Ten Months

Tripp,

You turned 10 months on September 1st. So what have you been up to? The better question might be, what have you not been up to? You are SO full of energy and constantly entertain those around you. You're a very happy and very active baby. I think months 9 & 10 have been my favorite so far, but I'll probably say that with lots of ages.

You crawl really fast now and try to get into everything. Papa is anxious for you to walk, but so far you only take steps holding onto furniture or our hands. If I turn my back on you you're playing with outlets, eating the remote control, playing with my cell phone, pulling books off the books shelves, or un-potting our plants. You love that you can stand up and spend a lot of your day standing and holding onto furniture. Your favorite place to stand is at the front door. You like to look outside and watch the leaves/people/cars/dogs/flag. You know how to wave goodbye when people leave our house and you love having visitors.

You never sit still unless you're really tired after your morning bottle. During that time you'll rest your head on my shoulder sometimes and it's the sweetest thing in the world. This usually only lasts about 10 seconds, but every once in a while you'll give me a good few minutes of cuddles. You've gotten better about sitting still to read books and now we can usually get through one or two books before naptime or bedtime before you squirm away. You're favorites are "Brown Bear, Brown Bear", "Little Penguin", "The Wheels on the Bus", and "Time for Bed".  You usually go to sleep at 6:45 or 7pm, after your bath, and sleep through the night until sometime between 5:15 and 6am. You're an early bird, but so are we, so that's ok. You also take a morning nap two hours after you wake up and then (usually) an afternoon nap.

You LOVE to eat. I hope you'll always be a foodie. You want to feed yourself everything, but I can hardly stand the mess so I try to still feed you really messy foods and let you give yourself less messy things. It's hard to say what you're favorite food is since you eat everything. The only food you don't like is hamburger - you spit it out twice when we tried it. Secretly this made me happy. :) You beg for food is somebody is eating and you're not. Also, whenever Papa or I go into the kitchen for any reason you quickly crawl in after us and whine/pull on our legs until we pick you up to show you what we're doing and/or give you food. It's a good thing our kitchen is small, because with you constantly hanging onto my legs, it's tough to move around.

You're very vocal and very friendly. Strangers don't bother you at all and in fact you seem to love the extra attention. You growl a lot, yell, babble, and laugh. You also know how to clap. We're working on "touchdown" and "high five". Somedays you get it and somedays you don't.  If we put you on the ground near another baby you always crawl towards them to say hello.

Summer Recap

This summer was one to remember. We didn't make it up north or to the beach, but we did a lot of other special things I'd like to remember.

Our summer started in mid-May when I became a SAHM and Joe started his internship. He worked hard all summer, loved his job, and can now say that he has an offer and will be starting full time in March! In some ways, I feel like I worked harder than I ever have this summer (taking care of a baby 24/7 is no joke), but in other ways I feel like I didn't work at all since I loved what I was doing. Spending every day just hanging out with my baby boy was so special.

Joe had the car at work this summer so Tripp and I were left to walk everywhere. And that's what we did! We averaged 4-5 miles a day, which made me feel better about not getting to go to the gym. We went to the park where Tripp had his first ride on a swing. We set up a blanket and watched kids playing on the playground. We walked to Kerrytown and the farmers's market a lot. We sometimes attended the storytime/playgroup at the downtown library, and we ran errands to the post office, bank, grocery store, etc. Getting out of the house at least once a day was crucial for this mama's sanity :)

In June, Joe's mom and Aunt came to visit us for a couple days and in August we went to MD to see them. Tripp had his first plane ride and did great both ways. He slept, ate grapes and Cheerios, played with toys, and spent lots of time flirting with the lady across the aisle from us. At Gigi's house he got to swim in the pool everyday which he loved. He also got to see Annapolis and meet our friends Marc and Cher. We also took a weekend trip to Grand Rapids in July. We stayed with our friends Matt and Kelly and visited the Frederik Meijer sculpture garden and had wonderful food at Marie Catrib's and Reserve. Tripp and I stayed one extra day so that we could visit with my high school friends and his future girlfriend Riley.

