Communication

He really doesn't run around the house screeching all day. It just feels like it.

The other day, he decided that he needed to start addressing his sister. He's settled on "Ahhhhhh Seeeeeeee". It's crazy cute.

He also now says
milk, done, down, water, please, some, this, bite, kiss, hug

He carries "weemee" the lemur around with him most of the day and sleeps with "mo-tay" the sock monkey. In general, though, he adores stuffed animals.

He blows kisses, makes several animal noises (but prefers Elephant, especially since he uses it to ask for the Elefun game that RC got for her birthday - loves that game.), and is quite persistent and effective in communicating with grunts, pushing and pointing when all else fails.

Well, that's settled

He's not allergic to peanuts.

I've been having mostly meat and cheese sandwiches lately. Corin will wander over, sit in my lap and take bites off of them. Today, I ran out of meat so I made PBnJ.

I was sitting there eating my sandwich and he reached for a bit. Before I realized, I let him have one. He came back for several more.

Now, if we can just get him over the tomatoes, we'll be good to go.

Tooth the ninth

Has finally made a rather sudden appearance. Lower left lateral incisor so he now looks less lopsided...on those rare occasions that he actually smiles to show teeth. Have I mentioned how awesomely he pouts?

That complicates things

Little stinker has figured out how to open doorknobs. It's not a huge issue because all the ones to outside have covers on them that even RC hasn't worked out yet (and I count my blessings on that every single day).

Inside, though, there were a few places I liked him being unable to access. Luckily he's still slow so there's time to catch him when he does it.

Right now, though, he's royally ticking off RC by going in and out of the bathroom as she tries to use it. Heh. Go sibling torment.

Molar

He's finally got tooth #8. His first molar came in last week. It's the lower right. He's a wicked chewing machine now.

Winner

Tonight, we went bowling as part of a Y promotion. They offered free bowling with 4 lanes per time slot. We grabbed one of the earliest ones and the kids, Gamma Ree and I went down there.

Corin adored it. We didn't turn on the gutter bumpers, but they did have a ramp for the kids to use to push it down the lane and get some extra speed. Corin loved pushing it down the ramp and clapping. He got pretty decent at it.

He was the only one of us to break 100. Go figure.

15m Appointment

Corin has his 15m appointment this week. He was 32 1/8" tall (80%), 25lbs7oz (65%), with a 48.8cm head (90%). He comes by the big head naturally - my dad and Chrys both have above average head sizes. This was the first appointment where his height percentile was above his weight percentile, and you can see it in his appearance. He's still stocky, but not near what he used to be.

He got his HIB (Hepatitis B) and DTaP (Diptheria, Tetanus and Pertussis) vaccines. That was a new combo vax. He also got his flu vaccine. He goes back for a booster in 4 weeks since this is his first one. If I didn't work at the Y, I wouldn't worry about flu, but the stuff that comes through there is crazy.

The doctor pronounced him above average since he's already throwing overhand (his aim is truly impressive and he's got great distance, too) and using TONS of words. He was climbing all over and that amused her. He didn't cry much at the vaccines which made the nurse feel better.

Tooth #7

Upper right lateral incisor made its appearance over two weeks ago. We have a molar on the horizon, too. Finally!

If you're going to buy one

We had our first instance of having to buy two of something to avoid conflict. Ryanne had a 'color pad' (magnetic drawing pad) in the car that dates back to living in Japan. It keeps her quiet and occupied on most of our trips. It's easy to clean up and mostly all stays together (pen and pad, at least) so there's no searching for pieces to make it work.

It's been getting pretty abused - stepped on, dropped, etc. It's missing all of its stamps. It's cracked and has to be pushed back together periodically. It still worked, though, and she was happy with it.

Recently, Corin wanted it. Desperately. She wasn't in the car so I let him have it.

When I got it back, the magnet from the pen was gone. It was small so I wasn't terribly worried about him passing it, but I was concerned about his sister not having anything to color with in the car.

Off we went to Target. It dawned on me, as I looked for a new pad with him, that if she had one, he was still going to want one. Fortunately, they make a younger age pad (shorter cord, bigger stamps, more recessed magnet) so now he has one, too.

