We need YOUR help to help arrange Leo's floor tiles!

We recently got a set of foam floor tiles for Leo and Violet to exercise on without the risk of hurting themselves as they fall. There are 36 tiles total (26 letters of the english alphabet + 10 digits, no repeats) and we're looking to either arrange a square 6 by 6 tiles or a rectangle 7 tall by 5 wide. We need YOU to help us arrange them into something meaningful - please submit your proposals in the "Comments" section below.

P.S. Tea rightly points out that a way to duplicate a letter is to have one work go across and another up-down, SCRABBLE-style

A couple new videos

New pictures: Leo's 27th Week

See the full gallery here

What a week! After our visit to Dr Van Vleck we started introducing solids into Leo's diet, and as you probably saw in these videos it was not easy at first. But then Leo started eating more willingly and more, making his parents very happy (it's funny how obsessed parents are about their babies eating enough :)

Later in the week Rachel and Steve stayed with us for 2 nights with their 1-year-old daughter Lorraine, who immediately took to Leo. It took Leo a little longer to get used to the little girl who crawls around and plays with his toys (we really hope having to share his toys in the nanny-share will make Leo less possessive of "his" things), but once he did they became best of friends!

Over the weekend Tea's friend Rita invited us to join her and her family at the Bretton Woods Country Club swimming pool, which given the hot temperatures outside we were all to happy to do! Leo loved being in the water, and especially splashing it on everyone around :)

Other than that the week was all about physical exercise, with Leo starting to figure out how to get on all fours and even hot to do push-ups (see here). Another thing we've been practicing is sitting up, but as you'll see it usually ends up with Leo landing nose-first :) For this reason the early practice took place mostly under our or Cheryl's watchful eyes, but we also decided to invest in a baby-friendly floor mat which will allow Leo to fall down without going "boom" :)

See the full gallery here

Leo sleeps through his first hurricane!

With Hurricane Irene bringing crazy winds and rain, not to mention small flying objects, we were expecting the little guy to have a hard time sleeping last night. The reality turned out to be quite a lot different - Leo went to sleep early (7pm) and other than a small waking to feed around 10pm he slept through the night... or at least until 6am, b/c that's 11 hours and he does not sleep longer than that :)

In the meantime, this is what happened to a tree just outside our house and not far from the window to Leo's room. I would normally park Andrzejek (our Subaru) there but just to be safe I moved him to a place far away from trees last night. Good call!

Leo sleeps through the night!

That's right - Leo finally slept through the night (8pm - 7am), meaning for the first time in a little over 6 months neither Tea nor I had to get up in the middle of the night. Got to say it felt good! Of course not having eaten anything all night the little guy was super hungry when he woke up in the morning, but otherwise it was business as usual. More of the same, please! :)

P.S. Tea warned me about jinxing it, so if Leo does not repeat this for a while it'll be all my fault :) 

The Wozniak boys doing push-ups

"I'm on 25, and you?"

For the last couple of days Leo has been actively trying to get up on all fours, pushing off with his hands, lifting his butt, but ultimately the heavy belly would always stay on the ground :) But yesterday the little guy started lifting the belly and pretty much doing push-ups, and soon was joined by his Tata for some father-son bonding exercise!

Eventually Tata got tired and there was only one :)

Leo starts to eat solids

We've been trying to give Leo solids for a little bit more than a week now and we're happy to report he's finally getting used to it - just check out this morning's video:

Here is Kriss feeding Leo, using a slightly different motivating technique :)

And for comparison you can check out our first attempts to feed Leo (we did not want to publish the earlier so that people don't accuse us of torturing our son :)

Enjoying a nice early Saturday brunch at Teism, one of our favorite weekend places in DC. And even Leo decided to try it out :)

Happy 6th Month Leo!

Happy 6th Monthday Leo!

It's hard to believe our little guy only arrived 6 months ago - it seems like he's come such a long way from those first days that it could not all have happened in just 6 months! Today Auntie Ruti joined us for the celebrations, which included a cake from Firehook for the grown-ups and... a jar of squash mush for the birthday boy. Oh how he's going to be angry one day when he realizes what we've been denying him!

