Rattlin'

Here's another video, in which Simon shows off his latest trick -transferring a toy from one hand to the other. This is a milestone his pediatrician told us to look out for between 4 and 6 months. Mission accomplished!

Rattlin' from Anne Reynolds on Vimeo.

How big is Simon?

So big!!!

Talking

Simon would like to tell you all about his Thanksgiving. He would also like to show off the new noise he is fond of making - kind of an "mmm" sound with some buzzing of the lips thrown in. (It comes with substantial drooling, as you will see.) Enjoy. :)

Talking from Anne Reynolds on Vimeo.

First taste

Simon's pediatrician gave us the go-ahead to start giving Simon little bits of rice cereal if he seemed ready for it. He's been giving us some of those signs (interest in watching us eat, reaching for our food, etc.) so we gave it a try. This was his first "meal." Since then he's been getting better at getting more of it in his mouth and less of it on himself!

Rice cereal! from Anne Reynolds on Vimeo.

4 months

Simon turned 4 months old on Tuesday! We celebrated with his 4-month appointment with his pediatrician. Drumroll please...

He is now 13 lb. 10 oz. (25th percentile) and 25 inches (50th percentile). Dr. Yuan was pleased with everything... except the fact that he is nowhere near sleeping through the night. He's still getting up twice each night, in fact. It seems that we keep resolving one issue only to arrive at another... first we stopped swaddling and he slept better, then got worse. Then he started sleeping on his tummy and slept better, then got worse. I think more recently the issue has been hunger... he's started becoming very easily distracted when eating, and decides he's done when he's had just enough to no longer be really really hungry. We've helped the issue by going up a stage in his bottle nipples - the faster flow gets more food in him before he checks out. Another issue lately might be that he's not warm enough - the temps have gotten chillier out here. So we're going to try putting him in more layers when putting him to bed.

In any event, Simon was pronounced in great health, and was given his 4-month vaccines. He also got his first dose of Synagis, which is the antibody to respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), a cause of colds in adults but potentially terrible illness in babies. We're very grateful that our health insurance approved him to get it, even though he didn't meet the strict guidelines for it. (He doesn't have "chronic" lung problems, but he did have really awful issues at birth, and would have a really difficult time if he got sick.)

On a similar note, Troy and I got our H1N1 vaccines this week, which we are very happy about. (Well I am happy. Troy just keeps talking about how he's got "government nanobots" circulating in his system - he thinks flu shots are a conspiracy to inoculate us all with who-knows-what. He humored me and got this one anyway.) And our nanny is getting her shot on Monday. So the people spending the most time with Simon are all going to be protected, thankfully!

Enough babbling Anne - pictures already! I leave you with some of the cute ones nanny T sent this past week. Enjoy!

Blanket brigade

I finally got around to doing something I've been meaning to do for a while -- taking pictures of Simon on all of the beautiful blankets he received as gifts!

First up is one from Jeanne J., who used to work with my mom.

Second was made by our friend Jessica, whom both Troy and I went to grad school with. (Which you probably guessed upon looking at her beautiful creation - at some point I'll get a better photo of the full blanket with all its fun little details!)

I'm hoping to capture more in the coming weeks. It's getting harder though, as Simon won't lie still!

It's tummy time all the time...

Even when sleeping!

This past week, Simon figured out how to sleep on his tummy. And it seems he will sleep no other way. I've heard and read that once they are able to roll over, it's okay to let babies sleep on their tummies. And since he appears to like it so much, that's just what we're going to let him do!

Catching up

More photos from the weekend my parents and grandma visited!

A beautiful day

It was such a nice day out (in the mid-60s in November!) we went out for a walk this afternoon. Simon very much enjoyed himself in the Baby Bjorn. Two notes on the photo: 1) Simon is showing off his puppy dog bib - he needs bibs a lot more these days due to the sudden onslaught of drool. 2) He's been really working on sucking his thumb and/or fingers. On our walk, he happily sucked his right thumb almost the entire time!

Shake, rattle & roll

More rolling over, this time after playing with his favorite new toy!

Shake, rattle & roll from Anne Reynolds on Vimeo.

Check me out

We caught some video of Simon rolling over!

Showing off from Anne Reynolds on Vimeo.

Now that he has started, he seems unable to stop. He wakes himself up almost every night after ending up on his tummy. It wouldn't be a big deal, except he's usually pretty unhappy to find himself there, and hasn't yet reminded himself of how to roll himself back to his back. He'll figure it out eventually!

Rolling, rolling, rolling....

I took this video last week, when Simon was working hard to roll from his back to his tummy:

Trying to roll from Anne Reynolds on Vimeo.

We've watched him get *this close* to getting all the way to his tummy for a while. But today, he did it! Nanny T sent us this picture:

He definitely looks like he's surprised himself! I have yet to actually see him roll over completely, but I've seen the evidence -- after we put him to bed tonight, I had to go in twice to flip him back over because he'd rolled to his tummy. Not a good way to sleep!

Four generations

We had a fabulous weekend. Sunday was my mom's 60th birthday, and her present was a trip to Boston. She and my dad flew out from Minneapolis, and as an added bonus, my grandma flew up from Florida!

During the weekend, we had an opportunity to take a photo of the four generations. I was especially eager to get a photo of the four of us that was similar to this one:

This is obviously a photo of a photo - the original is in Sweden. My grandfather's cousin Tage had it in a photo album, and I took the picture of it when I visited there in 2002. In the photo are my great-grandpa John, my grandpa Floyd, my mom and me.

Here is the updated version! It took many tries to get one where Simon was smiling and the rest of us were also looking at the camera, but we were happy with the end result!