Year: 2008

Conrad watched Jean eating sausage and let us know he thinks he’s ready for solid food. He followed the fork from plate to mouth with every bite.

It was a beautiful day and we celebrated with lunch outside, featuring a variety of items from the farmer’s market, including sugar snap peas, toasted pecans, two kinds of Chapel Hill Creamery cheese and some local strawberries and basil that we dipped in chocolate. How local was the basil? It was grown on the same deck where we ate it.

Unfortunately not every member of the household was happy we were outside.

We found that Conrad’s attitude toward hats has not changed since the winter.

Personally, I don’t see what the problem is.

As mentioned before, Hastings likes to keep an eye on Conrad. He’s been sleeping in his own room for about a week and we usually hear his every blark and werfle on the baby monitor, and we can usually get to him before he even knows he wants to cry. A few nights ago we were a few steps behind Hastings, who jumped on our bed and licked our faces until we woke up, then went and stood by Conrad’s door until Jean arrived.

Hey, new pics on the Flickr page, too.

Yesterday was our third anniversary and we celebrated by going out to dinner at our favorite restaurant. This involved our good friend Memsy and her daughter, Katherine, to come and babysit. It was Katherine’s first gig. At fifty cents an hour, she’s a real deal. Now if she were only 16 instead of 6!

Dave’s dad sent us this lovely haiku that sums it up quite beautifully:

All the books say that separation anxiety sets in at 9, 12 and 512 months. Right on queue, I returned to work on Monday and experienced this developmental stage. Luckily for us, we have a wonderful nanny at home keeping our boy happy, safe and in dry diapers.

It’s been complicated to embrace the new logistics of two working parents and a three month old infant. So far, I’ve been getting up first, feeding the boy, handing him off to Dave and getting ready to go.

Of course, this all depends on Conrad being compliant to wake up and eat at an appropriate time. Tuesday, for instance, our day started at 4:45am. Today at 6:30. Today was a better day.

I’ve also learned to not get dressed before I’m ready to walk out the door and to put on ‘play’ clothes immediately upon my return. I have a big spit up stain on my new shirt that I wore Monday as an object lesson.

He was learning how to use his hands. Bonnie arrived this morning at 8:30 for her first day as Conrad’s nanny, and he celebrated by spending 10 minutes grabbing her fingers. It was very clear he had just figured out that those things on the ends of his arms are his hands, and that they can be made to do things other than randomly slap him on the head when he is trying to sleep.

It was fascinating to watch and it’s hard to explain why, but it was obvious we were watching a big step forward. So that means he’s supposed to sleep through the night for the next couple of nights. We’ll see. I’m watching him on the BlarkyCam right now and there’s definitely some flailing going on.

BlarkyCam goes to 11

Bonnie’s first day went very well. Jean went out for a coffee with our friend Abe and when she got home Bonnie was not only still here, but reading a book while Conrad napped. She’s already planning activities for them to do together. Next week they’re starting banjo lessons.