Looks like 2 good ones and one semi-good one. She says she loves his smile in the last one, but it looks more like a thuggish grimace to me. (Unfortunately, Dexter wasn't exactly his usual "happiest baby in the world" self that afternoon.)
(all images copyright SPG Photography)
In any case, they're beautiful photos. Maybe this time we won't spend a small fortune on the image copyrights. (Ha!)
Overall, Dexter had a pretty good Easter. He got cards from Grandma & Granddad and from the Nulks. He got toys and books from Tootsie & Pop. and he got to make a mess with his very first chocolate bunny!
Pre-Easter with Tootsie: Now that Dexter is bigger than his stuffed bear, he needed a new goal. Tootsie obliged with this giant puppy, which Dexter loves.
She also brought him some new books. He's still too little for some of them (no eating the super-fancy pop-up books!), but those will keep nicely until he's ready. In the meantime, we can get to work on Dizzy Dragon and Thomas Gets Stuck. :)
Easter with the Cooleys: Thanks to his refusal to nap on time, Dexter wasn't exactly the happiest camper on Sunday afternoon. As a result, there are NO pictures of Dexter from the big Easter dinner. Instead, enjoy this picture of Granddad & Tybee and a shot of the cake that Ruby and Livia made for the occasion.
Dexter's Easter Basket: After everyone left and Dexter had gotten some sleep, we gave him a chance to check out his Easter basket. He got a bunch of empty plastic eggs to play with, a See & Say (he's a little bit afraid of that one), and a chocolate bunny to briefly make a mess with before we had to take it away (because babies are not actually supposed to eat chocolate). Mostly, he liked the Easter grass.
And, of course, the Chocolate Bunny was much-enjoyed, if only for a few minutes. He was very sad when we took it away. Poor baby.
Can I also add that it's April 13, and we've already taken close to 200 pictures of Dexter this month?! That's not counting his pro photo session on 4/11 (pictures to come soon, we hope!) Granted, not all of those are actually good pictures, but come on. That's just crazy.
Just 5 weeks ago, he couldn't even really get up on his hands & knees. See?
He quickly mastered that and progressed through rocking and scooting just his legs up. A few days ago, he pivoted on his knees (picking up one hand, then the other to turn about 90 degrees before flopping back down on his belly).
Today, we finally saw independent forward movement of ALL FOUR limbs. It's all a blur now, but I'm pretty sure there were at least six independent movements. He was on the countertop (closely supervised) in our bathroom, trying to get his hands on a shiny chrome clock. Dennis and I both saw it. (Tootsie was visiting all week but missed this by about four hours. She says she is bringing Dexter one fewer toy on her next visit, but we think she'll probably forgive him by then.)
Hopefully we'll get this big accomplishment on video soon!
As anticipated, Dexter got a clean bill of health today at his 6 month checkup. He was pretty good and showed Dr. Johnston how he rocks on his hands and knees. She was appropriately impressed.
On to the numbers... Weight: 21.4 pounds, 94th %ile Height: 29.25 inches, 98th %ile Head circumference: 17.75 inches, 81st %ile
It's nice to see that his head is catching up with his body (last time, that was 53rd %ile). And he's only gained 3.4 pounds in 2 months, which is consistent with his increased level of activity and makes me feel better about his probability of ending up as an 80 pound first grader.
He got 2 immunizations today (Rotavirus - oral, and DTaP - shot) and handled them like a champ.
He's chunking up nicely but is also threatening to be majorly on the move any day now. So it's good that he has some energy reserves for that.
Helloooo, ladies!
And I can stick out my tongue!
I still love this bear!
We lucked into an action shot this time. Supposedly we're soon to move past the puking phase. I'll believe it when I see it.
Look, lady. I am DONE with these pictures!
OK, you talked me into just one more.
He's been eating "real" food for a month now. He's had sweet potato, avocado, peas, carrots, prunes, green beans, banana, and apple (not necessarily in that order). Apple is definitely his favorite, and he prefers baby oatmeal cereal to baby rice cereal.
His latest trick is getting up on his hands and knees and rocking back and forth, seemingly for minutes at a time. I'm sure if we actually got the stopwatch out, we'd find it's not nearly as long as we think. Still, 2 weeks ago, he was barely even getting up on his hands & knees, and last week he was only rocking for maybe 15-30 seconds.
He's having lots of fun with all of his toys, but we've still managed to (mostly) contain his living room play space to about 15 square feet. His newest favorite toy is this "bead roller coaster" that I got at Ikea this week for $10. (Yes, it's that thing you always see in doctor's offices.) He can play with that for 10 minutes at a time (and we have timed that one - we even have that much nearly-continuous video of it). Sophie the Giraffe is also always guaranteed to bring a smile, even if only for a few seconds in the midst of serious hunger or fatigue.
Sleep is still sortof hit or miss. He always wakes up at least once to eat, but things are definitely much better than they were. We finally bought the 3 main sleep books instead of keeping them out of the library. There are sections for just about every age group, so we figure we may need to refer to them repeatedly (although one certainly hopes not).
Official height and weight stats from the pediatrician are due next week. I couldn't really even guess how much he weighs now. Probably under 25 pounds, but not much. Maybe 23? (We haven't done any unofficial weighing at home lately.) Thank goodness we got the carseat with the 30-pound weight limit.
