Picture of the Day

Just a cute picture in the bumbo seat.

5 Month Photos

Here's my favorite photo from Perryn's 5 month photo session, which was on Monday.

(This is a low resolution photo that I got from their website, so probably not printable).

Picture of the Day

Here's a picture of Perryn from the other morning. He had just woken up and this is a pretty typical morning expression. He looks really alert, huh? LOL. I think he's going to take after mommy and not be much of a morning person.

This is an outfit that Pepere gave him.

After a Swim

I thought this was a cute expression. He's sitting on my lap after a swim and yes... he's wrapped in *my* towel. We don't normally give him a pink towel. :-)

Let's go boating

We tried out Perryn's little floating boat last weekend. He seemed to enjoy it. I had to hold on to him since he can't quite sit up on his own and it's pretty wide open, but I think it was something fun for him to do in the water.

Picture of the Day

Here's Perryn going for a walk in his carrier in an awake state. :-)

Sleep walking

The thing we've come to understand about babies is that they're all about timing. Take a typical night, for example. If we nail the timing, then we're rewarded with a quiet, relaxing evening. If we blow it, then we're facing several trips back and forth to the nursery, trying to coax a none-too-cooperative infant off to sleep.

We like to start Perryn's nightly ritual at 7:30 or so. We give him a bath, or maybe just change his diaper, and dress him in a fresh pair of pajamas. Then we feed him some cereal and finish that off with a bottle. If all goes well, he's comfy and content and drifting off to sleep by the end of the bottle. We put him down at 8:30 and get the rest of the evening to relax or get other stuff done.

Our nightly ritual

Bath	+ PJs	+ Bottle	= Sleeping baby

Of course, it's not as simple as it sounds. For one thing, the successful execution of the nightly ritual requires proper setup in the afternoon. If we haven't allowed enough time between his previous bottle, then he may not be hungry for dinner. Or, if he naps too late in the afternoon, then he might not be sleepy at bedtime.

And so it was that Rachelle and I found ourselves the other night: we had just finished eating. It was still only 6:45, so we had about forty-five minutes to kill before starting our routine. We decided to take a walk around the neighborhood. The only complication is that Perryn almost always falls asleep in his stroller, and it was way too close to bedtime for him to be napping.

No problem, we thought, we'll break out the baby carrier. We'd tried it a couple of times before, but Perryn wasn't quite big enough to fit in it comfortably (faithful readers may recall a previous post on the subject). We reasoned that he'd be far less likely to fall asleep in the carrier than he otherwise would in the stroller.

Well ... guess what? It turns out that babies can sleep, like, anywhere.

Perryn really took to the carrier. He didn't fuss a bit as we walked the neighborhood. I think he enjoyed watching all the scenery for a change. But after about twenty minutes, the soothing motion of the carrier got the better of him and he was out. We carried his limp little body back home and had to wake him up so that we could change him, and feed him, and put him to bed.

Perryn falls asleep in his baby carrier

And how did we fare later that evening? Well, as I recall, he was a little less patient than usual when eating his cereal. And he was a little fussier when we put him to bed. But Rachelle and I did get one more fond memory that we get to keep along with the others. And I think it was worth it.

My World

"My World" seems to revolve around Perryn these days. In other news, though...

The deck around the pool was sealed last Thursday and they should be doing the final step today. I like the way it turned out. The sealer makes it look shiny and brings out the brown color. Now we just need to figure out landscaping and get going on that. I'm sure that will be *several* weekends worth of projects.

And speaking of several weekends worth of projects, I'm happy to say that our "Memorial Day Weekend Project" is finally complete also. That was the media room. It is all painted and put back together except for moving some furniture. We watched a couple movies in it already and it was great. I guess we do still have to get a screen, but I believe Gary has narrowed down the selection and just needs to order it. In the meantime, projecting onto the wall works all right.

That's about all that's new with us. We basically spend our time with Perryn and working on the house. :-)

Baby Gifts

I (Gary) would like to thank my mom for the gift of the "baby cage." While we were admittedly somewhat skeptical about this unorthodox device, she assured us that I spent quite a bit of time in it as a baby and, well, look how I turned out. I've got to say, it works like a charm. We just drop the little fella' into his cage with a toy or two, and he's not going anywhere. It's really helped our productivity with the household chores.




Update:
Ok, ok ... the above post was just a joke. I was assembling some shelving material on the living room floor over the weekend. I had the baby nearby to keep an eye on him. And I put two and two together and decided to have a little fun with the camera. My mom wasn't in on the joke at all :)





Update #2:
Clip from the TV show "Scrubs"


Update #3:
Finally, check out www.babycage.net, especially the gallery of photos. Trust me. It's satire.

Baby Chest Press

I get periodic emails from babycenter.com with age appropriate developmental milestones, pertinent information and activities. A recent email featured exercising with your baby. We're practicing the "baby chest press" in these pictures that Gary snapped. Perryn enjoyed it, as he got a kiss every time he came down to my chest. He was smiling and almost giggling.

Playing with Mommy

Here's a photo of Perryn and me playing with a new toy. I actually bought it awhile ago, but just broke it out since he seems big enough to enjoy it now.

First Swim

We took Perryn for a swim for the first time on Sunday evening. He didn't protest which we felt was about the best we could hope for. He did start smacking the top of the water a little bit when we had him floating in the pool with us. Here's a couple photos:





I had a hard time deciding which pictures to choose, so as always, there's more photos on my picasa photos page. Click link.

Picture of the Day

I think this sleeper is adorable. It's a gift we received from one of Gary's co-workers. It's kind of long underwear like and has little puppies on it. It has some matching accessories like bib, hat, blanket also. Very cute. I wanted to make sure to get a photo of him in it before he outgrew it.

