Opposable Thumbs

Bobby has been developing the all-important thumb-and-forefinger grasp. This is an important skill -- if nothing else, it will eventually enable him to eat Cheerios. He's currently using it for two purposes: (1) pull soft toys toward self using the washing instructions tag and (2) pinch Mommy.

If you would like to experiment with how this feels, take a pair of chopsticks and use them to pinch the underside of your upper arm as hard as possible. Bonus points if you can simulate tiny fingernails (I'm learning to stay on top of clipping his nails these days).

He's otherwise a fun guy to have around. This weekend he played in a baby pool for the first time. The photo shows him looking very serious and contemplative -- in fact he seemed to be having a very good time.

Mom

Oooh! Katy called this morning to report a new milestone. Bobby rolled from a sitting position onto his belly...well apparently onto his face, never-the-less, a milestone.

We had a funny discussion at a little pool-party play-date this weekend about how our collective perspective had changed. A mother friend of ours was talking about being SHOCKED a few years ago when a little 2-year old girl was running around at a barbeque sans diaper. I think all of us had that momentary flick-of-the-brain where we first thought, "shocking!" then reconsidered and thought, "eh, really, who cares. It's what babies do."

Funny how perspective changes. People said it would, but how do you imagine such a thing before it happents? So when Katy called at work to tell me about the new milestone - you remember, Bobby falling on his face, I was genuinely delighted - the first "step" towards rolling forward onto his hands, and from there, crawling, walking, college... it's all right there in front of him and it started today with a well executed lunge.

Bobby's First Hike

And by 'hike,' I mean "short walk through the woods."

It's been scorching by Seattle standards -- in the 90s. East Coasters are no doubt scoffing, but keep in mind that almost no homes in Seattle have air conditioning. In order to cool ourselves off, we decided to take Madeleine to Stevens Pass in the Cascades. The drive up is spectacular. Once you get there, there's not much to see except a ski resort in the off-season.

On the way back, however, we stopped at Deception Falls. This was perfect -- shade, a nice little walk to stretch our legs, cool water to wade through, amazing waterfall to observe, and more trees than Bobby could possibly want. (As I may not yet have mentioned, Bobby is a tree-a-holic. Nothing calms him down faster than some green leaves blowing in the breeze.)

What cracked me up is that it's a personal pet peeve that Roger & I are frequently over-prepared for hikes. (It dates back to a snowshoeing misadventure which is another story altogether, but involved running out of water and food and having no compass or flashlight or idea where we were going.) Anyway, frequently Roger & I will gear up with water bottles, hiking boots and piles of Clif bars for a short day hike, only to pass numerous other hikers wearing flip-flops and carrying nothing. So, for this minor outing, we were wearing Tevas, packed a bare-minimum diaper bag, and popped Bobby into his hiking backpack. No one could possibly accuse us of taking this little amble too seriously, I thought. Yet sure enough, we encountered a family on the trail who were pushing a stroller. Figures.

Mom

Rolling

One Non-Blonde


Is it possible that we have produced a brown-haired boy? After years of joking that parties were BYOBB (Bring Your Own Blond Boy), have we bucked the trend? [I guess you could argue that the arrival of those boys' younger sisters was already a buck to the trend.] It was looking for a while like Bobby might take after his very-blond Daddy as a youngster, but his hair is decidedly light brown. I like it. It seems to suit him. His eyes are still quite blue, although with flecks of gold and green that might mean they'll turn to hazel.





Yesterday we took Bobby to meet Scylla and Homer's nieces and nephews. Scylla's litter-mate had nine (!) puppies -- they're four weeks old and quite adorable. Bobby wasn't quite sure what to make of them -- on one hand, they were soft and furry like Scylla & Homer and his touch-and-feel books. On the other hand, they were new and squirmy and seemed to be drawing his grown-ups' attention away from Himself. Karen (the puppies' human) was gracious enough to reassure Bobby that he was cuter than the puppies. As you can see, he was somewhat unconvinced.

Mom

Mmmm. Gruel.

Bobby turned six months last week, got a clean bill of health, and celebrated with some yummy rice cereal. He is so far unimpressed. After a few days, we added in some carrots, and he remains unimpressed. In tonight's feeding, I mixed some carrots with rice cereal, waited for him to open his mouth, snuck some of the orange mush into his mouth, and watched him slobber it back onto his chin, and then his bib. So I scooped it up off his chin, waited for an opening, and snuck more in. And then watched it end up back on his bib. This went on for about 15 minutes. He wasn't really unwilling -- just unenthused. Then when we decided to call it quits, I looked over and he was sucking on his bib. I could have saved a heck of a lot of time if I'd just smeared the carrots on his bib from the start.

His other big accomplishment is that he now rolls over from his back to his front almost as soon as we put him down. Then he starts pushing up on his hands -- since the floor is slippery, this inevitably results in him sliding backward, away from whatever he's trying to grab. He can roll over from his front to his back, but he doesn't seem as interested in doing that.

He's been having a great time hanging out with his cousin Madeleine, who's visiting from Philadelphia. She's great with him and it's wonderful to have her here. She's been taking a lot of pictures and video so I'll try to post more pictures.

Mom