Me Want Eat That

Jasper has been expressing his interest in food – beyond just the breastmilk variety. And he has not been subtle about it. He has been reaching out for our food and beverages for a few weeks now. On Sunday we had brunch with our friends Robin and Jason and their daughter Sophie (who is only 5 weeks younger than Jasper). When the waitress put Abby’s omelet down Jasper reached out and grabbed the hot omelet in 0.2 seconds. Before we could blink he was yelling from the burning omelet in his clenched fist. He now has a tiny red blister on his palm. Poor baby. Also, he is always starving and Abby just can’t keep up with him.

So, Tuesday night, Jasper had his first non-breastmilk meal! He had a delicious bowl of organic brown rice cereal. Mmm. Go on, admit it, you’re jealous. And so, we figured, what better a time than his first meal to videotape Jasper? Below is Jasper wolfing down the rice cereal.

 

Next week we’re going to try banana and probably avocado at some point soon. We want to give him more than just rice cereal to help develop his palate. We want a 3-year-old Jasper asking for Malai Kofta, Pad Thai, and all sorts of other delicious foods that we enjoy. We’ve also started giving him tiny sips of our water. He practically grabs the cup out of our hands. We thought he wouldn’t like it or spit the water out, but he loves it. He just wants more.

It’s also (amazingly) helping him sleep. Last week, he was taking random 5 minute catnaps. Today he napped for almost 3 hours in the morning, and almost an hour in the afternoon. It’s glorious.  Oh food, how we love you so.

5 Months

I know, we haven’t been so good at updating.  Who knew, having a baby, working full-time, and buying a condo and packing takes up time!  

At anyrate, the little bug is five months old today. The fastest five months of my life.

He rolls, he talks, he laughs.  He can push himself up so high on his arms when he lies on his stomach.  And he gets his knees up under himself.  I swear, he’s this close to crawling.  

He reads.  He literally lies on his belly and turns pages, then waits for a new book to be put in front of him. Current favorites include The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Lou et Mouf: Non, pas ca, and of course, all things Sandra Boynton.  He also loves bath books.  They’re squishy and nice to eat.

And he bounces!  We just set up the bouncy thing that hangs from the doorway, and Jasper loves it.  He dances all around.  He’s pretty much grown out of the swing that kept me such good company for the first few months.  So I think it won’t come with us when we move.  He’s not really interested in being *contained* in anything, he’d much rather bounce and jump than sit and swing!  At daycare, he just started sitting in an exersaucer this week, and he apparently loves it.  So we’re thinking of getting one ourselves.  

In other news, we’ve started packing, and our apartment looks like it’s been hit by a bomb of flattened boxes.  I just want to move already!

giant baby

I just realized we never posted a post-doctor visit note.  At any rate, Jasper had his 4 month checkup last week. And as usual, he’s huge.  17 pounds 6 oz, and 27.17 inches long (cousin Josie, watch out, he’s going to be towering over you soon)!  And he’s healthy as a horse and all that.  He’s rolling all over the place, back and forth from back to belly.  Gone are the days when I could just put a blanket on my office floor, plop him down, and get work done.  He’s just growing up so fast.  It’s ridiculous.

post-IKEA nap!

 

In condo news, we had our offer accepted last week, and an inspection yesterday!  It’s all going amazingly smoothly and quickly.  We close June 12th, and then we’re off to live in gorgeous Huron Village.

Where to Begin?

To start, Jasper is now 4 months, 1 day; officially in his 5th month! Time flies when you have a baby. He is getting so big and doing new things all the time. Jasper’s newest trick is to flip from his back to his stomach. However, he hasn’t figured out how to get onto his back again. This means when he gets sick of being on his stomach he starts crying until we rescue him. Jasper also tends to turn onto his stomach while sleeping and somehow turns 90 degrees so he is perpendicular in his crib. Being a long baby, he ends up with his head pressed against the bars and his feet hitting the bars on the other side. It’d be funny if it didn’t make us nervous and feel bad. I wish I had a picture of this.

We’ve also been enjoying the nice warm weather. It’s nice to actually wear short sleeves and not have to bundle Jasper up. In fact, this weekend was so warm Jasper wore just a short-sleeved onesie sans socks or shoes. He looks adorable with his chubby arms, legs, and toes airing out. Being a December baby, this has been Jasper’s first hot, summer-like weather. As it turns out, he doesn’t seem to like it. Well, he is teething so that could be it, but he isn’t a fan of getting sweaty and sticky. I don’t blame him. We’ve been putting him in a diaper and nothing else when we’re home and he’s sleeping.

