A Message from Tobo

That's right, we are expecting again! Baby #2 is due February 29, 2012. Tobo is looking forward to being a big helper...as long as he doesn't have to share his toys!

I'm feeling really good other than fatigue and forgetfulness.

Thank you for your prayers for our family!

24mth check-up

For the record Tobo is now 25 lbs (14%) 34.5" tall (50%) and his head is 19" (38%). He's finally over the 10%. Our new doctor at kp was happy his growth was following a normal curve. It was nice to get out of the 10% range.

I feel like we use to do these check ups every 5 minutes, now it will be a year before we are at the doctor's again, God willing. This is the first check up that didn't involve ANY shots. (We got the last H1N1 with nasal spray) Tobo was polite, followed directions and was a really good sport through the whole process. The doctor was mighty impressed with his listening and attentiveness to her requests. She looked over the little questionnaire they give you to evaluate his development and all his stuff was good with only a few things missing. She then tells me that these tests span a developmental range above and below what a 2 year old should be able to do with fine motor skills, large motor skills, comprehension, etc. and that Tobo is doing really well for his age. Great. My kids a genius. Excellent. As an off comment I mention what he had just said before she came in (looking at the instruments on the wall) dis doctor, he tall guy. Well...she's impressed with this little piece of deductive thinking (as am I) and says we have nothing to worry about. Then just before she leaves she says something like 'you're so smart will have to keep any eye on you buddy". and I say: "yeah..wait what?" And then she says that sometime when kids are so far along mentally that they will lack social development, usually after 4 years old. So we should just be aware of it, but everything else looks good. I'm thinking: you just couldn't let him be brilliant and leave it at that? I think it was just an off comment. It was just an odd thing to say. I didn't mention that we've encouraged him set traps in the house for wandering heros, practice his BWAH-Ha-ha-ha laugh and I guess we just can't get a fluffy white cat. Gracious!

tobo update: 18mths

So I'm sitting here having breakfast with my late sleeping toddler - he once again slept in to 9am [ed note: this is because he spent 4 to 5am talking to himself] - thinking it's been a while since I wrote. It's been a busy couple of weeks. We had our 18mth check up, a fever, first time with the sitter, first time in the walker room, new couch and saying goodbye to the rocker. Also apparently, this is becoming a monthly blog.

So, the 18mth visit went well. Tobo is 32.5" in height, which is 47% for his age; He weighs 21lbs 6oz, which is 6% (we gain a percentage point from last time); and his head isn't that much bigger. (18.5" or 25%). All of sudden we are no longer in the 10% range of everything. When you see him next to other toddlers, you can't really tell the difference.

His doc's visit went well, so he immediately turned around and picked up the local variety of ick-with-a-fever. It was a really strange cold, no other symptom but the fever. I thought it was just a reaction to his shots for the first day until he didn't cool down. It was still awful since there was very little we could do other than give him tylenol drops and wait it out. He eventually cooled down about 3 days later. What is sad is that probably next week we have to go back for flu shots. :/ In the middle of all this sickness, he's also still cutting teeth. What's scary is he can actually ask for tylenol now ("ty" *nod*) at night if asked. [ed note: Maybe we depend on that too much.]

He also has started throwing tantrums more. Yesterday he was in time out twice: once for banging on the table, and once for pinching. He doesn't really understand being sorry for his actions, but he does stay put for a minute, even if he doesn't like it. I think if we keep at it, it will work for discipline for him. We get a lot of screaming too, usually out of frustration, rarely to get a rise out of us. It's kind of funny because tobo doesn't have a lot of practice at it, so his screams are more like yells and really aren't that loud or annoying. On the other hand, he is likely to share and hand over toys to other kids when playing and is very caring of any stuffed animals or even animal statuette doorstops. He pets them and feeds them, makes sure they have something to drink every day. It's nice to have the kid who plays well with others, at least for now.

