drew’s news

In the last couple of days we’ve been encouraging Leo to sit up while he’s playing with his toys. At first of course he was very wobbly, and would roll onto his back after wavering a couple of times. But very quickly he seems to have found his balance, and delights in the commanding view he finds at this new height.

We’ve been enjoying sitting him on his blanket with a few toys after mealtime and watching him play. He really examines any new object he comes across, turning it over in his hands and looking at it from all angles. Now he sits for 15 or 20 minutes at a time without needing our intervention!

Last weekend we took the dog up to the beach to run around, and I figured I’d try carrying Leo on my back. He has good head control these days, and I thought he might enjoy facing forward and looking in the same direction as me while we walked.

Well, turns out our baby carrier sits further down on my waist than I realized. Poor Leo was squeezed against my back and could only peek out to the side (you can barely see one eye and his little nose in the picture). I guess he was comfortable enough, because he soon dozed off. But I kept asking Daph to check and make sure he was OK. Guess we’ll wait a while before trying this again…

In just the past couple of weeks Leo has embraced solid foods. The pediatrician suggested we start the solids a couple months back - he said it’d probably eliminate the 4 a.m. feeding - but Leo wasn’t into it. Last November we tried poi (Daph’s parents had brought some when they visited), and then basic rice cereal, but he clamped his mouth shut, and if we managed to get a spoonful past his gums he’d promptly spit it out.

So we waited a few weeks, and tried again just before the holidays. Again he refused the rice cereal. It dawned on us that plain rice cereal is exceedingly bland - maybe he just needs some flavor! When we got back from our New Year’s travels, we tried oatmeal. He didn’t exactly gobble it up, but he didn’t flat out refuse it either. Progress!

One step forward, two back as they say - after a couple days of moderate success with oatmeal, the poor kid got little red bumps all over his face & chest. Out with the oatmeal… and on to sweet potatoes. Daph baked and pureed a yam, and we gave it a shot. Yum! Leo couldn’t get enough of the orange mush, and we couldn’t spoon it into his mouth fast enough! Messy, but fun…

So we are in the process of building up Leo’s food repertoire. After 3 days with yams and no adverse reaction, we steamed an apple and made applesauce. He ate it, but clearly didn’t care for it near as much. But he dug the yam-apple mixture, so that worked for another 3 days. Next it was bananas - even better than yams! Avocados will be next…

So far the banana is Leo’s favorite. At around 9:30 in the morning he starts smacking his lips and making chewing motions, and he attacks the spoon carrying a bite of banana as soon as we wave it in front of him. Oh - side effects of solid food: more sleep and more poop!

As I mentioned previously, a bunch of us got together for New Year’s Eve to light fireworks.  We had a few boxes of assorted sparking and booming explosives, and as midnight drew near we started tearing into them - only to discover that we didn’t have a way to light the fuses!  Not too many years ago I bet there’d be at least a few smokers in every gathering, but on this night not one of us had a lighter.  I guess the anti-smoking campaigns have been working!

(We soon remedied our situation with a blowtorch, and the sparking and booming ensued…)

After a couple days relaxing at home, we flew out on December 30th to Honolulu to spend New Year’s with Daph’s family. This was Leo’s third trip to Hawai’i! New Year’s is a great time to be in Hawai’i, with lots of fireworks and feasts. (New Year’s Eve is one of the two days each year on which it’s legal to light fireworks - the other is 4th of July, of course - and it’s good fun.) For New Year’s Eve we hung out at Sheri & Brett’s new house and christened Brett’s new driveway with the blackened remnants of exploded fireworks. (Sorry Brett!) Leo slept through it all, but the rest of us managed to keep our eyes open long enough to toast the new year with champagne…

The next day Daph’s parents invited family & friends over for their traditional Japanese & Okinawan New Year’s feast. The food was amazing - mostly prepared by Kay (with help from Warren and her sister) with some additional dishes brought by guests. Ozoni soup, oden, shrimp tempura, fried pork, barbecued spare ribs, gobo, hijiki, fried fish, mochi, festive sushi rice, fresh-caught sashimi, and on & on. It was quite a feast, tarnished only by the disappointing Sugar Bowl football game (which was played out on probably every television in the entire state)…

We had a wonderful New Year’s holiday, and Leo had fun hanging out with his cousin Hunter. Thanks Warren & Kay for hosting!!

