Moving On

We've been introducing the sippy cup to Micah over the past few weeks. They say to transition them to a sippy cup around 6 to 8 months because they should be drinking water (for the fluoride) around then. I figured since Micah is reaching milestones earlier rather than later, mind as well start at 5 months. So I give him about an inch of water in his sippy cup and let him have at it. He's gotten really good at gripping it, tipping it back, sucking on it, and dribbling the water back out onto his shirt. You can see for yourselves:

The reason for this post is twofold: one, to thank Auntie Eden for sending such an awesome alligator toy & blanket that Micah is thoroughly enjoying and two, to show you how well our little man is sitting up. Not yet six months, Micah thinks it's time for him to be both sitting up and scooting/crawling. He discovers how to do new things everyday, I'm having a hard time keeping up with him! He "bangs, bangs" on things now (on demand, most of the time, too) and was even shaking a bottle that had stuff in it to hear the sound. He's incredible!

My dad turned 54 last Friday, so Mom had a little birthday party for him and invited all the usual suspects. We did some throw-back-to-childhood games and one of them was a take on Pin the Tail on the Donkey. This game was called Plant the Kiss on Micah. Each of the girls put on some lipstick and kissed two sticky notes, one for themselves and one for their spouse. Then Mom blindfolded each of us in turn, spun us around, and off we went to try to get our "lips" as close to Micah's as possible. (A little aside: Dad did a photo shoot with Micah when he was about three months old. He then took one of the pictures from the shoot and had it blown up to about 3' by 2'. Huge, I know. This is what we were using to plant our "kisses" on, not the real-life Micah.).


It was a really fun game, obvious by all the screeching and laughter, but guess who won? Me! I stuck my "lips" squarely on his. Nope, I didn't cheat, either. Here, I'll show you:


Don't know if you can see it really well, but the sticky note covering his lips says, "Jess." The lips directly above are his Auntie Kristina's. Dad and Yana get the prize for last place, their lips were planted on a doorway and a lamp!

And I thought I'd throw in a little baby food making update. He's been eating the pears I made and is still alive and well, so that's good. I cut up some bananas and froze them yesterday and pulled out a chuck (along with two pear cubes) this morning for his lunch. It's so incredibly easy, I'm loving it! I took the (very) easy way out with apples (his new food of the week). I stopped at Trader Joe's and bought three jars of organic applesauce. Each jar costs $2.29 and contains 24 ounces of applesauce, so that comes about to be about $0.10 an ounce. And it couldn't be any easier to freeze, I just spooned the applesauce into an ice cube tray and let it freeze overnight before transferring them to a bag! The other food I made was butternut squash. Remember how I said I'd just be buying them because they looked too hard to make? Boy was I wrong! D and I were shopping on Saturday and came across a butternut squash. He asked if I would be willing to make it, so I said I'd give it a try. I "made" it last night by simply cutting it in half, putting each half face down in an inch of water and baking it for half an hour. The skin puckers and peels right off, leaving the inside meat ready to mash/puree/whatever. Since I had to feed Micah, D ended up pureeing Micah's half of the squash and did an excellent job getting the perfect consistency (we'll be eating our half of the squash tonight). I was able to make 12 ounces for $0.60. Needless to say, I will not be buying jarred butternut squash anymore! And, finally, I saw lots of nicely (nicely=already cut up/easy prepared/pureed) frozen fruits and veggies at Trader Joe's yesterday for very reasonable prices. This means I get to cut out some prep time since they're already peeled and cut. They say frozen foods are fresher than fresh since they are flash frozen at their freshest. Make sense? Anyway, I'm totally enjoying this baby food making thing!

There's no doubt that the cheek-slobbers (aka kisses) Micah has been giving were really kisses. He seems to know that they're given out of affection, too, because he'll give them at times that call for affection (or on demand, usually).

The other day, D just got out of the hospital after his thirty-hour call and met us at Mom and Dad's house. Whoever was holding Micah at the time passed him to David and of course I was very happy to see him (David), so I went over to give him a kiss. So Micah had front row seats to our little kissing session and decided to join in on the action. He leaned in to give Daddy kisses on the cheek. It was hilarious and adorable. Mom was able to capture it:

Men and women really are different—even their brains are different—and they were divinely designed that way. Using the latest research, Dr. Walt and Barb Larimore show how the God-designed differences between the male brain and the female brain complement each other to help couples build a delightful, lasting marriage.

