Friday, May 27, 2011

Happy Five-Month Birthday!

Five months on Sunday! Hurtling toward the half-year mark. We have a few notable "firsts" this week. The first first, as it were, is that Tor wore shorts. For his baptism, our friends Dave and Lindsay and Andrew and Kit (those "ands" indicate two couples rather than my radical break from serial grammar) gave him outfits involving short pants. Because he's relatively small, I thought the outcome might be something like this:

Calvin and Hobbes

The $64,000 question: will he have the Karplus calves?


But he rocked them.
"Tee hee"

Li'l Squirt (plus elf booties from Madeline)

We told him he could waterski in Tahoe if he practiced his grip


True to form, Minneapolis was only hot for three days, and then Tor was back to long sleeves and pants.




Such was the attire in which he encountered his second first of those mentioned here: a cloth book! Turns out Little Monkey is much more manipulable than your standard board number. For those whose curiosity runs along the same lines as mine, cloth books do have ISBNs (they appear on a tag along with washing instructions).


And *drumroll* the final first: a foray into solid food! Our pediatrician recommended starting Tor on rice cereal at five months, so we bought a box of Earth's Best Organic Whole Grain Rice Cereal and mixed it with some breast milk, sat the baby in his ultra-plush high chair (the Cadillac of high chairs, seriously--shout-out to Grandpa Chooch and Grandma Charmaine!), busted out the baby flatware set, and got ready for action.

Anticipation, thy name is Tor.
Open wide...
The moment of truth.

"This is what you people eat?!"
There's a reason their short-term memory is very limited.

Tor gamely "ate" a few more bites, by which I mean he let me dump a spoonful into his mouth and then dribbled it out over the next ten seconds. The jury is out on whether he actually swallowed any. The whole experience seemed to confuse him.


 Then Lars hit on the idea of immediately chasing each bite with a teething toy shaped like a nipple. Because Tor would suck on the toy's nipplish top, he ended up getting some cereal down. I think.



The endeavor concluded with Tor getting distracted by his greed for Nipple Head.


We're willing to call it a success, all told. The long-term plan: for the next two weeks, he gets one cereal meal a day in addition to his 8-10 milk feedings. Then we can start adding new foods, one per week. Readers! What shall we try next?

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Baptism Weekend

And now the stuff you've all been waiting for: baptism photos!

Our dear friend Josh agreed to be Tor's godfather, and he and his girlfriend April visited from Houston for the weekend. Here's the meeting of minds on Friday evening:



Godmother Christina couldn't make it, since she's leaving for China in a few days, but sent prayers and love from San Francisco. Our old pals Dan and Julia were also in town (Dan was our best man back in '02) and joined in the festivities. We all hung out Friday night and grilled some burgers.

"Come on, Dad, I'm almost 21...weeks"
Totem poles aren't usually known for their cuteness
The weather had been in the mid 40s, gray, and drizzly for six days leading up to Sunday, but we woke up to clear skies and low 60s. We walked up to the church, where we sat in front with Josh and April, and many of our other friends were in the pews as well.

Reading the Nicene Creed

Asking the congregation to welcome Tor into God's family

Thrilled to be sealed with the cross of Christ
Baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit

"Let your light shine in all the world"
Pastor Dave gave us a certificate of baptism, and the church quilting circle made Tor a quilt.


After the service concluded at 11:30, we walked back to the house for a backyard barbecue. We had prepared most of the food on Saturday, so we were eating by 1:00.

Josh and April with the Tor
Tor in the center in his green tweed overall set
Lindsay (right) and Annia getting some smiles
Busting out the ol' croquet set (that's Dan Faccinetti next to Lars)
And Lindsay baked a beautiful chocolate-peanut-butter-banana cake for the occasion!

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Post-Game Debriefing

This is just a quick post before I upload all the baptism photos and video. The rest of Mother's Day was lovely. The weather cooperated and we went for a walk,


enjoyed some PJed snuggles (can you believe that's a six-month sleeper?),


had a beer on the porch in our rocking chairs,


and admired Tor's timely acquisition of impressive new foot-related skills.



Because his cloth diapers are so bulky, he can only pull this one off on the changing table! (I tried to figure out how to write "CENSORED" on the black box, but no dice.)


Sunday, May 8, 2011

Happy Mother's Day!

In honor of Mother's Day, here's one more of Oma with the grandbaby:

And of Grandma with him fresh out of the hospital:
Our morning has been fabulous. Lars brought me Danish pastry in bed; I got cards, flowers, and pampering lotions from my moms; Tor behaved in church; and we beat the rain on our walk. Later today we're going shopping for running shoes and eating takeout from our favorite Thai place. I feel very special!

On May 1, our friends Aaron and Allison hosted a post-Easter brunch and egg hunt. They have a 20-month-old daughter, Madeline, who refers to Tor as "baby."


"No photos, please!"
All of the other kids engaged with the eggs at least a little bit.
Milo, 11 months
Sonia, 5 1/2 months
Madeline, 20 months
Annie, 14 months, and Mia, 18 months
And then there was Tor.
We tried to pose him with an egg.
But he just lay there like he'd been poleaxed.
In fact, he was pretty sleepy the rest of the afternoon...

...until the Exersaucer came out. It belongs to Madeline, but Milo's been using it and just brought it back. Now we have it in our living room, so expect video shortly.