They sit back there quietly playing with their pads - trading stamps, trading pads, talking. It's bliss. Even if it was twice the price.

Going to join the Navy?

Corin was walking around with his little tractor this morning. He had RC's Hello Kitty cup on the seat. I think he was giving it a ride. It kept falling off. He kept getting stuck. He was getting more and more frustrated.

After about the dozenth fall of the cup, he says "Dom-meh." I look at Chrys.
M: "Did he just say..."
C: "Yes."

Just now, he was beating on the door of the shoe closet (where we keep games). "Dom-meh. Dom-meh."

Maybe he means elephant... Surely my one year old doesn't swear like a sailor already.

Run away

We have a runner. He got through the legs moving faster with no actual increase in velocity stage and made it to real running. He can get to the street faster than I can grab my purse out of the car. I need to restructure my car unloading routine.

He also loves to "Dummm" (jump) off of things. This involves bending his knees and then walking off of any elevated surface. Grace be damned.

Two to One Conundrum

Corin is in that yucky state where 2 naps is a bit too much and one isn't quite enough. Yesterday, he got two naps, slept through the night, and was up this morning at 5am. The day before, it was one nap, up a half dozen times at night and up for the day at 5:30am.

I think I prefer the 5am and sleeping all night. Neither is as nice as two naps, sleeping through and getting up at 6:00 to 7:00, but I didn't like that much when it was happening.

Honestly, I don't remember how this transition went with Ryanne. I think it must have been easier. Maybe my rose glasses just have a fresh sleep deprivation polish.

He's getting roughly the same amount of sleep either way. The one nap is 1.5 hours long. The two naps are about 45 minutes each. I like them lumped together because the day is easier to plan, but I don't like getting up through the night.

I'm just tired and cranky. Unfortunately, he is too.

On teeth

Tooth #6 (upper left lateral incisor) cut through over the weekend.

He went to his first dentist appointment today. She said his teeth looked good. She found all 6. He wasn't too keen on the whole somebody prodding around in his mouth thing, but he didn't fuss about it. He *really* wanted pictures (xrays) taken of his teeth like his sister got, though.

Tooth #5

This one snuck up on us over the weekend. It's his lower right lateral incisor. We were looking for the upper left one since we've seen it coming and Chrys caught sight of this one. I think we'll have the other 3 in the next week or two.

Monkey redux

He's gotten up her chair onto the kitchen table now. My life just got *much* more exciting.

Add to that his innate ability to pick the *moment* I start peeing or pull my shirt/pants off to crawl under the door to a changing room/bathroom stall and it only compounds my joy.

Here I thought he was my cautious one. HA!

How fast...

We accept new things as normal. I look at pictures of Corin from just a month ago and I don't recognize him. I think I've seen him without the hair for longer than I was willing to admit. The short cut suits him.

Though I do miss the strawberry blonde that the ends had turned.

Corin can...

Turn off a light switch with marginal success at turning it on
Drink from a straw
Wave bye bye (but not on command...no way is he doing it on command)
Clap (again, not if you ask)
Tell you what a cat says (Ma-ooooowwww, Maow, MaaaaAh)
Crawl up the stairs frighteningly quickly
Butt bump down the stairs (thank goodness)
Climb pretty much anything that's level with his waist or lower (with increasing ease)
Click his tongue (sometimes when he's trying to call a cat)
Give kisses (big, sloppy open mouthed ones... and occasionally a closed mouth peck)

Amaze me every day with new tricks, understanding and affection. He's a cuddler and I *love* it.

First conversation

Today, we were cleaning up around the house. Chrys and Ryanne had gone upstairs to clean up from the Great Cat Puke Day of 2007(TM) while Corin and I hung out downstairs.

Corin's wandering around. He hears the Spot Bot and wanders over to the stairs. He looks over at me.

C: "Da-ee gon?"
M: "Daddy went upstairs"
C: (waves) "bye bye" (begins crawling up the stairs)
M: Where are you going?
C: "Da!" (and keeps right on crawling until he finds Chrys)

He checked in, found him, and then went back to the stairs to make his way down.

