Swimming at the Y

We went swimming at the YMCA again today, which makes two weekends in a row. We're becoming regulars (which was part of the idea behind joining the Y in the first place). You can't really tell from this picture, but Evan had a great time:

Steph worked out while I swam with the boy, but unfortunately she waited too long before coming back to the pool with the camera. By the time she got there he was pretty much done with water (he just looks a little worried in the picture, but you should have heard him in the shower - that was an unhappy little guy). For the first 15 or 20 minutes he couldn't get enough of it, though. He was splashing his arms all over the place, and he figured out that if you splash both arms at once you get a big gout of water in your face, which he seems to enjoy (although it also surprises him a bit each time). He also doesn't mind putting his face in the water when I "swim" him around, although I think he's trying to drink the pool water. We'll have to work on that.

Anyway, next weekend we'll make sure Steph takes pictures at the beginning of our swim instead of the end so you get to see a happier baby.

More Jumparoo

We took another video of Evan in his Jumparoo today. As you can see, he's catching on to the Jumparoo concept (there's a reason it's not called the Runaroo or Dancearoo, after all):

Also, Steph wanted me to point out that what I called an orange "bear" in my first post on the topic is actually a kangaroo ("Ya know, jumparoo, kangaroo... duh!"). Seeing as how I received no comments or complaints about this travesty I'm guessing I'm not the only one who couldn't tell the difference.

Tech Support

It's possible Evan has a future in the tech support industry:


He already seems to understand the appropriate relationship between his keyboard and his hammer.

Easter

We spent most of Easter Sunday gardening, so we threw out a blanket in the shade so Evan could hang out with us:

We didn't dye eggs or have an Easter egg hunt (neither Steph or I are big fans of establishing traditions that Evan isn't even going to be able to participate in yet, let alone appreciate, especially when they require planning and effort on our part), but we did let Evan play with the only Easter-themed toys we have. Many, many moons ago my mom crocheted several chickees that fit inside L'eggs eggs (I didn't even realize they haven't sold L'eggs in the plastic egg packaging for a few decades... I guess it's been a while since I bought pantyhose) along with dyed egg covers for them. I found them a few weeks ago in one of the boxes of my old toys that was passed down to us when my parents moved to New York, and this seemed like the perfect time to introduce Evan to them (you can see the chickees around his feet, and the 3 eggs forming a perimeter to keep him centered on the blanket). They didn't make the same great sound his cups do when he smashed them together, but I think he liked them anyway.

Book Club

Steph is in a book club of moms of '07 babies. While Steph is very diligent about reading the assigned book each month (a commitment that is made easier by the fact that she is a crazy-fast reader), she will readily admit that the book discussion is at best a side show to the group's real purpose: talking about babies. Here's Evan at their most-recent book club meeting with some of his new friends:

I don't know who any of the other kids in this picture are, but I thought Evan was pretty cute in it.

Lunch with Penny and Loren

We went over to Steph's friend Penny's new house this weekend to have lunch with Penny and Loren. Besides enjoying a delicious lunch, Evan got to play in a baby walker for the first time, which he thought was pretty cool:

Now, you may wonder why Penny would be in possession of a baby walker when she has no children yet. I'm good at making up explanations for things, but I'm not touching that one.

Standing Practice

Evan has been very interested in trying to stand up recently. For the last few weeks, the standard procedure for getting him out of his crib (in the morning or after a nap) has been:

1. Sing the wakeup song as you walk in the room so he knows it's time to get up (as opposed to a visit while he's supposed to be asleep to address whatever it is that's causing him to not be asleep). Steph and I each have our own version of the wakeup song.
2. Spin him around (while he's still on his back) so his feet are facing you. We've had to introduce this step recently because Evan has taken to pivoting around during the night, to the point where his head has almost always rotated at least 90° from the orientation we laid him down in by morning. Getting him facing the right way is important for the next step.
3. Hold a finger from each hand out to him and say "Up up up!" He then grabs your fingers and pulls himself up to a standing position. It's hard to say exactly what the division of labor is in this process, but he's certainly doing more than half the work. He basically does a chin up and sticks his belly way out to shift his center of gravity forward, then waits for you to pull your fingers towards you (and thus the crib rail) to bring his head and shoulders back over his hips (I'm trying to describe this the way I'm sure he's thinking it while it happens).
4. Try to talk him into letting go of your fingers and hold on to the crib rail. The idea here is to show him what he might do if you weren't there to help him up, and free up a hand to try and work the camera. I'm not sure if Steph even bothers with this step, and I haven't been very successful with it. He's physically able to balance and stay standing once he's holding on to the railing (and for a couple of seconds without it), but he doesn't seem interested in letting go of your fingers in the first place. This step should probably be considered optional.
5. Say "1, 2, 3" and pick him up. I can't remember exactly why we count to 3 before picking him up, but there's some reason for it, and it's part of the ritual.
   

