First Christmas

1:45 am or whenever we got done wrapping presents

Merry Christmas

What is wrong with the state of manlyness these days? Sofia didn't cry with Santa?!?!

First cut

Today you pulled my purse off the bench and cut your pinky toe on the cold air return. Sadly, I noticed the purse but not your toe as you didn't even cry, until Dad saw the trail of blood you left behind on the tile.

First nasty gash. No tears. First bandaid.

My little garden gnome

For Halloween, Peter was a garden gnome. No, this is not his costume. But I'm so far behind on his blog that ...

Here he is, a little creature in the forest at 8 months having recently learned to sit up unassisted. Also, sporting a new haircut from Mom and two bottom teeth.

8 months

You've learned to get around and one of your favorite things to do is to get stuck in the kids table searching for treasure.

This is just a ridiculous salamander face you decided to make. Must be those pesky teeth coming in.

Now, that you have a fresh pair of pants on, why not pillage the toy kitchen and throw everything on the floor. Fun, fun, fun.

This shows how you can pull yourself up to a standing position. You still have to hold on with one hand, but it doesn't stop you from making a mess with the other one.

7 months

We started feeding you baby foods towards the end of 6 months. I didn't buy too many prepared baby foods this time around. I decided it would be better to just make them at home. We still started you out on all the regular baby cereals. And here you are giving these little puffs a try. Pretty much the same reaction Marcelo had the first time.

Also, you can now sit up by yourself.

It's Alive

Peter has spent the first half of his first year conducting a scientific study, which has involved mostly observation. Now, he's ready to run some tests on his environment. To inaugurate the occasion he decided to have an impromptu laughing fit.

It looks like the laugher is working.



(From Ray's [too old] cell phone)


(And I was going to post a boring video of his new "Jumperoo" in which he slowly and quietly discovers bouncing).

This month ... you got a bath

"When I grow up I want to be a super hero."

--super hero music: "super disgusting, Super Disgusting, SUPER DISGUSTING..."

"My name is Super Disgusting. I will disgust you with my bodily functions."

Eyes

I don't think your eyes will ever be this blue again. (5 months, not 6)

5 months

Well, I won't lie. Your 5 month post passed me by. (Luckily, we can just insert it here in the right place in the blogosphere timeline). But it wasn't too eventful, so we'll just take the time now to recap a bit.

So, I don't have a super cute close up portrait of your crystal blue eyes and your dreamy eyelashes. The truth is, month five was kind of like baby puberty and it appears you were transitioning from adorable baby to brute baby. You'll see how this turns out in post: 6 months.

During month five, you learned to roll around your crib and grab things like your binky and you've learned to pull down all the fishies from your mobile. I guess, there's not a lot else to do in there when you wake up. Before you discovered you could go anywhere you wanted in there, there was a lot of banging on the crib bumper with your feet and some occasional wailing over getting your arm stuck under your body with no space left to roll out of it.

As evidenced by these pictures, you spend quite a bit of time in some kind of holding contraption like the swing, rocking chair, or hand-me-down bouncy chair.  We tried the Bumbo which was quite popular with Marcelo but you're not too fond of it.  You only last in it about 5-10 minutes before it displeases you to be in it.  As a result, you've gotten quite good at pulling down the dangly toys on the swing and making the music play.  Sometimes, I fear that the weight of your big head will overwhelm you as you swing and cause you to topple over the little tray onto the tile floor, but alas, this has not happened.  (Yes, this is why I had to take anxiety medicine in my mid-twenties).

"Yeah, this is pretty easy, really. To tell you the truth, I'm kind of bored with it. What I'd really like to do is recreate the Louvre with lego blocks but they won't let me play with those yet."

You've been pretty slimy this month as we've decided there's not much need in bathing babies. Sometimes I have to scratch the crud on your scalp but you're pretty much self-cleaning for the most part.

Marcelo has decided that as it appears that you no longer pose a threat to him, he might try to play with you sometimes. Here's a cute photo of him as he notices me noticing him.

Many times, this is the look on your face. You look so bored, I worry that we are not providing enough intellectual stimulation for you.

But it usually only takes a few silly words or some tickles for you to give this face.

