• Ian’s favorite foods: bananas and peas. Above all else. There have been several mealtimes where all he has eaten have been a whole banana and peas. I sometimes get frustrated by this but then we think, “well it’s a fruit and a vegetable” and it’s hard to complain about that. We used to give him about half of a banana at a time to hold and take bites from. But then he started going through a phase of putting all of the food within his reach into his mouth. A half-banana doesn’t fit nicely into his tiny mouth, so we’ve been cutting them in circles. If I try to give him a piece of a banana that isn’t in a circle, he will refuse it. If he happens to take a bite of a circle of banana (instead of shoving it all in his mouth) and notices that it no longer looks like a circle, he won’t eat it. If he sees a banana in the kitchen and he’s sort of hungry, you can bet he’ll be requesting that banana before long. He also likes anything with chicken, cheerios and puffs, crackers, macaroni and cheese, casseroles, pizza, grilled cheese, applesauce, grapes and nectarines. There’s other foods he eats at daycare that we haven’t yet given him at home: pineapple, melon, cornbread. He has 8 teeth — four on top and four on bottom. He also may have some food allergies — more on that in a later post when we have more answers.
• Ian’s favorite toys: balls, cars/trucks and anything he can knock over by kicking, swinging his arms, or using his mouth (don’t ask). He also likes swinging in the toddler swing hanging from our tree in the backyard and going on walks — whether it’s in a stroller or his wagon. He also likes to take his dinosaur magnets off the fridge and put them in my lunch sack which hangs nearby — pleasant surprises for mommy the next day! He loves remote controls and cell phones (the reason why my screen is cracked) and iPods. Is he a TEENAGER?!
• Ian’s favorite games: “Where’s Ian? There he is!”, peek-a-boo, hide and seek, putting things on his head and mimicking silly movements (pointing at him–he points back, hands on head–he mimics, hand covering mouth–he mimics).
• Ian’s favorite words: Mama/Dada (though sometimes he’s not consistent to whom he says them), Nana (no), Nana (banana — can you imagine our confusion at supper time?!), Hhhhhhaaaaaah (hi). He’s also signing “more” but when he’s full and we ask him “Do you want more?”, he does the sign but then refuses the food — so we’re working on “all done” so that he’s not just doing the sign when he hears the word “more,” we want him to actually tell us if he wants more. He waves bye bye from side-to-side. He used to wave by opening and closing his fist toward himself, then he learned that that gesture was the sign for milk so he switched to the side-to-side palm out wave. Now that he’s learned “more”, he has stopped doing the milk sign and uses “more” for milk too.
• Ian will stand on his own, but usually needs encouragement to do it (“will you stand?” or place him in front of us and help him get his balance before letting go.) The look on his face when he does it is priceless — he’s so proud of himself, and it seems like he finds it exhilarating. He’s practicing walking between Miles and I, but he won’t do it without our fingers or he’ll just lower himself to crawl to the other person. It’s coming soon. He’s been walking while holding on to furniture, walkers or our fingers for a few months. He’s been climbing and descending stairs like a champ ever since we moved in to the new house with all of the mini-stairwells. He’s good about waiting for us to be behind him before climbing stairs, but he hasn’t figured out yet that he needs to wait for us when descending stairs.

Babies grow up so fast.

As I end my last week on maternity leave, I’d like to share just a few things I’ve learned so far as a new mom:

• A smile from my baby can literally turn my mood around. Sometimes, even the opposite of smiling can.
• Not all babies take a pacifier.
• Everyone warns about labor but no one talks about recovery.
• His little noises and finger-holding during feedings will be my favorite memories of these first few weeks.
• Babies get toe jam. Somehow.
• Thankful that I’m not doing this alone.
• Vacuuming can (and will) be put on hold. For weeks.
• My baby sleeping on my shoulder is one of the best feelings in the world.
• I worry about if my son will be teased in school, or worse, will be the teaser.
• Vomit, pee and feces ain’t no thang.

More photos can be found on my Flickr page or Miles’s Flickr page. More video can be found at our YouTube channel.

Here are some photos to prove the baby is growing.

6 weeks, 26 weeks, 28 weeks, 30 weeks, 32 weeks

Sorry it’s been so long since my last post…we’ll have more to post after an ultrasound this Friday. (My uterus is measuring big, so they want to see if it’s because the baby is big. Let’s hope he’s normal size.)

Dinos dinos dinos dinos! Preliminary sketches for canvases to be painted over Christmas break and hung in the nursery. A little something blue coming soon.