where the watermelons grow...

Last Monday was a very special day. Not just because it was President's Day and Guav had the day off, and not just because it marked the first day of the last year my best friend Rayber will be in his twenties. It was extra special to me because it just so happened to be my little baby's first half birthday. I've never celebrated half birthdays before, but I've also never been so excited about watching someone grow up. So we had a little party to celebrate Brixton's half birthday...

I've been wanting to write a catch up entry, and I think this is really an excellent time to do just that. Here's what's been going on in our little nation of three for the last six months:

So far Brixton has gained 10lbs and has grown 7 inches since the day he was born. He can roll over from his stomach to his back, sit up on his own and has been able to stand on his feet relying on us only for balance since he was three months old. He says Ba, Ga, Da and various H sounds that sound like Hi or Hey. He can reach out for his toys with both hands and occasionally likes to nibble on his own toes. He has two beautiful bottom teeth and the best laugh I've ever heard. He has been exclusively breastfed and has only recently experienced his first tiny bites of sweet potato. I've been making his food using the Beaba baby food maker I scored in my goody bag from Martha Stewart last summer, but he hasn't really been so interested in eating as he has been with pushing his food out of his mouth with his tongue or doing adorable little rasberries until both our faces are covered in puree.

I've been to Texas quite a few times and for a while everyone seemed to think he looked like Guav. Nanay likes to call him "Guav na maliit" which means "Guav that is little" in tagalog. I personally think he looks a lot like me or how I did when I was a baby. Guav stayed neutral and said he looked like the both of us until I did a little side by side comparison and totally won.

Of course one thing Brixton does get from Guav is his bright morning smile. He wakes up in the morning and is ready to dance and play, smiling ear to ear and cooing everywhere. He sleeps in our bed with us mainly because I still nurse him at night but also because he's an awesome little snuggle bug. The entire sleep situation is different from what I thought it would be at this point or what I originally wanted, but I'm happy with it now because it's what works for us. We decided we don't want to "sleep train" him, and I like to be there with him when he wakes up every morning.

The first few months were pretty rough. He was super gassy so our pediatrician suggested holding him upright for thirty minutes after each feeding. This meant I was up for at least 45 minutes three or four times a night. Luckily he slept a lot during the day in those earlier months. Sometimes I would nap with him, but most of the time I would just hold him and watch something on Netflix Watch Instantly. I got through three seasons of 30 Rock, three seasons of Friday Night Lights, a season of Californication and quite a few movies in those first three months.

I do carry him a lot. All day, really. I hold him even while he naps. He doesn't sleep for very long otherwise. A lot of people think or say I carry him too much. Fortunately, I've learned to tune these people out. It's just the two of us most of the day. No cartoons or television. No toys with bright lights or crazy sounds. No toys that require batteries at all. No swings or jumperoos or exersaucers or playpens. He has a movement mat in the living room which is basically a thin mattress surrounded with mirrors for his tummy time, a basket of thoughtfully selected toys, a box of children's 45s that we play for him on his Fisher Price record player, lots of books and lots of homemade mobiles. Some ideas are Montessori, some are attachment parenting, some are both but most are just what makes sense to us. How do I ever get anything done? I don't. Precisely why I haven't posted anything in months.

Up until a month ago actually, I was in my PJs all day long because I just never had the chance to put myself together in the morning. That's when Raffi came to the rescue. I know I said no TV, but I make an exception for the Raffi In Concert DVD. It was taped in the 80's and it's just Raffi, his guitar and his audience singing about baby whales and quacking ducks. Brixton absolutely loves it. Guav and I both like watching his face light up when Raffi starts singing Mr. Golden Sun. Anyway, keeping Raffi around for twenty minutes a day means I can brush my teeth and wash my face before two in the afternoon so, for me, Raffi is not only acceptable, he is indispensable.

There's a short list of things that also fall into that "wouldn't have made it without" category. The list is different for every parent, and I'm always curious to know what's on other people's lists. Here's mine:

• Raffi.
  
  
• The Moby: Definitely my carrier of choice. It's just a long piece of cotton jersey that you can wrap around you in a bunch of different ways to hold your baby. It's so cozy—for both me and Brixton. We have the Baby Bjorn and the Ergo as well, which Guav uses mainly because he thinks the Moby is girly, but I like the Moby and prefer it.
  
  
• The Bumbo: It's really quite brilliant I think. Guav says he wishes they made Bumbos for adults, because they just look so comfy. I don't disagree. I put him in his Bumbo with a TV tray and some toys when he watches his Raffi DVD or when I just want to clean up the house a little bit. We have the actual tray that goes with the Bumbo, but it's hard to take on and off and its not very big so all his toys end up falling off of it.
  
  
• Our Carseat: I know this seems obvious, but I don't just use the carseat in the car. We have two—one that lives upstairs in our office area and the other gets moved around downstairs—from the kitchen to the bathroom to my closet to the dining room. It makes setting him down and picking him up easy when I want to cook, eat, get dressed check my email on our desktop computer or use the bathroom.
  
  
• iPhone: For both entertainment and documentation purposes. Those few months that had me banished to the couch for hours on end were infinitely easier with the iPhone in hand. I could browse online, play games, answer or write emails and text with one hand and minimal movements while he slept. And the camera was great—I can't even count how many pictures and videos I took of him sleeping and smiling and doing the cute things babies do. Actually, I can count ... I believe I've taken about 1,900 photos and videos.
  
  
• Cloth Diapers: This is where Guav really stepped up. I have to admit that before Brixton was born, I was a bit concerned about getting diaper duty all the time because Guav would run away when I tried to get him to change Judah's diaper. I couldn't have been more wrong. He did a lot of research, joined a livejournal diaper community (so cute), and purchased all of our cloth diapers that should set us up until Brixton's ready to be out of them. He also does the laundry every other day without complaint. This includes washing, drying, stuffing and folding the diapers so that they're ready to use every day. Anyways, Guav's really the one to talk about it, but I do know going the cloth route has really saved us a lot of money. Even better, Brixton hasn't gotten a single diaper rash.
  
  
• The Itsy Bitsy Spider: By far his favorite song. I don't know what it is about it, but it works like magic. We sing it probably a dozen or more times each day. Runner-ups are Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Guav's Baby Brixton Ducky Butt song, Mr. Golden Sun and Brixton Mackaye Talplacido Gauvin sung to the melody of John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt.
  

So this is where I post a whole bunch of pictures:










































And some videos:





That should bring everything up to date. Let's see if I can manage to post more than a couple of times before his first birthday.