Attorney Work Product

For your viewing pleasure...

If I can get it to work, this is a movie of Alex climbing the stairs this evening...

UPDATE: They won't let me link to it, unfortunately. Just go to this site and then click on the video.

Snow Day A Deux

It snowed Sunday night, and we got a good four inches. Back in New York, that wouldn't be no big thang, but here in "the South" it's paralyzing. I know I should have bundled up Alex and gotten that "baby in the snow" picture, but it's just too darn cold. Oh well. We did enjoy time at home, though! We practiced stairs some more.

Upstairs, Downstairs

Alex today learned to climb stairs. Why I was stupid enough to put him on the second to last stair with a toy he wanted on the top just to see what he would do? After he made that climb, he decided he wanted to go down. I stood ready to catch him, but I let him try -- and he did it! He got down all of the stairs between the living room and the bedroom wing of our split level (4 or 5 steps in all). He then made his way back up again. It was just amazing to watch his thought process as he figured out to swing his legs behind him to climb down.

Don't get me wrong -- I don't think this is now going to be a daily feat. But boy, when this child sets his mind to something, there's no stopping him!

Sleeping Beauty

Alex fell asleep in my arms after our company left and actually let me put him down to rest for a while. Babies are so beautiful when they sleep!

Take it to the bank

I finally opened Alex's first bank account today. Yes, on a Sunday! We decided to go with an old-fashoined passbook savings account at our church's credit union. St Ann's has the smallest federally accredited credit union in the country! It's run solely by volunteers from the church, and is open only on Sunday mornings from 8 am til noon. Nothing like a passbook savings account to really make you think about the money you are taking out and putting in each time. The entries are even hand written. We opened the account with a gift check we had received, and plan on using the account to deposit any and all rolled change we save up, as well as Alex's gifts and such. It's local (unlike the Internet bank we use for our day-to-day transactions) and open when I am available, and there are no fees!

Don't Eat the Internet!

Having dinner at Tiff's tonight (still here, actually...gotta love wireless). Alex was crawling around the floor and, of course, went straight for the cords, including the Ethernet cord. Tiff then uttered the line of the evening: "Dude, don't eat the Internet!" Followed not long thereafter by "let go of the Internet" and "My God not my iBook." But the latter few weren't quite as cute. Pictures to come, by the way.

Not so glorious...

on the way out. Since we've started solid foods, every diaper is an adventure! Just sayin'.

Peas, glorious peas!

Well, the first green veggie was a major hit last night. I actually had Alex in my arms as I was finishing the prep work, and he saw the bowl of mush and whined for a taste before I even had him in the high chair. I will say that these were the most labor intensive of the foods I have made for him so far. Since I wanted to remove the shells, I first tried running them through the smallest gauge on my ricer. Ick, that didn't work at all. The peas just squirted all over the counter. So next I ran them through the largest gauge on the ricer. They went through, but so did about a third of the shells. I then had to re-run it through the middle gauge, which was just right. I think in the future I will still have to do two passes, though.

Momma's Little Helper

Now that Alex is a little more mobile -- and my kitchen floor is a little cleaner -- Alex has been keeping me company in the kitchen whilist I cook dinner. He helps me get things out of the fridge, and loves to bang the plastic storage containers (the glass nesting bowls were a nice target too, but since they are glass we moved them to someplace slightly less accessible...). He's also figured out how to open the cookie cutter tins-- luckily, they aren't sharp enough to do damage. He can also climb up on his high chair -- this last picture is the "feed me or else" face.

Smiles

No real story to tell here. Alex was just being cute last night, so I took a bunch of pictures. How can you resist that smile?
To me, it's pretty obvious that he gets said smile from his daddy. I entitled the photos to the right "hats."

All Clear

Looks like we dodged the chicken pox (or "picky pox," as Nani has been calling them despite -- or because of? -- 30+ years of experience as a nurse and a mother). Today is day 21 of our watch, and no sign of lesions. Hopefully, the picky pox will come back again next year. I was glad not to have Alex get them this young.

New Friend

Alex met Elie today, and the two got along swimmingly. Elie is the daughter of a woman in my June Mommies group. We've been "talking" online for over a year, and decided to meet in person today. We each drove an hour to meet in the middle in Fredericksburg, Md. It was very much worth the drive!

Big Boy Car Seat

Alex's big boy car seat arrived this week, and we finally bit the bullet and installed it today. I had been heistating about doing so -- mostly because when he falls asleep on the ride home, it's so darn convenient to just lift the whole seat out of the car and let him sleep. He was getting too tall for the infant carrier, though, and safety has to come first. This seat is supposed to last until he weighs 65 pounds -- a milestone I can't even fathom right now!

Compute This!

Alex models his new Old Navy track suit (thanks Josh!) and his mad computer skilz. He was using the CPU as a drum, so his daddy might caption this "I WANT A MAC! I WANT A MAC!" But I think baby's first computer will likely be nuetral in the platform wars, and likely made by LeapFrog. Just a guess.

Sweet Potato Man

So far, Alex's cullinary repertoire includes rice cereal, oatmeal, rice cakes, cheerios, bananas, pears, apples, sweet potatoes, avacado (well, kinda) and, believe it or not, navy beans (as part of a "super porridge" complete protein cereal Claudia made for the boys today). He likes to feed himself -- he really goes to town on the rice cakes -- but is even pretty darn coordinated with the spoon. I just load it up and give it to him. A little messy, yes, but not too bad, especially considering he's just (barely) 7 months old.

He's definitely a sweet potato man, as evidenced by these pictures (this was also his first night in the high chair rather than the booster).

Cruisin'

At day care today, Alex "walked" all the way from the living room, through the dining room, to the kitchen entry way by moving from furniture to wall to furniture. Claudia said that she and Edwin just stood there and stared in disbelief. He's been slowly cruising for a few weeks now -- since just after Christmas. He also -- apparantly freakishly soon after figuring out how to stand up -- has already figured out how to lower himself down again without falling. It's not always perfect, and he's not always steady on his feet, but he does it. According to BabyCenter, these are all developmental steps that the typical nine month old may be hitting at this time.

2 down, 1 do go...

Weeks on our chicken pox watch, that is. Sean broke out the day he left New York, so we may or may not have been exposed. The incubation period is anywhere from 7-21 days. I want him to ge tthe chicken pox naturally rather than vaccinating him, but not quite this early...

Mmmm, Beeeeer.

Went to dinner with some friends visiting from out of town, and beer was consumed (don't worry, this bottle was rinsed before given to Alex....). But let's just say Uncle Mike approved of the choice of beverage. Mmmmm, Yuengling.

Bib in Action

My Aunt Keri made me this bib and a few others just like it. Isn't it great?

Nani Weekend

My Mom came down for a last-minute weekend because she just can't get enough of her little man (and because I needed to get some work in). On Saturday morning, Alex came with me to work and showed off his organizational skills. On Sunday, Nani and Mommy and Alex went to Babies R Us and just for fun tested out the Jeep walker. I'm not too keen on walkers, but boy, was this sucker cute! We don't have the room for it anyway, but I was glad I had the camera in my purse to capture the cuteness.

We also went food shopping, and I tried out my new Ergo Carrier for the first time. Alex even got to eat while he was in it at Trader Joe's! I love the picture (even though I look like hell) because he just looks so Elf-like with his ear sticking out and his eyes peering over the carrier.