I suppose it could all be in my head, but that's a lot of coincidences and well timed babble.

Stats

He's 30 inches tall (50%), and 23lbs 1oz (55%). His head is 47.4cm (75% - big, like his daddy's). He got 4 shots - prevnar, hep a, mmr and (to my dismay) chickenpox.

The chickenpox vax perplexes me as it did with her. I put it off with her for a while, but eventually caved. As much as I'd like to believe that they could be exposed to it naturally, I wonder how many people there are that really don't vax against it.

I don't know...the whole delayed/no vax thing drives me nuts. As much as I don't want to fill my children with things they don't need, part of the reason that they don't need them is because so many people have had them. So much of what we vax against is not eradicated world wide. Just because it hasn't popped up in the US doesn't mean it doesn't happen anywhere and people, who aren't vax'ed, can't bring it back to the US with them. I like the idea of delaying to make sure there are no sensitivities, but neither of them have shown any problems and, truthfully, I don't want the hassle.

I default to sheepdom. I vax my kids on the schedule the state suggests. I, then, hang out with many women that don't and beat myself up whenever they discuss benefits or delaying or possible risks from vaccines, etc.

We'll see what happens when they hit me with the HPV vax for Ryanne, though. I'm still uneasy about that one.

Reflections on the first year

In some ways, it's gone by much faster than Ryanne's. I think I got to enjoy more of it, though, since my life was calmer. I felt more at ease in my 'skin', too, than I did with her.

I'm sad because it's the planned end of my baby days. I'm also excited about what lies ahead. Ryanne has gotten to be so much more fun as she gets older, in different ways than I ever imagined. Corin is following closely in those footsteps and creating new paths of his own.

He amazes me every day with what he has learned - climbing (omg - the climbing), new words, kisses, hugs, pointing. He is gentle, yet truly a boy in so many ways. He loves to push things around - cars, chairs, his sister. He loves to climb - the piano stool, chairs, the dollhouse, the stools in the bathrooms. He *loves* to cuddle.

He's sleeping better - 11ish hours at night (no wakings 7pm to 6-7am) and two naps (1x 1ish hour at 9am and 1x 2ish hours at 1pm). We finally caved to some crying it out because I couldn't cope with hourly wakings and him slamming me in the face while he slept with us. His head is HARD!

He's finally eating just table food. We slowly transitioned, one meal at a time, and he decided it was ok as long as everything is small enough. It's certainly less messy that purees being spit back at me. He's not picky, but he still doesn't eat much. He nurses a lot...a whole lot...and I have a feeling he will for some time.

With his hair cut, he is so much the image of his father. They are both very handsome.

His one year appointment is tomorrow so I'll post those stats then.

We have a portrait appointment this afternoon and we'll do his one year and Ryanne's 3.75 year pictures.

Life is good. I can't believe it's his birthday. I can't believe my dad didn't meet him. I'm glad he met so many others.

Transformation

From baby...



To toddler...



*sniff*

Lord of the tantrum

Yesterday, he had the worst fit. I didn't manage to get him out of the car seat still asleep and it caused a 30+ minute melt down. Screaming, thrashing, throwing himself on the floor.

Turns out, Corin has the worst diaper rash he's ever had. The poor kid wouldn't let me carry him on my hip yesterday because it spread his cheeks too far apart to be comfortable. Diaper changes are scream fests.

He's got about 1/4" of butt paste on there and that seems to keep him pretty calm. If only that was the girl's excuse.

Tooth #4

Appeared on Monday or Tuesday. There's debate over how much of it could actually be felt on which day. As expected, it's the upper left tooth to complement his upper right.

On with your day.

You know your feet are wide when...

Your mama has a hard time squeezing them into crocs.

I went to Stride Rite and had him measured over the weekend. He's a 4.5W - a full size larger than his sister and *wide*. Looking at his square little feet, the wide wasn't a surprise. He's been in Robeez (and Target's knockoffs), but even those are a bit tight in the elastic.

