9 months already!

Happy 9 months, little camera grabber.

The Dirty Dozen

Many have you have probably heard of the "Dirty Dozen" when it comes to conventional and organic food. If you haven't, they are the 12 fruits and vegetables that have the most pesticides used on them. Alayna and I have been thinking about when to buy organic, and have done it in a sort of haphazard way, and are now planning on using the dirty dozen to guide our choices.

Here they are:

1. Peaches
2. Apples
3. Sweet bell peppers
4. Celery
   
5. Nectarines
6. Strawberries
7. Cherries
8. Pears
9. Imported grapes
10. Spinach
11. Potato
    
12. Lettuce
    

We were having a hard time remembering all 12 of them, and so we came up with a little story we wanted to share with you. (Go ahead and cover this up, how many can you remember?)

Once upon a time, Mr. Peach (who had a little fuzz on his chin) and Mrs. Apple had a sweet little son "bell pepper." Bell pepper had a cousin, celery, who was quite lengthy. Last week, when celery was going down the slide at the park, the Pink Fruit Gang (Nectarine, Strawberry and Cherry) started to beat him up. Then, with his lovely green cape, Principal Pear came to the rescue. He said, "Now, don't be such sour grapes. This is unacceptable." And he sent the pink fruit gang to the spinach detention center, where they ate nothing but potatoes and lettuce for the rest of their lives. The end!

Good luck staying away from the conventionally grown Dirty Dozen!

We're baaaack

For the latest installment of Mateo's Amazing Summer of Travel ™ I bring you... New York! We went to visit Mateo's Apa and Sacha's numerous New York cousins.

Here is the basic itinerary . . . just to give you an idea of what is possible with a nine month old baby!

Tuesday: Drove 3 hours up to Washington State. Had a fabulous time with Mateo's Bubby and Papa, walked around the island that they live on, ate delicious alder-smoked salmon that Sacha's dad made, and enjoyed a beautiful sunset and a peacefully sleeping baby.

Wednesday: Woke up at 5am. Drove to airport over the new Narrows bridge, which is very cool. Went through security, and got on the plane without a problem. Mateo, bless his heart, slept for the first two hours of the plane ride. The next two hours we watched a movie while he happily bounced around on our laps, and the last hour of the flight went well. We were very, very pleasantly surprised by how well the flight went with our babe. After arriving in NYC, finding Zenaido, and having a little subway adventure, we had a lovely dinner with Sacha's cousins Michael, BJ and Dana. We got to Zenaido's apartment quite late, and I believe asleep around midnight.

Thursday: We started the morning with a subway adventure to deliver some flowers that Zenaido had arranged, which ended up with us drinking a latte at Starbucks. Thank you west coast company! (Sacha has a special spot in her heart for Starbucks, which was once a Seattle start-up . . . )

We then visited a lovely crepe spot for lunch, and that was when the adventure truly began! We decided to walk from the creperie to the Staten Island Ferry, which is at the very tip of Manhattan. We thought it would be a short walk, but it wasn't! However, it turned out to be one of our favorite parts of the day. Mateo rode in Z's arms and then in the Ergo and napped on and off for most of the time. I wish they would make adult-sized Ergos and that someone would occasionally carry me in one!

We meandered along the water and past the site of the World Trade Center, which is now under construction with the hotly contested new building that will occupy ground zero. It was the first time Sacha and I had been there since 9/11 and we felt quite sad as we looked over the area.

We spent some time there and then continued on through Battery Park to the ferry launch place. I have to admit that I was tuckered out and wanted to go home, but we carried on and ended up being really glad that we took the ferry ride. We went right by the Statue of Liberty and got an amazing view of Manhattan on the way back. And, Mateo, the world's most distractable eater, managed to nurse on the boat right next to a rather intimidating group of teenage boys, so I felt like a breastfeeding superstar :)

Then, we took the hourlong subway ride back to Queens, packed up the car and headed out to Pennsylvania. We were going to a resort where Z's boyfriend works and lives. We all got in naps along the way, which helped us feel mostly human again by the time we got there. Then we met Zenaido's boyfriend, M, who got to meet Mateo for the first time. It was love at first sight! M spent much of the weekend carrying Mateo around the restaurant where he works and introducing him to everyone he knew. Mateo, the world's most social baby, ate it right up. Anyway, then we had a quick dinner and crashed. Or, we wanted to crash, but first there was the obligatory sleep-inducing Ergo ride for Mateo, who hasn't quite mastered the art of falling asleep on his own in strange places.