Tripp hit lots of milestones this summer. I should have been better about writing these down as they happened, but oh well. He began the summer by learning to sit up unassisted (at about 6.5 months). It wasn't long before he was scooting backwards and then "crawling" forwards. His crawl was unique when he started at about 7.5 months and looked more like a swimming motion. He "crawled" without using his legs, until about 9 months when he started to crawl for real. He loves pulling up on everything, can walk holding onto furniture or our hands and has figured out how to climb a few stairs. At about 8 months he finally started sleeping through the night and consistently taking two naps a day. Tripp's main form of communication is growling, but he can also say "mama". He knows how to give kisses (open mouth ones) and waves goodbye. It's been so much fun this summer watching him develop.

Back to School

Today is Joe's first day back to school for his final semester of law school. It's hard to believe how quickly law school has gone by. He might beg to differ since I'm sure his hours of studying felt incredibly long, but to me it's been the fastest 2.5 years I can remember. We've made great friends who we'll be sad to say goodbye to. Our personal lives have changed tremendously - new house, new baby, new jobs.

To celebrate back to school I made pumpkin spice pancakes this morning. Yum! I'm also hoping to get back to blogging and this time of year is as good a time as any to restart. I took an unintended summer break, but time is going so fast I want to document it so we can look back at this very special season of our lives. For example, how do we now have a ten month old!? Wasn't he born last week? :) Hopefully my next post will be a recap to document our new jobs and all the things that Tripp has been up to.

My New Job

My last day of work for company A was May 2nd. I had some good experiences there, traveled to lots of places (Chicago, Charlotte, St. Louis, NYC), moved around several times (Connecticut, D.C., Michigan), and met lots of friends (including Joe). However, my overall working experience was not positive and I don't miss it one tiny bit.

My new job is SO much better. Being a stay-at-home-mom wasn't something I always wanted (sometime I should write about why I'm still slightly insecure with my decision), but as soon as I knew I was having a baby I knew I would want to stay home with him. It's such a personal choice, and a tough one at that, but for me, I wanted to be there to raise my child full time. I'm very fortunate that things have worked out financially and that I have a husband who agrees that it's important for me to stay home and raise our child(ren).

Yesterday felt like my first real day as a SAHM. The week prior Joe was home, we had friends staying with us, and we went out of town for a couple days. Yesterday was just Tripp and me...all day. I loved it! I think Tripp did too. My goal for these first few weeks is to get Tripp on a schedule which will hopefully improve his sleep habits. So far I've been successful in getting him to take a morning nap every day I've been home. The rest of the day is sort of haphazard....but we're getting there. We went for two walks, ran errands that were within walking distance, tried some new food (oatmeal), and spent lots of time playing. I will admit that by about 4pm when Tripp was overtired and fussy and I hadn't talked to an adult all day, I had a moment where his 7pm bedtime seemed like a lifetime away. Even during that moment though, I was happy to be with him.

I happen to think my new boss is pretty cute!

Good Eats

This past weekend we reached a major milestone in the world of babyhood; Tripp ate his first solid food! I’ve felt for about a month now that he was ready for solids, but our doctor advised waiting until 6 months. Well, one week shy of 6 months I decided to go ahead and let him try some food and it was a great success. I decided months ago that avocado would be his first food. Full of healthy fats, vitamins, and easy for him to “chew”. I’ve done a lot of reading about first foods and I am not of the school that believes rice cereal is a necessary introduction to the culinary world. Why feed a baby something that is bland and full of empty calories when you can feed them something tasty and nutrient-packed? So anyways, I gave him a teaspoon full of avocado on Saturday and two on Sunday. Both times he eagerly grabbed at my hand to bring to food to his mouth faster and I was totally impressed that he immediately knew how to make a chewing motion. Considering how much trouble he had nursing and bottle feeding, I am very relieved to see that, at least so far, eating won’t be nearly as challenging. On Monday Joe and I had sweet potatoes with dinner so I fed little man some and he loved that just as much as the avocado. Next on the list will probably be oatmeal.