Sleeping Jasper (note the wedges to keep him from rolling onto his stomach)

In other news, we are house hunting! Well, condo hunting. Whatever. We spent the beautiful warm weekend meeting with our agent (who is amazing), going to open houses, and checking places out with our agent. It has been a lot of fun and we decided to put an offer in on the unit that was actually the very first place we saw (an open house we went to a few weeks ago). After looking at a number of other places in Cambridge, the first was still our favorite and we just love it. So, we put in an offer this evening! We’re waiting to hear back and adjust our offer if/as needed. Therefore, we’re balls of stress, nervousness, and excitement all rolled into one. If it doesn’t work out, then it wasn’t mean to be, but cross your fingers for us – we really want it to work out.

That’s the gist of it. Seems like a lot less than how it feels. Hopefully, we’ll have some good news to report back on soon…

16 weeks

At just shy of 16 weeks, I feel like Jasper’s getting so old. And he can DO so much now.  He uses his hands all the time, which to someone without a baby that probably sounds like a boring cause for celebration.  But for the longest time, his hands were just appendeges that he flung around without realizing they were even attached to him.  Then he started to notice them, and he’d spend hours moving his fingers and watching them go.  And now, he *uses* them.  He picks things up, shakes them, puts them in his mouth, and more.  In fact, he puts everything in his mouth.  It’s his favorite.

The downside to this new hand-magic is that he’s also discovered the fun throwing toys to the ground and waiting for a Mom/Mum to pick them up for him.  Since everything he touches becomes soaking wet from his delightful teething drool, once it hits the floor it then becomes covered with cat hair (we clean, I swear we do).  Which means it needs to be rinsed off before handed back.  Oh, the joy.  :)

At any rate, developmentally, Jasper’s a baby genius.  He makes raspberrys (especially when they’re made at him first), sticks out his tongue, laughs, blows spit bubbles, contorts his body in odd positions, and can roll onto his side from his back.  

I leave tomorrow for London (speaking at The London Book Fair), and I’ll be gone Saturday through Wednesday.  I made Jasper promise not to do anything exciting for the first time while I’m gone.  No cutting that first tooth, no rolling over.  No anything else.  We have a deal.  Sara and Jasper get some extended one-on-one time, and tons of bottles (hopefully we’ll have room in the freezer for food—not just bags and bags of frozen breastmilk—by the time I get back).

Once I get back, we also plan on starting the condo search in full force.  We have probably 15 places in a “saved search” that we want to look at.  A lot of them are around Huron Village.  Which is fine by me, since that also means Full Moon, Formaggio Kitchen, and Hi-Rise Bread. I like to live near a good food source.  Much like a bear.

Conceivable

I can’t believe I missed posting this by two days!  Time flies when you sleep less.

One year ago, on April 6th 2008, at 10am (a Sunday), in a tiny exam room at Fenway Health, with the help of a nice nurse practitioner named Erin and a wee vial of expensive sperm, we conceived a Jasper.  And how many people have a conception story they can tell their mom?  A year later, and he’s a scrappy little 3 and a half months old.  Inconceivable!  (“You keep using that word.  I do not think it means what you think it means.”)

In other news, Jasper has picked out a bedtime for himself–7pm.  Every night he starts to get ridiculously cranky sometime between 6:30 and 6:45.  He’ll eat and then cry and fuss, until we bring him to his bed.  Then it only takes about 10 minutes (it always *feels* like 90) of singing and rocking, and he’s down.  Which is nice, because now Sara and I get to have the evening together.  Yes, he still wakes up every 4ish hours, but all I have to do is nurse him and he’s sound asleep again.

Happy Birthday

This past Friday (March 27th) marked Jasper’s 3 month birthday. And, Saturday was Abby’s 29th birthday! Happy Birthday! For Abby’s big 2-9 we bought a Nintendo Wii and WiiFit. It’s a lot of fun…and can be quite addictive. Abby is really good at tennis and bowling while I am a homerun queen.

We also had our first date night sans Jasper. Elysabeth generously offered to babysit for us so we could go out for a birthday dinner. So, Jasper had his first babysitter (daycare doesn’t count) and Abby and I went out for tapas! Unfortunately, Jasper was a bit fussy while we were gone, but he did fall asleep for Elysabeth. We went to Taberna de Haro since going out for tapas is a birthday tradition. Dinner was delicious. I think the queso de cabra (warm goat cheese w/evoo and oregano on a slice of bread) and the wine was the best part. Oh, and the company of my wife and birthday princess, of course.