Friday: This was the beginning of our weekend of relaxation! Mateo woke up at the crack of dawn (7 am, which was 4 am west coast time) and dragged us out of bed with him. We had some fun time playing around our hotel room and then eventually had a leisurely breakfast at the restaurant where M works. We ate peacefully while Mateo worked the room, as he is wont to do. Then we went back to our room and we all took a two-hour nap!

That afternoon, all recharged but still very hot and sticky, we took a short hike into the woods and found a natural pond at the base of a very small waterfall. It was soooo gorgeous. We splashed around and dipped M's toes in and took lots of photos. By the time we hiked back down, it was getting dusky and we were hungry. So Z and M took us to a Columbian restaurant in a nearby town. It hit the spot - filling, tasty and flavorful. Because M speaks mostly Spanish and I speak mostly English, Sacha and Zenaido (who both speak Spanish and English) did a lot of translating and I picked up several new words.

Then we went to a Mexican bakery nearby for pastries to end the evening. Mateo conked out on the way home and slept through the whole transfer from carseat to Mommy's shoulder to bed. The time zone change really worked very well in our favor, because we could go out for dinner and come home late and it was just reaching his bedtime on the west coast.

This is getting very long but I want to get down my impressions of our trip before they abscond into my unreliable and sleep-deprived memory.

Ok, Saturday: Mateo slept until 9 am. Thank you, Jesus. After breakfast and a nap, Z and M sent us down a nearby river on a kayak while they babysat our little guy. We loved it. The current did most of the work for us, except for a brief time when we tried paddling upstream because we thought we had sailed past Mateo & Co, who were waiting with a picnic lunch. We eventually found them and ended up taking Mateo for a little river-wading after we ate. He is a water baby.

He spent most of the weekend teething and feeling pretty uncomfortable. Thank goodness for Baby Tylen*l. We bring it with us everywhere just in case and it came in handy this time. He popped through his third tooth (on the bottom next to the other two) and seems to be working on one of his top teeth. You can see this white lump under the gum and I swear it looks like it's straining to get through. Poor guy :( I bring this all up because he was cranky and looked uncomfortable during our picnic, but once we got him into the water he forgot about being upset and focused instead on splashing around and having fun.

After Sacha and I kayaked the rest of the way back to our hotel, Zenaido and M picked us up with a sleeping Mateo in their car. After he woke up from his very long nap, and Zenaido fixed some of our jeans on his sewing machine (he is a renaissance man - he can do almost anything!), we freshened up and went out for our evening adventure. We drove up to this resort where Z and M originally met. It's a gay resort and is quite the magnet for gay people who want to spend some time away from NYC. We got there and wandered around and they told us all about how they met.

Then we decided it was time for dinner and walked towards the restaurant, which was in the main building. This was when the evening got strange. We went up to the entrance and said that we'd need a table for four, plus the baby. The host looked at us and looked down at his book and said that getting a four-top (restaurant lingo?) at this time (8 pm) was impossible. He said we could sit in the smoking section, but that he didn't have any room at all in the non-smoking dining room. We could see both sections from the entrance and neither one was that full.

We said, well, there's no one smoking in the smoking section right now, so can we sit there? He replied that even though no one was doing it now, he knew people were coming later who would be smoking. And that we'd have to wait an hour for a non-smoking table. We thought this was very strange, but eventually decided maybe we should go somewhere else. We walked out past the dining room, which had at least two empty tables, and started to speculate about if they just didn't want us there because of the baby. However, we figured they probably just had more reservations for later.

