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!

8 month update: better late than never!

Well I started this post shortly after Daniel turned 8 months old, then with the busy-ness of the last few weeks I look up and here we are halfway through the month.  So, it's a bit dated now, but here we go!

First, his official monthly picture:

Developments
The biggest news this month is that Daniel is gettiing better and better at crawling.  Initially it's been more of an army-crawl or, as my parents described it, like doing the butterfly swim stroke on the floor.  He's still not really pushing off with his knees yet but he can move pretty well with his current technique.  It doesn't seem like that long ago that we were celebrating when he could scoot a few inches to grab a toy, now he is traveling the full length of the floor, and quickly!

In other news, he seems to be working on his third and fourth teeth, the top two middle ones.  One night a few weeks ago, for the first time in a long time, he woke up crying at night and had to be soothed back to sleep, and a few other evenings he had a harder time getting down.  The teeth still haven't pushed through but I can definitely feel the bumps under his gums.

He is also learning to say ma-ma.  I know he's not actually saying the word "mama" yet but I still love to hear him make the sounds in his sweet little voice.  It still amazes me that 8 months ago he was this little newborn who couldn't even hold up his own head and now he's crawlling, saying mama and...kissing the dishwasher?

Yes, kissing the dishwasher.  In recent weeks he has learned how to give kisses (sloppy but so sweet) and become more interactive with his reflection in the mirror.  These two developments, along with crawling and saying mama, are all on display in this video, in which he spies his reflection in the stainless steel dishwasher door and decides to show some affection:



Sleeping
Not much to report here.  Still sleeping well at night and napping reasonably well by day.  We've moved away from our previous routine of putting him down for a nap within 2 hours of waking and now he "sleeps by the clock."  Up 6:30-7:30, down for his first nap by 9:30-10, wake him up by 12 if he is still napping, back down againi by 2:30-3, and down for the night by 7:30-8.  It works out to 14-15 hours of sleep per day, which seems to be good for him.  He goes down easily nearly every time if we abide by that schedule and he seems alert and playful during the day.

Eating
We've had some big changes on the food front.  At his last checkup he had dropped down to about the 10th percentile in weight so the doctor said it was time to bump up his solid food offerings (which we had planned to do anyway but hadn't gotten around to setting up his high chair at Grandma's).  So we've gone from one solid meal a day to three. 

For now we are viewing the solid food as a supplement to, rather than substitute for, the breastmilk he still gets four times a day.  So a typical day's food for him now involves nursing when he wakes up, breakfast of cereal and fruit (or sometimes avocado), a bottle before his first nap, a solid lunch of veggies and sometimes shredded chicken, a bottle before his second nap, a solid dinner, and nursing before bed.  He's eating everything we put in front of him pretty well but we're trying to keep the milk intake up and have introduced a sippy cup of water too to fight the constipation issues he's been having. 

For a few days whenever the backed up feeling hit he'd stop crawling, stick his butt in the air, cry, and look up with this "help me!" look on his face.  At first we thought it was a bad reaction to his first experience with yogurt (and since I haven't reintroduced it yet I still can't rule that out), but he seems to be feeling better now.  He's already doing pretty well with a sippy cup with a straw and can pick it up, hold it, and put it in his mouth to drink without assistance (though not consistently).  He can use the spout sippies too but needs a little help tilting it back far enough.  We haven't introduced any other liquids yet and I'm in no great hurry, but once he becomes better with the cup we'll start transitioning his milk from bottles to cups.

I've been trying to make most of his food for him (in addition to the milk, of course).  It's not that I don't trust the jarred foods, but it's nice to know I'm feeding him something made with love, and know exactly what's in it.  So far I've successfully pureed sweet potatoes, apples, blueberries, green beans, avocado, peas, parsnips, and chicken, and I've started a frozen stockpile of these.  So Daniel continues to take over the freezer, between that, his milk, and his teethers.

Caregivers
This month Kevin's mom, who normally watches Daniel during the day, was out of town for a week.  Then, Kevin left for a two week business trip to Bangalore, India the following weekend so my mom came back to help me out that week.  This week I'm solo parenting and dropping Daniel off at MIL's again during the day, but for two straight weeks Daniel and my mom, his "Mimi," had the opportunity to bond during the day.  As I expected, Mom was wonderful with him.  One of the benefits of being a working mom is that it creates space for Daniel to form a close relationship with my MIL, so it was nice for him and my mother to get some special one-on-one time too.  Daniel's lucky to have two grandmothers (and grandfathers) who love him so much and are so good with him.

He adjusted pretty easily to being at home during the day and being with my mom instead of MIL.  He and Mimi will have the opportunity to bond again in a few weeks when MIL travels again.

While Kevin is away, Daniel and I have been able to talk to him on Skype almost every day, and we can see each other on video.  It's cute to see Daniel break into a big smile when he hears and sees Daddy!  And Kevin recorded himself reading a book called Guess How Much I Miss You that I read to Daniel every day so he can hear Kevin's voice.  I'm managing well enough going solo (though I was 15 minutes late to work today after Daniel needed more attention than usual this morning) but I know it's hard for Kevin to be so far away for so long.  Saturday afternoon can't come quickly enough for any of us!