Playpen

When we were at the French's house for the BBQ on Saturday, we got a great idea from Maddy...to fill a pack n' play with toys, place a Boppy in there so the baby can sit up unassisted and let him play for a while by himself. I realized that Sean Patrick never really plays by himself, there's always someone there to play with him.

So I set up our pack n' play (which has only been used when we've gone out of town) in the living room with a bunch of toys. Sean Patrick seems to enjoy playing alone, he goes for up to 30 minutes at a time. Although I'm sitting near him, it's nice to have a little break from time to time.



Hi Mom.




Okay, back to it...too busy to pose for photos.

Sippy Cup

Yay - Sean Patrick drank from the sippy cup all by himself for the first time today! We started the sippy cup with meals only the same day we started rice cereal on his 5-month birthday (3/11/09) so it took a few weeks but he's got it. When he sees the cup, he'll hold out his chubby little hands to grab it. Mmm...water.

Found My Feet!

Sean Patrick found his feet last week but he's only now obsessed with them. He loves his feet and tries to get to them at all times (in bed, in the bathtub, in the stroller, in the car seat...everywhere!). Here's a video of play time on the mat tonight:

Besides finding his feet, Sean Patrick also started flapping/pumping his arms with much gusto in the last week. It looks like it would hurt but he does it over and over and over and...

Sweet Potato

Sean Patrick tried sweet potato for the first time this morning with poor results - after a few initial happy bites, he was not impressed. I ended up scrapping the meal in less than 5 minutes because he was so fussy.

Here's the video of his first few bites where he seems quite content:

It was downhill from here :)

Preparation-wise, it was exactly like the butternut squash so I didn't take photos. However, the next time I make sweet potatoes, I'm going to bake them instead of steam them because they were a little blah in terms of taste with the steaming. I also found it more difficult to puree so next time, instead of the food processer, I'm going to use our hand blender.

Prior to the feeding, SP and Daddy played together:

SP loves to pet Pekona:

Meeting Maddy & Max

While Dan was at work, SP & I went to a BBQ at the French's today. It was way fun especially watching the kids play with each other...okay, so maybe not play yet but discover each other. Maddy is a doll and Max is a cutey bruiser just like SP :)

There was some awkward silence at first but then SP made his move...

Hey sexy girrrrrrrrrlfriend :)

Ha - got her out of the jumper and now it's mine all mine :)

Dueling activity centers.

A pic of SP by our hostess, Auntie Mischa, SO cute! Sean Patrick borrowed Maddy's jumper and he was busy with it the entire time he was in there.

Max & SP play together. Photo courtesy of Auntie Tia.

Thanks Team French for such a nice time!

Weeeeee....Swingin' in the Park

We have a great park that's right behind our house (well, the equestrian portion is right behind our house) that has an awesome kid's area. There are playgrounds for both little kids (2-5 years old) and big kids (5 and up). When we take daily walks with Sean Patrick and Pekona, we like to stop at the park.

About a week or so ago, I put Sean Patrick in the baby swing and he really seemed to like it so we take a few minutes to swing every time we walk through the park. Although he's not smiling for the camera in this short video, he usually smiles whenever he's coming towards me (and I say, "Weeeeeee"):

Here are a few still shots:

First Fruit: Avocado

We started avocado yesterday with great results. Sean Patrick couldn't get enough so today we increased both the rice cereal and avocado amounts.

The avocado meal is even easier to prepare than the butternut squash since there is no cooking involved...just mash and serve. It works out perfectly that we are introducing foods in four-day segments with the avocado. We bought two organic avocados from Whole Foods and we serve half an avocado at each meal.

Here's the day-old avocado used for today's meal. It doesn't really turn brown if the seed is left in, I threw it in a tupperware container as soon as I cut it in half the day before. There were a couple little brown spots that I scraped off before putting in a bowl...

Then I mashed with a fork...

I added a little breastmilk to make it smooth and voile...baby food! No matter how much I mashed it, there were still little chunks in it but Sean Patrick didn't seem phased by them - he ate it all up.

Tummy Time

We do tummy time everyday, Sean Patrick can now stand it for about 10 minutes before he gets grumpy and frustrated. A couple weeks ago, Dan bought a little rug from the children's section of Ikea that we now use for tummy time, it's a no-pets-allowed zone in an effort to keep SP as pet-hair free as possible :)

Here's our typical tummy time routine, it's more fun to play with some toys before we start practicing rolling over:



After tummy time, we practice sitting up either with the help of the Boppy or in the Bebe Pod. Lately, SP has really liked to play with a set of soft blocks from his Unlce Matt and Auntie Susan. They are all different textures that are easy to grasp and they make various noises. Fun stuff for SP! Here he is playing with them, I love how he hurls them when he's done with them:

Here's another one since he's so darling (okay, so I'm a little biased):

Here's a still photo of the block party:

Tuesday Cutie

The Fish family sent Sean Patrick a set of day-of-the-week onesies for Christmas and he finally fits in them (they are 9-12 month size!). Here's SP playing in his Tuesday onesie:

Cutie!

Take that froggie!

