Breakthrough. . .

After months of teething, our little T-rex has pushed through his first tooth.

It is sharp.

That is all.

No "P" in it. . .

Puffy McDuffy likes water. . . most of the time. He enjoys his bath, he touches the water from the garden hose when I water the veggies, and he uh. . . he likes to drink water?

Anyway, after our doctor told us about the dangers of swimming and asthma for infants under 6 months of age, we decided to wait a little before embarking on swimming lessons. I lived in a pool growing up and really want him to learn to swim, so early swim class was a must. So we took our tadpole to the local YMCA for the infant swimming class.

Let me take a minute to state I do not subscribe to the idea of babies swimming. In fact I find videos of people training their babies can swim a little creepy, and dangerous (creating a false sense of security). I'm not naive enough to think that he's actually going to learn anything more than enjoying being in the water.

And he does enjoy being in the water. We went to the pool, got in the water and splashed around for 10 minutes or so before everyone showed up to class (I know you have a baby, but I have one too and I was on time). Then class started. Class is lead by a woman who calls herself grandma, she should be a great teacher. . . I mean she was there when prehistoric man first flailed his arms to stay afloat after being chased into the water by a wooly mammoth. She should be a great teacher. Instead she's pushy and doesn't remember anything and I probably expect too much from her since she's 183 and it's amazing she can still get in and out of the pool.

So there we are enjoying playing in the pool, happy as can be. . . then class started. We began with a rousing round of The Wheels on the Bus (how that relates to swimming is a mystery still). It's not easy to hold a baby above water while dong the motions for The Wheels on the Bus. Then we move to swimming in a circle, and it was all over from there. Yes, my son is the crier. . .

For three straight weeks.

We're going to keep trying for the next two weeks, but I'm not holding my breath. . . I'm just trying to teach him how to.

Sitting up. . .

So like others I walked in after our sleepy bear woke up from his nap to find him sitting up in his bed. He then exhibited this talent a couple more times he'd crawl then sit-up. He prefers pulling up to standing (see previous video post).

He's also teething hard. We saw the first little dot of a tooth at our 9-month doctor's appointment. His first tooth is pushing through. Oh and he's now 19.5 lbs and 28.5" tall. He's currently in the other room crying. He watches through the bars of his crib waiting for us to come get him, or he climbs up the sides of the crib.

Poor little monkey.

Crawling and Climbing. . .

I have wanted to post something about our little crab crawling. He's doing great. In two weeks he's gone from barely lunging forward a few inches to crawling all over. How do you tell people how well a baby's crawling? So I thought I'd show a little bit.

First family road trip. . .

A week ago we were in Chicago—our first family trip (NOTE: all the links below are pictures). The trip was originally supposed to be to Denver. . . a 15 hour drive. We decided that the 5 hours to Chicago was a better move. Even with the closer destination it took us 7 hours to get there. We left at 6 a.m. so he might sleep for a couple hours on the way. . . he didn't. So we stopped three times.

The first stop was to feed him breakfast. We stopped at a rest stop and laid out a blanket and sat him down and fed him. Then he crawled around a little. The second time we just let him crawl around. The third time was for lunch for us and him and we stopped at a Burger King. . . there was no crawling around there.

So immediately we went to Shed Aquarium. Our little adventurer was mostly more interested in the other people than the fish. It was a bit of a mistake taking him straight to an attraction before the hotel, but it worked out OK. He liked the hotel room. He made himself at home.

We spent our second day to the Art Institute and Millennium Park. We found out there was a concert in the park at the Frank Ghery concert shell (see above) so that night we walked back and ate sandwiches in the park and listened to music.

The last day we took a trolley tour of Chicago which included Navy Pier. We also walked the Miracle Mile.

We walked a lot, and Chicago is not very stroller friendly. Revolving doors and strollers don't mix and almost every store/building has nothing but a revolving door. But it was cool walking through the city together.

There were a lot of things I would have done differently, but it was a great trip. The little monkey did better than we could have expected being away from home, sleeping in a strange place, and going for long periods without solid napping.

Anybody else going on trips? What some advice on traveling with a baby? Let me know I might have some good advice.

Cheap date. . .

We can no longer change our Mr. Mushy Face without this. A half used tube of Desitin. It's not that he has diaper rash or anything. It's that he's decided he won't be tied down to be changed anymore. So to distract him we hand him the tube of ass ointment to play with while we change him. . . we didn't plan on it, it was a spur of the moment thing. He was trying to escape one day so I handed him the closest thing I could find.

We especially need it to change poopy diapers. If we don't give him something to play with he grabs his well. . . he grabs his own shit. What do you want he's 9 months old!? I'm sure some day he won't want to grab his own feces.

This is a great time to mention his other favorite play things. I've already mentioned his bowl.

He loves playing with paper. We've given him magazines we've finished reading and he rips them apart and plays with them. The first few times he tried to eat them. Since then he's stopped and, though we watch him still, we're less worried about him eating the paper (plus working in a business that prints a lot I happen to know most printed pieces are perfectly safe, printed with soy-based ink on good clean paper).

He plays with the remotes and the cordless phone. We use them to teach him to crawl (which he's doing like a pro now, but that's another post). He loves playing with cups, coasters, and empty water bottles, but his new favorite toy is an empty Pringles can.

He plays with the canister, then when he gets bored we take off the lid and he plays with that, then again when he gets bored we switch again. He's even learned that it's fun to yell into the tube because his voice sounds funny. He'll put the tube edge in his mouth and yell.

The joke has always been you spend money of expensive toys and the kid will play with the box. Our kid won't even make it to the box, he'll get caught up playing with the paper.

What non-toys can your babies not live without?

Careful what you wish for. . .

Every parent looks forward to their child saying "ma-ma" or da-da" for the first time. Last week the kid was into whispering "da-da." It was cute. Now he's learned "ma-ma."

"Ma-ma" doesn't mean he wants his mother. It means he wants something. . . held, a toy, food, sleep, the remote. . . it also means he's sad, happy, angry (that's just a loud "MA!"). I know the first couple times my wife was ecstatic the first time our little pizza roll said "ma-ma," but, judging by the look on her face when I got home, if she hears it one more time I fear she may drown the kid in a sack.*

He's lucky he's cute.

*Note: my wife is a lovely person and would never actually drown our son in a sack.

Falling in love. . .

My son falls in love every day. . . sometimes more than once. We go to the store and he'll find a little friend and be so excited to see them. He especially gets really excited when he sees little girls. He kicks and laughs. The other day he kept looking at a maybe 12-year-old girl and he did his fake laugh (really loud) and everything else he could do to get her attention (smiles, kicks, the oh so sexy ear shattering squeal that he does). He laid it on a little thick. He doesn't yet understand the subtleties of flirting.

Then they leave his sight and for a few moments he's sad. Then he moves on to the next one.

If he's anything like me this will go on until he's in his 20's.