I got him a pair of sandals. They weren't wide, but they were a size up so the woman thought they'd be ok. We got him home and there were little red marks on his feet where the straps were. Clearly too tight. Plus, he was having a hard time dealing with the length and they were stiff, especially for early walkers.

So, they'll go back.

Since the goal was something that he could wear with all of the rain - leather shoes + rain = blech - he now has snazzy Mickey crocs. He's doing just fine wandering all over the house in them. I took them off and he got mad at me. I think they're a win.

Horror is...

Finding bright red in the day's first diaper.

Until you realize it's just one of the foam letter Ps from his sister's latest 'craft'.

Then it's... some odd cross between disturbing and hilarious.

I don't think Ryanne ate anything weird in the time I was changing diapers. Of course, she didn't have a three year old leaving a trail of fun and interesting things to eat either.

Corin's 11 month pictures

Check out the long hair. It will be gone for the next set. :(

http://homepage.mac.com/melia/PhotoAlbum7.html

Top o' the mouth

I finally feel tooth #3 poking through - upper right top. Thus begins the era of hurting me as well as himself when he bites while nursing. I must say I wasn't terribly looking forward to this.

He slept through all of the loud fireworks last night. Fell asleep at 6:45 and was fussy, but not waking as a result of all of the booms. It amazes me how well he can sleep.

Lots to say

Corin is amazingly verbal. RC said a lot and early, but he's blowing my mind (and that of many others - we get questions about him 'talking' quite a bit). Here's a quickie list of words I've heard him use correctly.

Yesh - Yes
Ah Dah - All done
Ayah, Ayan - Ryanne
Mama
Dada
Cah - Cat
Hi
Mo - More
Duh, Uck, Guk - Duck
Nini - Sleep
Nah Nah, No No - No
Nilt - Milk

He also responds to bye bye with a wave and yay with a clap.

Toddler

I have to come out of my denial. My baby is growing up. He's lost much of his baby face. He looks more like a little boy every day.

He's also, about a week ago, figured out how to stand up in the middle of the floor. With this conquest, he's walking pretty much full time. He seems to crawl if he's tired or playing, but it's certainly not the norm.

I can't believe how fast my time with him is passing by.

Fever

Corin has had diarrhea for a few days now. I wrote it off to teething. Yesterday, he spiked a bit of a fever (98.3 under arm, so within the 'normal' range for an infant, but a bit warm) to go with it and started being super clingy. Tonight he was up to 101.6 under arm which is very close to our 103 point where we actually give something to break it.

Since he seemed to be getting worse and was going to sleep in his crib where he won't be constantly monitored by us, we dosed him with Tylenol. We typically don't give anything to break a fever. Ryanne's been through a few now and done just fine. She's typically done with them in less than 12 hours. I'm still learning him, but hope this doesn't set him back.

I just want my happy boy back. Mostly because it's fun to listen to him meow at the cats - something he learned on Wednesday at Alice's house. Tonight he told Preta - "hi cah. m-ow." With the ow being like you hurt yourself and said OW. His language skills are MOST impressive, but that's another post entirely.

9 month appointment

Since I keep forgetting...

Key points: 20lbs 11oz (75th percentile) and 29" (also 75th percentile). Head circumference was 46.25 (75%).

She's crazy impressed at his language development and pointed out that she's seeing more and more problems as it seems society is forgetting how to teach children to talk.

She marveled at his cruising around the room with her stool. She said he was strong, personable, and very healthy.

He got one vaccine - his last(?) hepatitis B.

Steps to toddler

Let's see...May 11, Corin decided it was easiest to walk from the ottoman to the table rather than sit, crawl and stand. This was, maybe, 4 steps. That's been happening pretty consistently. If things are just a couple of steps away, he'll walk, thankyouverymuch.

Today, though, he wanted the 'hot dog' (octagonal pylon that gets put on it's side such that kids can use it to do handspring like motions or roll it as a walker) at Little Gym. He was pulling on my hand trying to get me to help him walk over to it. I would go a little way and then no further to keep him out of the way of the other kids.