Here's a photo of step 4 that I took with my phone:

As you can see, I coerced him into holding the rail with one hand, but he would just not let go of my thumb.

While he hasn't really taken to my crib rail project, Evan is a big fan of standing practice in general (as I mentioned to start off this post). In fact, if given his druthers I think it might be his only form of recreation right now. Here he is in one session, dropping a book and picking it up again:

He loves picking things up, turning them around, and dropping them on the ground again. I'm not sure which he enjoys more, the pick-up-and-drop-things game or the stand-and-hold-things game, but pretty soon he'll be able to play both games at the same time all by himself!

Jumparoo

Our friends Dan and Michelle and the twins came over for lunch today, and they brought a new batch of hand-me-down clothes and toys with them. The toy we were most excited about was the Jumparoo, which we knew was heading our way once Sierra & Max started growing tired of it. ("We" obviously means "Steph and I" in this context, since Evan had no clue they were coming... or what a Jumparoo is... or who Dan and Michelle and Sierra and Max are.) The twins' reaction when they saw it in our house instead of theirs raises the question of whether they were really tired of it, but Dan and Michelle wanted to reclaim a few more square feet of their living room and we were happy to help.

We didn't end up putting Evan in the Jumparoo until later in the evening (too much going on with the extra kids around, I guess), but he certainly seemed to enjoy his inaugural experience:

Doesn't he remind you of the Lord of the Dance?

Later on we figured out how to put batteries in the orange bear on the front (a more complicated operation than you might expect) to make it sing. Evan seemed to like this almost as much as he liked being in the Jumparoo in the first place (if you click on the picture to zoom in you can see him sticking his tongue out, which is his version of the big smile):

More Portraits

Steph had to take new photos of some of her artwork for a show submission, and while she had all of the lights and drapes in place she took a bunch more portraity pictures of Evan. There are too many pictures to post them all, so I made a few photo collages to share.

First, the whole-baby view:

And some closeup shots too:

As always, you can click on either of the images to see a full-size version.

New Old Baby Carrier

We tried putting Evan in our Ergo baby carrier when we went to the Oakland Museum's White Elephant Sale yesterday, but he was less than pleased. He seems to be a little too small to fit in it comfortably when worn as a back carrier (yes, there is at least one arena in which Evan is too small). We saw some cheap old-style external frame baby carriers there, but we asked ourselves "Do we really need another baby carrier when Evan will fit in the Ergo any day now?" At the time we thought "No," but as the day wore on and Steph had more time to ponder her growing dissatisfaction with the BabyBjörn and digest how much Evan doesn't like the Ergo yet we started to regret not getting one. (We've used the Björn almost exclusively ever since Evan was big enough to fit it - besides the stroller, of course - but I've always liked it more than Steph. Our discussions with several other parents confirm that it seems to fit men better than women for whatever reason. I think it has something to do with men usually having broader backs and bigger shoulders, but what do I know?) After the morning dog walk nowadays Steph usually has a complaint or two about her back aching, and the situation has only grown worse as Evan has continued to pack on the pounds.

So as we were driving away from the sale we already were regretting not getting one of the baby carriers we saw, and later in the day things got worse. We made plans to go hiking/dog-walking at the Fremont Marshes the next day, and even though it was going to be an easy walk ("hiking" is really overstating what we had planned) it would have been the perfect environment to try out a new baby carrier. Luckily, as with so many of our baby gear needs, craigslist came through in the end. Steph found someone who was selling almost the same thing (the frame is aluminum instead of plastic, with the added benefit that the aluminum frame model is a smidge lighter and hasn't been recalled for spilling babies!) for the same price (only $15!), so we went by her house on the way to meeting Chad and Elizabeth (the friends we were walking with) to pick it up.

Problem solved! The new carrier distributes the weight of our ever-expanding baby quite nicely, he seems to stay a little warmer than he did in the Björn (probably because his limbs aren't splayed out as much), he looks more comfortable (again, the splayed limbs), he gets to do a little standing practice on the brace behind the hip belt (or at least he gets to work on his toe raises), and it even has a few small storage compartments for things like keys and water. I'd say its a win-win-win-win-win. Evan seems to like it:


An added advantage of the new carrier from Evan's perspective is that it gives him ready access to Mommy or Daddy's hair:

Two final thoughts about these pictures:

1. Isn't it crazy how blue they are?! The combination of blue jacket, blue bear suit, blue baby carrier, and blue sky in the fading daylight did a number on our camera's color balancer.
2. All of Evan's cold weather outerwear includes bear ears. I can't explain this.