I got a sweet little video camera for my birthday this year from the Bennett/Berkelhamer household, and have been using it quite frequently.

Of course I had to set up the obligatory YouTube account as a result.

Here are a couple of recent videos for you to enjoy:

Drew in his exersaucer

Drew Eating

Drew has officially begun his foray into the realm of "real" food this week. We've gotten to the point where he will no longer allow Andy or myself to eat without trying to intercept the food between our plates and our mouths and munch on whatever it may be himself, so there was no more denying the inevitable. (Try eating a bowl of yogurt with a squirming kid on your lap grabbing at every spoon and trying to steer it anywhere but at your face and imagine the multitude of possible results, very few of them involving you actually getting to consume said yogurt...)

So we pulled out his high chair and his plastic bib and his various plastic dishes and buckled down to the business of smearing powdered oatmeal all over everything in a 10 foot radius. (Laura, you will appreciate that Drew has the same bias as his cousin towards food belonging all over the back of his head!) Needless to say, this has increased the bath to day ratio rather significantly.

Drew has taken to food easily- we weren't too worried since he's been sucking on fruit without much trouble for a while now- although I have to say that his response to the oatmeal was mostly just a fair quantity of chagrin. Clearly, when he was trying to express to us that he was interested in eating people food, he wasn't quite explicit enough. He thinks that mushy baby muck is a poor excuse at best for big guy food and sort of gave me this look like "Seriously? What happened to the bagel and cream cheese? I don't believe for a second you eat this junk!" (To his credit, Andy tried the oatmeal mush and was revolted that we could feed something so vile to someone we care about. I tried to explain that it's baby food and babies like to eat things like that, but I don't think Drew's reaction helped to sell my case.) Either way, I've been trying to explain to Drew that this is just a step he has to work through and then he can build up to the stuff with flavor. Fortunately he's being a good sport in the hopes that something better will indeed come along soon.

We took some videos with our new teeny tiny camcorder of his first meal that I'll try to post soon.

The other very fun thing that Drew does these days is talk to us. And by talk, I mean SHRIEK. He's found his voice and very joyously likes to utilize it at top volume. It's very cute to see him get all excited when Andy comes home from work at the end of the day and scream at him in delight. He also likes to have yelling matches back and forth with me- I'm wondering if it's actually partly a result of the music classes we're taking, which focus on audiation and repetition- whether that's the case or not, it's lots of fun to finally get to hear some of what he has to say!

Drew turned 4 months old this week- we can't believe how quickly he is growing! (Both in a literal, physical, way and a more developmental one.) He weighed in at 18 and a half pounds this week at the doctor's- holy moly. Let me just say that I have the buffest arms I've ever had in my life, but even so my body is struggling to gain the muscle as fast as he's gaining the weight, and he's definitely a heavy load to truck around all day long. I'm definitely going to have long-term back problems that I can blame on him! When we showed up at our Lamaze class reunion he was the youngest baby but also the largest- although one of the other dads said he has met a baby their age that is bigger than Drew, so at least we can be comforted that he's not Guinness Book of World Records large!

People constantly assume he's a couple of months older than he is, as a result of his size and also the nosiness factor- he's fascinated with what people are doing and is very aware of others, an alertness that is not always shared by other babies his age. And of course we're not biased when we say that he's incredibly developed for his age... What he's up to and doing these days: He can sit up unsupported for brief periods of time, although he does tend to tip if you're not close by to catch him. He can roll over but seems completely uninterested in developing this skill, so it only happens sporadically. He is, however, determined to begin walking as soon as possible. He likes to be standing up pretty much all day long if feasible. I hate to break it to him but I think simple physics alone will preclude that for some time- his legs are still very bowed and his weight distribution is not exactly going to help him overcome that yet. But I'm sure he'll get there eventually, if not quite as soon as he's hoping (aka now).

He is also BIG into sticking everything he can find into his mouth and is particularly fascinated with everything we stick in our mouths, so we think he's trying to tell us that he's ready for food already. I would be happy to wait a bit longer on that front as it poses a whole new set of logistic challenges, but one can hardly deny his eagerness, so we will most likely start to head in that direction soon. Also, on a sad note, he has begun the painful process of teething- nothing breaking through yet but he's quite uncomfortable, and understandably grumpy as a result. Hopefully it will be swift and get less painful with time.