With the change in the weather, I'm giving up on trying to heat tobo's room. We have horribly leaky windows in his room (and in our front room). These were the windows that did eventually seal up when a layer of _ice_ formed on the inside to block the leak last year. Also, mister wiggly refuses to stay under a blanket. When he was crib-bound we used a space heater in his room. Since we are quickly approaching the age when he will attempt to get out himself, I'm not really comfortable with that for this winter. We'd rather not do plastic over the windows (this is colorado. we get hot days and cold days) so I'm looking now at finding some kind of temporary weather stripping. The big solution would be to switch rooms. It also means we could do things after he goes to bed, like watch TV or have people over without all the sound filtering into his room. It's just a lot of sorting of stuff. Stuff I'd rather just box up and ignore for a few more years apparently.

We also said good bye to the blue rocker - it had been borrowed and was overdue to go back by about a year. Tobo's getting too big to rock and it would be much easier with travel if he could do without rocking at night before bed. We also got rid of the beige couch in trade for a teal one. The new one is a lot less like a bucket seat and more like an actual couch.

One of Tobo's favorite things to do is to sit at the table in a white chair and play with his cars. He tells us about them, if they are up, down or puppy. We don't know what qualifies a car to be a puppy. The lady across the way as she was moving out gifted us with three big boxes of duplos and hot wheels. Tobo has been playing with them ever since.

The walker room at church has been great. They actually got tobo to scribble while there, which is more than I can do during our days at home. We also tried a sitter (she watches kids in her home) but I think we're going to wait before we go back. It might have been all the busyiness, but Tobo pretty much broke down for two days after he came back, which says to me that he and I aren't ready. Other than that we've been doing a lot of play dates and lots of story time.

I'm trying to pull together a clothing swap at our church, in conjunction with the preschool there, for late October. Everyone thinks its a great idea but nobody has any time to organize it. I'm thinking about maybe including an informational meeting on cloth diapers, especially since cotton babies just came out with a more economical way to do them.

the walk and the fall

Be proud of me. I just put Tobo down for his morning nap with him being pretty much still awake. AND he seems to have put himself to sleep. Amazing.

Tobo has been sleeping kind of weirdly this week. Twice now he's crashed at 5:30p -- before dinner. Twice also he's been up at 5:30am but on completely unrelated days. His third tooth is well and truly here. Though no sign of the other tooth. And we've started to toddle:

Walking You Say?


He's been doing this for about 3 days. Yesterday I left his shoes on in the afternoon once we were home from errands and he started toddling all over the front room and hall way. Like dumbo, he's found his magic feather I guess.

The other ability he's been working on is climbing. This has not mixed well with tax time as I pull out files and file boxes. When I first pull out these boxes, my mommy radar said "dangerous". But then I talked myself out of it in hopes that he'd get to practice "stairs" by climbing up and down off these boxes. I should have listened to my radar:

The Fall


I had a real debate about posting this one, but in the end I thought it be better to show than not. Tobo was fine afterwards. He fell about as far as he would if he had sat down hard, and he landed on semisoft stuff behind him but my heart just about jumped out of my mouth when he took his tumble. Thank goodness kids are tuff.

We're quickly approaching the Open House so I should probably plan soon. I'm hoping the weather is nice so we can use the porch. And I hope Tobo doesn't freak out with this many people. I was kidding with paul that we'll put tobo in a separate room and let 2 or 3 people in at a time. I think it will be fun. I haven't decided if I'm actually going to bake or not. I'm tempted to make a sheet cake instead of cupcakes because I'd like to do carrot cake and cream cheese icing. *yum*. I've ordered his birthday gifts because I couldn't find them anywhere near us. I've picked up napkins, but that's about as far as I've gotten. I'm expecting around 20 folks max.

Does anyone have any open house planning sites that would be helpful?

Sometimes I find I haven't written in weeks, or what seems like weeks, and find out it's only been 8 days. I've been going through a bout of self editing. So, I will attempt to write something not about Tobo.

As to the rest of our life, things are going pretty well. We continue to work at OMF Intl, in our meager little ways. Sometimes I feel it's a shame they pay me because I really enjoy the work. If you know me, and my need to work, it's great to not be mom all the time. Most recently I was given an opportunity to work on a prayer guide for Thailand. Though I approached the project with trepidation because it had been sketched out already by someone else, it really grew on me and I'm now really proud to have been a part of the project. It should be available at omfbooks shortly. Because I do so many day to day little projects, it was nice to work on something more long term for a change. Not that I'm complaining. See statement above. Any day that I get to sit at a computer and design something is a good day in my books.