You are quite without issues, so there is not much to say about a happy baby. That's the way it goes. The nice ones always go unnoticed. One thing of note this month is that we transitioned to full formula feeding. We had to switch to an expensive "Sensitive" formula for a while but now everything is on course with our favorite Costco brand formula.

Oh, and I may as well include an example of a pathetic attempt to have your father take a portrait of us.  This is how they usually turn out and then I delete them.

But I guess, we'll just have to settle for this one.

Pre cut hair condition

Before getting your first baby hair cut at 5 months, I snapped some pictures to document the state of your natural baby hair do. Although, you have some fly-away long hairs going on through the center top of your head and the stylin bald-mullet combo in the back, I gotta say, your hair was pretty good compared to this ... and this [Marcelo].

4 months

Here you are four months old. Didn't I just right the three month post yesterday? Again, I have no pictures of you this past month. You and your fellow cohorts have managed to take up almost all my waking (and non-waking) time with the many chores of being a mom. I sit here now on the bed, much too early in the morning because I've given up trying to go back to sleep after your morning pre-dawn feeding. You continuously pummel my left arm with your legs while spitting out your binky every twenty seconds only to demand it back immediately. You're not too keen on going back to sleep in the morning either. Sometimes you do. Sometimes you don't. Sometimes you just like to make me think you might so you can keep me preoccupied with starting a task and calling me in to sooth you back and forth for a couple of hours.

At some point in the day, usually in the evening you end up taking a solid nap. Usually too solid and I have to wake you up to feed you. In fact, as a result, you've cut your feedings down to 4-5 times a day. We continue to supplement with formula here and there about 8oz per day and we are reminded how much more toxic things come out the other end when you have more formula. It's certainly a deterrent from formula feeding. Must produce more milk.

At Omi's house

As of the past week or two, you have been sleeping in your room in your own crib like a champ. No transition issues at all. Some say, I'm lucky that way. I don't know. It's probably just that I'm kind of a hard a** that way. Actually, I would have let you stay in our room longer, but one night, Ray alerted me to the fact that half your body was hanging off the moses basket so I thought best to put you in the crib rather than sleep with one eye open.

On June 3rd, you hit one of the first major milestones of infancy -you rolled over. Of course, laying on your tummy is generally not much fun at this age. It requires that you use all your strength to pick your face up off the floor so you started complaining right away. Something much more fun is bouncing like a mad man on the bouncy chair. You kick your left leg in and out like a Jane Fonda aerobics video from the 80's and you get the bouncer going at full speed. Sometimes, I'm afraid it's going to spring you right out of there like a trampoline.

You've been spending more time lounging outside with us on this convenient shaded chair which Marcelo didn't get that much use out of.

Even though you don't mind hanging out on your own for much of the day while I perform all those aforementioned mommy duties, there are times, you sing me a constant song of sweet whines and complaints telling me, "I just want to be held, mommy". I come and get you, you give me a great big smile and you snuggle up close on my shoulder. So sweet.

I knew this would happen. I didn't think it would be so soon. Your sister's influence has convinced you to run away to the Circus with her. I'll miss you.

-o-o-o-o-o
4 month Well Baby Checkup:
You got a LOT of vaccinations and complained very little. The next day, you got a fever and cried in a painful way that I had not heard before. It's the kind of thing that gives you a pain in your stomach while you consider all the possible things it could mean. Ugh. I don't like this part.

You are a tad underweight, under average anyway.
You are long.
Your head is almost average.

3 months

Whoa there. I can't keep up. You're three months already and I don't think I took any pictures of you what so ever since your last post a month ago. So I tried to make up for it today (four days after) by taking a bazillion. You don't seem to find my camera very amusing though, so it was really hard to get a shot where you didn't look bored. You would only turn on the charm when I moved the camera away from my face. Or maybe you just prefer my hair down instead of in a bun like the rest of the kids. They've been trying to make that point clear to me for a while.