Sleep-training diary (UPDATED)

The aim is for Leo to fall asleep on his own in the evening

We started sleep-training with Leo on Friday, as suggested by our doctor and nanny, to teach him how to go to sleep on his own and how to sleep through the night, or at the very least to go to sleep on his own if he wakes up in the middle of the night. We are using the so-called Ferber method, which is the light version of the "crying-it-out" method - basically, we put Leo to sleep after his bathtime and evening meal, make sure he has his sleeping cues in place (sleeping toy/blanket, pijamas, lullabies playing, dark room, pacifier etc.) and then let him fall asleep on his own. What this provokes is usually a lot of crying, and we are only allowed to come in and comfort him in growing time-intervals: 4, 8, 12... minutes. Eventually, he falls asleep, but it's tough to hear your baby cry and not to go. But he's supposed to learn very quickly (4-5 days) and both Leo and us will be happier once he's learned how to sleep on his own, so we persevere. Here are the updates far:

• Day 1 (Friday) I stayed at home alone with Leo while Tea went out for some office drinks. It was not easy to ignore his crying, but Leo took "only" 35 minutes to fall asleep; he then slept until 4:30am, when Tea fed him and then we went to sleep with a bit of fussing (needed to go in and re-insert the pacifier 4 times); in the morning he woke up around 9am!
• Day 2 (Saturday) We went out to see a musical so Cheryl put Leo to sleep, but she said he went down without problems; he again woke up at 4:30am, but after I gave him the bottle he went to sleep almost immediately; woke up at 8am the next morning
• Day 3 (Sunday) The toughest day so far, Leo cried for a whole hour before falling asleep; it was extra tough because the other sound was that of Tea's heart breaking that she could not go in and soothe him! But after he fell asleep (on his stomach) he slept without problems until 4:30am (again!), and again fell alseep without problems after a feeding and a pacifier; he woke up around 8:15am in the morning
• Day 4 (Monday) The hardest may be behind us as things are improving - today Leo only took 19 minutes to fall asleep! It's interesting that he clearly prefers sleeping on his stomach now - he woke up only once at night (early, at 2:45am) and both sleep spells were on his belly. 7:30am wake-up was on the early side.
• Day 5 (Tuesday) As I write this Leo fell asleep maybe an hour ago after only 10 minutes of half-serious crying. It really seem this training is working, hope the fact we won't be travelling anywhere with Leo until November means it'll stick for good! (heard of cases of reversal during big international travels)
• Day 6 (Wednesday) 4 minutes - this is all it took Leo to fall asleep last night! Not only that, but he then slept until 5:15am, probably the longest he's ever slept in one spell... but still not the night without waking up we're all hoping for is around the corner :)

New pictures: Leo's 6th month

Click here for a full gallery

The new convenient way of carrying babies :)

It's been a long while since we posted any galleries, the reason for which is that (a) after the vacation when we were taking pictures all the time we're a bit "clicked out" (b) being back to our daily routines does not present itself with many photo opportunities (c) as Leo becomes more active it's actually more meaningful to record a video than to take a picture.

"I love my big-boy chair!"

The first week after we came back from Croatia and France was all about getting Leo's routine back, and there was one night when the little guy literally woke up every 3 hours and then, on top of that, would not sleep between 3am and 5am! Luckily that was only a couple of days, but it was hard especially that the temperatures were crazy (some days almost 40C) and we could not go out with Leo during the day or in the evening! Instead, we'd gone to shopping centers like Costco and IKEA, where we could stroll in air-conditioned comfort :) Leo has been great throughout, and has us hoping he'll stay positive like this in months to come!

"Hippo is so yummy..."

The second week after we came back Cheryl took a vacation so Tea or I stayed at home with Leo, which was actually a lot of fun and made us appreciate what a good boy he's become! Nowadays we can take him pretty much everywhere with us, even in the evenings if there is a place for him to fall asleep (usually the master bedroom), and among others we've been to Val+Diego's and Ruti+Luis's for dinner, rooftop BBQ, brunch with Jane and to Fredo's for asado. We even took him to an outdoor pool one of the days, where Leo took his first proper swim outside of his bath! For those rare occasions that we want to do something without Leo (usually go to the cinema) we've been lucky that our friends offered to babysit, plus last Saturday we asked Cheryl to babysit while we went to a musical (Guys and Dolls) at Wolftrap, DC's outdoor venue.

"This book is really interesting!"

Click here for a full gallery

Leo doing push-ups

Part of the daily exercise routine, working hard so when he learns how to crawl Leo can be the fastest crawling baby on the block! (not sure if that'll be a good thing for the parents who'll have to run after him :)

Leo holds the bottle - the trilogy

For the past two weeks we've been trying to encourage Leo to take charge and hold his own bottle during feedings. As you can see here, the first efforts were less than stellar (note: the better Leo becomes at it the less exciting the videos become, so don't feel bad about skipping parts of them :)

Two weeks ago:

But we kept at it and soon, as you can see, Leo was slowly getting the hang of things:

One week ago:

And finally, like in every good cheesy Hollywood story, our hard work paid off:

This week:

Leo's 6th month doctor visit

We went for Leo's 6th month checkup, and the results are all great. He is still really tall (93rd percentile) and has a proportionally large had (80th percentile for circumference), but is now relatively lighter compare to babies his age - at 7.6kg (16 3/4 lbs) he is exactly at the 50th percentile. The good doctor Van Vleck says this is to be expected as the growth/weight charts are based on mostly formula-fed babies, which are generally chubbier than breastfed ones.