Other than that, we are getting ready to open our house up to well, everyone we know in CO. We are by nature introverted, but we've been meaning to repay all the wonderful meals and gatherings we've attended since tobo was born. So, now that the invitations our out, I'm looking for good open house ideas. Yeah, we'll have cake, but really, I'd like to feed people more than just sweets. So, what was the most fun you had at an open house? What was the best dish? What is the old stand by that no open house should be without? Also, how many people can we legally fit in a 1050 sqft apartment? :D

We are planning on going out to see the opener of Watchmen. I know it's going to suck. I just know. Because you can't do the comic justice, and why would hollywood take the time to do so. But we're still going to go. I've decide to not re-read it right before hand, but instead linger over it afterwards in hopes that it will not wreck the whole story for me. I'm reading just trash right now. Eargon, because the cover is really cool and it comes in a set. Sad, I know. I hope to get back to something more edifying shortly.

Okay, you've been so patient, here are some photos "for those of you who have no interest in pirates."

From Baby Grows Up

11months old! I'm a big kid now!

and now with sound

So, one of the gifts that was underwritten by grandparents was a flip camcorder. After many movies without sound, I give you sound:



Ok, so the problem is Tobo doesn't really say much, but here are a few more:





I like the flip thing pretty good, mainly because it is so easy to upload to youtube. (where these videos are linked from). As soon as Tobo says anything I'll let you know.

On the sickness front, Paul is better, I'm still ok, and Tobo is alright. He's still not back on solids, but I think that is more of a habit now than he's actually got a bad stomach. He's still not up to speed he was though. I think we'll check in with the doctor if this isn't gone by Wednesday.

After a night where he slept on my lap for 3 hours (and then was up for another hour with dad) from 1a to 4am, Paul decided to let him cry it out. And it worked. When I say cry it out, I mean the jo frost control cry thing. (cry/comfort/cry/comfort/cry/sleep) Tobo was a sleep in about 30 minutes. So, we tried again at nap time (might as well start fighting that battle now) and again at bedtime last night. I actually moved the rocking chair back into his room and we settled there instead of out on the couch. He's getting to big for the pillow he normally sleeps on anyway, and this way we can continue to be out in the main part of the apt after he goes to bed. He was asleep almost immediately -- and back up an hour later. But, because Paul is a cruel hearted person, he was able to go through the crying out stuff. In 40 minutes, Tobo was a asleep and stayed that way until midnight. We also just took away formula after 11p (we'll just call it part of the new world order) and he did fine. He got water from 11 to 7am. He was up once more at 5:30a but just got a diaper change and water. Really, I think we made some good progress and will hopefully have a baby who is able to sleep well at night by the time his birthday rolls around. My big motivator is if we can get him on a regular schedule, we can get a baby sitter! And go out! on a date!

rock around the christmas tree

From Baby Grows Up

Saturday, we decorated tobo's first christmas tree. Or rather, mom and dad did and tobo tried to break into the filing cabinet the tree is set up on. We're about to take the show on the road and visit grandparents and other family for the holidays. Sadly, we won't be able to see Uncle Jerry, who passed away suddenly. Paul's just back from the funeral and we're still kind of all in shock. It happened so fast and he was such a good man. He will be missed.

While dad was away, Tobo has been busy. We had a couple of bumps and bruises because someone *ahem* was not paying attention to where their hands and feet were. The doctor is going to think we're terrible folks when I take tobo for his 9mth. I had to move it because Monday it was -8 degrees at noon...if I don't have to take the kiddo out, I'm not going to. I did dig out a christmas present early. I knitted this crazy striped sweater for him -- already too short in the arms!

From Baby Grows Up

Along with the sweater, I whipped out a pair of mittens. He actually kept them on in the store, which means they will be too small by next week. Hope to plan better for the hat I want to make as well. Apparently I've got the knitting bug back. Kind of interesting to do when you've got a child who wants to see and touch everything you're working on. While I was doing that, tobo was doing this:

From Baby Grows Up

So much for my amazing baby proofing of the bookshelf. No, he's not standing unsupported...but really, you can see that it's just a formality that he needs a hand on the bookshelf for balance. We expect him to start walking any time during the holidays.

