ninth mesaversary

Nine months in, nine months out.

This month has been so fun to watch him almost move. It's quite hilarious, actually. He can get from one place to another, it just takes a long time. From a sitting position he leans forward, rocks up onto one foot and one knee, and then sits back down. Somehow repeating that over and over can get him across the room. He makes efforts to crawl, but has a hard time getting his legs to do what he wants and he ends up scooting backwards. He's like an inch worm moving in reverse.

He's started pulling up on things, but he doesn't seem to understand the power in his fatty legs yet. (Trust me, as one who has endured many kicks: they are strong). He does pull ups and then hangs out in a funny crouched position. And often ends up in a split. Which doesn't seem to bother him until he realizes he's stuck.

Teddy Bear now joins me in the kitchen while I cook or do dishes. He sits on the floor and watches every move I make. Sometimes he tries to crawl up the legs of the dinner table and he ends up in a kneeling position, with his arms stretched over his head and his belly resting on the leg.

If he's in a chair he immediately leans forward and pulls himself so he can look over the edge. Or fall if he isn't being watched. (This only happened once. And another time Mr. Yin caught his leg as his head was two inches from the floor.)

He's finally started to really eat solids. While his purees are being consumed, he'd much rather eat whatever we're eating. And he eats chunks of food with no problem. So I'm trying to let him do that more often. He's officially no longer a vegetarian. He's had chicken and turkey now. And really liked both. That's mama's boy! He's also learned how to feed himself, which is hilarious. Sometimes he grabs something and then wraps his fingers around it and can't find it. But he won't loosen the grasp to find it, and discovers the stashed tid bid when he goes in for another one and gets distracted by the preexisting one. Cheese might be his favorite food. And Cheerios. Or maybe yogurt. His Gramma Po Po got him a sippy cup when we went for a visit. He mostly likes to use it in the car, probably because he doesn't have to tilt his head back as far.

He's added 3.5 more teeth for a grand total of 5.5. His top side teeth came in before the middle ones, so he looks like a vampire. The middle ones have been pretty painful coming in and we have lost a lot of sleep, until we upped his dosage of Tylenol right before bed. I'll be very happy when this .5 one finally decides to come all the way in!

He claps proudly for himself whenever he's done something awesome, which is all the time. And he gives high fives to anyone patient enough to ask a few times. He (sometimes) waves hello and good bye, usually after whoever asked in the first place has stopped caring. But it's still adorable to me.

One of the biggest changes this past month was thanks to Hurricane Irene. He now sleeps in his own room. I think it's a bigger change for me than for him. Those first few nights I slept so lightly thinking the monitor wouldn't work. It did. And so do his lungs if he's not happy. It was bound to happen, right?!

I finally figured out how to get him to not try to eat books when we read to him: lay down and hold the book up. He gets mesmerized by the pictures that way. He still loves to eat books. Any book. Particularly my library books with the plastic covers. They're so fascinating to him. He also likes to nibble on a good old edition of Martha Stewart Living. Hopefully he'll absorb some of the good things as well as the fiber.

That's our boy. Nine months old. I never imagined he'd be as wonderful and amazing as he is. He exceeds all expectations and we constantly tell each other, and him!, how crazy in love with him we are.

Clara Elinor

I've decided that from now on, the best way to celebrate September 11 is by celebrating new life.

Specifically, my new sweet niece Clara Elinor Cooprider.

She arrived yesterday weighing in a whopping 11 pounds 2 ounces. And she's 24 inches long.

Yes, Heather let her gestate in there until she was good and ready to come out.

Happy Birth Clara!!

(I'm not sure why this picture won't resize. Nor why the font isn't right. But I needed to get word of Clara out there!)

pants

You've probably noticed that we have a chubby baby.

And he is. Chubby. Everywhere. But especially in the leg/buns area.

It's adorable and kissable and squeezable and we wouldn't change it for anything.

But it does pose a bit of a problem when trying to wear pants.

He's spent most of his life just wearing onesies. And that worked because we lived in the desert for most of his life so while everyone else was trying to keep their babies warm, we were trying to figure out ways to keep him from being so sweaty at night and while in his car seat. Then we moved to NJ and onesies still worked because it's summer and who needs pants in the summer if you can get away without them?

I even made him a pair of leg warmers for those cooler days, but they don't really stay on with the way he wiggles his legs.

But pants are cute. And so on cooler days I would try to put him in pants. And that is where our problems happen. Elastic waist pants usually don't make it past his thighs. I'm not kidding. We've gone up to size 24 months and they get stuck on his thighs, like me trying to wiggle into my pre-pregnancy jeans. Solution? Pants that have elastic waists and zippers!

Or one-piece outfits!

So we try them. They get over his legs and snap under his belly and look adorable. So I sit him up so he can admire his pants and whoops! he falls right over. So I sit him up again, and whoops! Falls right over. The waist of the pants interferes with sitting!!

Where does that leave us? Pants-less.

I decided I needed to swoop in and save the day by making him some pants. I found a pattern on-line that said it was for a tall, skinny three-year old (that should be more than enough to fit a chubby eight-month old, right?) and make a mock pair by cutting up an old shirt (Go Sooners!). The pants came together very easily and looked pretty comfy. The problem?