He has all kinds of classes and other baby friends to hang out with, which he now thoroughly enjoys- he's started groping other babies in the face and thinks they're incredibly amusing, so it's really fun to get him together with them and see him begin to form his own relationships with others. It's amazing to think about how quickly all of the things he does have come about, and that just four months ago he was a teeny tiny newborn!

I'd give an update on what's new in my life, but, well, I just did. Being a stay at home mom is GREAT- we're really enjoying all of our time together and I feel even busier than when I was working (no evenings, nights, or weekends off!) which means that I'm far from bored. Andy's big news is that he is going to start business school in a few months- he accepted admission into Indiana University's MBA program and is very excited that he'll be doing that in the near future- another level of chaos in our lives but a great opportunity for him and one that stimulates his passion to keep learning.

We posted some more recent photos of Drew from the past few weeks- here's one of my favorites:

I'm normally one to give people the benefit of the doubt, especially when the actions of a few reflect on the reputation of the many. But this story makes me not want to buy any food products exported from China (if that is even possible).

If they can make a mistake like this to their own people, how are they treating their exports?

Just something to think about.

Just in case you were wondering, I'm still doing my job to up the cuteness quotient in the world. Here's the latest in adorable pictures of yours truly.



As you can see, I've been working really hard on holding my head up and have made substantial gains to that end, resulting in my willingness to oblige mommy and daddy with much longer stretches of the formerly dreaded "tummy time." Mainly, however, I like to spend my waking hours standing and sitting (with a *bit* of help from one of the parental units) so that I can see the world better. I also have discovered how to reach out and grab things and then deftly insert them into their proper storage location, also known as my mouth. This is also an incredibly exciting development for me, as it drastically increases my repertoire of independent skills, not to mention the repertoire of flavors in the category of "things I suck on." Other than that, I'm just hanging out enjoying lazy days in the park and splashing around in the end of summer heat- not to mention bouncing around in my exersaucers (yes, that was a plural- my cuteness gets me ALL KINDS of superfluous baby junk).

I'm officially a whole quarter of a year old this week- can you believe it's been three months already? Mommy and Daddy sure can't. In commemoration of this momentous occasion, I convinced them to stop being so lazy and to post a bunch of adorable pictures of me that they've taken over the past month. Enjoy!



Click here to check me out.

I am thrilled to announce that I have finally achieved the most exciting personal endeavor yet in my almost three months of existence- after more than twelve weeks of tirelessly focusing day in and day out on trying to muster control over my fine motor skills, I have officially FOUND MY THUMB this weekend and am happily sucking away to my heart's content.

Now, on to world domination...

I apologize that I have yet again been remiss in posting updates on what has been going on in our lives. Once upon a time I used to be very punctual about this type of thing, but those days may be long gone, at least for the foreseeable future. I've even gone from always being 10 minutes early everywhere to being perpetually 15 minutes late. If 25 minutes is all an infant holds me back though, I suppose things could be worse!

Drew and I spent the majority of last week up in Oregon visiting Auntie Laura and the family. He was, yet again, a very easy traveler and we had a wonderful time. The most exciting development while we were there was that he finally noticed another baby for the first time! He's gotten really into observing adults, particularly me (I would have thought he'd get bored of staring at me by now but he still thinks I'm the bomb, which I will continue to appreciate until he changes his mind and decides that I must be lame because I'm his mom), but despite my attempts to put him in front of as many other kids as possible, he has mostly stared through them or looked around them until now. It's very cute to see him checking out other kids and getting all smiley, something that he does for large portions of his waking hours these days.

We weighed Drew on Friday and he was already up to 15 pounds 4 ounces- he's close to doubling his birth weight! All the 3-6 month clothes have been tucked away in the closet for our next and perhaps slightly more petite child- at 11 weeks, our little guy can only wear 6 month outfits. He doesn't look too insanely chunky, however, because he's quite long for his age- everywhere we go people ask me if he's 4 or 5 months, and seem shocked when I tell them he's only 2 and a half. Seems like he'll take after his Daddy in size, as he also does in looks. Thus far he seems to have gotten his skin tone from me and that's about it- although it appears to change significantly as he develops, so stay tuned for Mari attributes. One thing that I have started to see when I look at him is my dad- there are some cute pictures at my parents' house of him as a small child and I actually think Drew looks a fair bit like him- so maybe we'll have an Al junior in the future, who knows...