In related news, Tripp has his first tooth! It broke through last Monday night. I think he has another one on the way. Teething has not been pleasant for any of us – the poor guy seems like he’s in lots of pain. Feeding him some solids has actually been a good distraction to keep his mouth busy in between bottles.

In non-baby news, but still on the topic of food, I went with some friends to a delicious Indian lunch on Sunday. We tried Neehee’s in Canton and it was ah-mazing. It’s Indian street food and even though I can’t pronounce anything on the menu I can’t wait to go back again soon. I think the Papdi Chaat was my favorite item we tried.

What We've Been Up To

April has been a busy month for us. Here's a recap of what we've been up to:

• We spent the first weekend this month celebrating Joe's birthday and Tripp's first Easter. The Easter Bunny came to our house and brought Tripp his first Easter basket filled with argyle socks, link toys, a sunhat, and some bunny ears. Tripp did a great job modeling the ears when our friends Jake and Inga came over to take some pictures for us.
• Joe and I went out to dinner for his birthday at Chop House and enjoyed perfectly cooked filets that filled our iron requirements for the week. We also had some wine, poblano mac and cheese, and asparagus. We then came home and Joe watched the end of the Master's (his second favorite sporting event of the year after the Derby) while I put Tripp to bed.
• We also spent some time in Pinckney celebrating our friend Nash's second birthday. Tripp was a little overwhelmed with his first birthday party experience. He isn't used to so much toddler screeching :)
• The second weekend was highlighted with visits from my aunt from NY and Erin from Chicago. This was my aunt's first time meeting Tripp which was so fun. I wanted to take some pictures of her with him but totally forgot.
• Erin was here to run the Big House Big Heart race. She ran the 5k with some of our other friends and we had everyone over for brunch afterward. Joe and I signed up for the 1-mile fun run with Tripp, but there was so much chaos that we wound up just walking around the Big House a while and then going back home. We still managed to get a picture of Tripp's first visit to the Big House.
• Last weekend I also attended a baby shower for my friend Payal who is expecting a baby boy in May. There are so many babies being added to our group of friends!

In between all of these activities Joe has been trying to study as much as possible, write papers and finish out the semester. I've had tons of work to do - ironically more than most projects - so I'm trying to wrap it all up before the end of the month. Being busy has made the month go by quickly which is nice because we are very ready for this semester to be over!

Five Months

Dear Tripp,

On April 1st, you turned 5 months! I'll probably say this every month for your whole life, but it's amazing to me how quickly you grow and change. You did us a huge favor this past weekend by sleeping through the night, in your crib, for the first time ever! 7:45pm - 5am! This must have been your version of an April Fool's Day joke though because you've been up several times a night ever since then.

This past month you've really discovered your feet and you now love to grab onto your toes and bring them up to your mouth. As evidenced by our usual photo session, you were so interested in your toes that I only got a couple of good pictures. Another discovery is your thumb. As opposed to sucking on your whole hand, you can now just pop your thumb in and out when you need to. It's much easier for you to soothe yourself with your thumb than with a pacifier, and it's also pretty cute. You've also gotten really good at rolling over and often when we turn our backs on you, you will have rolled over from stomach to back or back to stomach. Another favorite activity now is standing up while we hold you. I'm surprised at how strong your little legs are.


You are still a little guy, even though you feel heavier every time I lift you up. At your 5 month dr. appointment you weighed 15 lbs, 4 oz (just under 50th percentile) and you were 26 inches (right at 50th percentile). Dr. Linker said that you are perfectly healthy, but that you definitely have some pre-teething drool so we're waiting for your first tooth any day now.