Picture of the Day

Perryn playing on the playmat.

Souvenir Tshirt

Roberta recently went to NYC for the weekend and she brought Perryn back a souvenir tshirt. He's modeling it here (we just put it over the clothes he was wearing that day).

4 Month Photo Session

Here's my favorite shot from Perryn's 4 month photo session. We took the photos last week and Perryn was very cooperative and smiley.

Video: Perryn tries cereal for the first time

We began introducing Perryn to solid foods this morning. Of course, we start slowly with a little rice cereal liberally mixed with milk, so it really wasn't all that solid. Still, it's a big developmental milestone and it seemed to go well enough.

We captured some video and are uploading it in two parts.

Part I:


Part II:

Pool's Done!

The pool is complete and filled. We took our first dip Wednesday night. Here's photos. (The deck has not been finished yet and we will do landscaping ourselves).

Picture of the Day

Here's Perryn playing in his exersaucer. Notice this is before the previously mentioned haircut... you can see how long his hair was over his ears.

Picture of the Day

Laying with Daddy:

Perryn's First Haircut

Gary and I decided to buy a trimmer for a do-it-yourself haircut for the little guy. His hair was getting about 2 inches long from the base to the end. We got the trimmer this past week and we knew we were going to go for 4-month pictures today, so we wanted to do some trimming before that. At the same time we didn't want to do too much for fear it wouldn't turn out, so we ended up just trimming above his ears and a little off the back part that sticks up. Gary was the first to experiment with the trimmer on Sunday. Here's some photos.

Ready, Set, Go:



Dad wields the trimmer:



Mom inspects the job:

Nursery Photos

I just realized the other day that I never posted pictures of the (finally) completed nursery. Here's a couple shots:

Picture of the Day

Chillin' with Daddy

Ready for Bed

Perryn has been moving around more at night so we've taken the blankets out of the crib and started dressing him in sleepers. I think they are so cute...

Fence Project Complete

We finished the fence this weekend. Here's another photo of our work.

Bumbo Seat

Here's Perryn sitting in his Bumbo seat. I should probably remember not to take photos of him with a black background since you can't see his hair. :-)

Video of the day

Video of Perryn at 10 weeks old.

Picture of the Day

No particular story ... just a cute photo.

Picture of the Day

No particular story ... just a cute picture of a sleeping baby.

Special Blanket

Perryn has a great playmat that has provided loads of entertainment batting at the toys hanging down from above. Although he isn't actually rolling over (at least not from back to front), he does manage to push himself around and therefore he keeps ending up off of the playmat. So... this weekend I extended the play surface a little bit by laying this blanket at the bottom of the playmat with some toys on it.

The blanket was made by his Great Aunt Kathy and we really love it. :-)

First Experience - Exersaucer

I put together the Exersaucer that we got for a shower gift from all my co-workers this weekend. This is a photo of Perryn's first experience in it. He's still a little small for it, but it won't be long before it will provide hours of entertainment and he can make full use of the spinning, bouncing seat. A lot of the toys make noise too. He was pretty interested in the one toy right in front of him in this photo. I'm sure it was too overwhelming to take it all in, so he stayed pretty focused on one or two items. I also didn't leave him in there very long since he does have to sit up himself with not much support.

Weekend Project

Making a long story short, while still showing off our handy work...

The fence along both sides of our property was recently replaced from "normal mount, 8-foot, cedar" to "board on board, 8 foot, cedar". We kept all the pieces that were taken down so we decided to make use of them by re-doing the rear property fence and hence covering up the existing standard wood (spruce?) that was there. When finished we'll have board on board, cedar all around the property.

We worked on it this weekend and are well over half done of the total work involved (although only about half of the fence shown is complete). Yes, it was mid-90's while we were having all this fun. Whew, hot! :-)

Picture of the Day

Pool Update

Here's the latest picture of the pool progress. They did the built-in grill on Friday and the arbor on Saturday. The deck is also in progress. It's poured and just needs to be sealed which will make it look shiny.

Off to Daycare

Well, I'm back to work and Perryn has started going to daycare. This is a photo from the first day. It's been and still is an adjustment for all of us. Perryn didn't nap well the first couple days so on day 1 he was cranky all night. On day 2, he fell asleep at 6p and didn't wake up until we woke him up at about 9:30 to feed him and put him to bed. Thankfully he still slept a full night. That happened last night also. The poor little guy is exhausted.

The daycare has cameras so we can watch him during the day. It seems like he's doing fine there. They have a swings, bouncy seats and a big mat in the middle of the floor where he can lay on his tummy. Once he can hold his head up by himself, they also have exersaucers and bumbo seats. He has his own specific crib with a big mirror and a mobile. I was a little disappointed they don't have playmats with the toys hanging overhead because that's pretty much how he spends his awake time at home and he entertains himself for quite awhile on that. However, they do have a couple bouncy seats with the toys overhead and the swings also have mobiles on them, so hopefully he's getting enough entertainment.

So, it seems to be going pretty well. The teachers might seem a bit unorganized, but if that's their only fault, I'll take it. I'm already starting to see which ones are the "good" teachers that you can tell just love babies and which ones might just be more interested in collecting a paycheck. Overall though, I think it's a good, safe place for him to spend his time.

Photo with Special Blanket

This is a photo I snapped of Perryn with the blanket that Memere (Gary's grandmother) made for him. We took it and blew up a print for her for her birthday.

Another Closeup

Here's another closeup. Gary took this one while Perryn was sitting in his lap. I love the facial expression.