Then he let go.

He must have taken about a dozen steps almost running after his teacher and that hot dog. He wanted it BAD...and caught it. Repeatedly.

Now, it's easier to taken a half dozen+ steps, fall down and then crawl. We're in trouble when he figures out how to stand up without help. For now, he's building stamina, balance and speed. Quickly.

I think I'm going to be in trouble soon.

Leaps of monkeys

Corin can now clap (4/22), drink from a straw (4/25), take a real definitive step before realizing it and sitting down (4/28) and push a box around so he can climb on top of said box in the kitchen to try to grab things off the counter (5/3).

Guess which one mommy's most excited (really!) about.

Toof the second

Lower left front tooth cleared the gum yesterday. He's refining his bite and tear on anything that gets close enough to his mouth. Consider yourselves warned.

First step

Today, he lifted a foot and threw himself at me. It wasn't really walking and he certainly didn't want to repeat it. It's still a step...

Time is going by WAY too fast.

Mouths bleed a lot

Today Corin was trying to get into the CD changer (this is an hourly challenge for him). I moved him to the side. He got hold of the TV stand and was watching me replace the tape on the CD box.

He lost his balance, I guess, and the next thing I heard this resounding thunk and he started screaming.

I grabbed him and was looking at his face trying to find the red mark. There was nothing. Then he opened his mouth to scream again and there was blood - everywhere.

Then Chrys walked in the door.

From what I was finally able to see, with Chrys' help, there's this tiny little cut on the inside of his upper lip. Man, that was a lot of blood, though.

I guess like father, like son. Chrys charmed me with his bleeding head and now Corin's got me with his lips. :)

Talking?!

Corin has this string of things that he consistently babbles.

Chrys is "ada".
I'm "ama".
He says "nini" when he's tired.
He'll call after the cats "cah".

One night as I tried to put him to sleep, he heard the jingle of cat collars. "Hi Hi Hi Hi Hi Hi Hihihihihi HI CAH".

A few nights later, Chrys was rocking him to sleep. Chrys had his eyes closed and Corin was watching him. "Da Nini (giggle)".

Could he seriously be doing 2 word sentences already? It seems crazy early since neither of us really remembers Ryanne even talking much.

Maybe we're making too much out of babbles. Maybe we are just more tuned to interpreting sounds we hear a lot due to our time with Ryanne. Maybe Ryanne constantly talking right in his face is making him develop a bit faster.

Standing and stair climbing

Earlier this week - poor 2nd kid, I don't know the day anymore - I looked over and Corin was scaling the stairs. He had it down. At this point he has the stamina to cover the bottom half. I need to figure out how to gate spindled stairs.

He's also proved to me in the last day or two that he's capable of standing on his own for 5+ seconds at a time. It's getting longer and longer and he's doing it more and more. He still isn't ready to make the leap to steps across a void, though; he'll fall to the ground and crawl. His falling is very controlled.

Physical milestones abound. Some talking, too, but more on that later.

It runs in the family

Corin's been chowing down, too. He'll pretty easily down 3x 4oz jars of food a day. We've heard verbalizations that sound like more ("mah") and all done ("ah dah") at appropriate times.

He's sleeping a bit better when he gets lots of carbs for dinner (read as most of a stage 3 jar (6oz) instead of just stage 2 (4oz)). We've gone from a max of 4 hours back to 6-8. I mean, his friend is sleeping that much... Yeah...

He'll cruise across structures instead of just along a single item of furniture. He'll jump from the easel to the ottoman to the couch, all of which require a little push to get across the gap. And he's toying more with standing. Today, he pushed himself up on my knee and then stood up. He looked really excited, wobbled back and forth a few times and then sat. I suspect he'll walk pretty early like his sister did.

He's already getting crazy fast at crawling. I need to figure out how we're going to baby proof the stairs, and soon.

Fang

Lower right front tooth has broken the surface.

That is all.

Baby's first black eye

Ryanne was trying to get one of her books away from him. She pulled so hard she ended up spinning around 360* and smacking him in the face. He has a swell gash on his cheek and the bottom of his eye is a little black and blue.

