Spoon

Be amused by Micah and his spoon.

Daddy's Boy

Amy went out of town to visit Melodie and Reece for a few days which meant that Micah had lots of special Daddy time.




We survived on stored breast-milk for a little while, but had to resort to formula after it ran out. I guess there was enough for one person to last two days, but not enough for both of us. That was a joke. In case you haven't figured it out already from the change in style and humor, Zack is currently writing as guest blogger while Amy and Micah recuperate from the effects of their separation.

"Baby formula touched Micah's lips, you say? Did the Earth blow up?"

No, he didn't blink an eye and chugged it like a fraternity brother. By the way, funny you should ask about the Earth blowing up. Remember when it actually did a few years ago?...and we all came to this planet on a giant space Ark?...and they didn't tell the stupid people because they thought they would all...

Sorry, I just became Steve Martin for a moment.

Zack survived because Richard and Victoria cooked him dinner on Monday (and remembered the tater tots), Maya and Abby walked with him Tuesday morning and Nick visited on Tuesday afternoon. On top of this, Micah slept like a superstar.

Amy returned this morning and we're all very happy.

Cold -> Snacktime

The upside of having a minor cold: slow drip from nose into mouth. Micah takes advantage.



Notice how he's moved up from boardbooks to Tolstoy.

Congratulations to the Fioris

Our good friends down at Stanford have good reason to be happy. Two weeks ago Nick defended his dissertation (successfully) and Kristin is wrapping hers up as well. Zack attended Nick's defense and Amy and Micah joined them later in the day for a nice picnic. Nick's work is in mathematics education and he and Kristin are jointly working on a constructive proof of the existence of children. Their results will be published sometime around late September.

Nick:




















Kristin:



















Amy has a problem with a cherry bonbon:

Long time no blog

We're back in business now. Just because you've all been sooooo patient, here's a video of Micah playing in a basket:



Y'all come back now, y'hear!

water babies

So I forgot to mention that last Thursday marked a major "First": Micah's 1st swim! Here we are in week 2 of our 8 week "swimming" class at the Y.

Today Micah graduated to the "breast stroke." Whereas last week mostly the legs were flailing, I mean kicking, now he got his arms into it too. Everyone in class was duly impressed. I guess some of his great- grandpop's genes are coming out. He's even gone under twice (well, okay, I blew on his face and dunked him--but you know what I mean.)


P.S. The absolute BEST part about swim class: the JUICY naps that follow! Last week it was 3 hours. At present Micah is amicably carrying on a conversation with his bear in his crib, content as can be...but I'm holding out for dreamland.

Spring

Taking full advantage of the INCREDIBLE Spring weather we are having, we went on a 4 hour family hike to the top of Eagle Peak on Mt. Diablo last Saturday with our diabolito. Here are some shots to record the memorable 8+ mile hike.

Going up:



Picnic at the Peak:



Family Portrait:


Vista shot:

9 months old!

So on Joey's 5 month birthday I finally got around to posting Micah's 9 month old birthday shots from 3 days ago. I know, I know...I'm disappointed I didn't do it last Friday too.

p.s I forgot to include the stats:
Length/Height: 29 3/4" - 90th percentile
Weight: 21 lb 5 oz - 50 to 75th percentile (I know, wide margin, huh?)

In terms of other developments I only just picked up "What to Expect" the other day and realized that he could be playing patty-cake with us or waving bye-bye--if only we were doing those things religiously with him. Not surprisingly when the doctor interviewed me, "So does he play patty cake?" "No." "Wave bye-bye?" "No." "Say 'mama' or 'dada'?" "No--and I've been really working on that one too." "Make any other sounds?" "Does growling count?...Oh! 'ba-ba-ba'!" (I beam with what appears to be my only point of pride this visit) "Point to something he wants?" "No, he just goes to whatever he wants."

The rest of the visit was basically focused on how Micah could die or get seriously injured if we, as parents, aren't continually looking out for potential hazards to his life. In case you were wondering... nearly EVERYTHING appears to be a potential hazard to his life.

In sum, we have a skinny, tall (long?) baby who ends up looking a lot older than he really is, who could die at any given moment due to our negligence and his own fine tuned mobility and penchant for mischief and can't even cry "mama!" or "dada!" for help.

trapped, corraled and otherwise penned in

a new era

The era of the ubiquitous cheerio (well, technically Joe's O's). Yep, they're everywhere and I can only guess they will multiply and turn up in the darnedest of places. Micah successfully ate cheerios yesterday without gagging--a marked improvement over the first attempt a couple of weeks ago that left me shaken and swearing off ever graduating Micah beyond any food that had not been mashed, pureed AND been put through the baby food mill. As this photo attests to, Micah hasn't quite mastered the pincer grasp(forefinger and thumb)-to-mouth coordination yet, but he is on his way.

Mealtime Mayhem

So I came across a salient snippet from the tenth month of "What to expect the first year." And I quote, "Eating with the average nine- or ten-month old is enough to make one lose one's appetite."

Survey says...



It continues, "There's as much playing with the food as eating it, and it's not unusual for more of it to end up on baby (and his clothes, his high chair, and the family dog who's waiting eagerly below) than in him."

Obviously:



"That's because mealtimes are no longer just for nourishment, but for exploring and discovering as well."

Exploring and discovering:



Following the book's advice, we are "remaining neutral".

My, what big teeth you have!

...The better to eat you with! Seriously, Micah is quite the biter, and if you recall he is still nursing, you can imagine how much that might hurt ones -er, body.

Play time

Knocking down block towers never gets old:


Nor does eating blocks that are actually meant to be sorted by the appropriate shape into the holes of the box


And our budding musician at play. Okay, so actually he started to eat the mallet and grunted at the xylophone while hurling it in the air moments after this shot was taken

And here he is eating the new rattle:

stairway to WORRY

Why we are encouraging this behavior, I am not sure. I'll have you know that in the 30 seconds before starting to record Micah went from unable to get the second knee up to proficiency. Good thing we bought the safety gates for the stairs last weekend. (Disregard the loose cables and wires at the end of the video. We're child proofing...slowly.)