6 months.

I'm a week late on this post, but better late than never...

Henry must have had an awakening a few weeks ago because he is a totally different baby at 6 months. He is smiley and happy, much more relaxed, he is consistently going to bed between 7-8 and only getting up once (sometimes 2x) a night to eat, then typically sleeps through the night till about 5:30-6:30am. He puts himself to sleep most nights (i.e. we don't have to rock him as much), and the nanny tells me that this week he has gone to sleep for naps some of the time by himself instead of being rocked! I honestly think he just took a look in the mirror one morning and thought, hmm. I'm older now, it's time I owned up to it. It's bizarre, and I totally appreciate it and I just love Henry to pieces no matter what he does, but I can enjoy life a little more when I'm not so sleep deprived. (I always feel selfish when I talk about my sleep. Mom guilt!)

So aside from sleeping and generally just being super easygoing and sweet, here's what Henry is up to at 6 months:

Milestones:

Smiling all the time now, at us, and even at other people who smile at him. It's pretty cute to watch passerby's smile at him and see Henry respond by smiling and kicking his feet. 

Jumping. This kid cannot get enough. We put him in his little jumper in the mornings while we're getting his bottles ready, and then again at night when we come home for about 5-10 minutes each time. I am confident in saying he would prefer to be in that jumper for at least 10 times that much per day. He jumps all day long and the best part is he only really jumps on one foot. His right foot just kind of punches the floor with his toes while his left does all the work. I die. When he's standing on our laps, he's jumping. When we stand him on the ground, he's jumping. He lives to jump. 

Goes dadadada all the time. A little bababa, but his preferred consonant is the D. Mark is convinced he is calling out to him, but we can't find any conclusive evidence on this. Sadly. :)
He just started smiling with all his gums and doing lip trills. Love this.

He likes his rattles and anything that makes noise. We have this little saxophone toy that makes music and he always reaches out to it. He gets frustrated pretty easily if he can't reach something he wants. We're working with him day and night on rolling over (so he can get the things!), but he is so uninterested it's comical. 

He will sit for a few seconds on his own, but still topples over. Hasn't quite mastered it yet - maybe in a few weeks!

Personality:

The boy wants independence! You can just see it in his movements and his expression. But even though he wants his independence, he is fiercely attached to his mom and dad. And nanny, too. When I come home from work every day and pick him up, he grabs onto the nape of my neck (tight!) and buries his head in my neck like a little hug. I love it! He laughs at us and climbs on dada every morning. He loves to move his hands around on our arms and legs and "massage". So naturally I will put him in the crook of my legs and he will give me an awesome leg massage. :)

Feeding:
He only tried a taste of a pickle and teethed a little on a bagel, but no solid food at 6 months. (We did give him a taste of banana and avocado the other day, and throw up both times. Oh Henry.) 

Stats:

He's right around 18 pounds and wearing 6-12 month clothes for the past month or so. Big belly, huge cheeks, and fat feet. We love every little inch of him!

This month, we're looking forward to exploring solid foods, getting a high chair, and starting to run together with a jogging stroller! It's going to be an exciting month.

Henry is not a roadtripper.

He was a trooper last weekend as we stuck him in his carseat day trip after day trip. By the end of the trip, he would fuss a little every time we put him in his carseat (no! don't make me sit in that thing again!). Every time we unbuckled him, he sat up straight to help us get him out, then smiled and starting jumping up and down on our laps. And then this happened.

I command thee, mother, to stop putting me in that seat henceforth! Let it be known throughout the land!

i am proud to be your mother, i whispered.

i mean, geez. who knew being a mother was such a roller coaster of emotion? bless my mother in all her goodness to have born SIX children, all in nine years. I am pretty sure that means she was pregnant or nursing for 9 years, changing diapers for at least 10 years, and checking on homework/shuttling to piano lessons/picking up kids from after school sports/attending recitals/etc for a good twenty years. She is a saint to say the least.