I'm sure it won't be his last. Not the way these two horse around with each other already.

On the flip side

He slept until 8:20 this morning...

Too bad Ryanne didn't.

I hate daylight savings time

It's his bedtime and he's WIDE awake. Could that be because it's still bright inside? This sucks.

Chrys is putting him to bed because he bit me. Teeth suck, too. Hmph.

First word?

As I've said before, Corin is entranced by our cats - Minuit especially.

Today, he turned around and I was petting her.

"[lots of excited babble]" pause "CAH" "[lots of excited babble]"

I thought, "Hmm...was that on purpose?"

He crawls over to her and she walks away. I put him up on the chair next to her. He starts excitedly crawling toward her. "Cah Cah CAH"

Guess that answers that.

Self-feeding

Corin is making terrific progress on his pincer grasp. He can now pretty easily get the puffs (cheerio sized) from the table to his mouth. We had been relying on the wheels since he could bite off of those without getting frustrated. The puffs were getting lost in his palm.

What's funny, though, is watching his other fingers when he's busily concentrating on the thumb and forefinger.

Sometimes he gets stuck because one of the 'extra' fingers ends up getting stuck in his nose. He tries to insert the food, but the extended 'extra' finger hits the nose first, goes up a bit, gets uncomfortable and the food hasn't hit the mouth yet. This is awkward, but humorous to watch.

Other times, he forgets how far in he needs to stick the food and ends up gagging himself on an extended finger as he shoves the puff into the back of his mouth. This is terrifying as I suddenly worry that he hasn't 'chewed' it enough and is choking.

He's come so far, but has some fine tuning yet to do.

White lines

Yesterday, nothing. Today, white line in the gum. There's bumpy and we can feel the ridge under the gum. There will be a tooth by the time we go to Midland next weekend. Maybe by tomorrow at the rate he's going.

He's been semi cranky, SUPER snotty and biting the world for weeks. Finally we will have something to show for it.

Finally got 'em posted

Now that my .Mac is working again...

New pics of Corin and Ryanne are on my .Mac page. There's last month's and the month before on the current and archive pages. I'll try to get this month's up when I get them emailed to me again.

The other side of the sibling

He worships her. He watches her every move. She cracks him up and gets better belly laughs than any one else can. He tries anything to keep her in his sights. He wants to be around her, to do what she's doing, to just be near her.

Someday, maybe, she'll realize how lucky she is to have her own fan club - hopefully before the lead member comes up with better things to do.

Did I mention...

That he waves?

A couple of weeks ago, we went to drop RC off at school. One of her teachers waved at him and he lifted his arm repeatedly in the little mini-Hitler salute that I grew to love as RC's first wave.

Since then, he's waved at more and more people when we say "hi".

I love this time of rapid milestones. It's so neat to watch things click.

Now, if he could just figure out how to not fall over and bang his head when he falls from having pulled up.

Baby's first zerbert

Ahhh...makes a mama's heart proud. We were in the tub tonight and Corin leaned over with his mouth on my thigh. *thibbit*

I gasped in surprise and he looked at me to gauge reaction. He actually looked a bit afraid that he'd done something wrong.

I cheered. RC cheered. Chrys cheered. He *bust* up laughing...and did it again...and again...and again. He was so proud of himself. I must have gotten a dozen zerberts on my leg.

We were all in hysterics, him included. Belly laughs all around. What more could I ask for at the end of the day?

Dropped

I lowered his crib this afternoon. He was in there, thinking about napping and then decided to play. He got himself on his knees with his hands on the bar. I bent down to hide from him and popped back up. He laughed. I bent down again.

He pulled up to standing. I gasped. He laughed hysterically. He was so excited he let go...and promptly fell over.

I took him out of his crib and left him crawling in his room while I went to get the tools to lowers his mattress. I came back and he'd crawled over to his riding toy.

I took the rail off and the mattress out. I looked over. He was trying to pull up on the riding toy, but it kept rolling out of the way.. I started taking bolts out and looked over. He was standing, laughing, with his hands on his toy.