As we had turned to go to the car, the host suddenly came sprinting out the door and yelling to us that "I can do it, I can do it after all!" We thought oh good and went in to have dinner. After we were seated, our waitress appeared immediately and wanted to take our order ASAP. Our appetizers came at light speed, and then our meals right after that. Mateo was a little bit antsy but not really fussy and we were taking turns walking him around. However, it was becoming more and more clear that we weren't really their type of guests.

Meanwhile, the smoking section was still deserted and the non-smoking section was slowly emptying out. As each party left, we expected more hungry gay people to materialize and demand their reservations...but the tables stayed empty. One by one, everybody finished dinner and left, until we were the only ones left in the dining room. After practically having to wrestle the dessert menu out of our waitress's clutches, we ate dessert, paid, and got our stuff ready to go. It had become abundantly clear that the host had just made up the "busy night" and we could only assume that it was because he didn't want us bringing our infant to dinner with us. Sacha and Zenaido eventually deduced that the owner of the place, who had bent over backwards to be nice after we came back in, had figured out what had happened and told the host to go get us back.

Since I have all kinds of privilege in my life, I had never had the experience of being turned away from somewhere like that. I have to say that it felt bad. Especially for something as silly as bringing a well-behaved baby into a restaurant. I get that the resort wasn't geared for kids and all that, but gay people are having babies in droves and it would make a lot more sense if this place tried to adapt instead of fighting it. Anyway, it left a bad taste in our mouths although we had a good time in the end.

Sunday: Woke up early, said goodbye to M, and drove into NYC. We met up with Sacha's cousin, Michael, and saw his gorgeous penthouse apartment in a trendy area of the city.

Sacha takes over the writing:
We toured his two story condo, and outside patios. We attemtped to not give Alayna a heart attack climbing up to the top of the building, taking tons of photos.

Michael and Z went on an unexpected shopping adventure of their own, and bought the most amazing tamales you have ever had. We then headed over to my cousin Elyssa and her fiance Eyal's place in Park Slope where we were treated to wonderful company and a bagel and lox feast!

We then drove to the airport and flew the very, very long six hour return trip, and then one hour drive to Bubby and Papa's house, where we put down a very, extremely tired baby, mommy and mama.

Monday: Mateo woke up bright and early (very not interested in sleep or eating) at 3am (6am NYC time), 4am, and then again at 6:30 AM, when Sacha got up with him. Alayna was able to sleep in till 8:30, and then we got ourselves ready to drive back to home, sweet home!

We had such a wonderful trip, and are also very happy to be back home. We love Portland, our neighborhood and house. We also love all of the people we got to see back east, and are so glad we made the trip out before Mateo got any more mobile!

Walking with the Radio Flyer

Mateo just had his Radio Flyer wagon set up by Alayna and me this last week. The first few days it seemed like maybe he wasn't quite ready for the wagon . . . but here is a video of him this morning.



Also, Alayna says thank you for the nice comments and emails about the last post. She's feeling better about it all today and really appreciates the encouraging thoughts.

Gas

I was going to post about a couple of things, but I can only remember one of them! Mateo nursed off to sleep last night for the first time in several days and I sat holding him for quite awhile, just enjoying the moment. After he’d been asleep for five minutes or so, he stirred around and started talking in his sleep! He used the same sounds he makes during the day. He said “gah-nnn, gah-nnn, gah-nnn” several times (a sound you can really only replicate if you have no teeth, we’ve discovered) and then smiled to himself in his sleep. It was so cute and funny.

Also, thanks to my grandma’s generous birthday present to me, we’re getting a new dryer! It’s all ordered and should be delivered after we get back from visiting Mateo’s Apa in New York for the rest of this week. Thanks, Grandmommy!

In addition to the slow deterioration of our dryer itself, we’ve recently begun to learn about the pitfalls of having gas appliances. As with many things in our house, the previous owners did a lot of “improvements” themselves on the cheap. Everything looks gorgeous from the outside but when you look just under the surface, you realize that everything is held together by imperfect connections and silicone sealing tape.

