Can I talk about my baby some more?

He is really cute. He's having a bit of a rough time at the moment, but you'd never know if you didn't know how smiley and energetic he normally is. And what his normal body temperature feels like. He's got a fever, and the sniffles, so I'm going to chalk this one up to 'he has a cold' unless further evidence presents itself. He acts like I act when I'm sick and no one is around. I make that 'groany' sound and roll around in the bed, unable to get comfortable and feeling sorry for myself. I toughen up when other people are around. Tyler has no such qualms.

It's been a mostly boring weekend for us. Yesterday Jess took some mommy time and went of to roller derby and then got a massage. I took care of the baby. He's started eating applesauce, his favorite, so far. He's also gone through green beans, peas, sweet potatoes, and carrots without incident. Sometime we're going to start him on 'multi-grain cereal' (read: it has some wheat in it) but we may hold off for a little bit. He's actually mostly gone through the 'stage 2' baby food cereals (I think stage 1 is just formula) and we should be starting him on the next level of stuff: chunky things that he has to learn to mash a bit between his cute little baby gums before swallowing. It's a step. After that, we can start giving him food to eat on his own with his increasingly-well-developed little pincher grip.

And speaking of chewing, I've started brushing Tyler's teeth at night. It's mostly just to get it worked into the routine, at this point, but we have a cute little brush and I scrape it against his teeth a few times while Jess changes his diapers. He was a little startled the first time, but quickly decided he likes it. It's not a bad way to get some smiles out of him.

As for crawling, Tyler is getting more and more distance under his belt as his confidence grows. He can definitely see a thing that he wants and go get that thing, which must be immensely freeing for him. He's thinking about pulling himself to standing, but he doesn't quite have the muscles yet, and he occasionally flips and rolls and spooks himself something fierce in the attempt. You just have to hold him and smile at him and let him know that everything is okay, and before too long he'll be convinced.

Today we went out to the mall. Not for anything in particular, just to look at things and walk around with Tyler. There's lots of colors to see and people to stare at, and mommy and daddy can get some smoothies and pretzels. I considered buying Tyler his first video game system, but the point behind that little trick is to buy an old, cheap one and a million games for it. Turns out old Nintendo consoles have dipped past 'cheap' and are back up into 'collectable', or at least that's what my local 'old video game console' stores want me to think. I'll see if Ebay can't prove them wrong sometime later. Either that or Tyler gets a free upgrade to a cheap Playstation or PS2. No rush, though. I don't think his pincer grip is good enough to work video game buttons quite yet.

I think I'm allergic to mold. I've had watery (though not red) eyes and a stuffy nose for the past few days, and the allergy forecast has been high for 'mold' the past few days. Also my throat hurts. That might be unrelated. And I've been achy and tired, but only for a few days after I got the flu shot last week. I'm just saying, there are symptoms, okay?

I'm working on the Ticom Geomatics theme song in my spare time. It's hokey and simple which makes it easy to work on, but hard to get motivated by.

I'm going to to serve up dinner. Ta.

-N