Catch Up - Milestone Edition

Obviously, Diego has been making progress in the interim between these posts. For example, he drinks water and eats food now. His very favorite food is mango.

 We took a lot of pictures of him eating avocado because that was his first normal food.

 Still cute, even if you've seen it before.

 But he does eat other things. This is banana.

(These weren't taken at Christmas. We just haven't retired the bib.)

And he has teeth! Only the two bottom ones thus far.

You can see them!

He sits up by himself. He's even rather mobile, despite the fact that he doesn't crawl. He somehow manages to spin/roll toward whatever toy it is he wants. I definitely need to get on the baby-proofing.

 I left him sitting.

And, as babies do, everything goes in his mouth.

He's learned quite a few games. We love the one where we pat his mouth while he's making sounds. He loves it! And we've recently changed it up a bit so we use his hand to pat, say, Rudy's mouth and Diego will say "ahhhhhh!" while he does it. Adorable! (I finally got video of it, but blogger refuses to upload it. Sorry!)

Also, as I said in a previous post, he sings into his microphone. It totally caught me off guard when I first heard it. I was across the room! We'd shown it to him, but he hadn't seem too interested. We were totally wrong.

February

February was a busy month! First, Hattie (and her parents) came for a visit. We went to the aquarium, a Japanese garden, and Olivera Street. It was awesome. We are big Hattie fans. BFFLs, guys!

Olivera Street

A Hattie video

Then we went to San Diego to see Lucia (and her mom). We toured an organic farm, too. More awesome.

Trying some lettuce. Diego is skeptical. (Don't worry. He didn't try it. He has only two teeth, people.)

I love how proud she was of her picking skills!

Diego was not quite as skilled at picking beets.

Cauliflower!

They have chickens! I so want a chicken. Or three.

We learned a lot!

Then cousins Joshua and Evan came for a visit (with their parents)! We went back to the aquarium (we're members, so you know we love that place) and on a harbor tour. Never-ending awesome.

Three little boys in awe.

On the Harbor Tour. (Don't ask me about the face Diego is making here. I have no idea.)

Catch Up - Photo Shoot Edition

Diego has had multiple photo shoots at this point, and I don't think I've posted a single picture from any to the blog. Oops. Like everything else, I'll give you a sampler. Let's start at the beginning - birth.

I know, right?

Then there was a 4 month photo shoot.

Mi bebe!

And then, most recently, there was a 6 month photo shoot.

Don't you love them?! They were going to be just him, but I am so glad I jumped in last minute. I can't believe how perfectly that one came out.

There have been lots of other non-professional "photo shoots," too.

 A few days old.

 4 months old

5 months old (a bonus pic from the "for the Christmas card" photo shoot)

Catch Up - Holiday Edition

Three tomatoes are walking down the street - Papa Tomato, Mama Tomato, and Little Baby Tomato.

Just kidding.

For real, though, here is a quick summary of our holidays:

Thanksgiving!

 Diego played Loteria Thanksgiving morning. With some help.

He may not have understood it, but he had fun with his cousins! (Technically, first cousins once removed, but whatever.)

We also took fancy Thanksgiving Dinner pictures, but none of those seem to have turned out very well.

Here's the picture we took over Thanksgiving that we used for our Christmas cards.

Christmas!

 We went to Palm Springs the weekend before Christmas. Diego rode the aerial tramway up to the San Jacinto Mountains and met Santa. Fun! And cold.

 Back down in the valley, it was warm enough to swim.

Well, warm enough at some points during the day.

This was Diego's first Christmas, so also the first Christmas where I wrote "Mom" in the "from" spot and meant me. That was weird. But a good weird.

Diego got quite the haul.

Most of which he seemed to like. He especially loves that piano. Soon (What does that even mean, coming from me?!) I will upload video of him singing into the microphone. Look forward to that!

And here we all are, Christmas morning. Yay instaback for the Diana!

Here's the Christmas outfit. (He had quite a few. This one was my favorite, though, because it reminds me of The Labyrinth.)

The weekend after Christmas, Diego had a second Christmas with my side of the family. Here he's with most of his cousins on that side.

We went to California's Living Museum where they had their annual light display. I'm a sucker for lights. And Diego seemed to enjoy them, too.

