New teeth & first mohawk!

 

That’s right, PLURAL.  Toby sprouted not one but two teeth in less than a week – the first on January 14^th and the second on January 20^th, visible (barely) in the picture above, right in the middle of the bottom gum.  Now his top gums are starting to feel a little pointy – I had no idea they could all come out so suddenly!  Although I admit Matt had the impression it worked that way.  After tremendous effort, I finally got Toby to show off his hard work (along with the awesome hairstyle – his first – thanks to Joelyn). 

With teeth comes biting, our first real discipline issue.  For a couple of days, he really enjoyed sinking those razor-sharp fangs into mama.  After some spontaneous yelling (me) and sober reflection (both of us), we have mostly solved this.  I thought it was bad when he broke suction by whipping his head around to look at something across the room, but it turns out that was not pain.  From now on, no more teething on my fingers or ANY other part of me. 

Another oral twist coincidentally fell in with the arrival of teeth: the Return of the Binky!  I imagine more than one experienced parent reading this blog had a little giggle when I declared our night-waking issues over in the last post.  That lasted three days.  I’ve since had to concede that Toby’s need to suck has not diminished yet, and although he’s great at sucking his thumb during the day, in the months since the pacifier disappeared he hasn’t moved to replace it with any of his digits at night.  He has gotten a lot better with his hands since then, though, which means he can find and replace the binky on his own, leading to longer naps and (fingers crossed) somewhat longer stretches of sleep at night.  I am unabashedly obsessed with sleeping.  Also with making the beginning and end of said sleep happier, which the pacifier definitely does – now when he wakes up he rolls around in the crib doing push-ups and slurping away, waiting more or less happily for us to come and get him.  It’s sweet.

Progress on the crawling has been moving just as fast as the teeth.  Here’s a video of where he was at just over a week ago, moving with passion and purpose…

… but now he’s already gotten so much more efficient and faster!

 He’s even spending some time on hands and knees, although he flops back onto the belly when he tries to move.  We’ve accelerated baby-proofing.  Now we just have to help Violet figure out that she can get over the 2-foot baby gate to reach the litter box.  As Matt says, spatial reasoning isn’t her forte.

Toby’s enjoyment of literature has advanced from eating it to asking for the same book again and again in clear baby language (whining and waving of arms, mostly, followed by quiet contentment when the third or fourth reading commences.)  His current favorites are 1) Barnyard Dance (complete with hopping and spinning), ClapHands (he can look at the pictures of babies all day), and Little Cricket’s Song (crickets with real working click-its.)

Overall, we’re amazed day-to-day with how purposeful and engaged he is becoming.  Bathtime is now 75% escape attempts and only 25% rubber duckies, and when it’s time for the bottle he can eat all by himself, thank you very much.  (This also goes, less successfully, for the spoon.)

And the heating grate has become a daily source of pleasure….

As Toby enjoys being around new people and places more, we’re making an effort to get him out.  The local public library has a weekly reading-and-singing program for pre-toddlers that Toby found enchanting, if slightly overwhelming.  He’s also had several more playdates, and this weekend we’re getting together for the first time with several people from our birth class.  It will be fun to see how all those massive pregnant bellies have now transformed into mothers and a herd of charming babies.  Since Toby’s previous playdates have mostly involved him watching in amazement as older babies do things he can’t, it will also be fun to see how he interacts with kids his own age.  (At his last reunion with Benjamin, the kid who stole his binky, Ben came awfully close to bonking him on the head with a wooden mallet.  As a younger sibling, this all feels terribly familiar – just when you think, “I could steal your binky now!” the rascal has mastered a totally new tool.)

Luckily, Toby won’t always be the youngest.  The weekend before last he had an opportunity to someone who will hopefully be a frequent beneficiary of his older-baby attentions: Eva Zarate, my old friend Christina Zarate-Kolp’s (then) two-week old daughter.  My mom and I drove out to Cleveland for a few days to spend time with them and proud daddy Martin. We enjoying holding and rocking Eva, and Toby enjoyed touching her head (below).

It was priceless being able to hold sweet little Eva.  It’s hard to believe that Toby was that tiny and dependent just seven months ago.  She’s snuggly and, as you can see, super cute.  Sharing this time in our lives with Christina and Martin is magical.  We’re looking forward to finding a weekend when Matt and I can both make it up, maybe when it’s warmer and Eva is old enough to enjoy an outing or two!

Finally, we’d like to take a moment to honor the life of Toby’s Great-grandma Marian Temme, who is now on the threshold between life and death.  He never got to meet her in person, but we were lucky to share a long Skype call on her birthday earlier this month – Toby showed off his rolling skills and his chub and made Grandma Temme smile.  She is a special person, and although we’re glad that her suffering is ending, she will be missed. 