In other news, Jasper is still growing and amazing us with something new each day. We’re guessing he is now about 17 pounds. Jasper has started to really grab at things, hold onto them, and actually play with some of his toys. How novel! He is particularly fond of Crinkle – his blue elephant with “crinkley” ears – and Sophie the giraffe. He likes to gum and drool all over them. Jasper is also almost turning over from his back to stomach; he’s already more or less mastered turning onto his side. Also, his vocabulary is expanding. He used to just “coo” and sort of gurgle, but now he actually sounds like he is saying words. Well, sort of. He sounds like someone who’s drunk and slurring their words. So, it almost sounds like he’s saying ‘Hi’ or ‘Ma,’ but he is probably just passing gas…

I love Cambridge

I do.  I love Cambridge.  In particular, I currently love the Cambridge Public Library.  The other day, just as Kristy promised, we received a package from the library.  It had a big stamp on the outside that said “baby gifts enclosed.”  And inside was a tote bag, three books, an application for a library card, and a gift certificate for another free book, if we go to the library.  One of the books is actually one of Jasper’s favorites, I Kissed the Baby.  But since it was his favorite, we sent it with him to daycare, so we didn’t have a copy at our house.  Problem solved!  And we did doctor one of the other books to make it slightly more relevant to our family…

In short, I love Cambridge.  Do other town libraries do this?  I’d never heard of it.  Then again, I’ve never had a kid before.  But I like to think I know something about libraries, what with the being a librarian and all.

Teething?

You’d think it would be easier to get Sophie the giraffe into your mouth if you unclenched your fists.  But apparently no, this is the way to go.

“Watch!  I can put my fist in my mouth!  I just need the other hand to guide it in…”

Lessons learned in Texas

Back home, and we’ve just about got Jasper’s sleep schedule back to normal.  Last night he slept from 8:30pm to 3am.  I barely know how to sleep for so long anymore.  At any rate, we had a great trip.  The weather wasn’t super–it was 45 and cloudy on Saturday, and 45 and rainy Sunday morning.  But then it turned into 65 degrees and sunny on Sunday afternoon, and we even got to eat dinner on a patio outside in the sun.  Of course, Monday, when we left for the airport, it was 80 degrees.  Ah bien.

Here are some true facts: Jasper is a great traveler.  And a charmer.  As we were getting off one flight, he turned to coo at the flight attendants and the pilot.  The pilot then patted his head called him “little noodle”.  People in Austin wear ten-gallon hats.  Not as a joke.  People in Austin call you ma’am.  Not as a joke.  And sometimes, when I hear thick accents I have to take a second to figure out if the person is speaking English or not.  Guacamole can, and should be eaten 3 times a day.  Austin is a very hip music-y town.  Also, SXSW is very hip.  Abby and Sara are not hip.  Even if we hadn’t had the baby with us, we don’t tend to go out to clubs and bars.  We’re lame.  And perfectly happy being so.  If we had been baby-less and wanted to spring for a SXSW pass for Sara, though, we totally would have partaken in film showings and live music.  The highlight of our trip turned out to be a grocery store though.  The giant, biggest ever 80,000 square feet Whole Foods in Austin was awesome.  It has an attached culinary school and homegoods store.

Despite being in the middle of a film festival, we didn’t see anyone famous wandering the streets.  But on the flight there, we sat across the aisle from a guy who mentioned that he had a show coming out on HBO (he thought Jasper was cute and kept talking to him).  We looked him up, and it turns out he’s Ben Best, a creator/producer/starring in this new HBO show, Eastbound & Down.

As it turns out, I’m just a wee bit anal.  So is Sara.  Combine us, and you get a family that does things like arrive at the airport almost 3 hours before our flight. (We weren’t sure how long it would take us on public transit.  Only 20 minutes, as it turns out.)  So we were the first people to our gate.  And after hanging out there for 2 hours, there was a “paging passenger Blachly” message.  So I went to the counter, and apparently our flight to Charlotte was oversold.  But there was a direct flight to Boston on JetBlue, and would we be willing to give up our seats on this flight in exchange for a direct flight?  Um, yeah.  Not only was it direct, but JetBlue has much wider seats *and* TV!  And then, as he was processing the changes, he said, “and here are your vouchers, with our apologies.”  That’s right, for the *inconvenience* of it all, USAirways gave us 2 vouchers for free roundtrip tickets anywhere in the US.  So to top off this free vacation weekend in Austin, we now have the start of another free vacation.  We think we’ll go somewhere on the west coast this summer.  We’re thinking somewhere we’ve never been–Seattle maybe?  Only having to pay for hotels makes it much cheaper!