Yesterday was a wonderful day. I slept in, I took a nap, I ate good food, and I got to spend the whole day with the boys I love the most. When I put Henry to bed last night, I leaned over to give him his goodnight kiss and he grabbed my hand, pulled it close to him, and smiled his big Henry smile. I melted into a puddle. We looked at each other for a few moments, and I whispered to him, I am proud to be yours. Thank you for making me a mother, Henry. It truly is so sweet being the one to raise him.

Weekend in the Finger Lakes

We went to the Finger Lakes last weekend to celebrate me turning thirty. Around these parts, we turn thirty with some degree of fanfare. Mark went to Montreal, and I chose the Finger Lakes in upstate/western New York. We had never been before, and it was quite beautiful and charming! We rented a cute little house on Cayuga Lake, 25 miles north of Ithaca, through vrbo.com and spent the weekend lakeside.

Our friends, Owen and Anna, came down for a night from Rochester to visit and take us on a hike to Buttermilk Falls. It was great to meet their little baby, Danton, who just turned one. I have never seen a baby that young with so much hair! He is adorable. The funny thing about Owen and Anna is this: every time we see them we go on some sort of hike, which always ends up much bigger than Mark and I originally envisioned. I guess our idea of hiking is walking the gravel path to the site. Pathetic, I know. Anyway, the first hike we went on ended up being miles of straight up and down (should've known - it's called the Devils Path!); the second hike had us up a snowy mountain, snow camping in Washington state; and this teeny third hike was a bit soggy but the thing that was tough about this hike was baby Henry threw up twice. He's not used to all the jostling around, poor thing. He took it in stride though, and fell asleep for most of it. Anyway, we love Owen and Anna, even if they are much more bad-ass than we are, and it was great to see them before they move.

We took a day and went north to Palmayra to see Hill Cumorah, the Smith farm, the Sacred Grove, and the printing shop where the B.O.M. was printed. It was really cool to see all those sites and awesome that our church has preserved the beauty of these locations for us to experience.

My favorite part of the trip was a little drive we took to Skaneateles, a sweet little village with the most amazing bakery, where we ate our weight in fresh cake donuts. I felt a little embarrassed afterwards, because now that I'm thirty, I should have some self-restraint, right? I'm working on it. Maybe by forty.

It was a nice, serene weekend, but we quickly found out that Henry prefers his own crib and doesn't much care for the pack-and-play. His nights were pretty restless and his days were spent taking naps in the carseat while we drove around. I think we learned a valuable lesson for vacationing with a baby - choose a place to stay where you can walk around with baby instead of driving the whole time. Like maybe in a city, or right on the beach. You better believe we'll be doing that next time. Also, the last day we were on vacation, Mr. Hen came down with a little cold and now he's just miserable. He sneezes or coughs and looks up at me and says "Unnnnnhhhhhh". It's so heartbreaking!  We're taking it easy this week to recover, but it's nice to come back to a 3-day work week.

Mostly I just loved being with my two guys for 4 days straight! I can't wait to go on our next trip with this little family of mine. Sure do love them.

roadtrippin.

We're taking off for a long weekend to upstate New York. Can't wait to unplug and spend some serious downtime with my little family and celebrate my birthday (this one's a biggie, after all). This picture was taken a few years ago from a roadtrip with friends NYC to DC. Let it be known - I miss that shirt.
This will be our first vacation with a baby! We are so excited to show Hen the way of vacation, though I'm sure it will likely be him showing us how to vacation properly. ;) If you'd like to follow along, I'm on instagram at @JulieTaylor.

it's friday!

what a whirlwind week it was! at the start of this week, mark and i had grand plans to spend quality time together each night. monday was a craigslist night. tuesday was TV. wednesday was a surprise girls night out to the kennedy center. thursday was late night at the office for mark. and now it's friday. we haven't even had dinner together all week! except for chick fil a on monday night, which ended up coming back up at 3am (overshare?)

it's been a nutty week, but a good one. we are tired, we are kind of a mess, but we are well-loved. and that's what counts, right?

oh, lest i forget, did i mention henry and i both went to the doctor today? we both have pink eye. it's super sad and all that, but i secretly like that we share diseases. what he has, i have and vice versa. i love little henny pot so much i could cry. oh wait i am! oh...no, wait, that's just my watery pink eye.

baby sleep. advice?

