Tiger canape

Jory can basically sit up by himself now, although he still manages to keel over onto his face at least once a day. No actual damage, but he freaks out.

Daddy ordered him some animals to make bath time even more fun ... Jory's got one mode of investigation, which he showcases for you here:

I especially like the part of this video where we snicker and he looks at us like, "What's so funny??"

Abandon all hope

Lest you think parenting is all adorable photo ops, giggles, and developmental milestones, let me tell you about my morning.

KC's out of town, so last night I faced a solo night of sleep training. Earlier this week Jory accidentally revealed that he is completely capable of going at least 8 hours between feedings during the night - busted! So we're trying to get him to sleep through the night so we can stop stumbling around like the walking dead.

Last night Jory went to bed at 7 pm, woke at 2 am and ate a bit, got a little cranky at 4 am and 5 am but went back to sleep, and then snoozed until 7:30 am. In other words, I woke up feeling pretty good.

We went downstairs for Jory's breakfast - formula and vitamins. Then we both got dressed and we went for an early morning walk around town. Delightful!

Upon our return, Jory was pawing at his mouth, so I figured he wanted to finish his bottle. To my surprise, he became very fussy after only a few minutes of feeding. He finally made it clear that he wasn't going to eat any more; I decided to take him upstairs and check his diaper. I picked him up and began patting him on the back to burp him.

He let loose a simultaneous burp and barf. That's right, he barped. All over himself and all over my chest. He rolled into the barf on my shirt, causing our clothes to stick together.

Seriously gross.

I took him upstairs, set him on his changing table, and stripped my shirt off, which I then used to mop up the stringy mess that had slid down my collar. That shirt went in the pile of laundry, along with Jory's clothes. When I got him undressed I was reminded that he needed a diaper change - and sure enough, there was a huge load of last night's carrots! I pulled that diaper off him and substituted a new diaper ... too quickly, as it turned out.

Jory continued to take his carroty poop as I was changing him. I frantically pulled out a diaper wipe to catch the new business - and as I did that, he stuck his foot right in the old poopy diaper.

I got that mess cleaned up, disposed of the diaper, wrangled him into his new outfit, and realized I'd forgotten to get a new bib. So I picked him up and carried him over to the closet.

He barped.

I lunged for the pile of bibs and managed to catch 90% of the new barp in the fresh bib. The remaining 10% went all over my bra (I was shirtless, remember) and chest ... as well as Jory's new outfit.

Jory looked at me and gestured at his mouth, clearly indicating that since he'd refunded his second breakfast, he was going to need more food.

However, I decided that it was time for his morning nap so I could shower and debarf the clothes. He disagreed.

He went in his crib and I went in the shower. When I got out, I looked at the clock.

9:30 am.

Democracy has been suspended in our household for the day.

Pilots

... don't have to wear stupid hats, Mommy!!!

Annaprashan

You'd never guess from looking at his grey eyes and white skin, but Jory has a Chinese grandfather and an Indian grandfather. An Indian friend offered to host an annaprashan for Jory to celebrate - via his Indian heritage - his first intake of solid food.

Of course, we cheated. Jory had his first "solid" food a few weeks ago. But the most fun part of the annaprashan comes after the ritual feeding, when the child is presented with a tray of items and invited to, you know, determine the course of his entire life. No pressure.

So Mommy and Daddy got dolled up in their dressy Indian clothes and convinced Jory to wear the kurta/pyjama that his Auntie Emma brought him from India.

Jory's godfather Ajay started the ceremony by blessing Jory with an offering of grass and seeds:

And then Jory got his first tikka:

And then it was on to the feeding. When I saw the foods that our friend had prepared for him, I burst out laughing. Honey, ras malai, sugar, and meat - all the things the pediatricians tell you are strictly forbidden for infants! After a quick conference we decided that there are a billion Indians, after all, and so it was highly unlikely that Jory was going to burst into flames - or hives - by tasting the forbidden foods.

