We have a 7 month old!

Owen is now 7 months old. Wow. People tell you how quickly the time goes by. But you can't truly understand it until you experience it.

Owen is a wonderful little guy. We love him more and more each day. He has a great little personality. He's happy and loving. He's very determined and so curious about the world around him. Always looking around, taking everything in. I mean, obviously we're biased and think that he's a beautiful baby. But everywhere we go he gets attention in the form of compliments, smiles and laughter from strangers.

Owen loves his pets. Whenever he hears Ernie meowing, he looks to where he is. If Ernie is within arms reach, I encourage him to "pet the kitty". I know he is enamored with Quincy, but I don't think he quite knows what to do with him. Quincy is always bringing him one of his own toys in the hopes that this will be the day Owen will play fetch with him.

He and I have great routine during the week. He sleeps well, eats well and we have a great time running errands together. I think that he truly thrives on the routine we've establsihed.

Speaking of eating well he has turned out to be a great little eater. He enjoys his cereal. I give him either rice, oatmeal, or a whole grain blend. I've been putting a little cinnamon in it which he seems to really like. Unlike his daddy, he loves his veggies. Peas seem to be his favorite, followed by carrots, sweet potatoes and green beans. For fruits he LOVES bananas. I mean, LOOOOOOOVES bananas. Its nearly to the point where he demands them with the fruit I give him at night. He really likes peaches, pears and mangoes too.

Owen and I are taking a Child/Parent swimming class. He loves the water. We sing songs, "jump" in the pool and he "swims" back and forth between myself and the swim instructor, Miss Lizzie. We've also enjoyed going to the playground. He really likes the swings. We both have fun going down the slides together.

Or course, here are some pictures. We hope to get some swimming pictures soon.

Owen sleeping in his crib:


Owen enjoying some carrots:


Munching--okay, slobbering, on an apple slice:


Sharing a toy with Quincy (one of Quincy's toys, to be precise):


Our first trip to the playground:

Silly Boy

It was inevitable that Owen would end up being a silly boy. Chad and I both have silly sides. But you know what? He's really a smart silly, if you want to know the truth.

His latest act of sillyness occured during his "bathy time". He loves his bath. Always has. Since he's been sitting well in his tub and is showing an interest in his bath toys, we've been letting him play more in the tub. Now, whenever I bathe him Quincy is always there wanting me to play fetch with him. During his bath last Tuesday, I turned for maybe 2 seconds to throw Quincy's toy out the door and I looked at Owen to see him doing this:




The boy is so smart. He found the one toy that somewhat resembles a pacifier and stuck it in his mouth. Is that silly, or what? He gives us more and more reasons to love him every single day.

Adventures in Babysitting

We have neighbors, Emi and Carlos, who have a little boy, Keifer, who is 9 days older than Owen. Carlos is in the military and has been away since December, and will be gone through April. Upon hearing that he'd left, we let Emi know that if there was anything we could do for her while Carlos is gone we would be more than happy to help.

I was genuinely excited to get an e-mail from Emi asking if we could watch Carlos for her because she had to work over the weekend. We, of course, said yes. Friday night we stopped by to see Emi and Keifer to see if there were any special instructions. She had Keifer on the floor and we put Owen down on next to him. Owen immediately rolled closer to Owen so that they were shoulder-to-shoulder. They happily shared a rattle, and were soon shrieking and screaming together.

Keifer was a joy to babysit! Owen had just gone up for his morning nap when Emi brought Keifer over. He played in Owen's Jump-a-roo and with some toys. Once Owen woke up, it was time for Keifer's nap. Owen then had lunch and played as well. Keifer took a nice nap. I tried to feed him afterwords, but he was too curious about his surroundings and wouldn't take his bottle from me (luckily it'd only be an hour until Emi would be picking him up, so she could take him home to feed). So we put him on the floor to play with Owen. The two of them had a good time together. They rolled around, they played with toys. Keifer is laid-back and sweet. Owen is outgoing and sweet. A great combination, I think. They had a great time. We can't wait to get the two together again!

Hey man, what's up?


I'll put my right foot up, and you put your left foot up.


Owen looking like he wants to wrestle.


So many activities!

Happy 6 Months Owen!

Wow...where has the time gone? Our little boy is 6 months old.

Owen had a doctor's appointment on his 6 month birthday. Grammy Penny was here while Chad had to go to South Carolina for work. He is weighing in at 17 pounds and 13 ounces. He is 27 inches tall and his head is 17 inches big. He is in the 75th percentile for all mesaurements. He also got some shots, I don't know if they're less fun for me or him.

We had a nice visit with Owen's Grammy Penny. It was truly a joy to see my mom with Owen. It truly gets harder and harder to live far away family, especially now that we have Owen.

Owen continues to grow and thrive. He has great dexterity when it comes to handling toys. He will roll from one end of the quilt to the other when he's on the floor playing. He shows happiness by laughing, smiling and shrieking. Really, our little boy is pretty happy all around. But he's funny in that he shows his displeasure by groaning and grunting. He can be kind of dramatic at times. In fact when he got his oral rotovirus vaccine he was making grunting and gagging noise, of which the nurse said, laughingly, she'd never heard a baby do. Yup, that's my boy.

