Tool Use

Will is starting to realize he has hands.


He chews on them, stuffs them in his mouth and grasps and bats at things now.


Also, he like the Beatles. And our singing. We can get him to smile pretty much at a prompt now. "I Want to Hold Your Hand," is a favorite, as is "Beep beep beep beep, boop boop boop boop" (not a Beatles song, but a Dave Spero special."

Hair Up There

Will sporting a dapper sun hat, reclining in his boppy. Both courtesy of Ashley R.

William is a bald, bald, bald-as-a-ping-pong-ball baby. Well, he has been until recently.


All of the medical staff at the birth who looked inside me during labor remarked at how bald he was. I won't go into details of exactly how they saw his bald little head, but you get the idea.


He came out with a fine dusting of dark, thin hair and lost it all until recently. He's now sporting sandy colored fine hairs. They're tricky to photograph and I wonder what he'll look like when it covers his whole head and has a little more substance: will it be curly or wavy? Maybe it will be reddish or easily bleached by the sun. Both Dave and I have sandy blond straight hair. Dave's is a little wavy and much thicker than mine and if I spend a lot of time in the sun mine will bleach out but it's basically pretty mousy.

Someone's a little jealous of the playmat.

Another curious thing to watch develop.

Anatomy of a Walk

I walk the dogs during the day five days a week. They are incredibly spoiled dogs. They get (on average) two one hour walks a day with a significant portion of those walks being offleash so they can frolic and roll in gross dead carcasses. Bad, smelly dogs.


Walking the dogs with Will takes a bit of planning. I hook the dogs to a coupler to a leash to a scarf tied around my waist. Then we roll outside with the stroller. It's very important that the dogs be behind me or to my side. I trust Rocky, our older fellow, completely, but our other dog, Tony is still an adolescent and is prone to puppy-brain moments. When we see another dog approaching us or a person or an interesting leaf on the ground I go all Cesar Milan on his ass and grab him by the collar. He's been stellar so far but I can't keep the vision of Will's stroller rolling down the hill without me while the Benny Hill chase-theme plays in my head.

I first get myself ready- shoes on, sunglasses, hat, outerwear, etc. Then one by one I call the dogs to me to be leashed.

We have a couple of routes that are mostly on pavement, this is not nearly as fun as pre-pregnancy walks, which were mostly in the park down the street, but we'll get there. Will needs just a month's more head control before we can put him in the jogging stroller.

Once the dogs are on the coupler, I get the stroller ready, and then Will. He gets a hat and his Mon-Chi-Chi outfit. We have limited time to do this before he starts to fuss.

The weather has been phenomenal lately, sunny and cool without too much wind. If it's windy or too cold we don't walk, but we've been blessed with a mild winter and spring so far. I hope it doesn't mean that it will be a balls hot summer.

The dogs go outside first and I carry the stroller, Will and all down the four little steps from our door to the walkway. I unlock the break, snap the dogs to the leash and away we go!

Tony likes to be slightly in front of Rocky. And Rocky will dive for smell opportunities if he's not between me and Tone. It's very ordered.

My view of Will's view.

Once we get to the offleash area, I ask the dogs to sit and then let them go. Rocky seems to be talking in this picture!



Off they go, whee!

Will enjoys the fresh air.


Water in the desert.

And when we get back to the road, the dogs are put back on the leash.


And home again. Good boys, everyone!

Mon Chi Chi

I've been watching Will's expressions.

And comparing them with Dave's.


And noticing they are similar.


OK, maybe not all of them.

One thing we do when Will gets a little bored in the afternoon is walk around and look at stuff in the house (still a little chilly outside for unbundled explorations). He is absolutely fascinated with a wind chime that Dave's boss had given us for a house warming present. It has a small bell on it with a great little tone. Will will stare at it for an hour given the chance and smiles at it all the time.


It's a good arm strengthener too because I have to hold William up and then reach up to ring the bell.