Part of what motivates me to write this blog when there is so much other writing I could be doing is a sense of the precious, fleeting nature of life, and a desire to capture the sweetness of its beginning.  Somehow the full arc of life feels more real, makes more sense, since Toby was born.

Holidays & on the move!

I thought this was a busy time of the year BEFORE we had a baby.  Wow.  I definitely learned to be more efficient this holiday season – although not so efficient that I could stay on top of the blog! 

Toby had another visit to the doctor just before Thanksgiving.  He weighed in at 17#10oz then, and they were very impressed with his standing and tummy-time skills.  We, of course, already know we have an amazing baby, so we weren’t surprised at all.  By his next visit, in mid December, he was already over 18#. 

Thanksgiving was a riot.  Toby started sticking his tongue out just before the holiday, and decided his Aunt Rachael is his FAVORITE person to stick his tongue out at – so much so that he stopped doing it altogether when we got home and she wasn’t around anymore.   

He was also thrilled to finally meet his legendary Uncle Craig, who makes funny faces and tells him what African children have to put up with.  Seriously.  Or maybe it was more like we were telling Craig what American children have to put up with.  (Craig was in the Peace Corps in Ghana, where apparently men are supposed to ignore children.  He wasn’t good at that.)  Being the only baby in a house full of grown-ups looked pretty fun, overall. 

We even got to get bundled up and go on our first family walk in the snow over that weekend.

The Roly-Poly One has been dutifully practicing giggles, and was ready for prime-time over Thanksgiving.  MamaSue turned out to be a great cinematographer.  Matt and I agree that this is the best sound in the entire world.

Things are moving forward on the solid food front, with yams (yum!), avocado, and rice (boring, but acceptable) added to the list by Thanksgiving.  He tried yam at Thanksgiving for the first time, and was able to eat in spite of the blinding flashes from the baby paparazzi.   

He still has days when most of it ends up on the bib, but that’s balanced by sessions when he practically throws himself at the spoon, or grabs it and pulls it into his mouth himself.  Peas are usually a throw-yourself-at-the-spoon event.  

 At Christmas he enjoyed oatmeal and mashed potatoes and has  since tried out the high chair (mixed reviews, but he likes having the tray to grab from) and gotten to know butternut squash (I think he ate too much of it first time, went through in record time…)

After Thanksgiving Toby got a visit from his Noni, who taught him how to play peek-a-boo.  This has since become one of his favorite games.  It’s part of a well-rounded bedtime, as a matter of fact. 

You’ll never guess what else is also part of a well-rounded bedtime: not getting your binky.  Toby was having trouble falling and staying asleep because the pacifier would fall out, so after extensive consideration we decided to go cold turkey about a week after Thanksgiving.  This resulted in a couple of no-fun naps followed by blissfully easy fallings asleep.  Stayings asleep are a work in progress, but we take it one step at a time.  Just a couple of days ago we finally solved the night waking (he’s only up once in the night for now, fingers crossed), but naps are still hit-or-miss – he’s super cheery if he can sleep for an hour and a half, but 30 or 45 minutes still happens way too often.

I’m about to take our Christmas tree down, with mixed feelings as usual.  I love Christmas decorations.  Toby came along to help pick out our tree this year, and showed some early signs of stranger anxiety at the sight of the very tall, skinny fella with the chainsaw who came out to help us.  We had a good time looking at all the trees, but when we found the perfect one and the chainsaw came out Toby was NOT a happy camper.  That was the first time I’ve ever really heard him scream.  He responded the same way to the electric drill a few days later.  Turns out he doesn’t like power tools, I guess.  We’ll work on that.  

 One of Toby's earliest gifts was this Rubiks cube from our friend Bill.  He hasn't solved it yet, but I eventually did - labeled for a 6-month old, but more my style than the grown-up version for sure.

Decorating the tree waited until he was in bed this year, but he’s loved having this big sparkly baby toy in the living room for the last month.  I kept a little corner of it free of lights and hung Toby-friendly ornaments for him to chew on and pull off repeatedly.  He also liked the presents, but we had to stop letting him chew on those because the paper disintegrates and the ribbon dyes his mouth… oops!  Just part of the general paper obsession we’re dealing with the last few weeks – paper is his FAVORITE thing, and he likes to drool it into tiny bits that he can try to asphyxiate on.  Or if it’s a board book, he’ll settle for just wetting it enough that the pages stick together.  Funfunfun.