I know all babies are different. I know.
I'd still like your advice, though. we are coming up on 6 months in a few weeks, the age at which many books say most babies are old enough to sleep through the night and understand how to learn to sleep better.

Henry will usually go to sleep pretty well between 7-8pm. We put him down in his crib and he will fall asleep in 5-15 minutes after a little singing or belly patting or shushing, and after a lot of re-putting in his paci. So I think we're doing pretty good in that department. But it's the staying asleep that's getting us right now. He typically wakes up around 11pm, and then between 2-3 more times throughout the night, and often has trouble getting resettled.

At 6 months, I'd like to help him learn how to sleep through the night, just waking up once to eat. I know he can do it - he does it occasionally, and it's awesome when it happens. Also, when he wakes up, I typically only feed him 1 or 2 of the times he's up, so I know he only needs the 1 feeding.

I'm also not ready to let him cry it out for too long, mainly because I feel like it wouldn't work for him. He's very high spirited and I am pretty sure he'd just cry all night long, and I just couldn't do that right now.

How did you get your babies to start sleeping through the night? I'm reading a bunch of sleep books, but none of them really make sense to me. I feel like everyone is the world must be sleeping better than me and Mark and I can't believe we've made it almost 6 months on minimal sleep. When I think back on what I used to think tired felt like, I just laugh at what a wuss I was. I didn't know tired.

Help?

new week.

this past weekend was an awesome sandwich with lame meat.
we had friends over for dinner on friday and i successfully cooked buttery fish and roasted asparagus, and made a new spinach salad with blackberries, avocado, and other yummies with a red wine vinegrette. dessert was a ganache poundcake which we sliced using a very sharp knife into teeny slivers, so we could eat like 5 pieces per person. it made me feel awesome.
saturday we woke up at 7am with Henry boy, and we went for a little walk around our neighborhood to check out the new farmers market, bought some farm fresh eggs, then came home and made egg sandwiches. then i jaunted into georgetown for furniture shopping while mark stayed home with the babe (which was lucky for me because he had a blowout while i was gone. could you imagine if i had brought him with!) that night i watched episodes of the new girl on Hulu. have you been watching it? we didn't like it at first, but it has been so funny lately.
sunday was sleeping in for mama, big breakfast for all of us, long nap for Henry, church, and the night ended in lameness. mark and i can't agree about house stuff, so we just end up bickering about it. i hate it.
so our house is a wreck because we can't decide where to put anything, i have a new chair that i (kind of) love and he does not like, and this weekend rain didn't motivate us to get to the stores we need to in order to finish putting the house together.
anyway, what i could really use is another saturday like right now. anyone have one available?

ps - to top it off, we both admitted over the weekend that we hate the couch! the couch we agonized over and waited 3 months to have delivered. we are so messed up.

this week.

How is it Thursday already? This has been a crazy busy week, and one full of fun impromptu activities.

Tuesday I asked Mark to come home early from work to put Henry to bed while I had a "me" date. I took myself shopping in Georgetown, grocery shopping at Trader Joe's where I bought myself doughnuts and some chocolate treats, then when I got home I read a magazine. It was a lovely lovely date, and I think I'll be asking myself out again real soon.