Drew and I have been hard at work over the past month hanging out with mommy and me groups and trying to build him some good social networks so that once he eventually does realize that other kids are cooler than Mommy and Daddy, he'll have some to play with. It's exhausting- kind of like dating all over again! We're having a great time though and it's nice to hang out with other kids and moms instead of just with Manu and Webby (not that there's anything wrong with that either). We'll get our rhythm down soon and figure out how active we want to be and then things will calm a bit. The next couple of weeks should be mellow and laid back- no more travel plans for a while which is just as well since they can prove to be quite tiring with this little guy!

That's pretty much it for us these days- a couple of new pics of Drew:



Loving the exersaucer



Chilling at the Samoan festival



Too much fun makes for tired babies

Just in case you didn't already know, or if you had any doubts- Drew, our son, is the cutest baby EVER!!!!

Proof:

EXHIBIT A



EXHIBIT B



Case closed.

We arrived home from our week in the midwest late on Monday night. We had a WONDERFUL time visiting with all of our family and friends there- we know that we're very lucky to live so close to so many of our family members, but it was a poignant reminder how far away others in the family live, and we really enjoyed the opportunity to visit. Drew loved meeting everyone and was very good-natured in general about being dragged about all over so that people could ooh and aah over him.

Here are some favorites from our latest adventures:



Yaya making a great pillow



Meeting Aunt Shoshie for the first time



Getting to hang out with Great Great Aunt Moe!

For more photos of our visits with family and friends click here.



Sam and Shosh are now pronounced husband and wife



Not quite sure how we feel about Dan yet...



Dancing with Shoshie at the party

For more photos of Shosh and Sam's wedding click here.

Drew and I are now in Chicago visiting family and friends on our way to Shoshie's wedding- we will post lots of photos once we've returned home. In the meantime, in addition to becoming a nation-wide traveler, Drew has continued to have many exciting life experiences.

Last week, Drew's cousin Hayden came over to visit with his brothers Brandon and Ryan and his mom Jessica. (See photos Andy uploaded last week.) Hayden is 16 days older than Drew so we're very excited for them to get to grow up together. Scarily enough, Drew is rivaling Hayden in size despite their age difference- our little tub is continuing to grow, blowing away all myths that breastmilk is less likely to make for large babies than formula!

Drew also slept through his first fireworks party at Grandma and Grandpa Durkee's house on Friday- a full hour of the most impressive fireworks we could get our hands on this side of Mexico didn't even phase him as he slept contentedly in Great-Grandma's arms. I think his obliviousness to noise combined with his thrill-seeking nature means we might have a troublemaker on our hands come future fourth of July celebrations!

Drew and I flew to Chicago with my mom on Monday to spend the week here before traveling to Lansing for the wedding- he was great on the plane: sleeping, eating, and flirting with the little old ladies who found him adorable. We've been doing the whirlwind tour of the greater Chicago-land area and have really enjoyed hanging out with cousins Mia, Ben and Naomi, the latter of which at 8 months old is ADORABLE and thinks Drew looks like some kind of delicious snack food she wants to gobble up! After seeing her pictures where compared to most infants she looked quite the chub, I was startled to see how close in size to her Drew actually is. When Andy sees him again this weekend he'll be shocked at how much our little guy continues to beef out. I swear I'm not passing on any steriods in my food!

Tonight we went to Aunt Jackie's birthday where he slept through the entire meal and tomorrow we head to the cottage on our way to East Lansing. Drew sends his love to all his fans and promises that he'll post cute photos with more members of the fan club asap.

Uncle Jeff and Aunt Karen have a great tradition of planting a tree whenever someone is born. They decided to give Drew a tree to celebrate his birth. Mari and I chose an Alexander Magnolia for him. It's a deciduous tree that blooms in the early spring with bright pink tulip shaped flowers. We have seen them around the neighborhood and think that they look great. Here is a sample of what Drew's tree might look like when he has kids of his own.




Drew planted his tree in front of our house the other day. Here is a photo of him with us after all his hard work. We had to hold him up because he was tired. He is an infant you know.




Thanks Uncle Jeff and Aunt Karen. Drew will love to come back to our house and see how big his tree is as he grows.