My side of the family gathered at my sister’s place in Phoenix for Christmas dinner. We flew in on Christmas day, which made for easy traveling - no lines, no hassle. Got to my sister’s at about 3, had a bit of a second Christmas with the next round of gifts, and then we ate a yummy dinner with ham & potatoes - and grits! I never was a big fan of grits when I was younger, but my brother and I both decided that this would be the year to reacquaint ourselves with this southern staple. Jalapenos added a bit of a kick, and, well, I actually went back for a second helping. Guess it’s worth trying everything at least twice. (Next on my list is rhubarb.) My folks really enjoyed having the whole family together for Christmas, and Leo got plenty of attention.

Next on the agenda was to get all the grandkids together for a photo, so the next morning we dressed them up in cowboy clothing and descended on a nearby photo studio. This has to be a studio photographer’s worst nightmare - try to get a good group shot of 5 kids aged 2 months to 10 years, all in one frame, with all the parents and grandparents trying to “help”! The team at the studio graciously accepted the challenge - two assistants arranged the kids and kept them occupied, and the photographer was on the spot to capture as many images as he could during the split-second that everyone was looking his direction. Tension was high as the arrangement began, but it soon became clear that these guys knew what they were doing. We ended up with several good shots, a couple of which are shown here:

It’s amazing how much stuff you gotta pack to travel with an infant. I’m usually a “throw everything in a backpack” sort of traveler, but between the baby and Christmas gifts we checked 3 bags and carried another 2 on to the plane. Times have changed! But it was a very nice trip, and the flight home was uneventful but for two lost pieces of luggage that were delivered to our house later that evening. Thanks Kari for hosting!

On the weekend before Christmas, Daph made a bunch of sugar cookies and we invited friends over to help decorate them. It turned out to be a pretty small gathering - almost everyone was either out of town or sick. But between 8 adults, 2 kids, and 2 dogs, we managed to ice & sprinkle about 6 dozen cookies! Some fine art was created…

Leo of course made the rounds. It turned out to be quite a pleasant afternoon - good conversation over snacks, hot apple pie (apple cider, tuaca, cinnamon & whipped cream), egg nog & brandy, and some champagne to toast Derek & Patty’s engagement (he proposed a couple weeks earlier on top of Coffeepot Rock in Sedona after they had just climbed it!).

I didn’t have a chance to write up anything during the holidays - the usual craziness, plus with the baby taking most of our attention we find we can only accomplish about half of what we used to be able to, maybe less. So the next few posts will be for stuff that happened over the last couple of weeks…

On the Friday before the holiday week, my office hosted a family-oriented breakfast, complete with a visit from Santa Claus. We hadn’t planned on sitting Leo down for a chat with the jolly old man, since we didn’t figure he’d get much out of it at 5 months of age. But since he decided to make the trip all the way to our office, we figured what the heck. So Daph & Leo accompanied me down to work and we had a nice breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, hash browns, and fruit. We were pretty early and the crowd was thin, but as we ate more & more families poured in, and by the time we left the place was packed with kids. Leo didn’t make a fuss on Santa’s lap, so we snapped our photos and were on our way.

Happy New Year! Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season. We had lots of family time: spent a couple days around Christmas with the grandparents in Phoenix, and then a couple days around New Year’s with the grandparents in Honolulu. This was Leo’s first flight to Phoenix, and his third to Hawaii! Pretty well-traveled kid for just 6 months. Both trips were smooth and on-time (both ways!), and Leo did great. All his uncles, aunties, cousins, and grandparents were very happy to see him, and there was no shortage of open arms. I’ll post some photos in a bit, but for now, just wanted to wish everyone the best in ‘08. On to the next one…