High Five!

Simon seems to be starting to communicate with us a little bit, both with his hands and his voice. We are getting a hand wave from time to time, and while Simon's proficiency at this skill may be questionable, the intent seems to be there. He has also been doing a strange sideways motion with his left hand that seems to mean something to him, but we can't quite figure it out. And he also seems to be starting to try to point, although so far he just holds his entire hand out to whatever he is trying to indicate, rather than just the index finger.

And while Matt isn't totally sold on this yet, I do think Simon is trying to say Leia. He must hear her name all the time, and several times he has said something like "Ay-Uh" when she is around. I guess time will tell!

Finally, one of his favorite has long been and is still the high-five. Check him out.

11 Months Old

As usual, I can't believe how fast the time has gone...Simon is 11 months, that's almost a year old!

He has spent the last month crawling around like crazy, pulling up on everything he can get his hands on and is starting to "cruise", or use furniture to walk a bit.

He is still mostly a happy guy, but has started to show some separation anxiety. He cries if we try to put him in an exersaucer or pack-n-play and bedtimes and naptimes have been difficult this past week. We are usually able to walk out of the room after singing his lullaby and he will eventually put himself to sleep. But now he starts screaming at the top of his lungs when we try to leave and stands up in his crib crying, jumping and screaming. It's heartbreaking.

So we started a modified cry-it-out routine last night. We let him cry for 5 minutes, go back in to console and calm him. If he starts again, it's 10 minutes, then a visit, etc. The first night he cried through the 5, 10 and 15 minute segments...it was so hard to listen to but there really isn't anything else we can do.

The good news is that tonight he only cried for the 5 minutes and then went to sleep after Matt went in to check on him. So hopefully we will be through this phase before too long.

That's all for now, we are gearing up for Simon's party and birthday, and soon after he will start daycare! More on that soon...

Happy 11 months Simon! We love you so much!

A busy boy!

Simon is always on the go...unless he's asleep, he is moving about 90 miles an hour. Here's a day in the life...

First, it's off to the bathroom. As we shared in the last post, the bathroom is a favorite of Simon's. He likes to play with the shower curtain, yell at the water coming out of the faucet and unroll all of the toilet paper.

Next, it was off to his room to check out the handsome baby in the mirror...

...and methodically remove all of his pacifiers from the crib.

All that excitement made him really hungry, so he headed to the fridge to see what he could snack on.

And at the end of the day we achieved a dubious milestone...his first band-aid for a little cut on his finger. Of course he chewed off about 5 band-aids until we were able to get one to stay on long enough for the cut to close up.

That's all for now!

Simon's new activities

Here are a few shots of Simon at his current favorite pastimes:

First...hanging out in the bathroom:

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Then...opening drawers and pulling everything out:

Next...hanging out in his bathing suit, ready to go swimming:

And finally...trying new foods with Mom and Dad:

(Belated) 10 month outtakes

I totally forgot to put these up...here are a few of the cutest outtakes from the 10 month "shoot".