I want to apologize first for the fact that I have been remiss in writing again sooner- we've been out of town for a fair portion of the last couple of weeks and I haven't had good access to computers. I noticed that our last post had more than 650 views- I find it hard to believe there are that many people who are following our day-to-day lives, which means apparently someone or someones have been trying to find an update on what's going on by continually checking in, so here you go. (I'll do my best to work on making my supply meet the market demand from here on out.) Since I've last reported, Drew has gone on his first two big trips and had his one month check-up with his doctor. Andy and I were placing bets on whether Drew would be in the double digits weight-wise when we went in last week (I thought he would be just over ten pounds)- and it turns out he was 11 pounds 5 ounces!!! Our little beefcake is clearly well-nourished and growing like a weed. Doctor says he's in great health and looks wonderful, so all is good on that front. His next check-up will involve his first set of vaccinations, so will probably be a slightly more traumatizing experience for us all...

Drew's first big vacation was to spend the week up in Los Alamos with the family at Grandma and Grandpa's place there. Other than the 120 degree heat it was fabulous (actually, to be honest, Drew loved the 120 degree heat, it was just Andy and the dogs and I that refused to wallow in it with him). We hung out playing scrabble, swung in the hammock swing in the front yard (which Drew loves) and discovered the joys of swimming. We set the hot tub to 95 degrees and took Drew in for his first non-bath related water experience. Apparently, Drew is interested in becoming a fish when he grows up- he LOVED the water! We have never seen something that so consistently elicits huge grins and giggles from him, so have determined this must mean it's his current favorite thing in the world (sorry to Auntie Laura for having your stained glass window usurped- although you had a good monopoly on favorites for about a month).



Drew was so tickled with the experience that we went out and bought a little crabbie plastic pool/sandbox for our backyard. One of the great advantages of living in this hot stuffy valley is that with 100 degree temperatures consistently throughout the summer, all we have to do is keep the pool full and it is a very pleasant temperature for swimming in the evenings. So our current ritual is to wait until the sun starts setting and then let Drew float around on his back in his own private swimming pool, which he adores. Manu also thinks the swimming pool is the bomb, and is quite peeved that we won't let her jump in with him. We think it's just a matter of time before she figures out how to remove the lid in our absence and we come back to find her wading in it.



Drew also attended his first bluegrass festival/wine-tasting event while we were in Los Alamos. All of the other attendees were quite impressed that he was already working on developing a refined palate He definitely enjoyed the sunshine, the heat, and the loud jamming music (as he always does), so we termed the festival a huge success. Andy and Jake spent the weekend hard at work making some really great scale models of the solar system- Drew is going to have a LOT to learn from his big cousin once he gets older! The rest of us just spent our days eating a lot (one of the main prerequisites of staying up there), laying on the cool tile floors, and vegging out.



Our second exciting trip involved Drew's first plane flights- we went to Texas for the Durkee family reunion. Drew was a great flyer- slept through all four flights- and a great traveler overall. It's great to know that he's easygoing about being in new surroundings and being dragged to different places (not that we had our doubts). It was really fun to meet all of his distant Durkee relatives and a really amazing event- almost 150 people from all over the country were there, and a whole mess of babies! The last time the family had a big reunion was in 1934, so it was a pretty big deal. Drew also got to meet Great-Grandmother Billie's brother Uncle Ed and his wife Aunt Billie. While we were at the reunion, one of the largest thunderstorms Texas has seen in a while struck the lake we were at- and a tree right in front of us on the lawn! It was wuite impressive and the deluge made Andy nostalgic for the crazy rainstorms we used to get in Samoa- although it was nice to have this one only last an hour instead of 4 months.



We are enjoying this week of down time- Andy's last before returning to work at Decore on Monday- before Drew and I again hop on a plane to go visit family and friends in Chicago and Michigan for the week and to share in the joy of his sort-of-Aunt Shoshie's wedding. It's proving to be an exciting and incredibly busy summer for all of us, and we're having a great time. That's all for now but we'll try to post again before we take off.



Andy put up lots of great new photos of our adventures as well- check them out!

"Drew and Friends" has been updated (and we finally got some good photos of Grandma Rudi to add!): click here to see.

For photos from our trip to Los Alamos, click here.

For photos from the Durkee family reunion, click here.