As it turns out, our dryer’s gas connection was one of those bad connections. Somehow, it took us almost three years of living in this house to realize that the reason the laundry room sometimes smells like gas is not just because gas appliances smell like gas (which I had been telling myself). No. It’s because the connection between the dryer and the gas hose is not sealed right. The fact that this has been happening for so long is enough to make me feel very frustrated for the millionth time at the people from whom we bought the house, but that it has been happening RIGHT NEXT TO MATEO’S ROOM for almost nine months makes me feel nearly apoplectic.

Dr. Google tells me that natural gas leaks aren’t dangerous for breathing unless they are very, very severe. And, our leak must be small because it has only smelled like gas in there once every couple of weeks (which is why we never investigated further)…but still, I feel like the world’s worst parent for not realizing this until now. And, so thankful that we’re all okay and that Mateo spent hardly any time at all in his room until the last month or so. He slept with us for most of the first seven months and on the other side of his room from the laundry room for all but a few nights even when he did start sleeping there.

We figured out how to turn the gas off at the connection and have mostly kept it off unless the dryer’s actually been in use. And, we are relieved and excited that our new dryer will be here (and the connection fixed) the day after we get home.

Still, I’m having a really hard time letting go of this. I feel like it’s my job to protect Mateo and keep him safe and that I fell down on the job in a bad way. I guess we just have to keep learning and trying to do our best and hopefully that will be good enough.

The old back and forth

We have been having the greatest week of sleep. M has made some great advances rather suddenly. We don't know if it made a difference that we've made a few changes in his bedtime routine or that he was just ready for a developmental leap, but he's been nodding off easily and sleeping for longer periods of time.

As I've written about before, getting to sleep has been Mateo's single biggest challenge. We spent the first five months of his life (well, after the month or two when he just slept all the time on his own) walking him around the neighborhood for every nap and at night, throughout the wet and cold northwest winter.

When he got to five months old, having tried everything else, we started doing a modified version of the Ferber method with him, which for us has meant that we did a soothing routine, put him down awake and went in after five and then 10 minutes to soothe him until he fell asleep. He had gotten to the point where he would conk out in somewhere between five and 15 minutes and we were pretty happy with that for awhile. However, the fact that he still has difficulty getting to sleep even with a very consistent routine started to bother us...so last week we decided to go out and actually buy the Ferber book so that we could see what we might be missing.

As it turns out, Ferber advocates not just going in after five and then 10 minutes, but doing a progressive waiting approach where the waiting times get longer each night. By lengthening out the times between check-ins, you don't end up training your child to fuss until you come back at exactly the same times every night and they learn to fall asleep on their own. Ferber also suggests finishing up your routine with a book or some other quiet time in the child's room, so that they start to associate their room with being sleepy. Our routine usually ended with us going outside to say goodnight to various things and then singing a song while we walked back in and put him in his crib.

After we read that, we changed things around so that we say goodnight outside, sing our song, and then come inside and sit in a comfy chair in his room while we read Goodnight Moon and listen to some lullabies. The first night of the new routine, we couldn't believe the change that happened. We did the routine and left the room and Mateo basically just turned over and fell right asleep. And slept for three hours right away, when he had been waking about an hour after going to bed to eat again. We thought it was just a fluke until he did it again at his first nap the next day, and then at his next nap, and then at bedtime, and so on. He's been doing it since Tuesday and we are still pinching ourselves! We don't know if the change in routine has been just what he needed or if he was just ready to learn how to do this, but we'll take it whatever the reason!

Of course, it seems too good to be true and the reason I'm finally writing this is because I'm worried that it might be. He just had a nap where he seemed on the verge of going to sleep and then woke up wailing and had a very difficult time finally going down. He did finally go to sleep and have a good nap, but I'm feeling really bummed about it. I really thought we were out of the woods on the sleep thing. I guess we're still working on it. And we should be encouraged that the general trend is improving.

