Leo practicing his french "r"

Due to technical delays the video did not work when originally posted, hopefully it works great now!

New Pictures: Leo's 28th Week

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This week Leo was still trying to get on his all fours, so we tried some of the old-fashioned methods of holding him up with a towel and having him "crawl around". Unfortunately, Leo would have nothing of it and was much more comfortable just lying down :) I guess some babies just prefer to do things in their own rhythm, and sure enough Leo is now on all fours, trying hard to figure out how to crawl forward (though, as you've seen from the videos, the result is usually that he ends up crawling backwards!)

This was also the week of the hurricane, which luckily passed without any damage and any major disruptions - Leo did not even wake up! The next day we met up with our friends Amit and Kajal for a Sunday afternoon drink, but we underestimated just how hot the day was now that the winds have cleared all the clouds away! In the end no amount of beer could keep us cool, and Leo spent most of the time huddled in the shade wearing nothing but his underwear, as keeping him in the sun would have turned him into a boiled shrimp! :)

It was also a week of visits, as we had our neighbors Kirstin and Vince over with their 4 and a half month-old son Jack over for brunch. The little ones had a good time on our new baby playmat as you can see! Then, on Monday Samek unexpectedly came for a visit to see Leo for the first time, and the little guy immediately warmed to him! Must be the kindred half-Polish blood :) Samek also got Leo a great new toy, which (once we finally got around to assembling) the little guy loves!

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New Video: Leo under coffee table

With Leo scooting backwards across the floor with the speed of a river crab on Red Bull, sometimes you look away for just half a minute and the little guy has already moved a meter back. And just like a car stuck in reverse, once he was up against the wall Leo ran out of options :)

New Video: Cheryl feeding solids to Leo and Violet

Now that both babies are eating solids we were wandering how Cheryl would manage to feed both of them. Well, on Friday I got to witness baby lunch chez Trumbic-Wozniak, and it makes for fun viewing :)

Leo's new solids diet

It's been a couple of weeks since we started introducing solids to Leo's diet and so far we've been making good progress. These days the little guy eats solids three times a day: once for breakfast ~7:30am (that's Tata's job), later for lunch (Cheryl) and in the evening before going to sleep (usually Tea). So far he's been eating:

1. "Stage 1"mushed foods from jars - we started with vegetables only so that he does not get used to solid foods being sweet (which babies can with fruit); also, we introduced them one-by-one to see if he's allergic to anything (he's not)
2. Baby yoghurt
3. Mama's milk mixed in with rice cereal

From veggies he really likes peas (apparently unusual for babies), squash and carrots, but he does not like sweet potato (maybe, being a good half-polish boy, he wants some butter and dill with his potatoes :). Next stage: avocado, fruit and, if we're adventurous, jars with mixed-in meats!

Big Boy Bathtime

Now that Leo has learned how to sit up we thought we might put him upright in the bathtub, rather than in the usual reclining position. As you can see, he rather liked it :)

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

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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" :)

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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!