Bumbo Seat

Theo is not a fan of the Bumbo seat.  At all.  These photos are pretty good and I'm putting them up in sequence to how they were shot.

Sitting.

Theo is getting better at sitting as his abdominal muscles get stronger.  He will sit, supported, for a little while before eventually slumping over (either to the side or face-first).  Lulu and I tried helping him out with the boppy pillow for a bit this evening.




Until, as you can see in this next photo, Theo had his fill of his sister's "help."

Happy Birthday cupcakes!

peanut butter/chocolate, coconut, lemon, and chocolate cupcakes

In honor of Uncle Roland's birthday, we celebrated with cupcakes of our own, long distance.




Lulu chose the peanut butter and chocolate one.  That's my girl!

Papa Noel.

This Christmas we go to Colorado and I am sleeping and in the night I hear bells and I think of Santa Claus.

She's got a ticket to ride...

...but she don't care!  We tried taking the wheels off Lulu's bicycle this afternoon.  At her insistence.  But she wasn't a fan of how fast you have to go to keep your balance.  I think it's bonn take some dedicated time and practice to get her up and moving on just two wheels.

Theo's just hanging out

one last time on training wheels

Theo and I couldn't resist a little spin!

Walk in the Woods.

We took an afternoon walk along the American River on Martin Luther King, Jr Day to enjoy the beautiful weather.  I got all turned around on the trails, but luckily Walter knew where we were!



We skipped some rocks.



And Lulu wore the Santa hat that Nanny made her and relaxed in her matching big girl slippers.

Sweet Saturday Photo.

Theo's faces.

For someone whose face is constantly changing and who can't speak, Theo can really say a lot!

Little Update.

me and my sous chef.

So the thought occurred to me this morning that I have documented Theo's pregnancy better than his babyhood.  I was looking through older posts on the blog, trying to remember what Lulu was like at this age and was struck by the number of posts I managed to publish when she was small.  Unfortunately, Theo's posts aren't quite that numerous.

In the spirit of posterity though, I thought I would offer some observations.

1).  He still strongly resembles Walter, but I'm beginning to see more of my features in his face.  I think he's got more of my nose than Walter's?  And definitely my chin and my dimples when he smiles.  But he's got Walter's hairline (which always makes me smile when I notice it--it just looks so little boy-ish) and his ears.  He actually has a full head of hair, but it's very hard to see because it's so blonde.  I don't think it's going to be the white-blonde of his uncle or Opa though.  My hair was very blonde when I was baby, as was Walter's, but both of us darkened into light brown as we got older.

2).  His eyes are still blue.  In re-reading the blog, I began noticing changes to Lulu's eye color in the next month or so as she began to have flecks of green and grey in them.  Theo's eyes still seem very, very blue, but I guess we'll have a stronger sense of that as spring goes on...

3).  He makes lots of cooing sounds as well as "heeee" or "haa-oh" when he's happy and trying to communicate with us.  This is especially true first thing in the morning (he almost always wakes up happy) and when he's lying on his changing table.  My goal is to get that on video soon.

4).  He is definitely a Mama's boy, for sure.  Most of the time, he's pretty happy to be held by Daddy, but when he's really upset or tired, only Mama will do.  He loves his big sister and smiles at her a lot, but he's not a big fan of her hugs at the moment.

5).  He also loves to be held.  There are occasionally times, especially in the evening, when we can put him down if he's fussy and he calms down, like he's tired of being held, but for the most part, he does NOT like to be put down.  (see photo above!)  Unlike his sister, he also does NOT like any of my slings, so I have been wearing the Baby Bjorn a LOT.  He wants to be right there, in the middle of my chest.

6).  He's a pretty consistent sleeper in my old cradle at the foot of our bed at night, at least so far.  Walter will put him in bed with me when he gets up at 6am to eat breakfast and I'll nurse him back to sleep.  Afterwards, he will sleep until about 9-9:30am and then he's cat-napping throughout the day.  He will take a short nap in the late morning, another in the early afternoon, a quickie in the late afternoon and another in the evening.  It's during his evening nap that we try to either fix dinner, eat dinner, or put Lulu to bed.  Sometimes I can get him to sleep longer, especially if I have errands to run at midday and he falls asleep in his car seat.  The problem is that he falls asleep in my arms (or in the Bjorn) and if I try to put him down, he instantly wakes up and then he feels betrayed and pissed, like I was trying to abandon him or something.

7).  I think the epic tidal wave of projectile spit-up might be ebbing?  He still spits up but the volume isn't quite so bad and it's a little more predictable than in the past.  I say a little because he still catches us by surprise, but either it's better or we are more practiced (probably a bit of both!).  Without fail, the worst always seems to happen at church though!

8).  He's a very good eater and usually nurses on one side at each feeding except in the late evening when my milk supply goes down.  Then, I usually end up cluster feeding him almost continuously for the couple of hours after dinner until bedtime.  He won't take a pacifier, still.  We tried again last night and he just chews on it, like he's teething (he's not).  So I don't know how much is nursing vs sucking sometimes.

Tres Reyes Celebracíon!

With our travels to Colorado for Christmas this year, we decided to have a Tres Reyes celebration at home this year in lieu of Christmas.  It saved us from having to lug a bunch of presents there and back and allowed us to still have a tree and decorations (which are very important to Lulu).

So, the night before we left in December, we visited our tree lot and bought our Christmas tree, brought it home, and put it in a bucket of water in the backyard while we were gone.  Once we got home, we brought it in, set it up and decorated it with ornaments.  It's so pretty!

And we wrapped up our presents, as well as the ones that arrived from Texas, and put everything under the tree.  Lulu was delighted with the magnitude of the presents under the tree.

We had our celebration a day late, technically, because my first German conversation class at the Turn Verein was on Jan 6th.  But, I did bake a Galette des Rois and put together a lasagne for the next evening.  Theo and I picked up Lulu from school, Walter drove home from work, we all sat down and enjoyed dinner and then we all opened our presents!

Galette des Rois with enough almond and sugar to choke Napoleon.

Lasagne

Galette

Given how little Theo is, he didn't get many presents this year, but he did enjoy his HABA clutching toy.  His big sister was more than happy to open it for him!

Not too happy about the presents

After that, it was really the Lulu show.  We had a couple of presents but most were for Lulu, and she loved it. She received a lot of things that coordinated with the American Girl doll she got from Santa Claus, including matching dresses for her and Samantha.

Her dress that matches Samantha's

the neat light-up book from MauMau and Oompapa

best photo I have of Samantha's dress (on floor next to her)

submersible boat!

Christmas carousel

Eye Update.

Lulu went to the eye doctor today and the opthamalogist was very pleased with her progress with her new set of glasses this fall!  Her eyesight is 20/20 in her right (good) eye and 20/25 in her left (bad) eye.  That's a significant improvement over her first visit when she was 2.5 yrs old and her vision in that eye was closer to 20/100!