A few entertaining firsts:

1. tobo has stated initiating play. So like, peek-a-boo around the couch corner, or on the changing table.
2. We've often pointed out hot things to him...today he started pointing them out to me. *ahhh-ssssss* he said after he took a bite of stewed carrot. *ahhh-sssss* he said back to me when I said "hot coffee!" He also says it about cheerios, but the point is, its something different. It goes on the list of ma ma ma ma da da da da, growling, and giggling. It's really cool.
3. love/hate affair with the music box: So on the plus side he's started dancing when he hears music playing. He was actually kind of singing along to rocking around the christmas tree at KSooper's yesterday when we were shopping. The flip side of this is he started crying everytime his little music box stopped playing last night. He could not for the life of him figure out how to make the music go again. Also, it was time for bed.
4. He got really interested in my glass during lunch yesterday. It was plastic, so I let him investigate it. He gets a big gulp and as I tried to take it away he grabbed it tighter and tried again. So he got a bit of a bath, but after it was empty I let him go to town. This was the same kind of intensity we saw just before he started eating solids. (I should say chewing solids, he's still hit or miss whether he will swallow anything) Just has to have the grown up stuff. He loves eating whatever your eating. (hmmm where did he get that?)
5. Somewhere over the last 3 days he's grown too tall for the 6-9 month stuff. All his long pants for winter are now capri's. He still fits alright in the smaller sizes, but I notice. I'll be digging out a couple of pants for the road I think from the big kid bag.

From Baby Grows Up

caught in the act: I want what you're having

st nicholas day

I didn't get a chance to post these last week because of the insanity that is our holiday schedule, but last Saterday was St. Nicholas Day. Being a good dutch child (or at least half dutch), Tobo put his wood shoes out the night before. Not surprisingly, when he woke up at #$%$%^am in the morning, St Nicholas had filled his shoes with gifts.

From Baby Grows Up

Tobo of course was more interested in the shoes:

From Baby Grows Up

The shoes, btw, are from Holland (the country not Michigan!) brought over from ye old country I believe for my mom when she was a little girl. (Correct me if I'm wrong mom) Traditionally he would have gotten oranges and apples as well as a little candy, but since almost all of that is off limits to him right now, he got toys, an outfit, and some shoes. The shoes are important because he is now cruising all over the place, on all sorts of surfaces. I think we're in the final count down until he's walking.



He is into everything. So far he's managed not to haul the Christmas tree down on himself, but really, we've moved the coat stand, covered up the books, barricaded the front door with boxes, locked up all the doors, etc.

From Baby Grows Up

tobo vs the coat stand

A few days ago I broke down and figured out a way to make a makeshift playpen for him in the hallway. I closed all the doors and then put up a pressure gate so he had roughly a 5 by 5 square. This worked well until he realized I wasn't staying. I've been trying out the podaegi, with mixed success. When I get it put on correctly, Tobo loves it. When it's too loose, he starts jumping up and down and flailing his arms, which is disturbing when he's on your back.

From Baby Grows Up

We've got our 9mth checkup on Monday. Can you believe the boy is almost 9months old?!

I just kind of hit a wall this afternoon. As paul said, I must not be well because I did what he said and went to bed instead of work. After some sleep and dinner I'm feeling better. It's been a long couple of days without a break, Friday to today, since Paul has stuff on Monday nights. I forget to stop sometimes.

In the mean time Tobo has been learning all sorts of things. I found him like this after a nap yesterday and today:

From Baby Grows Up

Fish got to swim, birds got to fly, I got to chew, Mom.

From Baby Grows Up

We think he's teething again. /obvious> I see the value of bumpers, not just to keep his head from getting bonked, but to keep the dum from being thrown out of the crib, the baby can't explore the environs of the crib by sticking his hand out to grab everything, and of course not chewing on the bars.

The next surprise is when I turned around and found him here:

From Baby Grows Up

He's officially a scooter now, not really crawling but definitely showing up in places you don't expect. I never should have taught him to sit down instead of falling over from standing. He's unstoppable now. If you notice, there's a pillow up blocking his direct approach to the chair, so he obviously routed around it to get underneath there.

