Reaching Out

After several weeks of staring with great intention, flailing around, and getting excited when his arms accidentally bumped into something, we finally caught Jacob reaching out and batting at one of his toys! He had a look of incredible concentration on his face and batted at that little red toy for a good five minutes. My little man is developing hand/eye coordination!!!!

11 Weeks

This week, Jacob really started smiling and "talking" to us on a regular basis. His talking is still more sighs and grunts rather than squeals and coos, but it is TERRIBLY sweet. It is very rewarding to get communication other than fussing.

This week he also discovered his tongue and has spent many hours licking his lick and rolling his tongue around in his mouth. This has resulted in a sudden abundance of drool and the constant presence of tiny bubbles spilling out of his mouth. Last week I also caught him blowing bubbles by "raspberrying" his lips, but he hasn't done it again since.

For some reason, Jacob decided to go 9 days without pooping, which would make ANYONE cranky, I think, but he seemed almost entirely unfazed (other than letting out monstrous man-sized farts). During our West Coast trip we started the game of "Hot Pooptato", passing the baby from relative and relative and and offering a prize to whoever was holding him when he blew up. We finally had to resort to the doctor-recommended treatment of half an ounce of prune juice when we got back to NYC still poop-less and Daddy eventually won the big prize - clean up duty!

This was also the week that we began to venture more into the city. Thursday, we went to the gastrointerologist on the Upper East Side and then visited Aunt Terri in the village. On Friday we went to Daddy's office to meet some of Jacob's fans and walked around downtown. On Saturday we went shopping uptown and walked through Central Park, and on Sunday we went to the South Street Seaport and met up with friends for Mommy's birthday. What a week! Unfortunately, all this travel has coincided with increased fussiness at bedtime, so we might be taking things a little slower this week. Not too slow, though...it's summer after all!

Capturing Smiles

All of a sudden, Jacob has been exploding with smiles. The majority of these take place when he is on his changing table staring up at Monkey, the decal on the wall above him. He is in LOVE with Monkey! We've been trying to capture these smile, but most of the time he just looks a little drunk in the still shots. We're getting there, though!

Cousins

West Coast, Summer 2009

We just got back last night from our whirlwind West Coast Debut Tour for the Bean. From all the pictures, you might think that it was several weeks of visiting and travelling, but actually it was only five days. We managed to spend some fabulous quality time with friends in Portland and family in Washington, and threw in some fun things like a trip to the zoo and several awesome picnics/bbq's.

Some highlights:

• Introducing Jacob to his cousins, Lucas and Amelia
• Hanging out with Laura and Annali on a hot summer day
• Going to the Oregon Zoo with Ben and Paige and Noah
• Picnicking in Portland with the Bates, the Schmonsees, Janet, Eric, and Holly
• Road-tripping up to Bellingham
• The Bagelry!
• The Farmers Market!
• Meeting Great Grandma Metta for the first time on her birthday
• Hanging out with the Luksic side of the family at the park and Auntie Carolyn's house
• A big, joint picnic with both families
• Meeting lots of new friends
• A photo-shoot at a portrait studio
• PERFECT WEST COAST WEATHER - even a little on the hot side!
• Never-ending cuddles for all!

Jacob was a rock star. He was fuss-free despite constant traveling and new people and major disruptions to his sleep routine. What an amazing little boy! No wonder everyone who met him fell in love with him.

Jacob's First Plane Flight

We flew over to the West Coast and back this week, and it was a huge success!! The trip over was at night, so even though we sat on the tarmac for a couple hours before taking off, Jacob stayed asleep almost the entire way and only fussed a couple times. The flight back was in the middle of the day, and he napped about half the time and happily looked out the window, stared at his Daddy, read some books, and had tummy-time on the fold out tray table during the rest of the time. He only fussed for the last twenty minutes! It's a good thing that this kid is good at traveling, because he'll be doing a lot of it.

10 Weeks

10 weeks!!! Jacob weighed in at 8 lb, 13oz this week - over a 3lbs over his birth weight and steadily gaining a half a pound a week! He's a scrawny little guy, but he's starting to catch up for reals now. His routine is very steady now, and he sleeps so well at night that sometimes we are able to take him out for a walk or dinner in the evenings and he'll got to sleep for the night while we're out. Love it. We're taking advantage while we can. You can see in the pics below that he went to his first rock'n'roll concert! Well, it was folk music in a coffee shop...but close enough. We went to see some friends play and he listened to the music and then promptly fell asleep.

Still trying to catch him smiling... He does it pretty frequently, but I can't quite get the photo evidence...like that dancing frog... below is a video (i'm trying the picasa video instead of uploading the whole file to blogger - click on it to view. I'm not sure I like it as much...)

From 10 weeks