His piano skills are possibly even more impressive than his insatiable appetite for books – those lessons from Joelyn (“One finger, Toby!  One finger, one key!”) have finally paid off.  (Thanks to Joelyn for getting this awesome video.)

 

Before actual Christmas, MamaSue and Aunt Rachael stopped by for a few days, and Toby got to open his first big present – a 4th generation rocking chair!  His great-grandmother Temme was the first baby to sit in this.

Just before Christmas stranger anxiety started to set in.  Now unpredictably when we’re with a friend of family member he used to find fascinating, he screams instead of cooing.   It’s a bummer, but reassuring since it’s supposed to happen.  Christmas went surprisingly well in spite of that – we spent three days each in two different houses (each of my parents), and Toby seemed to enjoy the activity.  Highlights of the holiday included Toby dominating a ~80lb Great Pyrenees (she ran with her tail between her legs), his first blizzard, baths in strange sinks, and hanging out with his two cousins and all the aunts and uncles on that side of the family.  

 We’ve felt so lucky to get our families together over the holidays!  Traveling is definitely not as easy as it used to be pre-baby, but it’s become even more satisfying to spend time with the people we love.

The really big news post-Christmas is that Toby is now on the move!  He’s been sitting better and better, although he still needs something soft behind him to fall back on, and launching forward from sitting was getting him a little mobility.  After we got back from Christmas he almost immediately started rolling over from back to front, a feat Noni witnessed in early December but refused to repeat for us.  Once he figured out he could get around by rolling, he was all over the living room within two days.  He can easily travel 8 feet in a few minutes when he’s in the mood.  This also inspired him to try army crawling – belly still on the floor, but he can spin around 360º and move forward a few inches.  Exciting!  We’re thinking more seriously about what it will take to baby-proof.  It’s already making diaper changes and bath time more exciting as he tries to explore the ENTIRE WORLD as quickly as possible.

Whew!  I know I’ve left a lot of special moments and precious pictures out of this post, but it’s already so mammoth I’m afraid no one will make it to the end.  So I’m signing off for now, and promising more soon.  Just need to take the tree back down and send a few more holiday cards…

We've been very busy since the last blog post!  The trip to Dallas went well - Toby fussed a little on the flight there and quite a bit on the flight back, but both times he settled well before we reached altitude and snoozed in my arms, causing them to go numb.  Kudos to Matt for getting a truly WAILING baby to fall asleep without getting up.  We even got a picture (using my phone, which is why it's not up to my usual standards) to document Toby's first flight.

This was obviously before Toby pooped, but after we discovered that we couldn't take our carefully packed carry-on into the cabin with us.  All the toys, diapers, and extra clothes got last-minute gate-checked.  Aaaargh!  And yet we survived.

A brief summary of the trip: I got an award from the Society for the Study of Evolution to give a workshop on a lesson I developed for high school students at the National Association of Biology Teachers annual conference.  The lesson uses a free web-based program called BoxCar2D to evolve online cars; it looks like a video game and is SUPER fun to watch, so students love it.  If you want to hear the dorky/cool details, just ask me sometime.  Or read the website's FAQ and Algorithm links.  Matt came along to take care of Toby and enjoy a king-sized bed and lots of free food.  We also got to visit my Aunt Kathy and Uncle Jim.  Sadly, my phone got fussy, so I don't have any pictures of them, but we had a good time.  On the last day I skived off and we went to the Aquarium.  Matt and I loved the neotropical birds (toucans, toucanettes, aracaris!), and Toby's favorite was the glowing jellyfish.  (The seadragons were too cryptic.)  I learned there are amazonian manatees...

Shortly after our return from 80ºF weather (sniff, sigh) it was ELECTION DAY!!!  Toby didn't wear his elephant hat, because we don't have a donkey one and didn't want to be partisan, but he DID come to the polls with me.  He was super helpful - in the past, I always wasted time filling in the bubbles even when two people were running for two openings.  I felt bad for them - what if they won with 15% of the vote, wouldn't it be bad for their self-esteem?  Toby helped me realize that what really mattered was getting out of there fast.  Matt stayed up until 11:30 clicking through 8 different websites.  Toby and I went to bed and trusted Daddy to tell us what happened.

It's been a big few weeks in physical as well as political development for the tot.  His sitting skills are advanced enough now for him to try sitting on Daddy's shoulders for the first time!  About 1 minute after I took this picture, somebody got spit-up in their hair.  Joelyn and I laughed; Joelyn's husband Mridul helped wash it out.  Toby tried it again (the sitting, not the spitting) on a hike with us yesterday with great success.  It's fun to be super tall.

