Rocket shoes

Among the items I found under my bed were these very cool rocket shoes:




also a gift from friends of ours from our amazon days. These shoes are so great. They have that crinkly material on the sides so they make playing with your feet even more fun than usual.

They are also great because they are not the regular baby boy apparel -- they are red and science themed unlike so many of his clothes which are blue and sports themed. He has a "future quarterback" sleeper that I call his ironic sleeper because my child will never play football.

Solid food, old/new clothes, and summer heat

It's funny that "they" say at 6 months you can start feeding your baby solid food when the food you feed him is almost liquid. So far in the past week and a half, Jack has eaten pureed sweet potatoes, avocado, banana, and pear. He seems to like this food a lot more than formula. I don't blame him because I don't like milk either.

Since I feel that our consumer society creates a bunch of crap you really don't need, I thought I would not buy bibs because I have so many towels and receiving blankets. This didn't really work out. Now I can imagine the day someone said, if only we could invent something that would actually catch the food that they spit out. Here Jack is pictured wearing a dishtowel that caught almost none of the sweet potato he ate.



After the baby shower last October, I put many of my gifts in a drawer underneath our bed. I sorted through the clothes and pulled out the items that would fit him during his first 6 months. As I sorted through the clothes again, I realized I had missed some and sadly, he is almost too big for them. Our friends Megan and Ben gave us this little get-up.. perfect for warmer weather.




Bridget took Jack to his first backyard summer party. He took a dip in the kiddie pool but apparently did not dig it. He prefers to lounge.

My generation

I just returned from a gathering with my PEPS group (parent group). I also just finished reading a blog entry of a friend whose wife was harshly judged for returning to work after having twins. I am glad these two things happened consecutively.

To be clear, every parent works whether they are paid for it or not. All of the women in my PEPS group work outside the home -- anywhere between 1 and 5 days a week. Months ago, before anyone returned to work, our group moderator (who was 10 years older than the oldest of us) asked the moms to express their feelings about returning to work. I think she was surprised when no one seemed to have any conflicted feelings. Some people had to do it, others didn't but no one really cared what anyone else was doing.

I feel like my peers get that this stay-at-home/work dichotomy is just false. We do what makes us happy and/or we do what we have to do. If you want to work 60 hours a week, it's great that you can choose that. If you want to stay at home (and you can), lovely! I do both, and it works for me. The judgement seems to come in from people who are resentful that they never had choices or those who are unhappy with the choices they made... the judgement generally seems to come from an older set of women -- I don't notice it among my peers. We all seem to understand that 1. having the choice is a privilege 2. happy parent = happy baby...

Frankly, these days, when people ask me questions I deem judgemental, I lie. Do you breastfeed? yes. How much does he weigh? 19 pounds. Don't you just loooooooooooove parenthood? Every second of it.

6 months!

On Friday, Jack turned 6 months old. It's so little time in my life but he has changed so, so much. These days, he sleeps all night, he is rolling over (front to back and back to front), he is beginning to eat solid food, reaches for everything, then puts everything in his mouth, plays with his toes, laughs, smiles, and babbles a lot. He seems to have a pretty mellow demeanor. He makes his needs known and when they are met, he is happy.

Infant development is a marvel. We went from this:









to this:




in just half a year.

It is awesome .. both in the original definition and the spicoli-inspired meaning.

Happy Mother's Day

One day late.

I never used to think about Mother's day much. I appreciate my mom every day so I didn't think Mother's Day felt that much different than other days. I have a *slightly* cynical side that notices we tend to set aside special days for people we say we value but really, we don't. If we really valued motherhood, we would have better daycare, and staying home with your kids would not be below "working" on the hierarchy of american activities that matter, (insert my usual rant here). However, we do have this one day to celebrate the all-consuming, lifelong, joyful, and anxiety-provoking role of mommyhood, and I am now grateful for it. Experience is a great teacher.

Ryan and I went out to dinner at Crush on Saturday night. It was our first real date night in 6 months. Very fun. My mom sent me flowers, and bridget also gave me a big bouquet and a very precious mug that she made with Jack. I went to yoga sunday morning and spent the rest of the day with Jack... it was a lovely day.

In Jack news, he will be 6 months old this Friday. Hard to believe. His latest thing is that he likes to roll over onto his stomach but then he gets stuck there, and cries. I roll him back over and he immediate rolls back to his tummy, and cries. We will do this 10 times in a row. It reminds me of the SNL skit with Tom Hanks when he played Mr Short Term Memory. He is eating dinner at a fancy restaurant then suddenly spits out his food because he has no idea what's in his mouth. I know Jack will learn he can roll back by himself, and that will be an exciting day.

The Bob

no one dreams that one day their child will grow up to be a petulant ass. yet there are many people who objectively fit this description. how does this happen?

i have a few theories, but here is one: if you got a new bmw when you turned 16, it is highly likely that you are one of these people. giving a teenager an expensive new car generally means the kid has been given everything they have ever wanted and has probably not worked one day for any of it. this causes personality problems.

because of this observation, i am very intentional about what i buy or don't buy for jack. almost all of his clothes and belongings (other than gifts) are hand-me-downs. there is no reason an infant needs all new stuff. so when it came time to buy a stroller, i thought about it for a long time. i looked at used strollers and found they were sort of gross .. spit up and food stains.. i could not find one in good condition. i really wanted a jogger stroller so i could run with him and i didn't want to buy two different strollers (our house is too small). unfortunately for me, i was at rei and tried the bob. the bob is like the brand new bmw of strollers. it is expensive but the ride is very smooth. after much hand-wringing, we bought it. and we love it.

my solution for this contradiction is that i just won't ever tell jack he had such a fancy stroller.

Expressions

Years ago, I saw an art exhibit featuring dogs and their owners. The point of the exhibit was to show how much the two looked alike. I particularly remember a photo of a red-haired man with a beard and his irish setter. They looked exactly alike because they seemed to have the same facial expression. It was funny how two different species could resemble each other only because they had a close relationship.

Obviously expressions are not passed in the genes. Even though Jack is only 5 1/2 months, he seems to have already picked up ryan's expressions as well as inheriting much of ryan's genetic code for his face. (these pics are almost a month old.. i have been meaning to post them for a while...)