Daniel's first trip to the beach

This past weekend marked a big milestone for us: our first vacation as a family of 3, and Daniel's first trip to South Padre Island.  Naturally, I have tons of pictures to share :)

Family tradition 

Padre Island's a special place for our family so it was an obvious choice for Daniel's first vacation.  My dad grew up in the Rio Grande Valley and took day trips to the beach as a boy.  Ironically, he missed a chance to own land there when my car dealer grandfather turned down a customer's offer to swap land on Padre for a new car...well, in fairness to DadDad, Padre wasn't developed then, and he wasn't in a position to speculate on land when the manufacturers needed to be paid right away.  (Still, it would be nice to have a do-over on that one! ;)) 

My family took yearly vacations to the island when I was little too, and it might well have been my first vacation (in fact, next time I get ahold of my parents' photo albums, I might update this with a picture of baby Ellen at the beach).  Kevin and I went together several times before Daniel and always enjoyed it, so practically from the moment we saw the plus sign on the pregnancy test we were looking forward to continuing the family tradition and taking our baby there.

Fun with friends 

What made this trip even more special was that our dear friends Marko and Nicole and their son Alejandro joined us.  We traveled to San Francisco with them 2 years ago before we had kids kids and it was fun to travel together again as families.  After the boys went to bed for the night, the four of us spent several pleasant evenings hanging out on the balcony talking.

During the day it was great to see the boys playing together.  They're too young to really play cooperatively but they seemed to enjoy each other's company.

Here they are playing in the condo.  Alejandro is trying to "brush" Daniel's hair with that plastic lid and a tv remote:

And, here they are together on the beach.  They were too young to really use the beach toys we so carefully picked out (yes Kevin, you told me so!), but they definitely enjoyed playing in the sand:



Finally, here they are in the pool, kissing!  Yes, this picture is sure to embarrass them mightily when they get older.  It sure is cute though!

First day 

We flew from Dallas to Brownsville on Friday, July 8.  It was a short, easy flight, made even easier because the plane wasn't full, so we were able to bring the carseats on and sit in 2 rows by ourselves in the back of the plane.  They boys did pretty well but Daniel got a bit fussy at one point so I took him to an empty row behind us to nurse.  He then fell asleep in my arms for about 30 minutes.  After we landed we were just a short drive from our destination.  We didn't do much that day except relax, make dinner, and enjoy this view from our balcony:

Every Friday night during the summer there are fireworks over the bay.  We watched them from the walkway outside our front door:

Time to play at the beach! 

Saturday morning Kevin and my dad went fishing in the bay and the rest of the group went down to the beach.  As expected, Daniel loved playing around in the sand.  He ate his fair share of the sand (which made for some interesting diaper changes) and would have eaten plenty of shells too, if mean mommy hadn't taken them away.  (I know, what a spoilsport to take away those choking hazards!)

Mmmm, sand! 

We went back down to the beach again that afternoon and Monday morning and afternoon.  Daniel could have spent all day on the shore splashing around in shallow tide pools and crawling in the sand. 

I love this picture.  It looks like he's crawling out to sea!

He was less fond of the ocean itself. We carried him out in it and he seemed to enjoy looking around but would get antsy or a wave would hit him in the face and he'd be ready to go back to shore.

 The pool was fun too:

Daniel had a great time in the pool.  One thing that made him laugh was when he's push on my chin and I'd jerk my head back like he had knocked me backwards.

He also thought it was pretty funny to "kick" me while he was sitting on the side of the pool ready to "jump in":

Meals

As much fun as the beach and pool were, we did venture out on dry land from time to time.  Kevin and my dad had quite the successful fishing trip so for two lunches, we took fresh fish into local restaurants and ate it for lunch.  Here's the day two spread at the Padre Island Brewing Company.  Impressive as this haul looks, the previous day's was even bigger.  The  fish was great.  Fresh is the name of the game with seafood and it's not often you can eat fish that was swimming just hours earlier.

Sleepless in South Padre

Daniel generally sleeps soundly at night but has a harder time sleeping away from home.  As the last story suggests, this was certainly the case on this trip.  He woke up during the night two of the four nights, which he seldom does.  These sleep problems did have a sweet silver lining though.

When Daniel woke up crying the first night, I fed him and Kevin soothed him, all to no avail.  After an hour of crying (his, not mine, though I felt like joining in) I was out of ideas, so I brought him into our bed hoping to calm him.  As it turned out, that was exactly what he needed.  He nestled his head on my shoulder, let out a deep sigh, and was out like a light.  He slept snugly and soundly in my arms the rest of the night.

For the rest of the trip, I held him in my arms and napped with him in the afternoons.  It was nice to get that extra cuddle time.  Nursing soothes him very well but it was good to be reminded that my presence alone could soothe him so well.  Co-sleeping may become a special new travel tradition for us.

Here's a picture of us napping together.  The camera settings were wrong so it came out black and white and grainy, but I still love it.  Look at the total relaxation on his face! 

Time to go home :(

Alas, after 4 wonderful days on the Island, Tuesday came and it was time to go home.  This time our flight was full so we had to check the carseats and hold the boys in our laps.  The flight time ran into the early afternoon nap time so I worried Daniel might get cranky, but he was in good spirits the whole time, thanks in part to the steady flow of water and puffs we sent his way.

Once we landed, I put Daniel in my Beco carrier to wear him till we got back to the car.  To my surprise, he fell asleep while we were waiting for a shuttle bus back to the garage.  He was sleeping so soundly that he didn't even wake up when I put him in his carseat.  When we got home he woke, ate, and slept another 3 hours.  Guess the trip really wore him out!

We all had a great time, and can't wait for next year's trip!

11 months...1st birthday just around the corner!

It's hard to believe, but in less than 30 days my little baby will celebrate his first birthday.  He's beginning to look less like a baby and more like a toddler, especially in pictures.  Here's his 11 month picture.  It was with our video camera, so the quality's not the best, but you can see how big he's getting:

For comparison, here's his 1-month picture:

Compare where his head and feet are in the two pictures!  He looked so little in that carseat as a newborn, now less than a year later he's just about outgrown it.  In fact, in my car I've already been using the convertible seat for a month or so.  But Kevin prefers the infant seat, so we'll keep using that in his car for as long as we can.

New developments

A few weeks ago we got him the Fisher-Price Stride-to-Ride Dino push toy.  He seemed hesitant about it at first but recently learned how to stand up and walk while pushing it.  He's got a similar push toy he plays with during the day at Grandma's. 

Here he is pushing his dino:

This is obviously an encouraging step on the road to walking but it's hard to predict when he'll take those first independent steps.  Could be tomorrow, could be another week, could be another month.  I'm still predicting that he'll be walking by his birthday but we'll see.

He still babbles a lot and has been making the "mama" noise more.  I still don't think he's referring to me when he says it but it's music to my ears nevertheless.  The first word might be coming soon, it'll be fun to see what he has to say.

Eating

Daniel's appetite for solid food has really increased a lot in the past few weeks.  He seems to enjoy just about everything, even foods you wouldn't consider "baby foods" like fish, kale, and shiitake mushrooms.  Blueberries and "orange stuff" like sweet potatoes and carrots are probably the favorites, and Puffs snacks are a big hit in our house too.  These days we generally eat meals together as a family.  Daniel either gets bite-sized pieces of what we're eating or some variation on it.  It's great that he can self-feed now so we can all eat at the same time instead of having to eat in shifts with one of us eating while the other feeds Daniel.  It's a little messy, but he does a pretty good job.

He has learned an unfortunate new trick in the past few days though.  The other night I was feeding him by myself and I put some cut-up pears and cauliflower on his tray, then went back to cutting up more.  I looked up and saw that most of the pieces I'd put on his tray were gone so I thought, "wow, he's really eating well!"  Then I happened to catch him dropping a piece on the floor and looked down to see a pile of dropped pieces on the floor!  He started to do it again so I gave him a stern face and said "no,no!"  He looked me in the eye, smiled, and proceeded to drop it anyway.  Really, defiance already?  I thought I had a little more time before we got there...

In other dining news, he's still as enthusiastic a nurser as he's ever been.  In fact, when we sit down on the couch to nurse he'll sometimes crawl over and try to start before I even get settled!  He drinks all the milk I send for him during the day and apparently wants more sometimes.

I set out with the goal of breastfeeding for at least a year and we're definitely on track to make it.  I don't plan to pump much past the 12 month mark, assuming Daniel takes to cow's milk, but I'll continue to nurse him morning and night and on weekends for as long as he wants to.  Maybe the day will come that I'm ready for that chapter in our relationship to close, but right now I still enjoy it and cherish those moments with him.  I'm certainly doing it for him, but I get as much out of it as he does.

Sleeping

Not a ton to report here.  He still sleeps well at night and naps quite well in the morning but less reliably in the afternoon.  Any given day he's fine with just the one nap, but

missing the PM nap on a regular basis makes him cranky and overtired in the evening.  So, to try to preserve that nap, we're trying the "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" approach of limiting the length of the morning nap and moving his bedtime earlier at night.  So far we've had mixed results, but one day he slept 11.5 hours at night, napped 90 minutes in the morning, and napped 2+ hours in the afternoon.  Then again, today he wouldn't nap in the morning but took a 3 hour afternoon nap.  Maybe we're moving toward just a mid-day nap.  I guess we'll know more in a few weeks once we see what's working and what's not.

Coming attractions

This next month will be a big one for us.  First, we have our first vacation as a family of 3, a 4-day trip to South Padre Island with our good friends Marko and Nicole and their son Alejandro.  Padre was an annual trip for my family when I was growing up and I hope it'll become a tradition for us too.  It's the comfort food of vacations.  It's not exotic and it won't likely be the trip of a lifetime, but it's as relaxing and comfortable as eating ice cream straight from the tub while lying on the couch in sweats.  There's no ambitious agenda of sights to see or things to do, which makes it perfect with babies.  We'll just get up, eat in the condo, go down to the water, nap, go out for lunch, then repeat in the afternoon.  In the evenings after the boys fall asleep the adults can enjoy sitting out on the balcony looking out at the waves, refreshing drink in hand.  It'll be a great trip and I've been looking forward to taking Daniel since before he was even born.

Then, in a few weeks we'll celebrate his first birthday with a swim party for his little friends.  We're hosting a joint birthday party along with our friends Charlotte and Alden, whose son Justin turns 3 a week after Daniel turns 1.  We have a lot of mutual friends, so we thought, why not combine forces to host one big party?  It should be a great time and we're looking forward to it.  We'll also have a small dinner party that night so Daniel can celebrate his birthday with his grandparents, godparents, and aunt and uncle.

We have two big milestones just around the corner, walking and first words.  Wonder if either one will come this month?