Don't feel bad, it's not just you. I'm not ignoring you really, not very much. I have so much going on between trying to pry my eyes open in the morning, fixing meals, cleaning the kitchen, fighting a losing battle with your siblings to clean up their toys (by the way -you will not have any toys; toys were invented by the devil), nursing you, changing diapers, wiping butts, putting people to bed, potty break, take my twenty minute walk, more fixing food, more cleaning up, more nursing, diapers, etc. etc. THAT, I totally forgot my friend’s birthday in April and just realized it like a week ago. Just in order to snap some pictures of you today, I had to ignore Sofia calling out for help on the toilet and Marcelo, inevitably doing something boy-like, throwing an empty toilet paper roll in the toilet. I think that happened before Sofia went to the bathroom so I called daddy in for an assist. I feel it's kind of like karma for him. Look, he needs to pay back the universe for all the badness he did as a boy. But hey, look at what a scrumptiously beautiful shot I got of you up there! It was worth it.

Speaking of which, what is up with this generic and beautiful baby face with crystalline blue eyes and ridiculously long fake eyelashes model-look you have going on? You look like you should be in one of those parenting magazines. And why am I not making any money yet? No, seriously, those eyes require a double-take sometimes and no one can miss the eyelashes. It's the first thing people comment about you --right after they look at me and then question me about your blue eyes, like I stole them from some other baby or something. Why do people think a brown-eyed parent can't have a blue-eyed baby? Seriously, is that the only part in genetics anyone was paying attention in? We don't know if your eyes are going to stay blue anyway. And just for the record, I think your hair is going to turn auburn red and you're going to look like a leprechaun. The cutest leprechaun in the world.

In fact, I just recently came to the conclusion that instead of looking nothing like me, you actually might look exactly like me. Like me as a baby that is (in honor of which, I've given all your photos a bit of the 70's effect). Now, I only have exactly one photograph of me as a baby, and I can't even find it now, but I swear I may look just like you do now at three months.
-o-o-o-o-
Now for the mundane, but still interesting to me, everyday stuff concerning bodily functions and other signs of development.

You have settled into a nice routine of sleep, feed, awake time, and sleep again. You don't require as much pleading to fall asleep and many times I can leave you to it on your own. As long as you are bundled up in your little flannel blanket, and I don't know how much longer I'll be able to do it -usually three months is the max, you feel warm and secure and drift off to sleep with your binky.

Taking pictures of eyelashes is not as easy as I thought

My hormone changes are causing my hair to fall out by the bucket full’s and I think are making your hair fall out a bit more too. You've changed your hairstyle from last month’s rooster top to more of a claw, but no majorly embarrassing bald spots at all. The hormone stuff is also drying up my milk, so I've been supplementing you with formula here and there usually just 2-4 oz a day. Now, I'm not sure if it's the formula or my wonderfully healthy diet that has made you a bit constipated sometimes. This makes for some frightenly loud and explosive fart bombs that really give us quite a scare at night when we're trying to watch TV. Really not appreciating that.

Sorry, I didn't have time to clean the toe jam

You still sleep in the moses basket on our bed with us over night. You've been waking around 4:30 - 5:30 am to feed. Getting better, but you need to make it a bit longer so we can put you to sleep in your own room. I'm aiming for four months probably.

This past month has been about controlling the movement of your arms and trying to bring your fists up to your mouth. Sucking the thumb is rarely successful, although you did manage to get a pinky in there one day. You also like to produce little bubbles and drool down your chin.



I can tell you've gained a bit more weight. You look like you have a healthy amount of chunk on but I don't think you are as chubby as Marcelo at this age, and nowhere near Sofia, the chunk-master. You still remind me more of Sofia then Marcelo as babies.

2 months

Don't the other ones' heads look gigantic!?(During this picture, Marcelo misinterpreted contact with baby Peter's flaling arms as a hostile show of violence which he immediately recipricated with a punch to the shoulder. Luckily it wasn't forceful enough to even register except with Sofia's alarmed eyes.  And we thought she was the brute in the family.)

Wow, those first two months sure go by quickly. In your second month, you have come out of your little newborn sleep-all-the-time routine into more of a oh-I-like-it-when-you-hold-me-all-the-time routine. No, not really. It's not like that all the time, but you certainly prefer to fall asleep cuddled in our arms more than by yourself. And, the binky game is starting to get a bit old. Yes, I appreciate that you find the binky soothing, but for Pete's sake, if you want it, then keep it in your mouth, man! Stop popping it out and then getting upset because you want it back. You think I have nothing better to do all day. Believe me, I wish I had nothing else to do all day. I'd be happy to sit on the couch and play the binky game with you for hours, but unfortunately, you are the last in line and there are others that are also making their demands --mommy, I want more milky, --mom, I went poop; I need help, --mommy, celo is playing in the toilet again, --mommy .... Yes, the joys of parenthood.