So we ordered it and started reading it together last night. It's really interesting and I can't wait to read on, but I wanted to share one part that particularly backed up the notion of "his brain, her brain:"

A professor wrote on the board: A woman without her man is nothing

He then asked the class to provide punctuation.

The overwhelming majority of men answered: A woman, without her man, is nothing.

The overwhelming majority of women answered: A woman: without her, man is nothing.

Like I said, can't wait to read on...

I've entered the world of Baby Food Making...and it's rather easy and not all that time-consuming. I bought more fruits and veggies (pears, mango, avocado, sweet potatoes, and peas) last time I was food shopping so I could start the process. Micah got his first taste of sweet potatoes this week (from Earth's Best) and is really liking them, so I went ahead and made my own pureed version. That's my plan of action: buy a few jars of the food I'm introducing that week (if available) and see if it agrees with Micah and then make my own.

Yesterday I made pears and sweet potatoes using the Magic Bullet (hand-held blender, very handy!). I had to peel, cut, and steam them first. Then I pureed them and put them in ice cube trays to freeze. Once they were done freezing, I took them out and put them in a plastic bag in the freezer. You just take out the necessary amount each time you need it. One cube equals about one ounce.

Then I did some math:
Stage 2 of Beechnut costs $0.19 per ounce of food, no matter the kind.

The pears I made myself came out to be about $0.09 per ounce and the sweet potatoes came out to be $0.04 per ounce. Each made 20 ounces, so it'll last me a few weeks.

Store-bought baby food is convenient, to a degree. It took me just about an hour to make 40 ounces of food. To get to the store, I have to pack up Micah, drive there, pick out which foods I want and hope they have them, stand in line, pay for them, pack Micah back up and drive home. I don't really spend any extra time buying the fruits and veggies I need to make his food because it's coupled with my regular food shopping trip. I like, too, that he'll have a lot more options now that I am making his food and hopefully won't be a picky eater. When all said and done, it probably took an extra half an hour to make my own food, but it's entirely worth it considering the much lower cost and knowing what's in the food I'm feeding him. Some foods are not worth making (butternut squash) and I'll always buy pureed carrots because of the nitrate levels in regular carrots. Overall, though, I enjoyed the experience. Today, I sliced up some avocado and put it in the freezer (came out to be $0.10 per ounce, except I haven't seen avocado baby food anywhere, so I guess there's not really a comparison!) so it's ready when I want to start Micah on it. Next up, peas!

Excellent website I found in my baby-food-making-research journies: www.wholesomebabyfood.com

Valentine's Day started off very well with a video of my scrub-wearing man in my Inbox (he was on call Friday into Saturday). It was a sweet video that he recorded on his phone and sent to my e-mail. He's handsome AND clever! I'm not a huge fan of Valentine's Day: it's an easy out for people who don't take the time and effort to be romantic/loving/thoughtful every other day of the year, but this year VDay was especially fun.

Mom and Dad decided to throw a VDay party for all (six) of their kids. We were sent an invite in the mail, along with our first clue to the treasure hunt. And we all had to dress in red, even Micah. The party was a huge success, it was the most fun we've all had together in a while (not that we don't have fun together all the time), but the treasure hunt, the food, the games, and the prizes made it all extra special and extra fun.

Dad ordered a three-foot grinder from Subway. One word: YUM! After dinner, we had the treasure hunt while Micah was still up because it was a little noisy. We all found our treasures, and each of us received quite a treasure! D and I got $400 towards our basement insulation and/or a snowblower. I'm pretty sure we've decided to put it all towards the basement insulation because D doesn't mind shoveling, but it's only been 99% decided. Can you tell we're homeowners? Getting all excited about insulation and snowblowers?!

After the treasure hunt, I had to feed Micah and put him to bed, so the others had dessert (D brought me some...it was Monkey Bread, a personal favorite!). Once he was all settled, Mom had us fill out a VDay-type of Mad Lib and she read us all of our stories. All of the stories were great and had us laughing uncontrollably! Mom made copies of them for each of us to be filed in with all of rest of our good memories. Then the guys and girls split up for the Newlywed Game. Ry and Yana won by a point and we tied with Nick and Kristina. As if all that wasn't plenty, we each got gifts (D got a new webcam and I got a tea chest/caddy/box) and goodie bags filled with candy. LOTS of fun had by all thanks to our clever parents.

