Baby Bobby has discovered the Top Of His Lungs!

Friends who have a slightly older baby have dubbed this the Pterodactyl range. He's taken to shrieking and yelling just to see what kind of noises he can make. It's pretty entertaining since he's obviously enjoying himself.

Rolling over, alas, remains elusive. Instead, he pivots. If we put him down on his belly facing north, within a few minutes he'll be facing south. He's also been getting better at sitting up -- he can definitely remain upright when he's propped up in the corner of the couch, and Jude reports that he sat up yesterday assisted only by his Boppy.

An even more noteworthy milestone, for me, anyway, is that we took him to a restaurant on Sunday to celebrate Uncle Peter's birthday, and he fell asleep on Peter's lap. Just conked right out. I think that's a first -- usually it takes a lot more work on our part. In fact, we're thinking of just asking Peter to take him to a crowded bar every night at bedtime. Bobby's bedtime, not Peter's.

Mom

More adventures!

This past weekend, Bobby & I flew by ourselves to New York City for a reunion of my best friends from high school. Needless to say, I was a little daunted by the idea of flying solo with Bobby, but it went really smoothly. People are really helpful when you're the only adult with a baby. They let us use the "elite" line at security. At first I felt badly for the business travelers who got stuck behind us, but they I realized that by the time a business traveler takes off shoes, cell phone, etc and hauls the laptop out of the briefcase, it's not much worse than me putting the car seat, stroller and diaper bag through the x-ray. And on the way back, the TSA guy who was loading stuff through the conveyor asked if there was anyone else traveling with me. On hearing it was just me and Bobby, he called through to the security guy on the other end of the conveyor and told him to help me. Alas, that guy was foiled by our stroller and I had to do it myself, but the thought was really nice. And at the boarding gate, several frequent flyers (who get to board first) ushered me ahead of them (but then I was stopped by the gate agent who said "we're not boarding families yet." Whatever).

We also lucked out by getting the bulkhead seat on the flight, and by sitting next to a really nice couple from Kirkland who have a 2 1/2 year old (not traveling with them) and were very understanding. Bobby entertained himself by flirting with the entire plane -- people from seats way behind us actually came up to say hi and were rewarded with big smiles. As much as I appreciated our seatmates on the way out, I was even more grateful on the way home. It was a 5:30 flight -- departure was delayed, Bobby was hungry and tired, and we seemingly waited forever for boarding. Bobby worked himself up to a small fit. I was already pretty tired and dreading the idea of a fussy baby for 5 hours and being seated next to some tired business traveler with no tolerance for babies. Once we boarded, Bobby did pretty well but I just kept waiting for someone to approach, take one look at mother with child, and grimace. Finally the last two passengers boarded -- I looked up, and it was the same couple from the flight out. All at once my mood improved considerably. Bobby, of course, was an almost perfect traveler for the whole flight -- slept, ate, played and slept again. Almost no fussing, until the mean captain came over the PA to announce we'd landed and woke him up.

Anyway, enough about the flights. We had a wonderful time in New York! Bobby got to hang out with Grammy, Pop-Pop and Great-Aunt Bobbie. He rode the carousel in Bryant Park several times, and got taken for walks all over midtown. Meanwhile, I had a long overdue reunion with Karen, Margit & Lisa. We walked, shopped, ate, talked, gossiped -- and had drinks at the Rainbow Room.

In other news, Bobby has actually rolled over twice now -- both last week. The first time was a surprise to us both -- one second he was on his tummy, stretching and wriggling, and the next second he was on his back. Since then, he's clearly been trying to figure out how he did it. He's managed to repeat it once, but not since then. It's really fun to watch him try to figure it out. I also realized by watching my parents play with him that he's starting to recognize patterns and anticipate -- for example, if I repeatedly bring his toy bee up to kiss his nose with a buzzing sound, after the first few times he starts to look for it and cracks up when it gets there.

Mom

Happy Mother's Day! I woke up early and snuck out of the house to get breakfast for Mom, but Bobby woke up right after i left and Mom's first present was that she got to change two diapers. )-:

As a consolation, I did make some good omelets with onions, Swiss, salmon, and horse radish. Hmmm.

We decided that today was the perfect day to take Bobby for his first sail. I packed up the boat and the car, and we headed down to Lake Union. It usually takes about 40 minutes to set up the boat, but we weren't there for 5 minutes when a woman approached and wanted to interview us for the news. She interviewed Mom, and took some video of Bobby, almost perfectly immobilized in his tiny little life jacket. I worked feverishly to set up the boat, while Katy kept Bobby entertained on the dock. We finally got set up, facing downwind (northerly breeze) on the dock, which was handy given we were pointed in the right direction, but we weren't able to raise the main - so we sailed out on jib and mizzen. Once out, I raised the main and off we went, and WOW, the wind, which had been light when we left the house had really picked up - it was practically whistling through the rigging. Bobby was a total trooper - sitting packed into his life jacket, and Mom was even more so - not packed into a life jacket, but being a real trooper jumping around the boat keeping Booby safe while we heeled and rocked and bounced around.

