More enamel

Two (bottom middle) teeth are poking through the gum line. They seem to cause quite the itch because M will chew, literally, on everything in sight. The process of teething also tends to give you quite the rosy cheeks!




Eighteen to go for the full lineup - eventually to be given up to the tooth fairy...

Breaking Out

You may call it a small step for enamel. But a giant leap (towards solid food) for a boy. Yes, M has joined the enameled set with a sliver of a 'bottom-right' breaking through the gum line. He won't be crunching into a Granny Smith with it anytime soon but every journey has a first step, right?!

Simple pleasures

M finds the cats endlessly entertaining.
They mostly stay out of his way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-e9STJy-hg

Moving

Certain varieties of sharks are perp-etually in motion.





They literally never stop moving.

It is unclear how or if they sleep. But water needs to flow through their gills every minute of every day.
You may not know this but humans share about 5000 DNA segments with sharks.

That's not a lot in the greater scheme of your DNA. But you may wonder: where are those shared genes? Is that where I got my pool playing abilities or affinity for Texas Hold-em?

Well, look no further than to your nearest 10-month old boy!

M sleeps peacefully for 10 hours per night and takes four solid naps during the day.

But during the waking hours the resem-blance to his restless friends is there - he is, as his mother says, 'a busy guy'.

Hanging out with him is a non-stop feast of reaching, grabbing, chewing, throwing, rolling, kicking, more chewing, and the list goes on.

It's hard to keep up and is quite exhausting! And he's not crawling, let alone walking, yet!

Make no doubt: we'll be in trouble very soon!

10 big ones

M's 10th birthday quietly snuck up on us.
It is cold out so we didn't venture out for any festivities. We celebrated with yoghurt and pureed carrots. Celebrated is probably a strong word for it. But carrots need all the marketing help they can get!

Even though we haven't put it through the washing machine, the car seat has shrunk in the roughly seven months we've had it in use:

"Before"
Day 88 (the day he came home)

"After"
Day 306 (10-month birthday)

If I ran the circus...

Well, it may be a while before the opportunity presents itself...

In the meantime, courtesy of Aunt B/St Nick, would-be young M. McGurk occas-ionally finds himself the ringmaster in more of a starter venue. He finds it very entertaining and gets carried away banging on the monkey barrel, chewing on the lion and spinning the merry-go-round. He has quite the affinity for things that move...

Meanwhile, Sneelock is pureeing peaches. And, in the background, the band is playing for the gladiators http://www.cuttime.com/midi/acdemo1.mid

Food II

We finished 2006 with the introduction of some actual food items.
Here's what has been tried so far and the reaction:

• Sweet potato: Reception lukewarm at best
• Pear: Negatory
• Apple: Ditto
• Banana: Nope
• Carrots: Are you joking?!
• Yoghurt: He never looks particularly happy when doing so. But he will eat it. Even if it is pear flavored...
• Peas: Yum!

Yes, it is true!
I presume we have the only kid in the universe passing up sweeter tasting stuff in favor of peas. We're not sure where in the gene pool that came from... In the meantime, we're sneaking in some fruit by mixing it into his oatmeal. Shhhh...