Another fun thing about sitting up well is that people can stuff you into chairs and take a picture really fast before you fall over.  The first time Joelyn put him in the big rocker, he laughed and  laughed.  By the time I got him in Nana's little rocking chair, he was already a pro.

Another grand thing that comes with sitting well is solid food!  Most of our books recommend waiting until 6 months for solids, but Toby was staring mournfully at our food as it made it's way from plate to mouth, reaching for our plates, and making num-num mouth motions.  So we decided to give it a try.  First food: pureed banana.  He LOVED it.  That sealed the deal for me - the kid is ready to eat.  He ate a banana over four nights, and hardly spit any of it out.  Applesauce didn't go over so well; ours is homemade, and I like it sour.  It was fun to see his baby sour-face, but after two nights I gave up.  Next I think we'll try sweet potatoes.

Our biggest challenge continues to be naps.  After a week of lovely naps, he's back to wailing and thrashing his way to dreamland.  Maybe he's teething?  I didn't think so at first, but a couple of nights ago he started waking up every hour or two all night, and waking up crying (usually he wakes gently and briefly at night).  If anyone has a favorite sleeping or teething tip, please do let me know.  We mostly continue to have a sense of humor (2-5am is when mine goes missing).

Last weekend was another new experience for Toby: visiting his brand new cousin, Isaac Wynn, at Noni's house in Ohio.  Have three small children in one place proved overwhelming to the grown-ups, and we failed to get a picture of all the cousins together.  I managed to get several cute ones of Toby with the cool older cousin, Alten Lee.  Alten played nicely with Toby - he even made funny noises to turn crying into laughing several times.  I think this bodes well for his older brother potential as 3-week-old Isaac becomes more aware of people around him.  Sorry about the lack of newborn pictures; you'll have to take my word for it that he is cute and snuggly.  Or you could check out his parents' blog.  We're thrilled to have another nephew.  (The other fellow in the pictures is my brother Dan).

 On November 16th Matt saw Toby suck his lips for the first time.  Super cute!  He kept it up, and yesterday I got a picture.  Matt thinks this gives us a better idea what his face will look like, since currently he spends most of his waking hours with his mouth wide open (see the shoulder-sitting picture).  I don't mind, since it's a happy face and it's cold here, but I do tell him that in the summer something will fly in.  Anyway,  this afternoon the new lip-sucking habit bore fruit: Toby's first "buh" sound!  He's done it several times now.  He even said "wubuh!"  Obviously a genius.  I took these pictures last night.  They also display the cuteness of his blue eyes and his propensity for scratching himself when I don't cut his nails fast enough.

This week brings Toby's longest car trip yet, 7 hours to the Schultz homestead in Ligonier, PA, and of course the little fella's first Thanksgiving.  This is a treasured holiday for both of our families, so we're pretty excited.  Perhaps he'll sample the mashed potatoes?  

Happy Halloween!  For his first Halloween, Toby went shopping for a pumpkin with Grandpa Royer and Uncle Jacob.  His good vibes helped me pick him the coolest pumpkin, and after he went to bed we got to carving.  I think it turned out nicely.

We're flying to Dallas on the 31st, and Toby will be wearing his elephant costume.  Okay, it's just a hat, but it's cool!  Thanks, Aunt Becky.

To finish off the seasonal enjoyments, Daddy took Tobers out in the yard to watch the leaves fall.  He COULD have watched Daddy hang diapers on the line, but leaves are way cooler.  He happily gazed at them for a long time... I caught the action through the kitchen window and had to join in.

In general 4.5-month-old news, our little fellow is doing lots of new things.  He went through a phase of only wanting to nap in arms.  This was really cute for about two days.  Thankfully, he's worked through it and moved on to fussing royally BEFORE falling asleep, but then consenting to be put down.  He's still eating enthusiastically, and has started taking breaks to look around or chat (still mostly vowels, with the occasional 'g' or coughing sound).  After he's done eating we sometimes get a long soliloquy.  I just nod and ask a few leading questions.  With all that eating, he's getting a lot longer (and maybe a little less chubby?).

Nice development: less spitting up.  Less nice: more drooling.  A LOT more.  And chomping.  But other than that, no sign of teeth as far as we can tell.  (Note intact double chin)

He still sneezes quite a bit - as he has since birth - but now after a really big one he says "aooooeeow!"  I think this means something like, "wowza!" or perhaps "bless me!"  He's smiling a lot more, and even laughing, but one of the funniest things is the open-mouth-smile.  It looks like he's surprised. 