Owen has been enjoying his solid food. He really likes his rice cereal. He has also tried bananas and avacado. Today after his nap, he's going to try some sweet potatoes. Once we get past him trying various foods and figuring out what he likes, and making sure he doesn't have any allergic reactions, I'm going to make his food. Yup, I'm going to be one of those mothers. :o)

Owen had his first Valentine's Day. He got a lot of cards and some Valentine stuffed animals from his Grammy and Auntie Lisa.

I think that's it for now. Just some pictures, of course.

Our happy boy:


Grammy Penny feeding Owen avacado:


Owen and some of his Valentines:


Owen and Grammy Penny:


Peek-a-Boo!:

Mmm, mmm, good!

I had done all kinds of reading on introducing solid food to Owen. Most of what I had read said that if you are exclusively breastfeeding to wait 6 months. This in spite of our pediatricians giving us the green light to start him at 4 months. My Mommy instincts kicked in and I felt like he was ready before the 6 month mark and we started feeding him rice cereal on February 1st. This would be more like 5 1/2 months.

So we put Owen into his high chair seat and put on his bib. I had alerady washed some bowls and his little spoons. I mixed the rice cereal up with the breastmilk and we were ready. From first spoonful he enthusiasticly and sloppily gobbled it up. We're on day 6 now of the rice cereal and I've learned, after making it a little too thin a couple of times, how he likes to eat it.

Here are some pictures of his first eating adventure. One of the baby food books I borrowed from the library has said that avacados are a great first food. So I bought some of those and we will try those next. Hopefully, more on that in our next blog entry.

Looking oh-so-dashing his a Dr. Suess bib.



Mmmm, that wasn't bad.




I don't know what this thing is, but it tastes pretty good!

Happy 5 Months Owen!

Owen is now 5 months old. Wow, where does the time go? He continues to grow more and more each day. And with each day we really see his personality coming out. He's sweet and smart. He's happy and determined. He's silly and full of so much love.

These days Owen enjoys a number of things. He is still breastfeeding and loves his milk. He likes going out with me during the day to run errands. This may include a trip to Target, or the grocery store. He loves playing with his toys. Anything colorful that makes noise and/or music is a huge hit. He likes books a lot too. Anything with Elmo seems to be his favorite. Bright colored books are big with him too. He really likes Leslie Patricelli's books, "Big, Little", "Yes, No", "Quiet, Loud" and "Yummy, Yucky". He also enjoys Ernie and Quincy a great deal. He will "pet" Ernie. He tries to "pet" Quincy too, but Quincy will usually lick Owen's hand before it even touches fur.

Some of the milestones he's recently hit include rolling from his back to his front, and from his front to his back. He is now sleeping in his crib, in his room! This was more of an adjustment for me than for him I think. We used something called the Ferber Method (by Dr. Richard Ferber, a sleep specialist with Harvard I believe) to get him adjusted and sleeping well and it has seemed to work really great. We're happy with it, and so proud of our big boy. We put him down at night, and, most mornings, go into his room to find that he's rotated 90 degrees, sleeping sideways. Once he had even rotated 180 degrees and was "upside down". I do love going in there when he's woken up and seeing his beautiful smiling face, picking him up and feeling his warmth. Its heaven. He's also learned how to really use his Jumperoo Horse to get exercise. In addition, he also enjoys sucking on his toes. Gross. But cute. Haha.

Here are some pictures of Owen:

Riding Gangsta style on his horse:



Playing Mario Kart with Daddy:


Mmmm, love those toes:


Looking at a book in the Bumbo seat:


Waking up side-ways in his crib:

2009 is looking fine!

So we thought we'd get a blog up again. My good friend Alison has one which I love. Her blog has inspired me to try to get this going again. Especially since, like her, a lot of our family and friends are far away.

As you can imagine, 2008 was a very exciting year for us with the birth of Owen in August. Nothing is more amazing than experiencing the birth of a child. Owen was so warm and soft when he was placed on my upon his birth and I fell so deeply in love with him. It was an overwhelming feeling of pure love and joy. In addition to Owen's birth we had a trip to Las Vegas, went to Cape Cod for Wayne and Erica's wedding and spent the Christmas holidays with friends and family. In between we also had visits from friends, including Lisa and David whom we went to a Red Sox/Orioles game with and visits from family. I had an amazing baby shower at work, one up in Massachusetts and a suprise one with friends in Baltimore. It was a great 2008 for us, no doubt about it.

We are now gearing up for 2009. I continue to look forward to the best job I've ever had. Being a stay-at-home Mommy to Owen. I wake up every morning being so stoked to be able to spend the day with him. I get to see him grow and watch him turn into this really neat little boy. We hope to host more visits from friends and family, as well as visit with you all. Maybe we'll get in some trips too.

Owen is waking up from his nap...so I will have to come back and post more. So...here's to an exciting '09!