It was pretty clear to me that we were stretched a little too thin. I had rushed to get the boat ready so it wasn't as ship-shape as it should have been. The wind was stronger than we expected, and not only was I single handing, but Mom was relatively immobile - which didn't make me comfortable. We sailed about half way down the lake and turned around to sail in. Quite content with what would be a 30-minute sail (and at least 2 hours of rigging and de-rigging). We sailed back up to the north end of the lake and debated whether to put the motor in or sail into the tight little channel. We pulled off to a quiet little cove and put the motor in - one of the very nice things about a yawl is that you can strap the mizzen in tight and let go of the main and jib and it'll hold straight as an arrow into the wind while you do chores like setting up the boat. I was curious how the motor would respond to a winter off - but it started right up and we put-putted home. Bobby seemed to like the vibrations and the white noise.

There were one or two moments where Mom and I had to scramble, but certainly not dangerous - just a little hectic. On the ride home, I said, "well, I think that was a little rough for the first time with the boy. I think some lessons are that I shouldn't rush to get the boat ready - I've said that before, and I think I need an extra set of hands so we should arrange to bring friends. I also think it was a good call to just come in since the wind was a bit more than we expected - even if it means that we have a half hour sail. What do you think?" Katy said, "Yeah, well, I'm not sure I've ever been so frightened in my life." OK let's stop here and talk about great mothers. Katy grew up in central Pennsylvania, she's been a great sport about my little obsession with small boats. She let me take over our yard to build it, and our honeymoon to take it sailing. We've been in some pretty scary water and she's been perfectly trusting of my boat and my skills. Talk about pushing my luck - taking our little 4-month old baby out. She was actually scared for our safety, and this, riding in the car home was the first I heard of it. On board she was smiling and even helpful - despite having her hands full. What a Mom. Really. Happy Mother's day.

PS We were the lead story on the evening news. The anchor called Bobby a cute little sailor. Let's hope this is the last time he'll be the lead on the evening news...

Bobby just totally cracked me up.

He's getting very good at grabbing things, and anything he can get a hold of, he puts in his mouth. For a while he would gently pat at our faces in the morning, but as he's gotten more adept at using his hands, he's moved on to grabbing our faces (kind of startling if you've dozed off at 6 a.m. and suddenly feel your eyebrow being grabbed by the wide-awake baby lying next to you).

Anyway, he also really likes to stand up. So yesterday I had him standing up on my lap, and I leaned forward just a little so he could touch my face. He put one hand on each of my cheeks, and with razor-accuracy, pulled my face forward until my nose was in his mouth. I started laughing so hard that tears ran down my face, at which point Bobby cracked up too. So there we we were, mother and son, laughing our heads off. This has got to be why people become parents.

Mom

Baby Bobby's Big Adventure!

We just got back from a week-long trip to the east coast to visit our families. Somehow the 6 am flight sounded like a much better idea when I booked it (i.e. when Bobby was waking up three times a night anyway) than it did when we took it (had to wake him up to feed him before getting into our cab at 3:30 a.m.). However, he was a champ on the flights -- only a little crying which they tell me is worse for the parents than for any of the other passengers. I'm sure the woman seated next to us saw a lot more of me than she typically sees of her seatmates -- it's a bit challenging to nurse a baby when you're crammed into an airline seat. On the way home we upgraded to Economy Plus and I think it was possibly the best 88 bucks I've ever spent.

We landed in Boston in the early evening, got our rental car, and drove to Roger's parents' house in central New Hampshire. We stopped about two miles short of their house to wait for Emilie, Peter, Amos & Etta, who were just a few minutes behind us. Then we all drove to surprise Grandma -- she was in bed, asleep, and unlike Grandpa, didn't know we were coming. Two days later, the Philadelphia contingent arrived so Bobby & Etta got to meet their cousins and Grandma got to celebrate her birthday with most of the family (we missed Polly, Andy, Cameron, Hayden & Troy).

Then the next day we got up early and drove down to Pennsylvania. Bobby was an awesome traveler, for the first 11 hours. The last hour and a half really did him in, but he recovered almost immediately once we got to Grammy & Pop-Pop's house (and, more importantly, out of the car seat). Unfortunately he had caught a cold along the way so he was kind of cranky and fussy for his star appearance the next day -- 15 friends and family who arrived to meet him. By Monday he was on the mend and back to his cheerful self. We took a great walk over the hill and through the woods from Grandmother's house (Grammy had him in the Baby Bjorn) and I got to wade in a stream, which sadly I don't get to do so much any more).

Now that we're home, the only problem is his jet lag. It was great on the east coast -- he actually slept through the night the first two nights (and that probably would have continued if it wasn't for the cold). Alas, the last two nights at home, he's woken up two to three times every night, and seems to think 4 am is a reasonable hour to be wide awake. Hopefully he'll be getting over this soon (probably just in time for the trip he and I will be taking to New York in two weeks).

Mom

Dad adds: On the trip home, we were stuck on the runway for 45 minutes and Bobby was fussing a little bit, and Mom was trying to comfort him, and Dad had a great idea. I picked him up and put him over my shoulder, and he looked up and immediately stopped crying. Then I heard the woman directly behind me, tap the man across the aisle, and say,"He wants you to smile back." And sure enough, the man looked up from his book and Bobby started giggling and throwing his head back with glee. He wanted to socialize; he's his mother's son.