Soren's sitting up

Wowie-kazowie, Soren's made a huge developmental leap: he can sit up (pretty much) on his own now! In just the past few days, he has made great improvements in his balance.

We started sitting-up practice holding him, of course, then graduated to the surrounding- pillow-fort. This weekend we pared that down to a Boppy pillow (as seen in this video, shot Jan. 25), and today he sat up unaided on the rug, with throw pillows surrounding him on three sides in case he flopped over, but not actually supporting his weight. What a difference this seems to make in his view of the world!

Here Jeff "plays ball" with Soren, a game Soren interrupts by trying to mouth Dad's knee (showing us he's getting hungry). You may also notice Soren blinking and flinching when the ball comes near his face -- an unfortunate (but remembered) reaction from me squeezing blasts of air from the ball onto his face two days earlier. Jeff's mumblings reference this event. Sorry, Soren, I won't do that again!

Missing my grandparents

Gee, life is a little less exciting when Mom is the only one around to take me on walks, Soren thinks... OK, before I slip into "SorenTalks" mode, I'll switch pronouns and say that these are some precious pictures from last week, when my mom and dad visited for four days and had a great time with their ever-more-interactive grandson.

Now Ann & Bill are in California on a road trip in Matilda (our co-shared VW Vanagon -- if you've never checked out my blog of our round-the-country, 10-month trip in 2006, here it is, for the record: www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Waltzing-Matilda/). We won't see them for a month! And it's been longer than that since we got to visit with Jeff's parents. Ah, for the days when families congregated in the same town and never left. (But then we never would be living in Port Townsend, and that would be a shame.)
Soren now likes to finger faces. He grabbed Dad's glasses more than once, and here was "lip-reading." He likes to stick his fingers IN my mouth when he is nursing!
While I was away from home for some work-related interviews, Mom fed Soren bottles of pumped milk. While pumping is not my favorite thing to do (!), I'm grateful that the option exists, and also that Soren takes the bottle like a champ even though is offered it intermittently -- sometimes not for weeks.
He still has only ingested breast milk to date. He has not shown any strong signs of wanting other food, and Jeff is convinced we should wait until he gets a tooth anyway.
You can tell why Soren is considered often "serious" upon first meeting him, with expressions like this one. But when he laughs -- hee, hee, watch out! He's a total charmer.

New avenues for amusement: Toes and more

Soren "found his toes" on New Year's Day, an event first witnessed by Grannie Annie, but soon by us all. OK, I haven't gotten a picture of them actually in his mouth yet, but that's where they end up when they are bare. He usually manages to stuff in toes from both feet. P.S. In the photo above, this is his new favorite pair of PJs, a gift from Louise & Josh. And the booties were knit by our former neighbor Gitte -- he wears them a lot in this cold winter weather. (There is a hat to match!)
Other amusements: the Johnny-Jump-Up.
And the "Exer-Saucer." This one has a weighted, stationary leg and wheels on the other two, so eventually he'll be able to run around in a circle but not across the room. Right now he can sort of scoot backwards. (I can also lock the wheels.) Soren can't quite reach all the toys, but he can spin the globe at right in this photo.

He doesn't last long in either of these "big boy" play-toys, but they're fun for a while, and we can see they'll eventually provide minutes if not hours of fun.
And then there's always the demonic glee of stuffing anything and everything into his mouth! This is a stuffed cube with appendages perfect for gumming.

Photos of Soren, all grown up -- just kidding!

Thanks to everyone who commented or emailed me with their choice of holiday photos from the previous post. Alas, the votes were split fairly evenly, and I couldn't decide either, so I found a card template with space for two photos and included them both! We're not really sending out cards this holiday season (our postal budget was exhausted sending Soren's birth announcements far and wide), but I did order a few for the baby book, bulletin board, grandparents, etc.

OK, now here's some new photos you have to check out. The link is to my new Facebook page, but it's a public link, so everyone should be able to view it. There are a dozen tableau featuring out little man at around four months of age, but you'd think he was all grown up, what with his skill at tennis, cooking and even shaving!

When my sisters were visiting around Christmas, we went a little crazy reliving our love of "dress-up" -- yes, this is the sort of thing that would occupy us for days as children and even teenagers. You should see the video we wrote, staged and shot of our favorite fairy tale, "Snow White and Rose Red"! It rekindled a latent creative spark for me, that's for sure. And Soren didn't really seem to mind being our model...

Anyway, here's the link to the photo album. You can click on any image to make it bigger, then use the Previous and Next links in the upper-righthand corner to view a slideshow.

P.S. If you are a regular Facebook user, you can find me as "Shelly Rees." But I only allow myself to log on once a week...

Vote for your favorite holiday family photo

These are my two favorite family photos from Soren's first Christmas. But which one should be featured on the official "Christmas card"?
P.S. I finally posted photos of me and Soren as Mary and Baby Jesus on SorenTalks. Check out our little actor in his first starring role. (If you're not subscribed to that blog, too, you're missing out on a whole new perspective on life at The Randall Roost!)

P.P.S. I removed a nonfunctional link on my post of Dec. 15 and simply copied my list of Top 10 books/DVDs for expecting mothers. If you were interested and unable to view the list previously, here it is.