Notice His New Skill?

This weekend, while away at Emeryk's birthday, Rafferty became the master of sitting up! Notice I said, sitting up and NOT spitting up? Well, we are SO very proud of his strength because, as you know, he's got to have a GREAT deal of strength to hold HIS body upright!

More Moments with Sophie

Wherever Rafferty may go, Sophie seems to follow. Maybe it's not HIS Sophie, it's a Sophie, nonetheless, and he never discriminates, as you can plainly see.

Baby-led Weaning?

Alright.  So with more than several attempts at solids (purees), I realize Rafferty is just not going to get into spoon-feeding anytime soon.  I am more than willing to put it off longer because I meet many who say their babies didn't take solids until 8-9 months and we all know VERY well that Raf is NOT starving at more than 23lbs. and just a bit over six months.  I'm not even worried about it, but it does intrigue me since none of his sisters engaged in this type of behavior.  I will say, he has starting looking at us with great curiosity during meal times and he's even making chewing motions while he watches us too.  Funny.  Anyway,  I started looking on the internet to pass the time really and discovered a concept called Baby-led Weaning.  Basically this means allowing the baby to self-feed on his own terms.  He takes total control of the food once I put it on his tray and I never put it in his mouth for him.  Essentially you skip spoon-feeding and purees altogether. I thought this sounded interesting and was very curious to see how he would manage with actual solid food in front of him.  Here are the pictures to document our first try with banana and avocado.  This first picture is his actual first sampling of the goods (banana) and he wasn't too sure about it as you can see, but by the time I introduced the avocado he was quite happy.  Another perk, or maybe not, you decide, was that he had a great deal of fun with the food.  He made SUCH a mess, think finger painting, and I really think it was a great learning experience for him.  So, crazy or not, I think this baby-led weaning thing is going to be a fun, yet messy process for Rafferty and am really looking forward to broccoli and carrots next week.  Until then.....

Our 7th Anniversary

We were fortunate to be able to go to Chicago for our anniversary this year. We nearly didn't make it due to inclement weather and our visit was ultimately cut a day short but we DID make it and had a great time, as usual. Andrew and Abbi being the wonderful hosts that they always are, welcomed us and Gabe came up too. We had a great time. On our anniversary, we made it to the Art Museum and visited the modern art wing with Gabe and Rafferty keeping us company. Such fun! We miss everyone already and were sad to say goodbye. I get so homesick sometimes....

Hadley & Imogen

Have a Happy Valentine's Day for "crayon" out loud!

Here's one of our projects of the week. Our crayon hearts are just various broken up crayons melted in the oven at 250 degrees for thirteen minutes. I initially got the idea from Oh Dee Doh, and I think they credited Family Fun in their 25 Easy Valentine's Gifts. The kids and I really enjoyed combining all the colors to get these. Once they were finished, we attached them to paper to read what I posted in the title. Cute and simple!

Imogen & the Valentine's Day Dance

Imogen and her classmates had their Valentine's Day dance at preschool today and exchanged their treats. Over the last several days, we've been rounding up the goodies for the treat bags to give to her friends and teachers and we've been very busy. Last night we made watermelon heart treats. What a juicy mess that was! They were supposed to have a bow and arrow made out of oranges attached to them by way of skewer, but the oranges proved to be way too ripe, I think. They went in a separate container and never became the bow and arrow. Nonetheless, they were still cute watermelon hearts on a cute heart plate and despite the fact that I think watermelon is out of season, it was delicious too! Imogen was so excited when she got picked up from school today because she couldn't wait to get home and open all the cute treats from her classmates and tell me about the dance. She loved all her valentines and at this point has had more than her share of sugar for the entire week, I think! But seriously, the kids in her class were just too cute today being dressed so fancy, but then again, they're always cute.

Saints win, Saints win!!!

What a finish to a fabulous season!

6 Months

Wow. Time sure flies.... Rafferty turned six months old this week. Already? I can't believe half a year has gone by so very quickly. This big guy has so much personality now. He's cuddly, drooly, funny. He's a lot of things.

To start, he weighed exactly 23lbs. and measured 27.5 inches at this week's appointment. He's off the chart for weight, of course and, as usual, and about 77% for height. He got a shot and didn't even notice and I think it's due to the sheer size of his thighs, or thankles, if you like. :) He's still loves for people to notice him but is much less likely to cry when you get close now. He loves to engage people. Physically, he's strong but he's not sitting up too well yet. I think it's because he's trying to work with extra weight. He pushes up to all fours once in awhile. He's VERY ticklish. He loves to blow raspberries. ALOT.

His sleep schedule has improved immensely this week. We've been trying to set a schedule with him because it was SO erratic that we were going crazy. His waking every 1.5-2 hrs to nurse was really taking its toll on Mommy. I finally decided to do something about it. He's nursing only once a night now but may wake up to three times still. We let him know we're there but we cut most of the nursing out. He cries for a couple minutes typically and then goes back to sleep. So far, he hasn't seemed too upset about it. He's taking it really well. I just didn't want to do cry-it-out. I feel more comfortable with this method. "Yes, we're here, but no, we're not nursing."

Solids. NO THANK YOU! But we keep trying. First baby I ever met that gags, and gags consistently on things like, BANANAS!!! I keep revisting cereal but there is no interest-yet. Oh well. I've never experienced this before. It's completely new territory for me. Never met a baby who didn't like bananas.

One last thing that surprises me is his first tooth. Yep, he began to get one in this week but not where you would think. He's getting in his bottom lateral incisor, a tooth on the left of his mouth, not the center. It's not as common, but it does happen according to the dentist. It seems to be taking a lot longer to come in than most first teeth, as a week later it's still just a couple of white bumps peeking out. Weird.

So this is where little Rafferty's at this month. He's so much fun. I look forward to his smile every day. I love to hear his voice. He just melts my heart.