Eureka!

There are moments of sudden clarity in one's life when it truly feels as though others must actually be able to see the light bulb flick on over your head, and yesterday was one of those moments here in this household.  For weeks we have been struggling to get Calvin down for naps, and at night he seems reluctant to go to bed even though he is clearly exhausted.  And don't even get us started on the reappearance of the night wakings.  So Thursday morning, in a moment of utter desperation, we were racking our brains for ways to correct this new behavior when that light bulb lighting moment of clarity hit us - obviously his sleep patterns are changing, duh!  When we think about it, the last time we were experiencing such difficulties was when he was getting ready to drop the fourth nap and go to three, so we looked in our baby manual and lo and behold, around 7-8 months babies usually drop the third nap.  Duh!  So Thursday we did just that, keeping him up longer between naps, letting him sleep longer for the two naps, and putting him down earlier for bed at night, and we continued that trend yesterday.  The result?  Very easy naps and bedtime (he is even putting himself to sleep again!!!), and he's sleeping through the night again!  He is getting up about an hour early in the morning, but goes back to sleep if we encourage it, so we aren't too concerned.  Besides, when choosing between being up for an hour at three or getting up at six, we'll take the latter of the two, thank you.

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!

All I got for Christmas...

...was my two bottom teeth!  And a few toys.  Well, maybe a lot of toys.  But the two bottom teeth are really cool!  They're not all the way in yet, and I wish they'd hurry!  But you'll never guess what I've been eating with those teeth!  In the last week I tried sweet potato, then oatmeal, and tonight I tried acorn squash.  I like all of those better than the green beans, which have a funny texture if you ask me, but I do like my peas pretty well.

Happy 2007!

Wow!  2007!  And Calvin has enjoyed yet another first holiday celebration, although this one he slept through completely while we partied in the next room (at least he's a good sleeper).  We had figured we would end up ringing in the new year just the two of us with our own (sleeping) baby year - we took Steve and Rachel (who, by the way, rang in their new year as an engaged couple after a very special Christmas Eve proposal - yay, yay, yay!), but as luck would have it, someone actually wanted to spend this, the greatest party night of the year, with us boring old parental types...Andrew and Amy, our good friends from around the corner, came over for dinner, baby play, music, snacks, and the traditional dropping of the ball and champagne toast.  Good company really adds a lot to any celebratory situation, and we had a really wonderful evening - and a LOT of good food.  We are really looking forward to (and bracing ourselves for) all that this new year has in store for us (including a new tax break), and we wish all of you out there a year full of beautiful blessings.