Tomorrow Drew will be three weeks old! It's amazing that time is going so fast- we're definitely starting to notice the change in him as he has gotten little wrinkles on his arms and legs from new fat stores. He's starting to look much more round and much less like a scrawny newborn- soon he'll be roly poly! For the most part though he still looks pretty similar- long and lean (he was born average for weight but something like 99th percentile for height- again, definitely Andy's genes kicking in over mine).

We had an eventful week here- lots of trips to visit folks and be adored by all. He even took his first trip to Decore to meet all of Daddy's coworkers and to check things out. He wanted to explore the shop floor, but sadly they don't make safety goggles or earplugs for infants, so that will have to wait. Drew went to his cousin Jessica's graduation where he peacefully slept through the insanely loud organ music and screaming hordes (as I said, the dogs seem to have done wonders for his general chaos threshhold). He also really enjoyed being the center of attention at her party- all of the women fought for turns holding him and he has continued to evade being put down pretty much ever, since everyone always wants to hold him. (I have a feeling this one will come back to bite us when he's older, but it's hard to deny him at this point, especially because he's SO sweet when he curls up in a ball and sleeps on your chest- who could resist?)



We also went to his first professional sports game on Saturday- the Dodgers kicked Cubby butt and we were there in person to witness! Drew was really good and slept through most of the game, but woke up in time for the big 7th inning upset in which we scored 5 runs. He liked checking out the crowd and people watching. Proof he was there:





Drew has still been trying very hard to find his thumb- this seems to be the biggest obsession of his waking moments these days and is, sadly for us, the one thing that can reduce him to hysterics relatively consistently. (Who wouldn't be frustrated at the fact that they cannot do the ONE thing that will complete them and make them happy all the time?) We're trying to be as encouraging as possible of his attempts and to give him pointers whenever possible, but know it's also somewhat a matter of time, since his fine motor skills still leave a bit to be desired. Hopefully by the next time I write I'll have more victorious news on that front. Drew says hi to all and sends love and kisses (well, more like licks, but they're still very sweet).

We're all doing quite well here at the Lansford household fully into the second week of life as a family of five. Webster and Manu seem to have reconciled themselves to their new roles in the hierarchy and accepted Drew as a full-fledged member of the pack. I'm finally not carrying around a donut-shaped pillow for sitting on everywhere I go (I cannot quite describe in words how exciting that is, but I am VERY happy about the change). Andy is enjoying his time at home and has been trying to turn Drew into the world's youngest musician by playing non-stop music and dancing around the living room with him each day (which Drew LOVES, so apparently it's working).

Drew is both a good sleeper and a good awake member of the family. He has figured out that he should try to sleep a bit longer in stretches at night since we might ignore him if he pulled anything different anyways, and usually gives me about 3 hours in a stretch, which I appreciate. He has also started to spend long periods of alert awake time during the day. This morning he got up at 8 and actually stayed awake until about 12:30! He's very curious about the world around him when he's up and gets quite grumpy if someone has the audacity to try to make him sleep during his big boy time. ("Quite grumpy" is extremely relative- he's an incredibly good-natured baby and is super easy, and hardly ever cries. Thank goodness for genetic recombination and my having married a mellow man with deep sleep tendencies!)

Drew really enjoys his swing and bouncer and basically movement of any kind in general. He's particularly taken with it when Andy rocks him as hard as his little machines will go- his eyes open really wide as he realizes he's being rocketed through the air. (I sense an adrenaline junkie in the making.) He also seems completely at peace with being devoured on a regular basis by loving dog tongues and doesn't even bat an eyelash at the general level of chaos our canines create in his world.

I think both Andy and I were bracing ourselves for the worst- imagining NO sleep, trying to function as walking zombies with a constant high pitched screaming in the background (I'm hypothesizing that they try to terrify you in baby care classes so you end up thinking you've won the lottery when your child isn't totally miserable all the time). On the contrary things have been very sane and manageable and dare I say low key hanging out together. At least thus far we're not nearly as tired as we thought we would be- hopefully that will continue to be the case! We are so incredibly lucky that Andy is taking time off of work so that we can all spend these precious days together. We're so happy and feel so very lucky to have Drew in our family! And he seems to be pretty amenable to hanging out with us as well- at least for the time being. We're trying hard to enjoy that while it lasts...