Milestone ahead

Dexter is getting ready to crawl! He's been pretty nonchalant about the process so far, showing very little interest in doing necessary pre-crawling things like rolling over from back to belly. He's just so mellow he usually seems happy to play where he lays. But this week he's making more of an effort to get out and about. Last week he figured out how to push himself backwards along the floor on his belly. This week he's practicing getting up on all fours, and he's rolling over more often. He still has work to do before he'll actually be scooting around the house. That's a good thing--babyproofing is going to be a big job this time around.

Henry's hovering beside me as I write. He wants me to spell "dig." So here we go:

DIG

Now he's happy.

Miss Stella

Kristy and Stella came home from the hospital on Thursday evening. My mom's staying over for a few days to help the new mom and dad adjust to their new family member. And what an adjustment it is. Really, there's nothing that can prepare you for those first few days at home with your first baby. That said, everyone is doing great and they sound really happy.

I wish I could pop over for a visit.

Two significant birthdays

The first: Dave and Kristy welcomed baby Stella Helen yesterday. Finally, a cousin for Henry and Dexter! I'm very excited to be an auntie. I'll post a picture later if Dave says it's okay (Believe it or not, there are still people--members of my own family!--who don't think it's normal to broadcast your entire life on the Internets).

The second: Today is the 100th anniversary of my Papa George's birth. Even though he's been gone for almost 11 years now, I still think about him a lot and wanted to mark this occasion in some small way before the day is over. So, here's to you, Papa.

Here we go again

Bah--Dexter won't eat anything! Not even super-sweet fruits like bananas and pears. He clamps his mouth shut and I can't wedge a spoon in there. I don't know how someone who likes food as much as I do could produce not just one, but two babies who don't like food at all.

Another anniversary of sorts

Last week we received a notice informing us that it is time to renew our annual membership to the Museum of Nature. That means it's been about a year since Henry fell head-over-heels in love with dinosaurs. I think it was a visit to the remodeled Dino exhibit at the museum that triggered this obsession, but honestly, I can't remember. All I know is that it's now impossible to overstate just how completely his imagination has been captivated by the prehistoric beasts. Around our house, it's all dinos, all the time. Henry reads dino books, plays with dino toys, wears dino clothes, sleeps between dino sheets, watches dino shows, plays dino video games on dino websites, and visits the dino museum at least twice a month. He also spends a lot of time pretending he's a dinosaur (usually a T-Rex), especially when he's feeling insecure in a social situation (he turns his hands into claws and roars at people). In the summer he collects rocks and sticks in the yard, claims they are fossilized bones, and assembles them into dinosaur skeletons. In the winter he does the same thing with chunks of ice and snow. It can take us a long time to walk home from school, as Henry is constantly discovering prehistoric fossils along the sidewalk. Basically, not an hour of the day goes by in our household without some talk of dinosaurs.

I admit that it can get a little tedious talking about and playing dinosaurs all the time, but the positive aspects of this obsession far outweigh any irritations. Henry is a sponge when it comes to learning about dinosaurs, and it's been very easy to harness this interest to teach him about letters (which dino names start with C, etc.) and numbers (how many claws does an allosaurus have, etc.). He's also mastered a huge list of dino-related vocabulary. I have my pronunciation of some dinosaur or other corrected by my 3-year-old at least once a day (does the name "dolichorhynchops" roll off your tongue? I didn't think so). Despite my best efforts to promote Hedge Fund Manager as an ideal career choice for a young man who would surely like to help his Mommy to retire in style, Henry keeps insisting that he wants to be a paleontologist when he grows up. We'll see about that, but I will say that we've read a lot of profiles of actual paleontologist over the last year, and it's striking how many of them say that they first fell in love with dinosaurs in childhood and never lost interest. So, never say never. Twenty years from now, if he's off digging for bones with a wire brush in the middle of some godforsaken dune, happy as a clam, I won't be a bit surprised.

Has it been 6 months already?

Or should I say, has it only been 6 months? Babies have a way of messing with your sense of time because almost as soon as you bring one home, it feels like they've always been part of your life. Anyway, whether it's been a fast 6 months or a slow 6 months, it's a mark Dexter hit this weekend, and it's a significant milestone in his first year. I believe there are few things in the world more adorable than a 6-month-old baby. This stage gives you an irresistible blend of pure babyness mixed with lots of personality. Dexter is very curious about the world around him these days. He's constantly grabbing at stuff, and when he gets ahold of something, he holds it up to his face for careful scrutiny. He's becoming quite enamored of his big brother. He'll watch Henry when he's up to his usual shenanigans with a look of fascination on his face that says, "Who is that guy? He's a total ROCK STAR!!!" It's very sweet.

Because he's 6 months old, I started Dexter on "solid" food the other day. So far, he hasn't been terribly interested. Then again, I don't know who would want to eat that flavorless mush they call baby cereal. I'm not finding I have a lot of patience with the recommended schedules for introducing baby food; the rule is that you start with the rice cereal mush, then introduce a new food every few days to make sure allergies aren't an issue, etc., etc. It all sounds like it's going to take a long time. If D. doesn't show interest in the rice mush like, tomorrow, I think I'll offer him peach mush and apple mush and other stuff that's actually tasty until he gets used to eating, then go back to rice mush. We'll see. I guess I'm just not very excited about the whole solid foods thing. I was when Henry was a baby, but since he ended up liking exactly one flavor of baby food (Beech Nut Peach Cinnamon Oatmeal) out of all the stuff I tried to feed him (including made-from-scratch baby delicacies), my spirit got a tad deflated. Also, I now realize that life as a parent is at its easiest when your child is breastfeeding exclusively, so the lazy part of me is sad to see that phase ending. No more feeding on the fly--now I have to plan meals, prepare the food, feed the food, and clean up. Oh well. I just hope he likes the peaches.