Baby Gabe’s cold is over, and he’s all better now. He’s back to his usual eating and napping routine. Unfortunately, his days of sitting contentedly in his bouncer while his parents ate are over. He always wants to be up at the table with us. We got him a space-saver high chair so he could sit with us during meals. We usually feed him his dinner before we eat. So far it’s been a success, but we sometimes put him to bed before we have dinner in case we want a more leisurely meal.
Okay, now we don’t feel so bad for missing his cold two weeks ago. He caught another bug on Thursday as evidenced by the coughs, sneezes, and runny nose since then. This one hit him much harder than the last. But judging from this picture, can you tell he’s sick? He’s been a trooper throughout — always pleasant and happy.
Some big milestones this week. First, Baby Gabe made a smooth transition to solid foods (or what passes for solid food for infants). Then, he started sitting up unassisted. He still can’t get himself to a seated position, but he can stay seated once we get him there. Also, he got his first cold either this past week or last week. Tough to say because we completely missed it. The “allergies” mom and dad were suffering from was actually a cold spread from Baby Gabe. We only know this because Marcia, his child care provider, said he’s had a bit of a runny nose during the week. Baby Gabe’s pediatrician confirmed the remnants of a cold at his six-month checkup this week. So his first cold was pretty much a non-event for him. It hit us a lot harder than it hit him.
Cute, happy, and alert are the three most common adjectives people have used to describe Baby Gabe. At first, we thought it was because they haven’t been around babies this young in a long time. After all, we wondered what baby isn’t cute, happy, and alert at this age? They sleep, eat, poop, and play. What better life is there? Well, this past week was Baby Gabe’s first in day care. We were a little worried because this would be the first time he’d be away from his mom and dad for so long. But we worried for nothing. His day care provider, Marcia, took him out his car seat in the morning and remarked how cute he was. Over the next 8 hours, he laughed, played, ate, and napped. At the end of the day, Marcia remarked how happy and alert he was at this age. Most kids have a rough time the first few days being away from mom and dad. So we figured she’s been around a lot more babies than we have, and if she said so, it must be so. We should make a T-shirt for him: Cute, happy, and alert. Now if only he would sleep past dawn….
Gabriel met his cousins for the first time on this last trip to Ohio. Jon and Angelina made the 4-hour car trip up north with 20-month-old Taylor and 6-month-old Ethan. We got a lot of great advice and good product recommendations from them, and Gabriel finally got the chance to relate to people closer to his age. He was definitely fascinated, often staring in wide-eyed amazement at these other tiny people. Many more pictures are in Monica’s Picasa web album in the More Photos link above.
Baby Gabe turned 4 months old yesterday! Unfortunately, he suffered a nasty little self-inflicted cut on his cheek during the flight back home. We’re going to have to start filing his nails down after we cut them. Also, we think he might have been jetlagged as this was the first time since he was about 2 weeks old when he didn’t join us at the dinner table. He peacefully slept through it all. Happy Birthday, Baby Gabe!
Baby Gabe took his first flight today. He didn’t do too badly, all things considered. It was sort of a pain that we had to wake him up to take him out of the car seat at the security check. Both the stoller and the seat had to go through the xray machine. Surprisingly, other passengers were more accomodating than the flight attendants, except for one who forced the other two to wait a minute before pushing the drink cart down the aisle so Baby Gabe and papa could make it back to their seats after a diaper change. (Note: flight attendants do not like deviating from a schedule and will push a diaper-bag-wearing papa and baby onto other passengers’ laps to get by.)
Baby Gabe slept through half the flight. He nursed on the ascent, so that helped, but he was just on the binky on the way down, and that didn’t help as much. But mostly, he was quiet throughout, content at being passed back and forth from mama’s lap to papa’s.
One of the unintended side effects of having Baby Gabe sit with us during our meals is that he’s observed that meal time isn’t just for eating or drinking; it’s also family time. He often wants to get in on the conversation and starts babbling and laughing. This is all fine and cute, but lately he’s carried it forward to his own meal times. After a few minutes of eating, he will stop, look up at his mom, and strike up a conversation. After a minute, he’ll get back to eating. This draws out the process, and sometimes he doesn’t get back to eating so we wonder whether he’s getting enough milk. However, he’s still growing and seems healthy so we’re not worried.