I'm now convinced he's right-handed; he will sometimes roll halfway over to the left to grab a toy with his right hand.  On the playing front, he's getting better at sitting up and enjoying manipulating his toys, including his favorite book, Fuzzy Bee and Friends.  It has a crinkly first page, and is one of the only ones he's allowed to chew on. 

In other video delights, here are two new fun bath games: getting a shower and zerberts.  We were trying to get him to exhibit his new, full-blown laugh (I heard it first today), but he refused.  Getting tossed in the air, hearing silly noises, or diaper change capers can elicit it.  Maybe in the next post...

He's also recently enjoyed his new baby-safe mirror - thanks, Grammie!  I can almost hear him asking who that handsome, albeit noisy, baby could possibly be.

We look forward to telling you about our first big trip in the next blog post... for now, I'll leave you with fresh evidence of Hoosier brainwashing.  I'm sure this will be treated at some point in the future with a dose of Pittsburgh Penguin Onesie.

The blog website is complaining about loading longer videos, so we took these short ones as a consolation.  Hopefully it shapes up soon and I can share some footage of the tyke rolling over, grabbing, and babbling.  He's 4 months old now! 

Here's a fun picture from his first real play date (when he could make eye contact).  Benjamin is about 3 months older than Toby.  We laid them down side by side - Ben used his superior hand-eye coordination to grab Toby's pacifier out of his mouth, and almost popped it into his own before he was thwarted; then they both burst into tears.  I think it's a good start.  :)

Peak cuteness?

I used to have a theory that babies achieve peak cuteness at three months, and it's all downhill from there.  Then I met my nephew Alten, who continued to accumulate additional cuteness for a long time... but Toby seems to have attained a level of cuteness that can't possibly be surpassed.  Last weekend when we were grocery shopping a lady actually came up to us and said, "That's the cutest baby in the WHOLE WORLD."  I said, "I know."  I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens next.  Will we be able to handle it?  Only time will tell.

There are no huge milestones to report in this post; the next big one would be rolling over from back to front (Toby doesn't believe in it - who wants to lay on his belly?  Dumb idea), or sitting up (that will be a few more months, although he's getting better at doing it with support).  But he's getting expert at rolling from belly to back, grabbing (and manipulating!) things, and making cool noises.  He's also refining his flirting skills (exhibit A: grocery store lady); thankfully at the same time he's showing his preference for Mama and Daddy, which makes us feel special and turn people down when they offer to take him home. 

Thumb sucking is an everyday thing, but he still likes the binky when he's really tired and fussy.  It's nice to have options, though.  What else?  He doesn't "sleep like a baby" anymore - we have to tiptoe around when he's napping, which means we put him in his crib to nap as often as possible.  Sometimes he's happy to fall asleep there, sometimes he fights it.  Most often he falls asleep easily but doesn't stay that way - same story at night.  We often get one 4-hour stretch of sleep, but the rest of the night he's up every couple of hours to eat.  Unless I go to bed late, I'm usually not too tired - I only get grumpy and sleep deprived on or two days a week now.  :)

Toby's hair continues to grow in - some of it is getting longer, and a new crop appears to be filling in the (substantial) gaps.  There is just a tiny patch of his original hair left in the back, and still shrinking.  He still looks like a bald baby if he's not in JUST the right light, but all I care about is have some fuzz to stroke (and to hold that sweet baby smell), so it's fine with me.  My hair seems to be done falling out as well - thank goodness recently pregnant friends warned me that was going to happen.  Lucky I have enough curl to handle losing a lot more.

I was shocked to see I haven't posted in three weeks, but then I just finished my second week back to work, so I guess I can be forgiven for losing track.  The worst part is that now I've accumulated more videos than I can easily post (they take a LONG time to load), so I'll just have to try harder to post more frequently.  Working full time has been better than expected; there are still hard days, but mostly it's nice to be teaching and making dissertation progress again, and when I get off work I have extra energy and focus for Toby.  He's doing fine with it too, thank goodness - I figure he benefits from the different strengths Matt, Joelyn and I bring to caring for him, and we benefit from getting breaks.  I have SO MUCH respect for stay-at-home moms.

The weather up here in Michigan has turned to fall with a vengeance, with below-freezing temperatures at night and even hail today!  The leaves are beautiful, and Toby likes looking at all the colors.  He was staring at the lawn yesterday, I imagine wondering why the green lawn had those bright yellow things on it all of a sudden.  We're treasuring all these little firsts. 

I'll leave this post with some pictures of the cute new clothes Toby fits in now that he's bigger.  Thanks to all the friends and family who gave us such great hand-me-downs and new clothes!  I've got to go to bed, but I'll try to post the good videos in the next few days.