He really enjoyed them - especially the meat! Uncle Ajay had to explain to Jory that he was supposed to be eating the kofta, not Ajay's fingers:

And then finally, the main event: the determination of Jory's entire future. KC held him in front of the collection of books (to become a scholar), balls (to be a soccer or basketball player), ceramic chilis (to be a chef), thread (to be a tailor - or fashion designer, we decided), magnifying glass (to be a scientist), pens and pencils (to be a writer - apparently a one-eyed writer), and an origami box (we weren't quite sure what that one signified, but it was brightly colored).

Jory took one look at the objects and flung himself into the middle of them, thrashing his arms around. After a brief tussle with fate, he waved his future in his clenched hand:

A book! About pie! The food, not the mathematical symbol! And he verified his choice by munching on the book for the rest of the party.

Thank you Uncle Ajay, Auntie Sai, and Auntie Devaki and family for helping us give Jory an Indian welcome to solid food!

Not today

Read my lips: no sweet potatoes today!

Sleep is for the weak

According to Jory's new onesie, Mommy and Daddy are very, very strong.

Thanks Uncle Ned and Auntie Rachelle!

I think this also gets Jory a free coffee at Small World!

Go Wildcats!

Jory is sporting a onesie featuring the 2012 NCAA basketball champion Kentucky Wildcats!

Thanks Uncle Chris and Aunt Jennie!

A Fairy Gets Its Wings

More like a whole troupe of them, thanks to Jory - who finds his daddy absolutely hilarious!

A little too far

This morning Jory took his new-found enthusiasm for solid foods a little too far ....
 

Something is fishy

In the state of California!

Worst father ever

Jory is entering the grabbing stage...

First haircut

Well, it finally happened - I was motivated enough to take a pair of scissors to Jory's rather extraordinary hair. I was shamed into it by Jory's grandfather, who told me "You need to get that kid's hair cut. And not at the beauty parlor - you do it."

So I did. First I googled "cut baby hair" and watched a nearly useless video on YouTube (the best piece of advice they gave was using two bibs to catch the hair). Then I assembled a bowl of water, a comb, some paper towels, and some scissors that weren't nearly sharp enough.

Before:

And after:

Of course I couldn't do anything about his huge bald spot, so he's got a weird sort of Celtic thing on one side of his head. Fortunately this is California, he's a baby, and we're not adverse to hipster hair. I assume I'll get better at this as time goes on.

Sweet potatoes!

Last week we decided to move Jory on to a new food, one that would hopefully be more inspiring than rice cereal in breast milk. So ... enter the sweet potato! Some friends gave us a Babycook, which isn't especially fast but gets the steaming and pureeing done in one container.

Here's the response from Jory on his first mouthful of sweet potato (diluted in breast milk, of course):

It's all good!

Uh oh, maybe not ...

 No no, it's ok - he likes it!

So now we stir the sweet potato into his cereal so he's getting as much vegetable as possible. The biggest problem is that he constantly tries to grab the spoon to feed himself, so the food goes everywhere ...

What will he look like when he finds a food he doesn't like??

Next up ... squash!

Hello world!

Well, it's a bit late but here's the output of the first piece of code that he has written:

The many hairstyles of JAH

Jory's hair is his thing, which is why I haven't taken him to get a haircut yet. He also can't really sit up on his own, so I think we're better off waiting.

But now his hair is getting ridiculously long ... and versatile!

We've got the rooster look:

The preppy look:

Preppy turns to emo if you avoid the bathtub long enough:

And unfortunately all this is meant to hide this alarming bald spot! 

Petroglyphs

We've got a strange thing for petroglyphs. So while we were in Hawaii we took a quick hike out to see the Puako Petroglyph lava field.

The petroglyphs are billed as mysterious figures, like this one:

But we suspect we've got it all figured out:

Some Hawaii pictures

Back in January the three of us headed to the Big Island of Hawaii - Jory's first big plane trip!

These are just a few of our many pictures from the trip!

The weather was gorgeous and Hawaii is fantastic!

Time with grandma

Jory was lucky enough to see his paternal grandmother recently, and to share his new love of books with her!

Unfortunately he was also able to share his deep and abiding hatred of hats ... even cute monkey hats like this one!

Thanks for visiting, Grandma!