Into light

A couple days ago, Mark and I were sitting on the couch eating dinner, with Dane playing in front of us on the floor. Silently, he managed to eat the corner off a postcard and gave us a big smile once we realized what had happened and tried to fish it out of his mouth. It was long gone. He's been learning new things and doing new things what seems like every day! We really love seeing him continue to grow and change, and at the same time, it's been a bittersweet thing for me. When we first brought him home, the time seemed to drag on, day after day of feeding, cleaning, diapers, rocking. The past few months especially, have flown by, each day seeming to hold a new skill or discovery. Dane is probably the happiest baby I've ever met, always excited to meet new people and quickly draw in even the most detached person with his grin. We love how responsive he is, when Daddy tickles him, or I repeat his latest favorite phrase. I found myself being so thankful that we ended up with a boy the other day, as I was able to snap him out of a crabby mood just by swinging him upside down. He enjoyed lunch with my friend and I, just sitting on the table, chewing on my keys and occasionally inputting his thoughts. All of the struggle from the beginning is starting to fade away in my memory, and I'm left with this bright, shining love for someone I never knew could be so good. All the fears I had have been answered with God's grace. In Bible study on Wednesday, we were asked for our examples of God being faithful to us. My answer was simple. Dane.

Scooting!

AH! The day we've been simultaneously dreading and longing for is here! Dane has finally started the journey to mobility; he learned how to scoot. At this point, it's more like an army crawl, but it it's still fun to see him go for what he wants. After months of rolling around to get to things and then getting frustrated when it didn't work, he can finally get to that ball or piece of paper. We're going to have to start being much more careful about what we leave on the floor! He delighted me (and my parents and sister) tonight by crawling about six feet toward the computer while we were skyping. Every day seems to be a discovery for him, and now that the ball has started rolling, there's no way to slow it down.

Teeth!

Finally, after months and months of us believing Dane was teething, he really is! He's gotten his two lower front chompers over the last few days and seems to be loving it. Bite of a banana? Yes, please! Making tooth marks on the back of my phone? Bring it on! Chomping on mom's finger? You got it! He's been rubbing his tongue over them for the last couple days like a kid who just got his braces off. Yet another milestone, making me realize how quickly things are beginning to fly by and how much I need to try and appreciate moments like these before they're gone.

Late entry

The one thing we forgot on our trips for the holidays was, of course, one of the most important. Granted, we didn't do anything Home Alone style and leave the little guy, but we did manage not to pack our camera. Hello?! Dane's first Christmas?! So, yeah, needless to say, we had to make use of everyone else's. Here are a couple videos and pictures from my parents' and B-mo's cameras that helped us record Dane's first experience of the celebration of Christmas.
Trying on Dad's new hat

Partying pretty hard with all the wrapping paper and bows


This is how my mom kept him occupied while she was making Christmas dinner and we were running errands. He's happy as a clam:)
The fact that his hands are blurred is a perfect representation of him all the time...flap, flap, flap!

He's HUGE!

Dane has been growing like crazy lately, in part due to starting solids. I continually have sore arms and shoulders from hefting him around and finally we know why. We had a check up yesterday and were so happy to find out that he's between the 10th and 25th percentile on a normal growth curve! Yay! He's my little automatic-resistance-increasing weight lifting system. His head is still proportionally larger than his body, but his pediatrician said that it's common for preemies and will definitely balance out as he continues to grow. His stats are below:

Weight: 18 lbs 4 oz
Length: 27.5 inches
Head Circumference: 27.75 inches





We had to get in this priceless blackmail shot for when he starts being a "heartbreaker" (as all the elderly ladies in our building call him) a LONG time down the road:)

Rainbow Food

Dane's started to work on solids, and hence, I've started to make baby food for him. I was daunted at first, but it turned out to be incredibly simple. We have an amazing restaurant-grade blender, and so it turned out be just a matter of cooking then pureeing the foods. After putting them into ice cube trays and freezing them, I have bags of delicious pure fruits and veggies at my finger tips. Freezing them allows me to keep a wider variety of foods available, as I don't have to worry about timing the ripening correctly or keeping watch for food getting old. Below is a current list of great fruits and veggies to work with.

Veggies - Sweet potato, snow peas, squash, carrots and Dane's personal favorite, avocado

Fruits - Mango, banana, blueberries (although this one stains things so badly that I've stopped making them recently), strawberries

We've also recently added tofu, which was kind of a challenge to make in a form that Dane liked. I ended up making a smoothie out of tofu, mango, passion fruit and strawberries that he loves. This is runny when thawed, so I just add a bit of oatmeal and it becomes the perfect consistency.

If you like the idea of making baby food but don't have time to cook everything, you can also use high-quality frozen fruits, or steam in the bag veggies.

Christmas 2009 - Dane's first Christmas

Dane's first Christmas was an excellent time for all of us. He had a wonderful time with both of our families and we realized that a 9month old enjoys the paper (it's so crunchy!) much more than anything we could put inside it. Oh well:) We're still waiting to get photos from both grandparents (of course, the ONLY thing we forgot was the camera), but below are some videos from our week off.