In other news Leo impressed with his chattiness (apparently it's unusual for babies his age to be this articulative with their consonants), good posture, straight legs and all-around happiness. He also did not complain too much about the shots he got, choosing to fall asleep almost immediately instead.

Our "To Do" list for the next 2 months before the 8th month checkup is the following:

1. Regularly feed his rice cereal each day with a spoon
2. Gradually introduce "solids", first veggies and only the fruit
3. (1) and (2) should at first be done once a day for dinner, but the big news is that we're supposed to do them in a high chair (progress report to follow soon)
4. Put Leo in a big-boy stroller seat to let him exercise his back more
5. Push again with sleeptraining, going so far as using earplugs if necessary to ignore his inevitable crying

Leo graduates to big-boy stroller seat

It's been a long time coming, but the visit to the good doctor Van Vleck today gave us a push to switch Leo to the big-boy seat in his stroller. Why is this important? The seat is rather flat the way car seats are without a special surround for his head, so he has to work to keep an upright posture. This is turn is good for his back strength and, hopefully, will lead to him sitting up soon outside the stroller. Additionally, the seat allows better ventilation which is great news for the little guy, who has been sweating like crazy in DC's August heat.

Leo REALLY enjoying his bath

It's crazy how far we've come from the first time we put little Leo in a bathtub, when at first he would cry, and then he would just lie there passively. Now, bath time is often the thing that makes him happiest when he's tired in the evening (OK, second happiest :), and he really has a great time - just see for yourselves:

And here is a reminder of what it was like at the beginning (minus the crying, the video was carefully edited :)

Leo says "mama"!

For the past week or so Leo has become very vocal, constantly trying to tell us something. Needless to say Tea and I have been trying to give him a gentle nudge in the right direction, barraging the poor guy with "ma ma ma" and "ta ta ta", although "bla bla bla" is usually what it sounds like:

But then out of nowhere on Saturday Leo gave us a beautiful "ma ma ma". Of course this is not quite the same as "mama", and it was not directed at Tea per se, but it's a step in the right direction! Now, Leo, how about some "narewolwerowany rewolwerowcze..."? :)

Success part 2: The Sequel!

The tradition of posting boring pictures of empty bottles continues, but as with "Success, part 1" there is a good reason for this. Namely, this empty bottle signifies the first time Leo drank formula since when he was 1 month old! This is very important for us because this way we have a backup in case milk runs out. That said our main aim right now remains to introduce Leo to solids, and that is going slowly... 

Leo loves Star Wars! (kind of)

When it comes to choosing hobbies or general tastes I think it's fair to say both Tea and I believe that it'll be absolutely up to Leo to figure out what he likes in life. That said, no one said we can't give him a little "nudge" in the right direction, plus it's common knowledge that Star Wars (the real ones) are the best movies ever made!

P.S. I'm already on the lookout for a black baby hat in the shape of Darth Vader's helmet ;)

Leo's "I want to crawl" exercise

Leo really, really wants to start crawling, but while he has the strength he does not quite have the coordination... Either he pushes away with his arms, but then he can't get his butt up, or he pushes away with his legs, gets the butt up, but the nose dives straight into the ground :) As you can see that does not deter him from trying, and oh boy is he letting me know it's hard work!

Success!

This empty bottle is really good news!

You're probably wondering what's so special about an empty bottle? Well, it's actually great news because Leo just emptied a bottle of milk which had been frozen. You see, as any guide would tell you we would freeze any extra milk which Leo did not eat in the freezer, but unfortunately recently we found that Leo does not want to eat that milk! And since he does not yet eat solids nor takes formula (we're currently on the lookout for one he would like) that meant that we were completely reliant on fresh milk. But now we tried "scalding" (almost boiling) the milk to kill off the enzyme that made the milk taste bad to Leo, and voila!, it seems we found the source of the problem. From now on we just need to scald the milk before we freeze it. The only question now is what do we do with all the other milk we already have in the freezer that he won't take - hopefully he'll change his mind one day, otherwise we'll have to donate it.

Leo takes over the bottle

"I'll take it over from here, thank you very much!"

The other day when we went shopping Leo decided to take matters into his own hands and took the bottle from me as I was giving him water. Needless to say he was not as "efficient" as I would be, and most of it ended up on his bib, but it's nice to have an independent son who's not scared of trying something new :)

Leo and Mama play peek-a-boo

Who said babies in the 21st century need TVs and games to be entertained? :)

Leo is slowly outgrowing his "lazyboy" chair

When Leo was born and we put him in this chair his head hardly reached the "bunny ears", now the they're more like a collar :) Guess we should accelerate that sitting training so he can see us when we put him on his activity mat on the floor.