They still get stuck on his chubba thighs. I might have read the pattern wrong and needed to enlarge it? Or maybe her three-year old is really skinny (and not as tall as she thinks?). We've already established that I think Teddimundo is as big around as his five-year old cousin.

Either way we're back to the drawing board. Really just back to the sewing machine. I'm sure we can figure out the pattern.

(Erica, does Josh want some OU pants?)

Good Night, Irene

Well. Irene came to visit.

She left us with six inches of water in the basement.

And no power.

So we no longer live in the basement.

eighth mesaversary

Eight months.

It's been a kind of quiet month here are the Yin home for Tedimundo.

He continues to be an absolute joy of a little guy. But he's also decided he likes to be in his mom's arms whenever he's remotely hungry or tired. That's joyful, right?! Luckily his dad is a pro at distracting him.

His newest tricks include rudimentary clapping (I even got a video of it! Check Google+), the beginnings of waving hello and good bye and rolling his tongue. Yes, tongue rolling!

Back when we still lived in the desert, Teddy Bear rolled over for the first time and then got up on his knees all in the same day. Mr. Yin and I looked at each other and laughed, thinking we were doomed with an early crawler. Luckily we could not have been more wrong! This past month he's made a bit of an effort to get there. He's spent the month lunging out onto his hands from a seated position, and then added getting up onto his toes. But that's as far as he goes. I'm sure it's just a matter of time before he crawls, but in the mean time I call this move the "not-crawl". Because that's what he's doing: not crawling.

He's still content to sit and play with his toys or us and loves to help me around the kitchen or do anything where he gets to accompany me. Laundry is a new favorite. He sits on the dryer and plays with odd socks while I load and unload. He gets a big kick out of sitting up so high.

While he still doesn't love-love eating solid foods, he goes along with it better now and actually keeps opening his mouth for more after three bites. Carrots seem to be a big hit. He's taken to drinking out of my cup and thinks it might be the best gig in town. I thought maybe he's like to feed himself and so gave him some bananas to test it out and he immediately smeared it all over his fancy seat and himself and never once put it into his mouth. Everything but food goes into the mouth I guess.

We took the lad up to MA to help celebrate my mom's birthday and he got to spend some good time with his little girl cousins. I think he might be as big around as his five-year old cousin. I'm not exaggerating. While we were there I weighed him on my parents' scale and he rang in at 24 lbs. So he's still still the Chub. His chubba legs continue to kick and kick. They displace a lot of water during bath time.

I love when he sings songs and grabs his toes. It reminds me he's still a baby even though he's the size of a toddler! We love every inch of him.

M-A-S-S-A-C-H-U-S-E-T-T-S

(This post is kind of dated. Last month we went to MA to see the family. And we just got back from the second trip there, so, yeah, dated. )

The trip was mostly dedicated to meeting family and a few friends. (And getting blessed at church, but that is a different post.)

Teddy Bear got to meet Gram. He was a huge fan. He loves to grab her face and giggle.

He met his Gong Gong Grandpa, and they were fast friends. They philosophized together.

The ride up was more like torture for him than anything else. I'm still convinced it was the worst day of his little life. It took him a few days to get over the trauma of it and for his voice to come back to normal. He would have been much happier if Mr. Yin had let him drive instead of be strapped into his seat.

The way back was much better. We learned some better distraction techniques (card board box! plastic water bottles!) and introduced the the hoodie I wear when I nurse him. Like Herman once said, it takes a small miracle to achieve this serenity. He always sleeps with his Pomp frowny face in the car.

He saw the ocean for the first time, but didn't stick his feet in this time around since we forgot the sun screen. Hence the blanket. We're awesome parents.

We saw Beth in Salem and she shared her little friend Julia's toys with Teddy. Julia has some pretty sweet toys.

He met Ruthie Pants, his little twin cousin. (They were due on the same day. Teddy came 9 days early, Ruthie took her time and came 9 days late.) She is a mover. She's mastered the army crawl and crawled right over to the Chub and gave him kisses. I mean she tried to bite his ear, (with her six teeth!). She was very interested in him. And he just sat there and took it like the little man he is.

These little babies are super wiggily and it was nearly impossible to get a good picture of the two of them.

So many people to meet! He met Jaime and Tirza for the first time. They were all friends. Good friends. And they got a little preview of what it will be like when Ruth puts on about 8 more pounds!

More meeting! Heath came to visit us the desert, but he had yet to meet the rest of the Coops. Her girls are very doting. They adore their little cousin Edmund. (And we got all blurry photos. Boo. Don't worry, we got great ones this last visit.)

And just for fun we brought his Bizzy sweater to show Gram her handiwork and share the adorability.

(I apologize for the lameness of this post. At least there are some cute photos!)

meet the dog

Mr. Yin's little cousin has a dog. Sometimes the dog comes and stays here.

I'll be honest, I was kind of nervous about Teddy Bear meeting the dog, but they met when I wasn't there and they're totally cool with each other. And I'm cool with it now.

Teddy might like him more than he likes Teddy. But the dog couldn't love Sophie the Giraffe more, unless of course we let him chew on her. Which we don't.