Milestone-a-palooza!

So, in the last two weeks Nate figured out how to crawl, pull himself up to standing, cruise along furniture, and he sprouted two front bottom teeth. All these developments have thrown his sleep schedule out of whack much to babysitter Aunt Sarah's dismay (yesterday was almost napless with near constant crying). When you put him in his crib, he immediately stands up and cries, when before he would roll onto his side comfortably and go to sleep with only a little fuss. What are we supposed to do now? Bop him back down like a wack-a-mole game? He'll only pop back up!! Plus he's extremely drooly and doing this weird thing with his jaw since he became aware of his teeth. He sticks it out like an underbitey toothless old man and scowls like Popeye. I'll try to get a picture of it even though it scares me a little.

Here he is showing off his teeth a little in the top photo. Also note the picture of him stuck under the kitchen chair.









Also, Nate turned 9 months old yesterday. At the doctor's last week they informed me that he was 90th percentile for height, and 50th for weight. Tall and slim. Now if he can maintain this through adulthood he'll be in good shape. Its funny how finding out his percentiles have become the highlight of the appointments for me...it allows me to clinically compare his perfection to the Babies of the World. Would I feel the same way if he was, say, in the 2nd percentile for height and the 99th for weight? What would such a baby look like?

We got a crawler!

I'll be the first to admit that the boy isn't about to win first prize in any crawling contests but he's now officially mobile given proper motivation. Here he is fleeing from Mommy and the camera.

Family Reunion

Last weekend Nate was introduced for the first time to the majority of his living maternal relatives in lovely Owls Head, at the spacious Burgess Compound. Nate was passed around like a hot dish most of the time, admired for his cuteness and pleasant nature. As expected his grandmother got him some new duds (check out the hoodie)and a cool busy box with Sesame Street characters that sing songs when they pop up. Gram has yet to purchase or trashpick a toy for Nate that doesnt make noises. Does Gram hate me? I fully expect to visit someday to find that Gram found a great deal on a drumset or a My First Explosives kit and simply had to get it for Nate.

Anyway, here is Nate laughing at his Great Aunt Irene:



Nate has recently learned to use his pointer finger to poke at things gingerly prior to punching them with his fist. Here he demonstrates some poking at the aforementioned busy box:



Here is Nate still playing with the Sesame Street busy box, aided by Uncle Nick and Aunt Sarah. I think they want one (a busy box, not a Nate):

Vacation!

We spent last week in Owl's Head, soaking up some sun and surf. The weather was great all week and we were fortumate to have a few days that were warm enough to make ocean swimming somewhat bearable. I think there are approximately 3 days in August when the ocean temperature of the Atlantic is warm enough to delay hypothermia for several minutes longer than usual, and by golly we took advantage of this! Chris even bought himself a fancy new kayak and paddled around the craggy coastline. I can't go paddling with him anymore because, you know, someone has to watch Nate.

Here is Nate taking an adorable bath in a stinky lobster pot..



Here is a view from Daddy's kayak...



Nate looks kinda tough, doesnt he? Even sucking on a bottle doesnt detract from his menacing look.



Nate is also hours away from crawling properly. He can get around pretty well backwards, but this means that he frequently ends up wedged under chairs, etc. In this photo he is tooling around on the floor of the cottage, and you can see plainly the cramped dimensions of our vacation retreat...



Nate likes water. This was like fun bathtime except with cold, gross tasting water. At one point while I was swimming I looked down at the water and realized that the film on the surface was actually thousands and thousands of tiny flies. MILLIONS, even! Whatev, its still fun to swim!



Lastly, here is Daddy and Nate watching the Lobster Festival parade on Saturday morning. Hard to tell if he was impressed or not...

Bootleggy parade characters...

Nate went to the Lobster Festival parade on Saturday and we had his photo taken with the worst Winnie the Pooh knockoff Ive ever seen. Winnie the POO. P-O-O. Surely they must be joking. Even Nate knows something is off.