From Baby Grows Up

Where shall I go from here...

I don't have a photo of it, but Tobo also started waving back to folks this week. This was kind of surprise because it wasn't one of those life skills we had really been working on. He just think its the most awesome thing that he does something and everyone else reacts.

I'm tempted to offer to lead?instruct?explore? cloth diapers for ladies at our church. We have 15 new little ones this year and that's likely to keep happening next year. Maybe I could invite wmw as a guest speaker. ;D I don't want to be pushy about it, but at the same time, it could be a lot of fun. Especially since everyone can save money these days, it's not like I'd get a commission. Any suggestions about how to approach folks who don't know the wonder of cloth diapers?

Well, off to compound my sleep catch up today by going to bed early. Nite all.

tea time

So today I had the honor of having some ladies over to watch pride and prejudice (2005) version from our small group I so rarely attend these days. I made really tea and had tea cookies and everything. :) It was bonus fun to hang out with folks and watch something in my home and that is actually a very good movie Hopefully folks had fun, I certainly did. To get ready for this event I finally got things put away and organized the front room so we really can have folks over again. I'm surprised, but I find I really do enjoy hosting. Nothing too fancy of course, there will be few feats of cookery at my place, but I do like to make a comfortable talking place for folks.

Part of my preparation meant Tobo and I went to the store on Friday to pick up said cookies. Since he's been getting better and better at sitting by the day (hardly surprised when he falls now) I thought, "Let's see if you're steady enough to be in the cart, mister 15 lbs."And sure enough, here's my big kid at the store:


(quality is low because all I had was my phone camera with me at the time)

I just can't believe how fast he's picking things up (literally) these days. After much internal debate, I gave in and gave him some cheerios to play with. I was paranoid he would choke. I did not realize that by the time he figures out how to get the cheerio in his mouth, he'll be a lot more able to gum it and swallow. Currently after much work he can get one in his fist, but then sticks the whole fist in his mouth. It's like giving a dog peanut butter. So, I'm not as worried as before. He's also highly entertaining with a sippy cup. Doesn't really get much out of it (other than on his shirt) but is really excited to be using a "big kid" thing. We have many fine lunches this way.

He was being such a pill this day that I took out my phone and took his picture and then showed it to him. The crying stopped almost immediately and we were able to go on with our day. (for a while anyway)



we stayed up passed bed time last night to watch the debate.

That one's for chesh and wmw. I found Tobo staring enthralled with Senator Obama's voice...but then he noticed I had my phone out again. Paul went to the libertarian shindig last night and I believe plans to vote for their candidate Bob Barr. I'm being my usual undecided self. I'm pleased with both candidates and really enjoyed watching a debate where the candidates were able to talk to each other. Looking forward to the next one.

For now, I'm going to finish my library book and crash.

my life in pixels

Just a few pics to post from the last few posts:

First, this is as much of the rice cereal incident that I caught, but it went something like this, only up around his nose:


Someone had some thoughts on the matter:


Bit blurry, but this is Tobo falling asleep before he reaches the toy:


Awesome! Blocks!


Again, Tobo chimes in:


And finally: Sitter or Tipper? YOU decide!

sitters R us

So Tobo has been doing well since his 6 month visit. He's 25 and 3/4 inches tall and 15 and 5 oz at the moment. He's definitely becoming a 6-9 mth kid. Hope to dig out the bigger clothing tomorrow. We've also started doing such lovely things as banging on the tray when we see something we like and eating pureed green beans. We are approved for cherrioes and teething biscuits, so we need to pick some of those up at the store.

The other update is that he's become some what of a sitter. He sat on the floor tonight for closet to 10 minutes, reaching out and grabbing toys and chewing on them. He only lost his balance when he reached to far. Pretty cool!

videos galore!

From Cute Things My Baby Does 3/22/08 10:15 AM

Here's a bunch of photos and videos I've taken over the last week. Tobo is just about 6 months in all of these:

1. Tobo is as bad as I am about cameras. As soon as he sees them he stops and stares. So I got this video by turning on the sink and looking over our bar into the living room.