This parenting stuff is really challenging sometimes. It seems like you just keep have to keep trying and experimenting and listening to your child until you finally figure out something that works for you...until things change again! We read an article early on called "The Good-Enough Parent" and I guess that's what we're trying to be!

New videos

Here are a couple of new videos of our little guy. The first one is from the park last week. We had gone early in the day to beat the heat and Mateo had a very fun time. The second is from yesterday. I was puttering around in the kitchen while Sacha was feeding M some food and I heard her singing to him. It was soooo sweet that I had to run for the video camera.

A mind of his own

Mateo has always had his own ideas of how he wants things to go, even in the womb. However, he hasn't had the developmental or physical ability to really get his point across until now. In the last couple of weeks, he has decided there are some things that he just hates.

In particular, he hates having his diaper changed. It makes him want to scream...and he does! He wails as he tries desperately to squirm away. We put him down on the diaper and he kicks and twists around to roll over. If we hold his feet in place, he rolls over with his upper body, which would make it impossible to put the diaper on even if you could let go of his feet! We've started having one of us hold him up vertically while the other puts on his diaper. He still dislikes this, but is more distractable in this position. This works really well when we're both home, but there are still plenty of one-person change times throughout the day. And, with cloth diapers, we have to change them pretty regularly.

Along the same lines, M now really dislikes getting dressed in the morning. Or, really, anytime. I think it's all about situations where his newfound independence (crawling, pulling up, etc) gets put on hold for a minute. Now that he can go places on his own, he's not so into being restrained, even for a few minutes. Both diapering and dressing go much better if we sing to him. One person singing is okay (unless I sing Shake That Body to him, which he still loves), but two people is much better! We've been through quite a few children's songs, like Row Your Boat and... well, I can't remember any of the others. My memory is still a hostage to sleep deprivation.

Speaking of that - a couple more things: Sleeping is going much better suddenly! Mateo got up only once at night over the weekend, which I thought might just be because he liked sleeping outside. Since we've gotten back, the trend has continued. We're helping it along by waiting progressively longer each night between feedings.

He's old enough now to be sleeping for longer stretches than he has been, and his Mama in particular has little enough reserves that one bad night can push me into zombie-land for several days. He's been in a pattern of eating once every hour for several hours after he goes down, so we started with a limit of two hours from bedtime to his next feeding. That went fine and last night we went to two and a half hours. He went down at 7:30, woke up to eat around 10:30, and then woke up again around 1:30 am. I decided to try giving him the pacifier like we used to...and he conked back out and slept until almost 5 am before eating again! So, it seems that some progress is being made. It's amazing what a couple of nights of mostly uninterrupted sleep will do for you! I feel happier and much less cranky already :)

The last thing I was going to mention is food. Since we started out with Mateo hating solid food for so long, we have a hard time remembering to get his solids in even though he likes them more now. He had so much trouble nursing this weekend that we thought he might be trying to tell us that he's really getting ready for more foods now. So, we (true to form) made a little schedule, both for timing and variety. We followed it yesterday and it went really well! Mateo also successfully ate his first finger food yesterday. He chewed up lots of little chunks of banana. He still doesn't know what to do with them if we just give him some, but if we put them directly into his mouth, he goes to town.

We also made a bunch of delicious baby food! Our friends gave Mateo a baby cookbook for his six-month birthday and it has been great to have. We made several of the recipes yesterday, including pureed papaya and apricots, mashed potatoes, pureed prunes (which can be mixed with almost any fruit) and so on. Then we froze them all into little ice cubes and can defrost them when we want to use them. We are very excited about our new stash. In fact, after we finished freezing most of it, we did our own little taste test and it was yummmmmy.

Ok, and one more photo from the weekend!

Beach!

We just got back from the coast, where we camped for the first time since M was born. We went for a weekend getaway with PLOP, our lesbian families group. We were more than a little bit uncertain about going, as Mateo sleeps reluctantly even in his crib and we had no idea how we would manage it in a tent....but, as with most things so far on our parenting journey, we decided that we would figure it out when we got there and away we went (after only one major meltdown on my part while we were attempting to pack). And guess what - we did it!

