm wearing him during the ceremony (but you can't see him). Here's Henry in the Maya Wrap on Ken during the festive meal afterwards. The kid held up like a trooper for hours, not fussing at all. He seemed really to enjoy the party, especially when we took him out on the dance floor. Before we left he got to congratulate the bride -- good job not spitting up on that dress!

From Maryland

Our friend Kate borrowed Henry for a photo shoot sporting some of her latest designs. Look for photos soon at www.cluttershop.com In the meantime, here he is in a Henry shirt, and a shot of his often overlooked feet in overalls.
 

Another from Last Week

 Ann sent us some pictures from her visit last week that turned out well enough for us to revisit the Henry of yesterweek. 

Halloween leftovers

We only got one party of trick-or-treaters last night...

...leaving plenty of candy for Henry when he woke up this morning, still wearing his little costume. We decided it looks more like a horse than a cow. Cute, anyway.