Sing, sing a song!

Lately, whenever I sing to Micah, he has been joining in and singing, too. Unfortunately, he does not yet get any of the words right, but he is definitely singing with me. It just makes my heart swell with love. He ooohs and aahs and pauses around the right times, but unfortunately, I think he is unable to carry a tune (just like his mommy).

The past two nights, he has been a bit "clingy" at bed time. I take him upstairs, nurse him, and while he is extra sleepy, I plop him in the crib and leave as is our routine. Normally, he drifts right off to sleep, but the past few nights, he woke up and started shrieking. I tried waiting a few minutes to see if it would pass, but no such luck - the noises kept escalating. Immediately, when I walked in his room, he gave me his big, giant, winning grin, as if to say "Mommy, I missed you!" He wanted to hold my hand and look at me, and he definitely wanted me to sing. At bedtime, I usually sing You are My Sunshine or The Rose. Saturday night, I started with You are My Sunshine two times, then went into The Rose three times. He started to cry and fuss whenever I stopped singing. The first few times through the songs, he sang along, too, before he finally dropped off to sleep. Again, Sunday night, he woke up when I tried leaving the room. I went back in to be greeted by his charming squeal, and he asked me to sing (well, he started to make the "singing" sounds) and it was clear he wanted his songs. I sang a few renditions of The Rose and as I began the verses, he smiled ever so sweetly at me, sang a bit more, then rolled over to his side, stuck his thumb in his mouth, and started to drift off to never-never-land. If I tried to stop, he took the thumb out and rolled over to give me a dirty look. Never mind that I had a CD playing in the background - he only had ears for Mommy's horrible voice.

Oh, and did I mention that he and Nugget are having a love fest? She comes up every night to help put him to bed. He, in turn, cannot get enough of her. He squeals with joy every time he sees her, he rolls over to be close to her on the play mat, and when he SHOULD be eating dinner, he is busy looking through my glass table to locate Nugget underneath and smile at her. Did I mention yet how many times I've regretted purchasing that glass table over the past 10 years? Yeah - it is just as bad when Nugget sits underneath the table and longing looks up at us while we eat dinner.

Here is some adorable video of Micah screeching with delight on his playmat:

Six Months

Micah turned six months old today!! Can you believe how the time is flying? Micah decided to sleep in until 9 in honor of his half birthday. We had a leisurely morning, and he did get to listen to a nice rendition of "Happy Half Birthday" from his Grammy and Goppy. We spent the afternoon lounging at the pool with Daddy. It was such a pleasant day - the weather was perfect, the sky was clear, and there was a nice breeze blowing. The pool was nice and warm, and Micah was all smiles.

While Mommy took some time to swim laps (FINALLY getting my act together and exercising again!!), Micah took a trip with Daddy to the store, and napped the entire time. We arrived home around 4:30 or so. We gave Micah a bath (this is the 2nd night we bathed Micah as he SAT in the bath tub!!) and I fed him some dinner (a little milk, some green beans, rice cereal and avocado). Daddy left for work, and Micah and I played for a few more hours before bedtime. Here are some pictures from Micah's first time sitting in the bathtub (can you tell he likes to eat duck?):




This post seems like a good opportunity to review some of his recent milestones. Let's start with food. Micah is eating really well - we have now tried peas, green beans, avocado, bananas, squash, sweet potatoes, and carrots. We added a second meal in the past few days because he was getting hungry in the evenings.

He is also sitting really well - still not reliable enough for me to walk away and leave him when he is sitting, but he is fairly sturdy - he can definitely chew on the hooves of his toy giraffe while he is sitting! He is still teething - those bottom two teeth are just dying to break through. After much waiting, he is rolling from back to front with some frequency - in his crib, on the floor, on the grass at a friend's birthday bbq on Saturday, at playgroup, when he sees a toy he wants... I think he just likes to do things on his terms and in his own way. He is definitely passing objects from hand to hand, and he seems to be exploring the idea of crawling.

So, with that, happy half birthday, baby boy! I'd like to end with a few fun videos of Micah with his duck (press the triangle on the lower left corner to play!):

Busy Busy

"Busy busy" applies both to my life and to Micah's personality. I have been running at mach 5 for the past few weeks. I've been swamped conducting interview surveys for a project at work, and there have been so events happening in my personal life. This weekend, I had the Komen walk, my cousin Jodi's wedding (which was BEAUTIFUL) and we went to a baseball game. Additionally, my niece has been in town since Saturday, and I've been trying to spend time with her while getting work done and breaking in a new babysitter.

