The Case of the Amazing Baby

We've had a few wow moments with Tyler over the past few weeks. For starters, he's started doing crazy stuff when he's on his stomach. He's been able to lift his head for a while, and he's been getting up on his knees and rocking back and forth a lot, which is a pretty normal thing for babies getting ready for crawling, but he's started to get up on all fours and then get up his toes. And then sort of flail his feet around so he's sort of half almost crawling and kinda walking on his toes except his hands never move. He's clearly excited to get moving, but he hasn't yet figured out that the hands need to be involved. Regardless, he's getting a heck of an upper-body workout. More and more of that baby budge is starting to turn into baby muscle!

He's starting to work on his little 'pincer motion' too, where he uses his finger and thumb for delicate tasks. It's clearly a work in progress, but he likes looking at fiddly things and he gets really focused and quiet and goes to work. The thumb and finger still have some coordination to work out between the two but it's really fascinating to watch him work. I caught a glimpse of my future son while he was working with a cute, concentrated face. For some reason I could see a shadow of how he's going to look when he's older. I got a bit of a chill.

We went swimming today, too. Well...it's still not that much swimming, truth be told. He has more fun in the tub. The pool is so new and strange that he spends most of his time, near as I can tell, just trying to figure out where the heck he is. We got some splashy time out of him, but the water was pretty cold, and it isn't a really good idea to keep him out in the sun much, even though we do make him wear a hat and a shirt. Delicate baby skin, you know.

Oh, and I got to take him swimming because I got to stay home today. I took a day off because Aunt Sandlin and Uncle Matt are visiting this week. Tyler has gotten a lot of Aunt time, especially around his cheek area. Matt has gotten to hold him and feed him a few times, too. They're going to spoil that kid rotten, I'm sure.

Tyler has been, as reported, working on Carrots this week. He's getting better, but he's still not a huge fan. Those first few bites are still really rough. We balance it out with some rice or oats, nice and familiar, and eventually he gets into the swing of things. It's way messier, though. We've got peas and sweet potatoes to try next. I imagine it will be much the same story as the carrots. Huge mess, scrunchy face, really cute.

As for me, I've been playing some video games in my spare time, but I think I need to get back into the studio to make some more music. There's a few more songs from Actraiser I'd like to cover, and someone made the excellent suggestion of writing a theme song for our work. I'm thinking of making it a little bit like the old Mickey Mouse Club theme. Very upbeat and saccharine. That could be a fun project.

Jess and I are both slacking on exercise a bit. Jess has a better excuse in that her normal Derby stuff has been interrupted by places loosing their rink time and other valid excuses. I was sick last week, but I missed Judo this week because Sandlin and Jessie told Tyler to be cute so I could stay home. He did, and so I did too. And I ended up making Ice cream too. Came out great, especially with strawberries. Yum.

Sandlin has been spoiling us with food. She made us Carnitas yesterday with so many fixins you'd think we were at a restaurant. Jess says she likes Sandlin's cooking better now. So I'll just have to make sure I fix that quite promptly...somehow. There were Kebabs, too. I grilled them with some corn that came out very well. She's also made us some chicken stock that she also turned into Chicken and Orzo soup, and Chilli, and a few other things too. She's a machine in the kitchen. She bought us some smoked salt that seems really good, but you have to store it extra-tight or it makes the whole pantry smell like a BBQ.

Jess gets back from work soon and then we're going to get some burgers with friends of Sandlin's that live in Austin. More people to meet! Oh, that reminds me. Some neighbors around the corner are either moving in or moving out. Either way, we'll probably have some new neighbors to meet quite soon.

-N