I got the support out right as he fell over, again.

This kid needs to take a breather so I can catch up.

We're crawling

As of today, Corin is a crawler. He's been army crawling and pulling himself along with his arms for a week or two now. He could get one round of hand-knee-hand-knee before he fell over. Today, it just clicked. He's cross-crawling all over the place - starting with the Albany airport on our way home. He loved being baited all over the mat at Little Gym, too.

He also saved a new milestone for the trip to Troy. On Saturday, he went from crawling to sitting. Today, I saw him go from sitting to crawling without the obligatory head bump on his way down. The little guy needs to slow WAAAAAAAY down.

He loves to walk holding on to my hands. It kills my back because he's S.L.O.W., but it's ok with me. He's even playing with pulling up. He grabbed my hands and pulled himself to his knees and then to his feet - repeatedly. This is insanity.

It was interesting. He didn't talk much this weekend. It seems he was working too hard on getting the crawling thing under control. This afternoon, I heard him babbling a ton again. I guess that physical stuff is out of the way and he can go back to communication.

We did have one "ma" that got repeated when I was feeding him some peas and he would hold his mouth open. Could he be working on repeating "more"? Only time would tell, but it would be pretty funny to have the chunkster's first word be related to getting more vittles into his mouth.

Forward

He now has reliable forward locomotion. It's this awkward body lunge where he pushes with one foot and throws his arm as far as he can, trying to catch what he's aiming at. He gets there, though.

I suspect he'll be crawling by the time we get to NY. Won't that make for a fun plane ride?

Best carrier ever

I actually didn't have to remove Corin from the Ergo to go through security last night. That was SO awesome. I <3 that the Ergo is all plastic and cloth - no metal rings - so they just waved me through. Of course, it should make me a bit nervous that I accidentally left my cell in my pocket and that didn't set anything off, either...

6 month well check

He was 27.5" tall (90%), 18lb 15.4oz (75%), 45.2cm head (90%). The goal at this point is height more than weight so he's doing fine.

He sits...

If you distract him long enough. If he's just put there, he'll likely fall over in favor of being able to scoot around. If you give him something to play with, he can sit up and play for some time. We're not talking tripods here, we're talking real sitting. I didn't realize he'd gotten there until I put him down one day (a week or two ago) and handed him a toy. Next thing I know, he pulled his hands up and sat there for a while.

He's considering being able to push himself to sitting from his belly, but lacks coordination. This is the story of most things with him.

Ba da da

We had been wondering when the consonant vowel sounds would start. He was still mostly making vowel sounds. The last two days provided our answer.

He's suddenly making lots of consonant noises. We've heard 'duh' 'da' 'ma' 'meh' and a few others. 'Meh' seems to be his favorite right now, which somehow isn't surprising.

I <3 cats

Corin *adores* our cats. He thinks they are the best thing ever. If one walks near, he gets hella excited. If she should walk away (because, well, they don't like having fur pulled) he gets whiny.

I think Minuit is actually his favorite. Of course, that may be because she's the only one dumb enough to get near him.

It's very cool to watch him get so excited about seeing them, though. He'll start grunting and waving his arms around. Hilarious stuff.

Self-propelled

Corin is now very effective at moving himself around the floor. He can cover a decent amount of ground. He's certainly not crawling, per se, but he moves - mostly backward. He can roll all over. He can move himself side to side (in an arc which turns into a circle if he doesn't find what he's looking for). He can push himself backward. He's played with getting up on his hands and knees and rocking, but hasn't tried to push forward yet.

Ryanne isn't too happy with this. He likes to go for her stuff and chew on it. Ha - just wait little girl.

Best present ever

I got two AWESOME birthday presents from my boy.

1) He slept until 4am before waking for his first feeding. Yeah, so I woke up at 3am drenched and sore, it was still a damn nice gift.

2) He decided to string together some 'ma's for me at dinner. He was hanging out with Chrys and getting a little whiny. Suddenly we get 'meh' a few times and then a 'meh meh'. *melt*

A little man after my own heart.