What a Swinger

This past weekend, we traveled to Cedar City to visit with my family. On Saturday, we had family pictures taken up Cedar Canyon and then we went to the park so the kids could play.

Riley and Eddie when we first arrived at the park.

Eddie looking tiny in the park swing.

As you can see, he liked it a lot. He got quite angry when we took him out.

Mmm... Prunes Are Good!

We recently discovered Eddie's love for prunes. He gets so excited when we give him some that he waves his arms around and kicks his legs like crazy. Here is today's prune feeding, for example:

He happily awaits the next bite.

He gobbles it down with only half squishing back out for another try.

But all good things must come to an end.

(For the record, Eddie was wearing a diaper under that bib...)

Sitting Up... Almost

Like I already mentioned, Eddie likes to sit up even though he's not good at balancing himself. If he's concentrating on something by his feet (or on his feet), he can usually stay up by himself for 5 or 10 seconds. Otherwise, he almost always tips backwards. Today to allow myself the freedom to read the mail, I propped him up with blankets and let him play for a while. Most of the time he looked like he was using all his abdominal muscles to hold himself up like this:


I also think he might be learning how to smile for the camera because nearly every time I'd go to take a photo, he'd get a cheesy grin like this:


However, I don't want anyone to be misled by these amazingly cute photos. Even though our child is ridiculously cute, I would say that at least half of my day is spent dealing with this:

This Week in Eddie

Nothing monumental has happened in the past week, but I thought since it's been an entire week, I ought to share a few photos I have taken of Eddie.

Eddie loves to sit up, even though he can't balance himself for longer than 2 second at a time. Here I am helping him out with my legs. This photo also shows off his new robot jammies.

He has also recently realized that he is flexible enough to grab his own toes and put them into his mouth. Socks really get in the way of this, but it's getting so darn cold that I'm letting him lay around without clothes on less and less.

Today I laid him on his little activity mat and he used his feet to push the overhead arches down so that he could grab one of the supports and chew on it. Pretty clever if you ask me.

Five Months Old

Eddie is five months old today! In honor of his almost half-birthday, here are some fun facts about Ed:

New Things

Sucking on his lips and/or tongue. I'll hear all sorts of slurping and think he's sucking on his hands, but no... just his lips.

Squealing. I particularly enjoy the squeals that are so high-pitched that only dogs can hear them. Otherwise, they hurt my ears.

Dislikes

Riding in the car. Often I will be struggling to get him to take a nap, so I'll strap Eddie into his car seat and we'll go somewhere (usually the library or the store). This used to work like a charm to get him to sleep, thus allowing me to browse the library shelves or get my shopping done. Now he'll sometimes stay happily awake for the whole trip (thus not taking a nap) or he'll scream the whole time and look at me like he was betrayed. There is no happy medium in this situation.

Citrus fruits. I myself am not the biggest fan of citrus fruits, but whenever I happen to enjoy a half glass of orange juice, I am always in for trouble. I have stopped drinking it altogether. What didn't occur to me is that Key Lime pie has limes in it... so I ate some one night last week. The next morning I basically got showered in spit-up. It was a lovely way to start the day.

Crowded restaurants. I think this one boils down to over-stimulation. Restaurants are too crowded, too hot, and too noisy for our boy. More often than not, one of us ends up holding him (or standing outside the restaurant holding him) while the other eats.

Letting Mommy and Daddy sit down. Eddie loves being held while the holder is standing. If he's not asleep when you sit down, he will freak out.

Likes

Eating with a spoon. So far, his favorite veggie seems to be green beans. He grimaced at squash and was a little unsure about sweet potatoes.

Being naked (or nearly so). We recently discovered that, though Eddie is ornery in the evenings, if we take off his clothes, he will be happy as a clam. But as soon as we put on his pajamas, he's back to being ornery.

Snots and Otis. When Eddie was born, Jeremy, Natalie, Dax, and Riley gave him a stuffed brown dog named Snots (in honor of Dax and Riley now having a Cousin Eddie). Eddie loves the dog, but he pulls his hair out and ends up with brown fuzz between his fingers. Otis is what I dubbed his little orange octopus toy one day when I was getting a little loopy and naming all his toys. For some reason, as soon as he sees that octopus, he gets all excited and shakes his arms and legs. Perhaps the tentacles are just the right size for chewing on.

The Sneetches and Other Stories by Dr. Seuss. Even though The Sneetches is quite the long story, Eddie will usually sit through it and sometimes even cough-laugh at Sylvester McMonkey McBean and his star-off machine. This book also features the wonderful stories The Zax, Too Many Daves, and What Was I Scared Of. I'm hoping that by reading him all these books now, he'll grow up to have an amazing vocabulary.


"When He Comes Again" from the Children's Songbook. Now I am not much of a singer...especially when singing a capella, but Ed loves this song. He can be all sorts of mad at me and I'll sing this song and he'll just hang out until it's over, then he'll start screaming again. Unfortunately it only has one verse (that I know of) and isn't all that long... so sometimes we just sing it over and over and over again. I've tried other Primary songs, but this one is the clear favorite.

