spring!

It's becoming warmer, which means more walks with Sebastian and more time in the park! We took him to one of the local playgrounds and swung on the swings and went down the slide. He wasn't very impressed, but Steve and I were very excited at the possibilities. Yesterday I put Sebastian on his back in the park and he looked up at the tree branches and blue sky and kicked his legs a lot. So I assume that meant he approved.

He has become much better at sleeping, usually only waking 1-2 times a night. He often wakes up early in the night - around 11 - and just needs a bit of help getting back to sleep, and then wakes up around 2:30 and is hungry. But that has made a huge difference in how I feel and how our days go.

He is becoming increasingly aware and interested in the world and things, particularly anything that I am holding. He keeps lunging toward things and trying to grab them. The funny thing is that he simultaneously reaches with his hands and his wide-open mouth. He's our little lion. :)

He's also starting to figure out both sitting and crawling. He can sit up very briefly, with his hands in front propping him up, before toppling over to the side or forward onto his face. (Which he seems to find extremely amusing.) As for crawling, he's got the various elements which he needs to start doing simultaneously. He just yesterday started hitching up his right knee and planting his foot, and separately pushing up on his arms.

We've got more pictures and videos that I'll post in the next day or two.

two new videos!

With thanks to Carl, who provided the inspiration for popping poppa. Sebastian seems to like it as much as Danica did. http://averylee.blogspot.com/2007/09/pop-goes-poppa.html



Pop Goes the Poppa from Brianna Avery on Vimeo.



These Lil Feet O Mine from Brianna Avery on Vimeo.

playing (and sitting)

I've posted a new video of Sebastian sitting in the armchair and playing. I've also added some new photos to the March folder on picasaweb. This is the week of the dreaded "sleep training". He had developed an awful pattern of waking up every 20-30 minutes, almost all night long, and wanting our help in falling back asleep. We tried to gently discourage this with minimum contact, but it wasn't working and we were exhausted. So we've been letting him cry. Steve and I find it heart-rending and anxiety-inducing. Fortunately, Sebastian is starting to sleep better and still seems his perfectly cheery self all day, which assuages my guilt a bit.


playing in the chair from Brianna Avery on Vimeo.

four months!

Our baby boy is four months old today! To celebrate, I took him to the pediatrician for a checkup and more immunization shots. :(

He now weighs 14 lbs 11 oz and is almost 26 inches tall. He's in the 50th percentile for weight and the 75th for height, so preliminarily I'd say he's taking after his daddy. Overall, he's doing great.

new toys, and toes!

We've posted some new pictures from March, including a couple documenting Sebastian's discovery of his TOES! woo-hoo! He curls up like a bug and grabs onto his feet, and then tends to tip over to one side or the other.

The picture above is of our new toy set-up. I was at a friend's house and Sebastian discovered the Gymini, which is a playmat with an arch above, from which you can hang toys. He was totally thrilled and played with it for a solid 20 minutes. I was in turn thrilled, and came home to look it up and see about buying one for us. It was $70! My mom suggested getting a curtain rod from the local hardware store and stringing up some toys from it. As you can see, it was a total success, and when he grows tired of it (as he's sure to do), we'll just throw away our $5 rod. Or buy some curtains.

He's beginning to giggle, especially when Steve tickles his belly. It's the sweetest thing.

miscellaneous updates

Sebastian has discovered some new sounds: squeaks and squeals, at an incredibly high pitch and often painfully loud volume. He conveys both happiness and displeasure with pretty much the same squeal. We far preferred the vowelly coos and oohs. Still no consonants. :)

He's been changing in other ways too - he used to love the mobile that hangs over his crib, cooing and smiling at it for 20 minutes at a time. It was terrific when we wanted to make dinner or eat a meal together. Sadly, it no longer seems to do the trick. After a mere 2 minutes, he starts to loudly vocalize his boredom (see above). We're still casting around for the next thing that can hold his attention for 15 minutes without our active participation.

He's getting better and better at hand-eye coordination, which of course means that he's started grabbing all sorts of things. My hair is a particular favorite, but tshirts are a close second. He's pretty strong, too, so when he grabs part of your skin under the shirt it can really hurt. His neck is very strong and his head increasingly stable, so we've been working a lot on sitting. He likes to sit up with my assistance, but after a brief honeymoon period he has rejected the BebePod chair that cousin Danica so loved. Perhaps he'll like it better in another week or so - I've put it away in the meantime as it triggered violent twisting fits (and screeches, of course).

I wish I could report that he's becoming a better sleeper as well, but no. It's very strange, as both Steve and I are extremely sound, good sleepers - we so hoped that that was genetically inheritable. Sebastian never seems to last all that long before startling himself awake, and then he requires help to get back to sleep. So our nights are interrupted every hour or two (or occasionally three) with one of us getting up to soothe the baby. I've taken to going to bed at 9 pm every night in an effort to get enough hours of sleep.

Snow!

It finally snowed here - we've had nothing but rain all winter - and so we took Sebastian out to introduce him to the white stuff. He was underwhelmed, sleeping through most of our tromp through the woods. But it was a great day nonetheless. I've posted some pictures.

Daddy's gonna buy you some wooden rings

Daddy's gonna buy you some wooden rings from Brianna Avery on Vimeo.

schedules etc

Sebastian has started to find a schedule for himself - eating and napping at somewhat regular intervals every day. It's made things less stressful for me, since when he starts to cry I have a better idea what he wants. And of course it's easier to take him out places when I know what to expect. He is also mostly staying in his crib between 9 pm and 7 am - he wakes occasionally and needs to be fed or comforted or changed, but he has clearly developed an idea of extended nighttime sleeping.

I've joined a mommy-and-baby group in Hastings, the town just south of us. There are 7 of us, and we meet every week to talk about stuff - our babies range from 7 weeks to 13 weeks, so we're all in the thick of the same things. It's amazing to see how much more alert and interested Sebastian is than those younger babies - it just reminds me that he is changing incredibly quickly, and learning so much.

He loves standing up (obviously with a lot of support). I've been trying to help him work on sitting by propping him up with pillows - he's still very prone to falling forward. When we put him on his tummy he still flails his arms and legs like mad - especially his legs. He really really wants to crawl, he just hasn't figured out the mechanics yet.

We've posted a few February pictures.

fun with plastic

Sebastian is learning how to use his hands! (I guess you could say he's learning that he has hands.) We've discovered that he loves grabbing crinkly plastic bags. We've taken a couple of very short clips, the first of which is below, and the second of which you can see by clicking on the "Sebastian videos" link to the right.


Plastic Bag from Brianna Avery on Vimeo.