In other news, Will fits into a couple of outfits that Omi bought for him. One has teddy bear ears and feet and Will looks identical to a Mon-Chi-Chi. Remember those weird monkeys from the 80's? May I present my son?

Trip

Commence Operation To Grandmother's House We Go

So on Saturday we packed up the car to head for an overnight to Grandpa John and Grandma Veronica's house in the Sacromento area. We were used to loading up because we've done some extended camping trips with the dogs, but we were not used to traveling with a baby. Well, there's a first time for everything, right?

Will, looking dapper in his traveling hat

Packing the car and organizing everything was relatively simple but there was a large amount of everything because of our one new variable: Will. How many outfits would he need? How much extra milk to pack? Pack and play or just co-sleep? Where's the thingamajig that you need for the other thing to go in? What the heck did we do with the whatchamabobbit and I could have sworn you put away the whosits, so it's your fault we can't find it now.

Will got a similar view, only in reverse. With dog heads in the way.

We did get on the road and our little angel was, well, angelic. So glad he's a baby who's lulled by the road and the tires, he only made a little noise when we were stopped. He thought spitting out the pacifier and crying for the pacifier was great fun. We've traveled before over the hill sans baby during mercurial High Sierra springs and gotten stuck at the summit while the roads were cleared more than once. It was our greatest fear.

Uncle Jake and Will chat

We arrived at G and G's uneventfully and commenced Operation Baby Hand Around. Cousins and aunts and guests all ooo'ed and aahh'ed as they should so Will got a great introduction to his large extended family. As I've mentioned before he's a much more interactive baby now that's he's climbed the hill on two months so there were lots of smiles and coos and a few yells.

Auntie Amber and Will

Well that's where the trouble started. He was fed and then the yells kind of started to escalate. They escalated to a point where Will was yelling/screaming non stop. It was startling and disturbing, this was totally new! We whisked him away the first time and ssshhed and swaddled him and he finally calmed down. Until three hours and another feeding later!

Grandpa's got the magic touch

It is so hard to watch your baby scream inconsolably. We weren't helping. Grandpa stepped in with a patented pat and jiggle and he calmed immediately.

Chillin' in the snugglesaurus outfit

Night time was difficult too. We opted not to use the portable crib, instead installing Will between us. He slept but needed constant physical reassurance. Still Will slept better than the both of us.

Easter outfits on parade. My Sleepless Look courtesy of Young Will.

Unfortunately we left before Easter dinner. We were concerned about the weather which was a bummer.

Aunties and Uncles in attendance

When we got home we held our breaths thinking now we had one of those patented screaming colicky babies on our hands, hey our pediatrician said colic starts any time between two and four months.

Will's best "who me?" face

Fortunately Will decided to be "good," and didn't scream or fuss. I think he was as wiped out as we were. He slept like the perfect little baby he is and woke only to smile and eat and poop and get his diaper changed.

Will's second best "who me?" face

Well, it was an experience and I'm sure the next time will be that much easier.

Easter outfit courtesy of Grandma Veronica and Omi

Life with a baby= never, ever boring!

Happy Easter!

Mammal

Will gets an early start on reading

This last week William has been an angel. It's like something has clicked, some developmental hurdle is scaled and he and I have just been grooving along with a loose schedule that includes dog walks, naps in his crib, tummy time and regular infectious smiles.

All of a sudden he's a billion times more fun. He's interactive, responsive and dynamic. He responds to stimuli now- more than just breast milk, hot or cold. He has a ton of facial expressions and tries them out regularly. He enjoys looking at stuff and has even started to bat at things.
He still has not achieved a rollover and I struggle with watching him struggle and keeping myself from picking him up too soon to calm him. He's got to learn and the only way he can learn how to roll over is get lucky and conquer the motor controls. It's a challenge.

We're having a blast, this is yet another one of those moments that other mothers told me about that I sort of fluffed off but am now living fully.