2. Definitely teething.



3. giggling -really too bad that the only way I can get sound right now is by using my phone. Here again is Tobo stopping as soon as I show up with the camera/phone.

From Cute Things My Baby Does 3/22/08 10:15 AM

From Cute Things M...

I got a text from a friend wondering if we were at the stadium. Sadly, no. We've been at home with our various addictions (wii mariokart out front, dvd in the back) as we waste away the last 3 hours of Tobo actually sleeping instead of getting some sleep ourselves. Not much to say. We've been working on tailoring his sleep schedule and his eating schedule so that he's getting more meals and more time to put himself back to sleep. I've also started trying to do more with him during the later afternoon, evening to tire the little guy out. We're not really seeing the fruits of this labor of love, but hopefully we're laying the ground work for better sleeping and eating in the next month or so.

In the mean time here are a new Jumper movie:



And Carrot movie: (Tobo helps with the spoon):

carrots!

Yesterday was crazy busy for a sunday. I ended up having to give a little announcement about our up-coming Breakthrough event to all of the adult bible fellowships (sunday school in laymen's terms.) That on top of not a lot of sleep. Overall I think it went well. At least, no one threw their coffee at me, though the over 60's seniors were kind of grumpy that I interrupted just before they were going to pray. (understandable) Glad it's over, but at least now the word is out. Only two other churches to visit and I'm done (!) until next week. At least with talking with people. I still need to coordinate some t-shirts and some day do something about the business cards I'm suppose to be working on, but all in good time, right?

In tobo news, Carrots are a hit. I had little faith that they would go over any better than sweet potatoes, and then he was grabbing the spoon after he finished about a tablespoon. He likes them better than rice cereal. Lots of babbling, grabbing his toes and rolling over now. The teething has gotten better. We've had two nights where he didn't need anything to get to sleep at any time during the night. He's still chopping down on everything, but it's not as painful it seems these days. Still no signs of teeth.

Last night we tried the "Ignore after 4 for 4" routine with limited success. Limited because he did end up whimpering past 4 minutes, but after 1 oz of milk at 4 and another 2 oz of milk at 5, tobo was back to sleep until 7 am. And spent a lot of time happily playing with his feet. Am I setting myself up for a fall by giving him a big feeding at 4 that will come to get me later on? He seems to be completely driven by stomach when his teeth are not bothering him. Yesterday was also pretty busy, since he spent 9 to 12 in the nursery with only one melt down. (hungry again) We then went and looked at a house in a neighborhood we'd like to live in, but decided it was not worth looking at since we're not that serious about buying yet. The yard was 3000 ft with a house that was 1750 ft plus a two car garage built on top of it. Someone doesn't like to mow.

In Wii news, Paul got Mariokart which we played last night. That is insane. Insane I tell you. I gave up at 11p because it was way past our bed time.

Ok, on to the day and much to do.

EDIT: And tobo just put himself to sleep for a nap on the bed next to me as I've been writing this. Our little boy is growing up!

cloud of witnesses

So this is the mobile I'd been planning for months now. It's made of really bendy wire, kids foam, craft glue and black thread.

back from there

We are back from the great land of michigan after a two week vacation/deputation visit. It was a really good time to remember what's good about the west coast (of the mitten) and get our fill of high humidity, sunlight, soft evenings, pretty sunsets, and cows. Thank you to everyone who came out to the open house. It was great to see so many people come out for hot dogs and look at the baby. A couple of special folks that we saw:

My uncle and aunt from the far north came down to coo over tobo:



Finally got tobo and Ch together.


We also were so pleased to see uwee's mom and dad as well as far flung friends from kzoo and St. Joe who made the trip. It was a great time.

Paul and I did go to the Beyond Beijing conference in Byron Center the next day, which as an amazing testimony for the work that is going on in China. I hope to say more about that in our prayer letter if I ever can finish it before August. We also caught dinner with a old friends in their new house and we got a chance to catch up with the IV staff worker at Kzoo just before we left. Oh, and we did get out sans tobo, but only for an hour or so due to exhaustion. All in all it was a good trip, but we are ready to be home.