He also got to meet his lifelong friend Hattie! Welcome to the World, Hattie!

In short, a lot happened. Way more than I can cover. I didn't even get to New Year's. Sometimes, you have to admit defeat and take a nap.

Happy holidays!

The Lullaby

My sister Shelley has a different lullaby for each of her children, a song that has become special between her and each son. She'll sing all the other lullabies, but she chose one song to remain consistently in each child's bedtime routine. I love the idea. It's such a simple way to create something meaningful and it's unbelievably sweet when they request their song. She told me about a time she was singing to her youngest to comfort him in the middle of the night. She started a song and he said "no." She started a different song and he said "no!" She started another song and he said "NO!" She started his song and he nuzzled into her and fell asleep. Adorable, right?

She is surely not the first person to do this, but she's the person who gave me the idea. Granted, I will have only Diego, so there really isn't a need for originality. I didn't sing lullabies to Rebecca or Emma and he won't have any other siblings who will need their own lullaby. Nonetheless, I wanted to choose something special, seeing as I'm not just accidentally creating a special song by singing it more often than others. I'm actively choosing it, so I might as well have criteria. I wanted it to be simple, but one that he might not hear just anywhere. Most important (and perhaps obvious), I wanted it to feel right to me - loving, comforting, and not religious. (For example, "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" has no love in it, and "Godspeed" by the Dixie Chicks has a "God bless [everyone in the house]" verse. Both of them are no good!)

In the midst of my search, my dear friend in Chile sent me a bunch of Spanish language children's music because she knows I want Diego to be bilingual. One of those songs is a traditional Spanish lulluby called "Duérmete, Mi Niño" (Go to Sleep, My Little Boy). Perfect! These are the lyrics:

Duérmete, mi niño,
Duérmete solito,
Que cuando despiertes
Te daré atolito.

Duérmete, mi niña,
Duérmete, mi sol,
Duérmete, pedazo
De mi corazón.

I love, love, love the second verse (which I change to niño, of course) - "Go to sleep, my little boy. Go to sleep, my sun. Go to sleep, piece of my heart." The first verse is OK, but not nearly as sweet - "Go to sleep, my little boy. Go to sleep alone. When you wake up, I'll give you atole" (a traditional hot corn-based drink). 

So, about that niño/niña thing. When I first heard it, I assumed the singer was just letting me know that the song could easily be sung to either a boy or a girl, you just substitute in the word that fits. When looking for the lyrics, though, I discovered that in almost every variation, whenever someone is singing to "my sun"/"piece of my heart," it always begins "duérmete, mi niña." It's always to a little girl. The little boy is never told such sweet things. He's expected to go to sleep alone. Is this song an example of the notion that boys must be stoic and strong while only girls can be affectionate and loving? 

Of course, its history won't alter whether I sing it to Diego. (Indeed, I already sing it to him and he loves it. For a while, it was even working as a sort of trigger that calmed him nearly immediately!) He'll hear it as I sing it and that's how he'll remember it in years to come. If it turns out it has a tainted history, we'll just be doing our part to set history right. 

And here's a picture of Diego sleeping, because that's why you're really here.

Chatterbox

Diego has become quite the chatterbox! I love it!

Sometimes he really thinks he's saying something, or so it seems to me. I love when he moves his tongue all funny, like he's doing his best to imitate us. It so adorable. I'll see if I can get a video of one of those times. I'm sure it'll just become more frequent from here!

First Wedding

Diego attended his first wedding a few weekends ago. There were a lot of firsts that weekend - first flight; first East Coast/Washington, DC trip; first metro ride; first baseball game; first true reliance on pumped milk - and he did really well! He was great when I went to the bachelorette party and he went to a Nationals game. And he did amazingly at the rehearsal and at the rehearsal dinner. And he was wonderful at the wedding reception. The only time he wasn't perfect was, of course, the wedding ceremony itself. Oops. I should have had that bottle heated and ready to go! Lesson learned! (Too late.)

Overall, though, he had a great time! (And so did I. Boy, I miss my friends!)

Chatting with the beautiful bride when she made her rounds

Having fun at the reception

Dancing the night away

Yup, he even made it on the dance floor. He can't walk yet, but that's not stopping him!