Our boy is 6 months old!

We are updating our blog like going to the doctor's office: last time was when he's 4 months old! It was an exciting 2 months of Grant's life. He's grown and learned alot.

Grant doesn't like tummy time, I think that's how he learned to roll over, from front to back. Every time we put him down on his tummy, he'd be like a screaming click beatle, flipping to his back almost immediately. He's not quite good with the other direction yet. Occasionally if he's on his back for long enough, he'd wiggle himself to his front. Although while I'm writing this blog, he just did it twice! The first time he did that was at grandma & grandpa's, when we went up for grandma's birthday, which was a pleasant surprise for her.

Lately he hasn't been as talkative as before, but a couple days before we went up, we heard him say "Anna" clear as day. Then when we met up with the Lovelands, we realized, Anna means Annabelle. They even sat and played in this swing together.

Grant's sitting up better and better. He's also in a phase when he'd put everything he can grab into his mouth. Sometimes when he needs both of his hands to do the job, he'd sit up straight for a brief moment.

He's also fond of people, the more the better. Every time we bring him outside, whether it's church, shopping, or for a walk, he's just amazed at the outside world and the people in it. He especially likes church, family and church activities, that's where a lot of people would smile at him, hold him or play with him. He'd give them big smiles, or blow lots of rasberries to them.

Last weekend grandma came down to see us. It was great to have her with us for a couple days and help us looking after Grant. Grant loved spending time with his grandma, who loves him a ton.

On Friday, I made him some rice cereal in a bowl. This is his first offical solid food. He was not very fond of this new concept of eating from a bowl and spoon. After every bite, he'd blow rasberries to get the food out of his mouth. So here's what he looked like by the end, almost look like he's got perfect teeth!

Grant turned 180 degrees!

Grant has pretty strong leg muscles and sometimes when he's doing tummy time, he'd stick his butt up, like he's trying to crawl. But his arms aren't strong enough to support his heavy head yet, so here's what he'd look like.
Also grandma, remember how sweet you think his sleeping pictures are? Here's a look at a picture back then, aww......

Now because of his strong legs, he could move himself around while lying on his back. Usually when we put him to bed, we put his head towards North. One night when I went in to feed him, I noticed his was lying across the crib, head facing East. When he saw me, he was all smily and swinging his arms, seemingly enjoying his new found view of the crib.

Last night when I went to the nursery, I thought I was dreaming because his had completely turned himself around and was lying against the corner of the crib, with his head facing South! Again he was all smily when he saw me, as if he was showing off his new skills again. Since we don't have a picture of that, here's one for what he looks like now in the crib. Oh, how we love our growing little cute boy!

Sunday Sunday

We had a very happy baby today, which was perfect timing since we had to take him to church for three hours. All he did the whole time was smile, laugh and hit on girls 4 months older than him.

It was almost a milestone for him. He's usually a content and happy baby, but today was his most smiley day recorded. And it was the first time I've been able to repeatedly make him laugh with the same thing (shaking his hat in my mouth like a dog) which was really rewarding for me, because usually I have constantly come up with new material to get him to smile. My job just got a whole lot easier.

After church we went for a quick walk with Grant today. Rather than put him in the stroller we just strapped him to our baby carrier. We had know idea that it would turn him into the worlds cutest ninja.

He also goes on about a snowman, tall, tall, tall

Mommy and Daddy have taught me a lot of great things in the few months I've been with them. They've taught me my name, their names (Mommy and Daddy respectivly), they've taught me all about colors and math and what diaper time is. Daddy has even taught me the full history of a place call Middle Earth that sounds really weird.

The most import thing though, that Daddy has taught me is that there are a constantly decreasing number of speckled frogs on a speckled log somewhere along side a nice a cool pool somewhere. I'm not quite sure on the significance of these frogs but they seem to be really important to him because he brings them up ALL THE TIME.

Still for a man as old as my daddy to be so deeply entranced by some amphibians with bad complexion and their eating/bathing habits there must be some symbolic importance. So every time that he starts signing about them (oh yeah, did I mention he always is singing when he tells me about them, the mystery deepens), I can't help but sit and listen intently, in hopes of discerning whether or not my father is trying to teach me something too secret to speak aloud, or if I was born into a family of nutjobs.

Like the other night, my parents strapped me into that most uncomfortable carseat and dragged me clear to somewhere I didn't want to go in the far off land of Draper. Normally I'm very good in the car, but it was dark and far and stupid so I started to express my discomfort in the most elequent way I knew how. Before I could get to my fourth point about the chafing, my dad started singing that song. I was so taken in to the mystery that for the next 20 minutes he and Mommy sang, I was so distracted that I couldn't form a coherent argument the rest of the way there.

So it's a strange song. Here's a picture of me in my thinking chair. Another place Daddy will frequently sing it to me.

Long nights and longer explanations

There comes a point in ever every new father's life when he has to swallow his pride and admit that this parenting stuff isn't as easy as we thought it was when we were watching our parents mess up at it. When Grant was born I was sure of couple things: We'd read to him often, nothing he wore would be pink and he would never get to sleep in our bed unless he had a nightmare caused by exposure to the early works of Jim Hensen.

Nothing against people who let there kids sleep with them, I just know that when I sleep I tend to roll around a lot and occasionally sleep-punch, so I figured it would be safer just to keep the little guy as far away from that as we could. However lately he's been waking up crying really bad from a combination of the horrible eczema mentioned below and just being hungry. Normally I can console him with a bottle but there are times when he just won't take it. Sally, being the awesome mom that she is, will step up to the plate and feed him, but sometimes she's so tired that she opts to feed him in bed. Plans to put him back in his crib soon fall be the way side and he ends up sleeping with us for hours.

So you see, I may have gone against my original ideals, but it's for a collections of perfectly logical and natural reasons.

And besides, who can fight such sweetness?

3 months old

So today I'm offically 3 months old, and my Chinese grandma who is staying with us said that I'm already 2. Here's why. When I was born, I was already one. Then after the Chinese new year, I get another year. This 2 is my "informal" age and it will stay at 2 till the next lunar new year comes.
But really, I'm a big boy now. I weigh 14lb 5oz today. The reason why I know this is that I have really bad eczema and I went to see the doctor today. He prescribed cortizone and after using it, I have felt much better.
Now that my neck is stronger, I love to look around and see what's around. Also because I have strong legs, I like to look around while standing. You have to admit, the view is much better.

Like a Weed

So I got home from work today and this is what was waiting for me. Grant has sprung his first leak. I know kids grow faster than we can blog about them, but this outfit drowned the poor guy over Christmas and now look at him.

It's a good thing we have no shortage of clothes for him. I just hope he grows out of growing out of things soon.