About ten families came on the trip and we all camped at a state park that was literally right next to the beach. We had both group camping sites. We thought that the hard-core lesbian campers would laugh at us with our inflatable mattress (I am a terrible on-the-ground sleeper), but we were wrong! We arrived to a small city of massive tents with multiple rooms in them, all of which had inflatable mattresses and some of which had actual inflatable beds and cots. These ladies camp in style! We set up our very tiny two-person tent, wrestled our mattress into it, and we were set up!

From the minute we got there, we were so, so, so glad that we had decided to come. We loved being in the company of ten other families similar to ours, especially because they were all so friendly. We didn't know anyone very well at the start, but feel like we do now. And, we got a look ahead at what toddlerhood will be like. Mateo was the youngest baby there by quite a ways - there was a 14-month-old and the rest were three years old and above. Honestly, having a toddler looked amazing and exhausting and impossible...but (repeat the mantra with me) I'm sure we'll figure it out when we get there!

Mateo, true to form, LOVED the beach. In fact, he LOVED the whole weekend. He was all eyes at everything. The first day, he did not nurse from 2 pm until almost 9 pm because he just couldn't slow down long enough to latch on. In fact, he nursed so dramatically less all weekend that I was perpetually on the verge of engorgement. He loved seeing the other kids, he loved the beach, he loved the sand in the campsite, he LOVED the tent and all its little attachments, he loved the other kids' toys, and on and on. He was a very happy (and happily over-stimulated) little boy. And we were very happy moms. It was a big fun weekend with kids and moms and we hope it becomes an annual tradition. Yay PLOP!

Here are some photos.

Shovels are gooood:


Playing with Mommy and a very fun fallen log:



Ocean!:

Attempt at a family self-portrait:



Upside down:


Gorgeous sunset:


PS: And, he did actually sleep well. He napped in the Ergo but slept in bed with us at night very peacefully, waking only once each night to eat. This despite the rocking and rolling inflatable mattress that moved dramatically each time one of us shifted. Amazing!

Round-up

We're back! We got back from California on Sunday, effectively moving from one heat wave to another. We had several very hot days early this week in which we could barely stand to even think about getting out the laptop and using more energy than we already were. However, today a new day dawned with lower temperatures and I decided it was finally time to blog again.

We had a wonderful time with Mateo's Grammy and Grandpa. We got in lots of relaxation and the little guy had fun playing with his grandparents. He especially enjoyed taking tours around the house with my mom and watching baseball with my dad. I know I say this all the time, but it was so cute. We also saw some friends from high school, one of whom has an adorable little girl of her own now.



Among other things, Mateo enjoyed checking out the washing machine while it was running...



And he became obsessed with my parents' vertical blinds!



My brother came down from northern CA to hang out with us and see his nephew. It was great to see him and hear about what he's been up to. And, of course, he and M had lots of fun together just like they always do. Mateo loves his uncle Galen :)


It was incredibly hot in California, especially on the 4th of July, when temperatures got up to almost 105 in the Bay Area. Thank goodness my parents have A/C! We actually dragged out Mateo's infant bathtub, put it on the (shaded) back porch and filled it up with hose water for him to play in. He looooved it. After that, my parents barbequed some delicious short ribs and we had a wild 4th of July celebration that included putting the baby to bed and then watching a movie. Wahoo!


At the end of the week, we went to some friends' commitment ceremony party and accompanying bachelorette party. Needless to say, Mateo was a very popular bachelorette party guest and was held by nearly every woman in attendance. He stayed with my parents for the party the next day. We went into San Francisco and really enjoyed ourselves. It's always amazing and inspiring to see people make that kind of commitment to each other. We even went to Cafe Flore on the way home - one of our favorite SF places - and got a decadent hot chocolate to share. When we got home, we found Mateo snoozing contentedly on my mom's shoulder.


It was so sweet to see him and them having so much fun together.