The babysitter situation is going really well - Christin is so sweet with Micah, and it really frees me up to get my work done and even run the occasional errand. We also got a call that our first choice daycare has a full-time slot available for us as of August 31. Right after that, we found another daycare (recommended by a friend) that has a slot available mid-August, so we have to figure out if that is the right option for us. I love having Micah at home with me so I can see him on my breaks, but I have a feeling that as he gets older, he won't let me get my work done once he realizes I'm in the other room. We are thinking of paying for the 5 days, and putting him there most days from 9 or 10 until 4. I will probably keep him home at least 1 day every week for mommy time, and we have a Thursday class together this Fall. I think I'd prefer to enroll him in a part-time 3 day a week daycare, but right now we don't seem to have that option. We may try enrolling full-time and see if they will work with us to drop down to part-time.

Micah is also quite busy these days... he likes to be doing something all the time. He is very busy when he plays with his toys, or rolls on the floor. He is constantly grabbing and doing. He actually started using the jumperoo this week - we finally figured out how to lower it, and he is now fitting in it quite nicely. I thought I'd round off this post with some recent pictures of Micah busily playing in his exersaucer.








Here is a video for good measure (naturally, he stopped playing and demonstrating how busy he can be and started mugging for the video instead, but hey, he is just too cute I had to post it anyway) - press the triangle on the lower left to see the video!

The Butterfly has landed

My niece Peyton is staying at my parents' house this week while my brother and SIL are on vacation. This was a wonderful trip for us, because we've never been able to spend any time alone with Peyton before. You see, Peyton is the younger sister, and she usually comes to us with her big sister in tow.

On her own, she is much more chatty than with her sister around. She gets into everything, loves to climb and is always very busy. She is quite sweet, although she has just discovered the word "NO." She likes to lean back as if she is throwing a tantrum, scrunch up her face, and scream "NNNNNNNOOOOO!" Luckily, right after she shouts no, she proceeds to engage in whatever we asked her to do. She is a great sleeper, and so kind to Micah. She hates to be restrained - after 5 minutes in her car seat, she starts to shout "out!"

We went for dinner with them on Monday night, and Peyton was busy feeding Micah his bottle. They were so cute together. She loves to call him "baby" and she is always trying to climb into his car seat. She even made sure to give him lots of kisses.

On Monday, my mom and I took her to see a butterfly exhibit at the botanical gardens. We were not sure if she was old enough to appreciate it, but to our great surprise, she LOVED it! She was running around, squealing at the butterflies, pointing at them, and very entertained for over an hour. The exhibit was in a greenhouse, and the butterflies flew all around us. They often landed on our shoulders and hair, and it was such a wonderful experience. Some of them had such gorgeous colors - some were cobalt blue and black, others were lime green and brown. I loved all the vibrant colors. They had coccoons on display as well, and some were hatching.

Tuesday, I brought Peyton with me to playgroup. I learned that she loves egg salad (I think she devoured the entire bowl) and watermelon. She kept begging for more of both. I also learned that she calls The Itsy Bitsy Spider by the name "Up Down" (you know... the itsy bitsy spider went UP the water spout. DOWN came the rain). She sings along, but mostly sings "Up Down" and likes to repeat it over and over again.

We have a few more activities planned before she heads home on Thursday.

Take me out to the ball game

On Sunday, we took the Micahs to their first baseball game. Yes, I said "the Micahs." We went with our friends and THEIR son Micah, too. Our Micah seemed to enjoy himself . . . he got to ride a train, and he had a great view of the field, he got to hold his friend Micah's hand, and he tried to eat pizza - he got both hands in it and mushed t

he pizza really well! He cried when we pulled him away and wiped off his hands.

He looked quite dapper in his Mets jersey, and he enjoyed himself rolling around on the floor in our seats behind home plate. He seemed to smile a lot and enjoy himself, although I'm not sure he had any clue he was at a baseball game.

The other Micah tried to suck our Micah's toes.

Here is some video of the boys holding hands - press the triangle in the lower left corner to view!

And some video of Micah having floor time at National Stadium: