Henry's First Christmas

We had a quiet, but fun Christmas with Henry yesterday. We got up in the morning and fed Henry. We went for our usual morning walk. We also made our first attempt at giving Henry "solid" food. It actually wasn't very solid at all; it was 1 tbsp of rice cereal mixed with 4 tbsp of breast milk. We were going to wait until he hit the 6 month mark (adjusted age) before trying food, but he has given some signs that he might be ready for food. Henry has made a few attempts at lunging for drinks. He has also been sitting up well (assisted of course) and often uses his abs muscles to propel himself forward. And, if he smells food in the living room, then he insists on having a bottle, while food is in his presence. So one of us eats dinner, while the other one feeds him, and then we switch. Although he's only 4.5 months (adjusted age), we decided to give it a whirl. We don't have a high chair yet. Carmen has graciously offered her sons' chair. So we used his BebePod seat to feed him. I'm not sure that he actually consumed very much. He still thrusts his tongue outward and managed to drool a lot of it out of his mouth. He also managed to throw his right arm under my left hand, which was holding the bowl, and spill a good deal of it onto his tray. He got a little fussy when not much of the food was getting into his stomach, so we ended up giving him a bottle. But it was a small step forward. At least he has a sense of what food is. We have it all on digital video.

After his bottle and some clean up, we opened presents. As predicted, his favorite part of the day was the wrapping and tissue paper. Jeff and I very much appreciate all of the thoughtful gifts sent to Henry. He now has much needed clothes in sizes bigger than 3 months, some bath towels and lotions, and toys. Henry did a good job opening his gifts. While Jeff was holding him, I'd tear a piece of the wrapping paper and then Henry would grab on to it and pull. He was much more engaged with unwrapping the presents than I would have anticipated from a baby his age. Jeff and I managed to put together his Caterpillar "Learning and Discovery Station," which he played with in the afternoon. Basically, it is toy that sits over the baby with things to pull and dials to turn. When he turns the dials, it makes animal sounds. When he hits a ball through a hoop, some music and lights go off. He managed to figure out all of the gadgets within a few minutes.

Aunt Carolyn came in the late afternoon, right before I was going to give Henry a bottle. Carolyn tried feeding Henry the bottle, but he ended up smiling at her with the bottle in his mouth the whole time she held him. He was quite enamored with her.

Henry was up a few times during the night. He was congested. I had particularly sensitive "mommy hearing" last night and jumped out of bed several times to check on him. He managed to turn himself onto his stomach in his sleep at least twice that I'm aware of. We decided to let him sleep on his stomach, because the Angelcare monitor was on. It did go off once when he pushed himself to the side of the crib where the monitor couldn't detect his movements. This morning, Jeff got up when Henry started fussing. Apparently, Henry was upset to find himself on his stomach (given how much he dislikes tummy time).

Jeff worked today, while I took care of Henry. In the afternoon, we went to Meagan's Place, where my sister Meagan is buried. It requires a little bit of hiking to her spot, so Jeff and my dad waited on the well-kept trail with Henry, while my mom, Carolyn, Erin, and I went off the beaten path. From the hill, we could see Jeff walking Henry around the trail at the bottom of the hill. At one point, Henry got annoyed and let out an "I'm Hungry!" holler that reverberated around the rocks on the hills.

After our hike, Jeff and I drove around and picked up some dinner. When we got back home, we took the dogs for a walk. Jeff had Henry in the Baby Bjorn as usual. Henry discovered that he could look up and back and realized that his daddy was back there holding him. He spent the last part of the walk turning around and flashing Jeff his wonderful smile every 15 seconds or so. It was very cute.

Henry ate a little bit more when we came in from the walk. He spent some time on the floor playing with his Caterpillar. I forced him to do a little tummy time, which he wasn't happy about. He ate a little bit and then crashed. He's sound asleep now. I'm signing off to catch a few Zzzzzs while I still can.