Wednesday our friends invited us to a baseball game using some VIP tickets scored from the office. We bouged it up in the President's Club, eating mounds of (free) food, popcorn and candy, and enjoying the amazing seats behind homeplate. I think I'm forever ruined for baseball games and goodness knows if I can ever enjoy the $15 seats again. I mean people just brought you FREE FOOD and ICE CREAM and whatever you wanted all night. Mark ate so much that when I met him for lunch today, he said he was still full. It was truly gluttonous. We decided on the way home that Mark would rather have 1 night of pure, unending gluttony in exchange for 2 weeks of groceries (which was about the face value of the tickets). Anyway, we had a great time and our friend was sweet enough to come over and hang out at our house while Henry slept soundly upstairs. It always amazes me when last minute plans can work out like that.

And now it's Thursday and we have a fun weekend planned, complete with hopefully doing something to my hair. Since Henry, my hair has been falling out all over the place and I look like I have feathers for hair. Ick.

And I'll leave you with a video of Henry bouncing in his new jump jump. I've never seen anything else elicit such smiles and excitement from this guy, and I don't think he is even a little miffed that he has to jump on top of a book to touch the floor. Sorry for the weird format.

5 months.

Henry boy, 5 months looks so good on you. You are kicking, smiling, yelling, singing, grabbing, laughing, and just being all around a pretty cute little guy.

A few things you've learned lately:
1. You are just barely learning how to sit up on your own. As in, just yesterday. You don't tip over immediately anymore, you can hold your sit up for about 5 seconds before tipping over.
2. You grabbed your foot yesterday. You are discovering other parts of your body, too, as evidenced by that diaper change yesterday (Don't pull on it, baby!)
3. You learned how to bounce last week. Nanny has been letting you play in the little jumper toy and she saw you bouncing and laughing! She said you looked so proud of yourself (I'm sure you were). So we quickly purchased a little jumper for you to play in at home, and oh the smiles and laughs we hear now! We never wanted all those plastic baby stuff taking over our house, yet, here we are and I don't even care - we just want you to be happy!

Speaking of happy, we know that Mr. Henry is a happy boy, but if it's not the hardest thing to get that boy to crack a smile, let alone a LAUGH. he is stone face henry, mr. serious, living up to his serious name, Henry George. He smiles a bunch when he wakes up, and occasionally I can get him to laugh by tickling under his arms or neck. But he really makes you work for it!

He is happy to be looking. He just wants to look at everything (he has since he was a tiny baby!), and soak it all in. We sit on the front steps most evenings and just watch the neighbors and puppies and kitties. It seems to really calm him, so obviously we do it quite a bit.
Still not a great sleeper, we are working on it. We phased him out of his swaddle this month in anticipation of him rolling over, which he has yet to do, but gets SO close. His naps are getting better and he sleeps through the night at least 1-2 times a week. The other morning, we woke up at 7am, brought him into bed with us, and he slept another THREE HOURS. Yes, we all slept in on Saturday morning until 10am. It was the best present anyone has ever given me. Thanks Henry.
He is a great eater, and we think this is the month to start him on solids. He's starting to grab at food, so we think it's almost time. He grabbed at the sacrament tray yesterday in church, so either he's hungry, or he's ready to be a devout follower of Christ. Then he grabbed my plate yesterday, and nearly got a handful of my singapore noodles. Mark and I looked at each other and said, "It begins!".
He talks up a storm these days. Just started with the mamamamamama the other day, and the lip trills, too. It's so adorable, I just find myself listening and laughing most of the time. 

I am obsessed with his chubby legs, his chubby arms, his fat cheeks, and his roly poly belly. I just want to cuddle up with him all day long and squeeze that chunky baby! And every day that passes, I just think he looks more and more like Mark. It's so cute. Happy 5 months, Hen!

desperate scousewives

Last night one of Marks old friends from growing up stopped by. Him and his wife are now living in Liverpool, (back in the US for a couple weeks to eat Mexican food and drink mountain dew) and apparently they are not as much in love with it as I think I would be. To me, England = beauty, regal everything, lovely accents, architecture, etc. Well, apparently Liverpool is a little different. Marks friends introduced us to Desperate Scousewives (they call some people in Liverpool "scouse") Not sure why?. These Liverpule accents are insane. England meets Scotland meets...I don't know? I'm so bad at deciphering English accents anyway (I have to watch The Office - british version -  with subtitles), so this is a new level of confusion. Ha.