What the?! Are you still taking pictures?

Butternut Squash Day 2

This morning we mixed the butternut squash with the rice cereal and Sean Patrick really seemed to enjoy it, he ate almost the entire bowl. Here's Daddy giving solid feeding a whirl like an old pro:

Here are a couple photos of this morning's feeding:

Yum!

End w/water in sippy cup.

First day of Veggies: Butternut Squash

This morning we started Sean Patrick on vegetables, his first one being butternut squash. It was very simple and easy to make the puree myself. Just steamed a bag of frozen organic butternut squash, pureed in the food processor and that's it! I'm freezing what I didn't use today for use later. He'll be eating butternut squash for the next three days and then we move on to his first fruit.

Video of SP eating will come soon, Dan will post later.

Here are the steamed cubes of butternut squash. It only took 5 minutes to steam them.

The cubed up bits go in the food processor...

...and 30 seconds later become baby food :)

This batch made 8 cubes. Each triangle is two servings right now so we have quite a bit. SP ate less than half a triangle today. Our feeding dish and freezing trays are both by Kid Co, we got both from Babies R Us.

Screaming is FUN!

Sean Patrick found his voice a while ago and has loved to listen to himself scream. His screams are high pitched and crack us up.

Here's a good example of the screaming while playing in his Excersaucer:

Here's another take, I tried to get the screaming for a little while longer plus I realized that I left the sound up on the TV on my first take however SP got distracted by the dog. His reaction to Pekona is so cute!

We can put the swing away now.

Sean Patrick has really been enjoying hanging out in his swing lately. He likes to sit back and watch his mobile spin around. It's the Fisher Price Rainforest Swing and it's great because it's the only swing I found that had the ability to plug into an outlet versus just use batteries.

We've been putting the swing on the fastest setting for a while now because we've noticed as he has gotten heavier, the swing slows down (and we know it's not a power issue since we don't use batteries, we just plug it in). The weight limit on the swing is 25lbs and SP is probably pushing 20lbs at this point but this is what happened when I put him in the swing this morning on the highest setting:

Time to pack it up!

Oatmeal is going better...

Sean Patrick now finishes all of his oatmeal since he only gets his sippy cup at the end of his meal. However, he's started alternating bites with chewing on his hand. Well at least he's finishing his meal :)

Glow Stick

Dan recently found a blue glow stick that he brought back from the Blue Man Group tour in Korea last year. As soon as he saw it, Sean Patrick promptly wanted to put it in his mouth so Dan baby-proofed it by sticking one of Sean Patrick's Soothie pacifiers on the end of it. Voila...baby choking hazard eliminated. SP loves to chew on the paci that glows annnnnd...it has a handle - genius!

Happy St.Patrick's Day!

2nd Food: Oatmeal

This morning we switched from rice cereal to oatmeal with so-so success. When we started rice cereal last week, we also introduced the sippy cup with water to Sean Patrick. He was uninterested up until yesterday when he got the hang of actually getting water to come out of it. So this morning, he was much more interested in the sippy - only a few bites of oatmeal.

Mmm...baby oatmeal.

Took a few bites like a champ and then...

Realized the sippy cup was more fun.

5-Month Birthday Photo Session

We got these cool little stickers from etsy.com (seller pickysticky) where each sticker denotes the baby's month-birthday (1-month, 2-month, etc) meant to use for DIY photo sessions at home. It's super easy, just stick to a plain onesie and you're in business. We recently got our set so months 1-4 will be shelved for now and we start with month five.

Here are a few pictures from our 5-month shoot taken yesterday (3/11/09):

Smiley baby.

Centerfold baby.

This is Sean Patrick's favorite teething toy, Sophie the Giraffe. Sophie is an all-natural rubber toy that is great since SP doesn't seem to like the teething toys that are meant to be refridgerated.

When we got Elmo Live, Dan claimed it was more of a toy for Mommy than baby :) It's certainly not true now though, SP loves his Elmo. We get instant smiles from SP whenever Elmo starts to talk or sing (the first photo up top where SP is smiling is a result of turning Elmo on). The box recommends it for kids 18 months or older but Sean Patrick has loved his Elmo from 3 months on.

Sean Patrick Eats Soilds.

Sean Patrick had his first solid food... Well, rice cereal, if that really counts as "solid", at his 5 month mark (11 March).

Here's a little video of him eating away. This is just the beginning. He actually ate for about 8 minutes... But only parents (and maybe grand parents) could watch 8 minutes of a baby eating food. This video is only 1 minute and change.

Enjoy.

...

First Playdate

Sean Patrick had his first playdate today with a baby the same age, his new friend Jack. Auntie Danna introduced me to her friend Tracy who had recently moved to Los Angeles with her husband, Daniel, and baby Jack. The mommies had fun chatting and the boys stared at each other a lot.

It was interesting to see Sean Patrick's reaction to another baby. Whenever Jack would either get a little fussy or even laugh, Sean Patrick started crying. He just didn't know what to make of the situation. This leads us to thinking that he needs many more playdates and on a regular basis.

Thanks for hangin' with us Jack and Tracy!