To Calvin, who is seven months old today!

Seven months!  Wow!  It seems like that is how we always start these letters to you, and that is because with each passing month we find it harder to believe that time is slipping through our hands at such an alarming rate.  It seems like just yesterday that you would lay sleeping in our arms, light as a feather, but today you are too busy to fall asleep that easily, and too heavy and long for us to cradle that way.  This month you celebrated your first Christmas and, while it may have meant little to you, it will always be etched in our memories as a season to remember:  you visited Santa and did well on his lap, and then Santa visited you while you slept; you had your own stocking; you had your own presents; you ate your own Christmas dinner.  The day came and went too fast, but the memories will last us a lifetime. 

You didn't take any time off for the holiday, though!  In the past month you actually quit crawling, exchanging that mode of transport for the slightly easier log roll, but you continue to pull yourself up so that you can play while standing.  In fact, that trick is old hat to you, and your new favorite game is walking!  You love to pull yourself up and go for a walk while holding on to our hands.  Though you're no where near going solo, you are capable of cruising for a short distance, just a few tottering steps, while holding on to a table or a toy.  But perhaps our favorite milestone from the past month was your introduction to solid foods.  We started with rice cereal on your six month birthday, and every few days since we have introduced a new food.  Right now your menu includes rice and oatmeal cereals, peas, green beans, sweet potato, acorn squash, and avocado.  We are making all of your food for you, and we taste all of it first to make sure it's something that we would like to eat.  So far you have been a wonderful at and we really enjoy sharing meals with you, and watching your face whenever you taste something new.  There are so many other things that we can't wait to introduce you to over the next month, our little adventurer!

We're going soft...

And we're not referring to the fact that we most definitely ate more than our fair share of fattening holiday goodies.  No, this is more in reference to the way we handle the cold weather.  Actually, the problem isn't so much the cold weather, but the lack thereof.  With our uncharacteristically warm winter this year we haven't even had to lift a snow shovel yet!  So when the cold weather finally hit yesterday we found ourselves shivering and bolting for indoors with temperatures just barely dipping below freezing.  That's just not right.  Now, to be fair, the wind was pretty strong and the wind chill was pretty low, but we're still disappointed in ourselves (and our lack of winter weather).

But back to that bit about eating too many goodies...we enjoyed a wonderful dinner party on Sunday night, complete with several courses of really fantastic Peruvian food.  A delicious soup, followed by two different kinds of fish, followed by beef, followed by cheesecake.  Yum.  We'd love to recommend the restaurant to you, but it's by invitation only and we were just that lucky.  Actually, it was dinner at Patty's home with her family and the Hillers, and it was a really fantastic party with good company and good food at.  Poor Calvin only got peas and squash out of the deal, and boy does he have a way of making you feel guilty when he eyes your food with those puppy dog eyes!

family dinner

Our favorite new advancement is by far Calvin's new peek-a-boo playing skill, but there are two other fun ones now, too.  At his checkup on Monday, Calvin's doctor told us to go ahead and increase the number of times he got solids during the day, so now he eats when we eat, and that makes for a fun family dinner.  We are even starting to get smiles out of him while he eats, though most of the time he seems to think it's a very serious undertaking.

The second new trick of which we spoke is one that strikes fear in our hearts - he is now able to get up on all fours, and thus is that much closer to crawling!  Thankfully it is still likely that he will wait until the Christmas tree is gone, but that still means we have a lot of child proofing to do, since we have naively been putting it off.  Check out this week's (his 27th week) photos to see the sequence of pictures showing how he gets into this crawling position - it's not via the traditional tummy time lift, it's Calvin's own personal way of doing things (the doctor did describe him as willful). 

To Calvin, who is six months old today!

Well, Calvin, you are now a half a year old!  The time is just going too fast.  The past month brought wonderful advancements, but it also brought some challenges for you and for your parents.  For the first few weeks of the month you struggled with your acid reflux, eventually leading to you losing an entire pound!  After juggling your medications you are now doing much better, but this will be the first month that you have not gained any weight.  What you have not gained in size, though, you continue to make up for in your other advancements!  Last month you realized how much you enjoyed standing to play, and this month you have learned how to push and pull yourself into that favorite play position!  You have also started to travel!  Thankfully you don't get very far, but you can crawl, in your own creeping sort of way, for very short distances.  You will be able to go much farther as soon as you figure out how to hold your head up off the ground while you are moving!  But our favorite new trick of yours is your new ability to play peek-a-boo!  For months we have played this game with you, covering our faces and then surprising you to make you laugh, but just two days ago you started covering your own face and waiting for us to ask "where's Calvin?" before uncovering and laughing up a storm!  It is so wonderful to have you engage with us this way, and we see this as a very fun milestone!

This past month has been very special to us for another reason, too:  it held the start to this year's holiday season with Thanksgiving and the start of Advent.  This is our favorite time of year, and now we get to share it with you, introducing you to the traditions, spirit, and love of the season.  We had a beautiful Thanksgiving, and decorated the house for the Christmas season.  You were awed by the lights on the tree, and seem to love singing carols with your parents every night (mostly you love sitting on your father's lap and banging along on the keys while he plays the piano).  You don't even seem to mind the cold air!  This season is not just new to you, it also feels new to us because it holds such a special new meaning to us now that you are here.  We have so much to be thankful for!

Two-way play

After nearly 6 months of one way play, our son is finally joining in the fun.  Oh sure, in the past he would grab, chew, and throw his toys, laugh at his toys, and even laugh in response to our antics, but we still consider this one way play.  After all, we would be practically standing on our heads to elicit said laughter, while Mr. Calvin was simply a laughing lump of baby.  Don't get us wrong, those days clearly beat out the days when he didn't even acknowledge our existence (a trait that is sure to return in about 15 years), but they don't hold a candle to the new and improved Calvin, now with real interactive mode so that he will actually take part in the play, rather than just laugh while watching.  Go ahead...laugh while you're watching!