updates

We are finally making some progress on moving in, and making our house a home. This past weekend, we schlepped it up to IKEA and some vintage furniture stores to make some purchases. We came away with some success - bookcase, rugs, curtains, and my favorite thing - a Scottie dog bust. Because who doesn't need a bust of a cute dog sitting in their living room?! Henry was an actual edible delight all of Saturday, just grinning and smiling away as we sped through the stores. I just find lately when I'm with Henry all I want to do is give him a bajillion kisses on his fat cheeks. Lucky for me, he thinks it's funny and will indulge me in my affections. 

So - I've been trying to round up inspiration for the house on Pinterest, and I'm hoping to have a lot more done by the end of the month. I have big plans for a container garden on our patio, and we're on the hunt for a good desk for the office. And I'm trolling ebay and etsy for a nice rug for the living room. If you have any good sources for finding interesting homewares, I'd love to hear from you in the comments!

90s nostalgia.

Fifteen years ago I heard, for the first time, a band called Spiritualized.
They called themselves "chamber pop, or dream pop". Their album, Ladies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space, changed my life. Their sound was so full, lyrics not at all cloying, and their overall sound was so unique that I just fell head over heels.

Spiritualized is releasing a new album in a few days - Sweet Heart Sweet Light - available for First Listen on NPR here. Listening to this band today still gives me that feeling, the one I felt back in my teenage years, of finding that new band that changed my outlook on the world around me. I crave that feeling sometimes. Plus this band still sounds so 90's, in the era of Dinosaur Jr, Sebadoh, Mercury Rev - all those bands that shaped my youth.

If you sometimes have 90's nostalgia, just pop this record on this morning, throw on your all black uniform, and sink back into your chair to be transported by Spiritualized. 90's rant.


ps which bands transport you back to your high school/early college years?

back to my old self...sorta.

i was telling mark last night that i feel like my old self again. carefree, go with the flow, spontaneous me. you see, when baby arrived, i adopted this hyper vigilant anxiety based on henry's inability to sleep well and tendency to get fussy after about an hour of being awake. i felt afraid to leave, and even though i would go out and run errands when i was on maternity leave, i did so with so much anxiety in the pit of my stomach that my the time i got home, both baby and i would be crying and exhausted.

last week, i decided i wanted to have some fun, gosh darn it. throw caution to the wind, and just accept the fact that we have a baby and babies cry sometimes, and we would all be fine if we just adjusted a little. so we threw a small dinner party last week. and i still had anxiety because i felt i couldn't be a great hostess and be as attentive as i felt i needed to be to Henry, but you know what? it was ok. and we were all ok. and it was fun. and henry liked hanging out with new people (and so did mom and dad!). this week, we had a spontaneous outing with some friends to see a night time exhibit on the National Mall, last night i went to my friends house with Henry for a delicious dinner and fun ladies night, and Friday we are doing another dinner.

lest you think i'm bragging about my social calendar, please know that we have not done dinner/outings/etc. with other people in a very long time. so maybe i'm going a little overboard, but i'm just so excited that i'm losing the fear. sure, the anxiety is still there, but i'm finding more peace. it makes me so happy to know i can just take little Hen wherever i go (within reason, of course), and he will still be a happy, well-adjusted baby. so what if he's up past his bedtime for a night or two. happier me = better mother = better wife = happier me.

i just feel like i'm finally turning a corner. it's such a relief to meet myself on the other side of that corner. do you know what i mean?

Wriggly, screamy, heart-melting baby.

This baby is becoming quite active. We are having so much fun together! He can't keep his socks on to save his life, and he LOVES Carrot, which makes my heart soar. I had always hoped my baby would love Carrot.