Two weeks in baby time is crazy long, so Tobo has developed a number of new skills while we were away. Tobo can now:
- roll over. In his sleep. Which is most exciting
- one -hand grab toys
- teethe (which means drool)
- sleep in his crib with the light out
- grab at your plate at the table
- grab your finger and chew on it (see teething)
- do baby situps (with help from momma)
- found his feet. (didn't do anything else with them but tried to bend over to get them)
- has probably put on another .5 lb to make him 13 lbs

We tried a little smashed banana today, a lot of it got pushed back out, so I think we'll wait a bit and try again in a week or two. No rush. Really the teething is what's got his attention these days. He's sleeping more consistantly (9pm bed \ up at 1:30a to eat \ up at 4:30a to eat \ up between 6:30 and 7am for the day) and we're at least not up ever single hour of the night. Some of that is we've started to put him to sleep on a blanket on our bed, then when he's floppy we move him and the blanket to the crib. It worked really well until he started rolling in his sleep. So, now he's on a very thin blanket that we tuck in to the mattress once we move him. I think we made the mistake of putting to sleep in arms just to have him wake up when we put him down. But he's so much more alert and aware than he was. I think he will find our place boring now since there is no one here but us.

Paul and I are are glad to be home. It was a welcomed break, but we came home to yet another qwest dsl box on our steps. We now have 6 modems that need to be shipped back. We also came home to clean carpets and many dead spiders. Hopefully we won't have to have the pest control back until fall. I think the spiders are really a summer thing around here.

Today, I think we are doing laundry and may hang some pictures up. I'm certainly taking the day off, not sure if Paul is going to go in or not. Oh, and banana boy will most definitely be getting a bath today.

Lots of photos over at:

From Cute Things M...

so I have no will power. For fourth of july, I went out and got tobo not only the jumper, much to his dad's delight, but also one of the bebepod chairs (see uee's post). Just in time too. Something happened in florida. Tobo's little activity switch got turned to on. The little newborn that just like to sleep is now the 4 month old who likes to chew on anything and everything. For example:

the green chair video:




the bouncy chair video:




It's a whole new world. It's been really cool to watch this transition over the last week or so. We went from really like our spit-cloths to liking fabric toys (like a taggy blanked or bunny blanket) to liking small soft toys (space dog or mirror cow) to liking hard rattle toys to liking big noisy toys. All in about 7 days. He now cuddles with some of the medium sized soft toys when I put him down for a nap.

He surprised us both by not only sitting in the high chair recently, but *staying* there for a meal, happily playing with his toys. I've started having him sit on my knee at lunch and watch me eat. Still hasn't reached for anything yet, but is at least content to watch.



Naps have changed also. We're not doing two 30 minute naps in the morning, two more in the afternoon, and then up again in the evening. Sometimes this means he gets overtired. We try to keep him up until 8:30p if we can, but he kind of melts down more often then not. He is sleeping from 9 to 4:30a usually, unless I break down and let him have a nap in the evening. (very silly move) and then up again around 6:30a. I can usually talk him into sleeping an hour more, but then mr. sunshine is ready to start his day. He is a very happy morning baby.



Eating has changed to. He's now eating more like 5 to 6 oz in a feeding, but doesn't know when he's had enough. We've come up with a new nickname "cheesemaker" (as in monty python's: blessed are the cheesemakers) because he is spitting up after almost every feeding. (blah says mom) There is a whole new air about the place now. :) We've got his 4 month check up on monday, on which I expect our doc will give us the go ahead for solids. Keep in mind that we're not going to mess around with his diet while traveling in a few weeks, our solid experiment won't probably start until a) tobo reaches out for food or b)august or september. But it will be nice to have the option.



dsl is still down down down. We're having to borrow our neighbors to make this post. must go baby crying...

home again

We are tired and happy here at the hoemke home. We just got back from our trip to Florida to baptize the boy. The service was perfect -- small and intimate. Tobo learned so much from his godbrothers. He was facinated to watch them playing on the floor, goofing around and generally being boys. It's like the little switch clicked in his brain saying "oh..I get it! I'm suppose to interact with my environment!" This has lead to a couple of major steps:

1. tobo now giggles. Daddy is very excited about this development.
2. tobo is now ticklish. See 1.
3. tobo now can be come bored. (This ceiling is boring. Where is the ceiling fan to watch?)
4. tobo likes to sit either on your lap or in front of your lap as you hold him and look around. He has great head control and very strong little legs.
5. tobo also likes to stand up (with a spotter) and look around. He's even taken a few steps.
6. tobo likes to lean forward when he's sitting in your lap (with a spotter) to "get a better look at something." You have to really watch him that he doesn't go over on his head. He hasn't really figured out that he can use his hands to investigate too.
7. tobo shows no interest in learning to roll over. He'd rather run.
8. tobo is a drooler. Oh my, can this boy drool. We call him mr. bubbly.
9. tobo hates to be put down. Especially on his back. This has made bed time exciting.
10. tobo's bed just moved to a stand alone bassinet at the foot of our bed. [insert sad mommy face]
11. All of this happened in the last week. *phew*

The decision about the bassinet has been in the works for a few weeks, in a fit of hyper exhaustion (super tired) I moved it today (and got a good vacuuming under everything, spiders were back!) and set him up on his own little island by the door. I'm truly sad about the move but this is one of those better for him decisions and he's ready. He's been sleeping on his own in swings for the last few weeks as we've been traveling about. He made something close to 12 hours the second night we were at the cottage because he was so exhausted. We need to figure out if we're going to let him cry it out or not. I was hoping to wait til 6 months just to give him a bit of maturity to handle being alone, but I think still having him in the room transitioning eventually to his own crib in his own room is the way to go.

He's officially 12 lbs 5 oz. His feet were dangling off the office scale today. We took him in because he seemed to be reacting to something I ate. Dr. told us (after running some tests on his stool) that it was probably nothing but he'd check on him at his 4 mth apt in a few weeks. I think we probably over reacted but we are tired.

We also came home to find that our dsl modem was limping along. Hope to be getting a new one in the mail on monday. I think we'll buy it out right because this one lasted 4 years, making it not worth the renting. Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me, you know.

I've been looking at the jumper thing Paul has wanted to get Tobo since he was born. I'm seeing a lot of folks using them at 4 months on, so I'll probably see if we can pick one up when we're back from Mich. [ed: or tomorrow. Paul is now bouncing up and down of his own accord in anticipation]

Tobo was a great traveler which makes me thing that this age is the easiest to get them around (that and once they can read for pleasure). He pretty much went into the sling as soon as we boarded the airplane and slept until we exited the airplane for all 4 flights. We took him out and fed/played/changed him in between and came home with an ok baby. Ok, in that he does not sleep the first night, but takes 24 hours to get back into routine. What is our routine, darned if I know, but I'm sure we have one. We're still doing on demand nursing, which means I got better at public nursing through all those airports. We actually got the sling to work with that so now I feel a little more confident about getting out there and feeding him. I still find a quiet nook, mainly to keep mr curious on task.

Anywho, here we are home again. I'm reading harry potter 3 (poa) and watershipdown. What are you up to?

baptized!

I'm still processing this whole weekend, but Tobo is now baptized:



We went down to florida to visit my family and were joined by Tobo's God parents, the J's.



Here is what we did with the rest of our vacation:

From Cute Things M...

It was Tobo's first airplane and he did great.



On top of joining the body of christ, he has also been making leaps and bounds developmentally. Some of this was having older boys to watch and learn from, but some of it has just been clicking. A few days before we left he started grabbing fabric:



And now he's starting to grab toys, clothing, as well as suck not just his fist but thumb and finger. He's also got much more stable since we got to florida, so he's really interested in looking around and sitting up. He also likes standing up while being held. He even took a few steps today. He's not really rolling over any more (kind of stopped that) but does have pretty good head control:



He's spent most of the trip in the sling. In fact, tonight we had a wonderful time where he was fussy until we put him in the sling for a bit, since he had a mostly wiggly day today.

I'm going to go back to my vacation, just thought I post to let you know we're still alive. More later. Here are a few more photos:

Shot of the 4 generations:




The lady who came across the state to celebrate:

From Cute Things M...