First Family Portrait

What a good looking family!

This portrait was taken a few weeks ago and I can't believe how much Vincent has changed since that day. I now call him "smiley baby" - that's all he seems to do lately - it's fantastic! Every time he is introduced to someone; he smiles, every time I peer over his crib after a long nap; he smiles & every time Edwin returns from work and says, "Hi Vincent!"; he smiles. Of course he whines when he needs his diaper changed or is hungry - but it's funny, he gives us a ten minute warning. It could be four in the morning or four in the afternoon. He always starts out with a low groaning sound that comes and goes for a couple of minutes, then the groan becomes a whimper, if Edwin or I hadn't responded by then: he begins to cry. Sometimes Edwin and I will be eating dinner and Vincent starts to groan,

"OK - we've got ten minutes, you start the bottle and I'll feed him after this last bite."

Vincent is also now using body language to let us know he's tired. He seems most comfortable dozing off in that "lying on the beach" type position: hands behind the head and legs strewn about. So when he becomes tired, he starts caressing his hair - both hands above his ears and tugging at his hair. When this happens - we have about five minutes before he's out.

"You wanna take him upstairs to his crib? He's pulling at his hair."

One more milestone: Vincent started eating solids this week. The experience can be wrapped up in the following email I sent Edwin:

Hey Hon’!

Hope your day is going well. Vincent had his first “taste” of solids this morning. When I mean “taste”, I mean: “what the hell am I supposed to do with this, mom?” taste. I placed the spoon in his mouth and gave the involuntary mom-open-wide motion by saying, “aaaahhhh”. The milky concoction just sat there and started to dribble onto his chin. The second spoonful; he closed his mouth and figured out how to swallow the milk, but the cereal was still left behind (huh?). The third one, he swallowed the milk and started to chew (a little) on the cereal and let the rest dribble down his chin. The fourth and fifth seemed to be a bit advanced in the learning curve because he started to cry for his bottle. He then downed five ounces out of his bottle faster than I’ve ever seen him.

*Note to self - buy more bibs and burp clothes. This is gonna get messy.