So, you started spitting up and vomitting. I made you some new burp cloths (2) and bibs (3). Yeah, that's all I could churn out in my spare time (that's a joke, the thing about the spare time). This isn't even making a dent in your copious supply of spit up. I need about twenty five more of each, but you may be twelve before I have time to make any more. Sure, I could buy some, but only my baby terry cloth / flannel bibs can absorb what you're dishing out. Plus, I don't like it when you look like a rodeo clown between the outfit, bib, blanket, and burp cloth that adorn you each day. So, I've only been feeding you on one side for a while which seems to have helped the spit up a little. Except now, sometimes it seems like you might still be hungry so we don't have a very good feeding/sleeping schedule established. I'm not looking for a big commitment here. If you would be willing to give me a consistent five hour stretch of sleep during the night though, I would really appreciate it.

At six weeks, you started smiling. This I'm very happy about. Sofia was not a smiler, I think her smiler was broken (maybe it was part of the thing where she wouldn't cry when she got vaccinated and I thought she had no feeling in her legs until she was eighteen months old). Your smiler works quite well. It only takes a little bit of ridiculous high pitched voice talking and it's activated. Sometimes you just do it by yourself. Imagine that! It must mean you're happy. Your cooing is not as strong but I have heard it here and there a few times.

You've discovered that your hands and arms may have more purpose than you originally thought. You love to grab onto the top of my shirt while you're nursing and also wack the cover up blanket out of the way or throw the burp cloth on the floor. I love this part! When you're tightly bundled in your swaddling blanket, you practice your leg kicks as it is the only form of protest available under the circumstances. Well that and spitting out the binky only to cry over it after. But just you know -we're going to keep swaddling you up mister until you start sleeping through the night. I'm giving you one more month to get on target here. Keep in mind you will be judged, scored, and compared to your previous competitors in this event. And they were quite good at this event, even with handicaps like Sofia's projectile vomitting and Marcelo's allergy induced rashes and itching.

The classic bath photo, cross-eyed and naked with the rubber ducky

The initial discomfort over bathing and diaper changing is well over now. In fact, when you decided you hated Ikea more than any other place on the planet and wouldn't stop crying in your infant carrier for two hours, I took you to change you and placed you on the hard plastic changing table in the bathroom where you were immediately soothed and halted the crying and whaling instantaneously. I guess you don't like the infant car seat as much as most babies do. You're usually ok in it when we're driving but it's not an automatic sooth-all like it has been with prior clients.

Sofia jumps at the rare opportunity to feed you a bottle. She was so proud of you and, I think, of herself when you finished it off.

It also appears that you may have gotten a bit of a cold. It probably came through Sofia from preschool although she had no symptoms (she's kind of a freak of nature that way). Marcelo got a fever, runny nose, and coughing, and then of course, Daddy bit the dust with all the symptoms and the ridiculous cracking fat lady voice. You're handling it pretty well though, just an occasional cough here and there, not enough congestion to interfere with nursing. But for no apparent reason, you've still decided you'd like to be cranky in the morning to noon time, going in and out of sleep and demanding to be held or to play the binky game. Hopefully this doesn't last too much longer. But being that you're a man, I guess we can count on you being cranky and demanding attention for pretty much the rest of your life, right. I get the feeling you will take after your daddy more than anyone else. And, I'm not just saying that because of the matching web toe either. We'll see, so far I've been pretty right about my predictions on the others.

You're just an infant and already you're giving me the look --mom, do you really have to take another picture of me?-- Actually, you were just quite tired and fell asleep a few minutes after this. But, I had to take a picture of your beautiful eyes during the only time of day when enough light comes through the window. I hope your eyes stay blue so we can have a varied assortment of eye colors. Sofia's eyes were like this for a long time and eventually they turned green.