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The next day, we packed up and flew up to the only-marginally-cooler Pacific Northwest. Our flight home included a little extra drama, because someone on the plane had a seizure right as we were taxing down the runway before takeoff. The pilot turned us around and we zoomed back to the gate, while a flight attendant and a nurse/passenger and assorted other people tried to keep him safe. He came out of it after what seemed like a long time and looked okay, but the paramedics came with an ambulance anyway and took him away. I hope everything turned out to be okay. As I was telling Sacha, situations like that always make me mentally refresh how to do CPR, just in case I was ever the person to need to respond to a medical emergency. Even though I'm sure it's really scary to have something like that happen when you're flying alone, people always seem to pitch in and really want to help. It reminds me that even with all the chaos in our world, that most people do want to help out when someone else is in trouble.

****************************

Anyway, now that we're home, Mateo has become even more of a bundle of energy than ever before. Now that crawling has become old news, he has moved onto pulling up on everything and, as I mentioned earlier, cruising! He can even push up to standing against a wall or a sliding glass door. Amazing. We're realizing that our days of thinking we had completely babyproofed the house are over and done with. Even though our house is in a bit of upheaval, it's a lot of fun to have him learning how to move around. And, to see him starting to recognize things, like when he looks around for the cat when we say "cat!".

Another new thing since we got home is that we've started baby swimming lessons. Well, they're really more like "lessons," because we go to the pool and get in the water with other families and sing songs and splash around. We signed up on the spur of the moment because a friend and her son were doing it - it's a two-week session where we go to the pool every afternoon. The timing was just perfect because of the crazy heat this week. Every day, just when we're all cranky and hot and at the end of our ropes, we get to go to the pool and cool off. Mateo LOVES it.

One of the best parts so far was on the second day of swim time. The instructor was having the parents blow bubbles into the water for the kids to see, and Mateo just thought it was the funniest thing. The first few times we blew bubbles, he chuckled. After a minute, he was roaring with laughter. Having a child has taught me that there is really nothing better than a baby in the throes of the giggles. Especially in the middle of a pool. Priceless.

New and different

After some thought, we've decided to take this blog to invited-readers-only status. As Mateo passed six months old and we realized that he wouldn't be an infant forever, we started thinking about his privacy and how many details of his life he would want out there for the world to see. We love blogging about him and about our lives and are quite flattered (and more than a litttle surprised) that we have as many readers at Google Analytics says we do. We love reading people's comments and having a little community out there and don't want that to change. We're just starting to feel a little exposed out here on the great big internet. And we'd like to continue to use our real names, etc.

So, here's the plan. In about a week, after we get back from our trip, we're going to change our blog settings to invited readers only. In the meantime, if you've been reading and you think we might not be aware of it, or if you think we are aware of it but might not have your email address, please send us an email at two.girls.and.one.boy@gmail.com and let us know that you're out there. Then we'll make a list of invited readers and you'll get an email telling you how to access the blog. If your computer is like ours, it will remember your log in info and will automatically log in for you after the first time, so hopefully this won't be too much of a pain. We love you all and hope you come with us one the next part of our blog journey :)

Thanks and hope everyone's having a great 4th!

Woah baby

We're down visiting my parents for the week and are having a great time. We probably won't be blogging much for the rest of the week, but will be back next week for sure. Just one thing though - to celebrate his eight-month birthday, Mateo decided to learn how to cruise! (For those uninitiated in baby lingo, cruising is when a baby holds onto something, such as a piece of furniture, while unsteadily "walking" along the length of the object.) He was motivated to cruise by a very enticing DVD that Sacha lured him with while he was holding onto the hearth in front of my parents' fireplace. He pulls up onto the hearth, which is exactly the perfect height, while haltingly progressing towards the exciting-looking DVD case, grunting and giggling to himself in excitement as he goes. It is so cute.

And wow, such fast learning. This past month has been a veritable flood of new things in babyland.

We leave you with a big, and somewhat early, happy Fourth of July from our little man: