mobile

ronin is now mobile.
on friday morning, nov 23rd, ronin completed his first foot of crawling.
i've got video to prove it



it is nice now that the squirt can move around effectively on his own... the whining will now diminish, maybe.

life is slowly getting better for the runt... except for his brother always stealing his toys... but ronin never seems to care, at least. not yet.

his 'six' month appointment is wednesday... even though he is now 8 mos. old... got a late start. but it'll involve shots... hopefully he comes out of this one in an ok mood.

he has also taken to eating baby food over the course of the past few days. he likes sweet potatoes and carrots... but currently unsure about those green peas.

that's about it for him. happy baby he is.

three weeks ago: two bottom teeth
within the last week: side stepping while holding onto the ottman.

little r is growin' up...

just gotta get him happy on his belly for some crawling action.

sleeping through the night... twice

so ronin slept through the night on wed. aug 29th and thurs. aug 30th... wish we could say the same thing about your older brother aiden... rough week or so of lots of waking up.

like a rolling stone

ok. maybe not quite like a rolling stone, per se... but today, while having tummy time, ronin rolled from front to back.. three times... it took a bit of an effort, and encouragement from aiden.

coo

ro-bear is now seven weeks old. he's growing like a weed. many of his 0-3 month outfits don't even fit now. he's figured out day and night too... actually, we think he figured that out a couple of weeks ago. and now with his expanding belly, he's only waking twice? a night for feedings. i'm not entirely sure as p is the one who gets up and take care of the runt while i am peacefully in sleepy land. after his 3 or 4am feeding, he'll usually last until about 6 or 7, feed and then sleep for another hour. during the day, he'll nap in the morning and then another good nap in the late afternoon... but then starting around 6 or 630, it's a battle till he drifts off to sleep around 9pm. sometimes 8pm if we're lucky... and sometimes close to 10pm (like last night) if we're unlucky.
i've forgotten how enjoyable this stage of life is... having his take naps on my chest, or just having some quiet time together either walking or sitting on the couch. different, though... as an eye and ear still have to be open for a, as he plays on the porch.

ronin is just over three weeks old now. it's cool to see that he is spending more time awake during the day as opposed to just eating and sleeping as he did in the early days. i remember the days that aiden would be awake staring at us as we held onto him. ronin seems to be a bit more vocal than aiden was... although the decibel level of cries is equal, if not exceeding, those of aiden at this age.

birth story- dad's eye view

on the afternoon of 032407, p found some videos on babycenter.com and proceeded to watch about 4 or 5 birthing videos. that night, we headed out to dinner with friends, and when we had returned, she mentioned that she'd like me to watch them with her. good thing i did, because a few hours later, p started to have contractions. she told me they started around 1130pm, but didn't really alarm me until around 1230-100am... and i didn't get up to start timing them until about 2am... and even then, i couldn't seem to get a stop watch in my hands to time them as i was giving p massages and having her use me as support to walk around our bedroom; all the while, the contractions starting to get closer and closer.
in between contractions, p packed a hospital bag, as we were not prepared for a hospital visit, and i helped her finalize her quarter grades for her students.
around 5am, p was getting worried and said it was time to head to the hospital. so we made our way to the car, packed it up, went through about 3 or 4 contractions and headed into cap hill. on the way there, p stopped focusing on her contractions, turned to me and said, 'where are you going?' as she had no clue what direction we were headed. after explaining, she went back to concentrating on the contractions. a run red light and maybe 15 minutes later, we were at the hospital, 2nd floor waddling toward a birthing room. the nurse had asked me about the timing of the contractions, but i really didn't know and started to spew numbers when p blurted, 'he has no idea what he's talking about.' there was indeed truth to that as i was working with p during contractions and not staring at a clock. by this time it's 530-545am. another hour and fifteen minutes of contractions later, p's water breaks, four or five pushes, and ronin burst on the scene with a few wimpers. a bit blue in the face, but normal, he turned pink slowly.
it was 716am and we were happy to welcome ronin, aiden's little brother, into the world. he weighed in at 8lb 1.7oz, and was 19.5in long.