Zoobie Doobie Doo

Today Eddie experienced his first zoo adventure. He and I went to Hogle Zoo with Cheryl, Zach, Sarah, Christie, Josh, Neil, and a few of Josh's friends. Eddie squealed at me the entire way to the zoo, then fell asleep about 2 minutes before we arrived.

He woke up in time to look at the elephants. Really I looked at the elephants and he looked at all the crazy kids around us. Obviously he's not old enough to be too interested in large caged animals.

He broke down about the time we arrived at the giraffes. That's right, just before the huge hill. So I was lucky enough to get a workout carrying him while pushing the stroller up the hill to see the tiger. Eventually I got tired of lugging him around, so we went to sit by the carousel to wait for the others to see the camels and gorilla.

Then we watched everyone else ride the carousel.

On the way out, we stopped at the giant elephant for a photo-op. Ed wasn't too interested, as you can see.

Just Like Daddy

We like to make stupid faces and noises at Eddie because they make him smile, but this was the first time he actually mimicked one of us instead of just laughing at us. Apparently Eddie wants to be just like his daddy... because he wouldn't do this when I tried it later. I cut out the sound and added fun music just so you don't have to listen to me chuckling through the whole video. Enjoy!

Puny Pals

Heather, one of my good friends from Price, recently moved to South Jordan with her husband and son. This is great for two reasons:

1. She's only 5 minutes away now, so we can hang out.
2. She has a baby who is just 7 weeks younger than Eddie so they can be friends.

Of course, when you're only 4 or 5 months old, being friends isn't really the same as when you're 23. But we still take advantage of the situation. So here are a few pictures of our cute boys, Eddie and Taylor.

Enjoying joint tummy time (Taylor likes this a lot more than Eddie does)

Even though they're 7 weeks apart, they're still nearly the same size

The Adventures of Frugal Fanny

Dave's sister Cheryl has an over-producing peach tree in her backyard and decided to use some of the peaches to make baby food. She kindly gave us a bag full of frozen pureed peach cubes. This inspired me to start making baby food for Eddie. It's actually really easy to do. I must give credit to one of my new favorite websites: www.wholesomebabyfood.com. This website has instructions on how to make all sorts of baby food, as well as age recommendations for each type of food.

During our last grocery-shopping trip, I bought some pears and mangos (since they were on sale) and I spent about 30 minutes yesterday preparing the food. All you have to do is cook the fruit or veggie somehow (steam, boil, bake, or roast), then puree it until it's baby food consistency. Then you freeze it in ice cube trays so you have handy serving sizes. You can keep homemade baby food in the freezer like this for months! I never thought baby food was expensive until I did some calculations. One tiny jar is 40 cents at Wal-Mart, but I spent about $3 on pears and mangos and made about 40 ice-cube size portions. Perhaps this makes me a "Frugal Fanny," but there are worse things. I just hope Eddie likes mangos...

The Airing of Grievances (Eddie-Style)

I felt kinda bad for Daddy, since not very many people took up his offer to air their grievances, so I decided to make my own list. It took me a little while since I had to learn how to read and write first. Here goes.

1. People who can't tell that I'm a boy
Mommy and Daddy dress me in obviously boy clothes in an attempt to avoid this problem, but it doesn't always work. Honestly, how many girls do you see wearing shirts with skateboarding monkeys on them? I know I have beautiful porcelain skin like a certain teenage vampire, but come on. Plus, if I were a girl, I would be wearing a headband featuring a flower the size of a cantaloupe.

2. Clothes that advertise my lack of size
I'm aware I'm not as large as say... Daddy... but do all the clothes my parents buy have to feature the word "lil" or "little" on them? I've got "little captain" pajamas, a "lil buckaroo" onesie, "little monkey" overalls, "little cutie" burp-cloths, and the list goes on. Didn't you people ever listen to Yoda?

3. Strangers who use me as a conversation starter
No, I'm not grumpy, I just don't like to share my perfect smile with strangers in Wal-Mart, the doctor's office, the elevator, the parking lot, etc. Mommy should just attach a sign to my car seat that says, "Yes, I'm a boy and I am 4 months old. I am aware that I am very cute. You really don't have to tell me about your grandchildren. I'm sure they're almost as cute as I am." That would save a lot of awkward conversations.

4. Mommy and Daddy's dinner time
Why is it that every day around 6:00 PM, Mommy and Daddy don't want to pay attention to me? I keep yelling at them, but all they do is hand me a toy and go back to shoveling food in their mouths. I usually win about halfway through though, and one of them is forced to abandon their dinner and pick me up.

5. The hypnotizing/brainwashing effects of my "dealie whirler"
For those who are unaware, my "dealie whirler" is a toy that Mommy and Daddy put me under, and features all manner of twirling, whirling lights, colors, shapes and sounds. Try as I might, once it starts, I cannot look away. I'm worried if I stare at it long enough, I might just forget all my recently acquired reading and writing skills. Mommy and Daddy don't care though, they are too busy playing Ticket to Ride for the umpteenth time.