Some pictures from the evening:

We don't have a doctor's appt this month, so no official stats...just a few updates.




*This was the month in which my little man had his first cold. It was quite pitiful to behold, but it soon passed and we were all still alive (amazingly enough!).

*We bought yet another contraption for our five-month old: a walker. I told Mom that I was going to take a picture of Micah in every single accessory he now comes with and post them all. I have yet to do it. Why? Because there are so many!! We leave the walker at Mom and Dad's house since they have more walker-friendly space and so I don't have to cart the exersaucer back and forth anymore (yaaay!). Of course he only goes backwards in it at this point, but he really seems to enjoy it. He was having his Micah Time the other day and he rolled himself from the kitchen to their dining room and was talking to something in there for at least twenty minutes. It was too cute.
*He LOVES bathtime with Daddy. We've worked it into our nightly (or every-other-nightly) routine and he'll stay in there for a while just splashing and biting on a cup we use to wash him off with and talking, talking, talking away to Daddy. I just might invest in one of those bath rings that you suction to the bottom of the tub and babies can just sit in them. D puts the little tub on our bathroom counter for his back's sake, but then Micah loves making a wet mess of everything. We'll see.
*When Micah wakes up in the mornings, or from naptime, too, for that matter, he doesn't cry. He'll start talking. So I let him talk until the talking starts to escalate into an annoyed-sounding whine and then I get him. If I'm sleeping, it allows me at least fifteen more minutes of rest, which I am loving! It's funny to hear the different sounds he is making, like he really is trying to communicate something important and we're just not getting it. He's also talking a lot more just randomly now. If I'm talking to somebody, he'll think I'm talking to him and he'll start in on his side of the commentary...rather loudly at times.

*More likely than not, if you're holding him at this point, you're only going to see the back of his head. This guy is such a busy body. We always say that he wants to be where he's not...and when he gets there, he wants to be somewhere else!

*Oh and not that I ever doubted that he was all boy, but his new "find" just reinforces the fact. I'll let you figure out what his new find is on your own!

I mentioned to Mom that Micah and his 27" self was outgrowing all of his baby blankets and since it's still midwinter, I needed to get some more for him. Not missing a beat, she immediately offered to crochet him one and asked what colors I wanted. She finished it very quickly and now Micah is once again enjoying the warmth of a blanket that covers him (we were putting two on him: one covering his upper body, one covering his lower body).

A few weeks ago now, I started noticing how Micah would randomly kind of lick my cheek very purposefully. He'd hold my head still as he'd lean in for a few seconds to wet my cheek. I didn't think anything of it until it dawned on me that he could be giving me kisses. I mean he has gotten enough of them throughout his little life to be an expert at them, so just maybe he was giving them now. So I asked him for a kiss and gave him my cheek. Sure enough, he leaned in and planted a wet one. Talk about melting a Mommy's heart.

Now, as with all new baby feats, everyone is asking him for kisses and most of the time he'll oblige after repeated requests. The best ones come in the morning when D or I get him from his crib and he'll be so excited to see us that he gives them on his own. He'll give them without prompting randomly throughout the day, too. He never ceases to amaze us with his smartness.

~~I've had this post written for a while now in hopes of getting one of Micah's kisses on video/captured in a picture. No such luck as of yet, but we'll keep on trying!~~

I'm not even sure what to say about this, but I wasn't in the room when it happened. I was downloading pictures of Micah off of mom's camera and I saw this and had to do a double (and triple) take.

Sunday was my parents' 29th anniversary. To celebrate, the seven of us got together Sunday night over their house. We had a yummy buttercream frosted cake (I had to order in a few days in advance, for some reason they don't make buttercream frosting on a regular basis and buttercream is Mom's absolute favorite frosting) and sang, "Happy Anniversary" (by winging some lyrics to the tune of "Happy Birthday") and we presented them with a gift card to Chili's, one of their favorite restaurants. Of course they loved every minute of the celebration for the simple fact that all their kids were there in one place. They are a very, very easy couple to please, which makes it very easy and very fun to do so!

We love you both so much and are blessed and better people because you are in our lives. Here's to many, many, many, many more family celebrations!

In 1980, it was just the two of them. By 2009, it's the nine of us. By 2010, there just might be more of us... Kristina? Yana?