Thanksgiving

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, but I've been having lots of fun in Pennsylvania. I'm visiting my Grandma and Grandpa and the rest of my family for Thanksgiving. It has been a really fun week.

The trip down here was neat. This was already my 2nd time flying, but my first time on Southwest Airlines. The flight attendant gave me a really nice certificate with airline wings to commemorate the occasion. It more than made up for the fact that there wasn't a changing table on the plane, so Mom and Dad had to change me on the floor. Mom also won a Southwest Airline trivia contest. She's really smart. Grandma and Grandpa picked all of us from the airport in Baltimore and we had a nice drive to East Berlin, Pennsylvania. I was very well-behaved on both the flight, and more surprisngly to my parents, the drive.

Grandma and Grandpa's house is fun! They had a crib all set up in the room that Mom and Dad were staying in, so we all got to sleep together. That was neat. And, they have lots of cool toys. As soon as we got home, Uncle Daniel and Aunt Lauren were excited to play with me. Uncle Daniel taught me a how to play with a new toy. It is my favorite now. We don't know the name of it, but I can kick it while lying on my back, and the toy spins above my head and makes a fun noise when I kick it hard enough. I played with it all week and I really like it. Mom and Dad may try to take it home with us. Grandma and Grandpa have other toys too. There's one where I can grab soft cows that hang over me and play with them. And there's a johnny jump-up as well. I am learning so much on this trip! Grandma and Grandpa have a lot of grown-up games too. Mom and Dad have played lots of Sorry! (Mom won every time). They played Clue with Uncle Daniel, who was the murderer every game. They played Rummikub with Aunt Lauren and her friend Jonathan - Mom won that game too. Mom and Dad played Risk with Grandma. Mom and Grandma let Dad win that game, so he could at least win something this week.

Another thing that is neat about Grandma and Grandpa's house is they live in the country. Wednesday morning, Mom and Dad took me for a walk so I could see what it's like. We saw lots of horses and cows. The trees are even pretty here. At home they're green and brown, but here they are also gold and red.

Mom and Dad didn't bring my baby bath tub on this trip, so I got to try some new bath techniques. The first night, I took a bath in the kitchen sink. I was glad nobody tried to eat me. Later in the week, Mom and Dad went out on a date, so Grandma gave me a bath in the grown-up bath tub. She even took a bath with me. I loved it! Aunt Lauren helped and took a lot of fun pictures of bath time.

Thanksgiving was really great. A lot of family came over to Grandma and Grandpa's. I met my cousins Katie and Stephen and my 2nd cousin Luke, who is 2 months younger than me. It was nice to meet him, and I'm excited about having someone my age to play with at family events. I also met my cousins Mike and Lana, Molly, Uncle Stephen and Aunt Cindy, Aunt Jane, and my great-grandparents Mom-Mom and Pop. Everyone had a lot of yummy food, although as usual, only Mom shared with me.

On Sunday, Mom and Dad and I went over to Mom-Mom and Pop's house for dinner. It was wonderful to be able to spend time with them. Pop mentioned that I have the same initials, M.W., as my great-great-great grandfather, who used M.W. as his nickname, and he said that could be my nickname too. Pop seemed very proud.

You can see pictures of my Thanksgiving trip here.

Mitch In Action

This was a very sporty weekend for me. First, I went to my friend Ethan's birthday party. He turned 2 years old. I had fun playing with some older kids, and everyone thought I was really cute sitting next to a garden gnome. After that, I spent some time on Saturday playing with Dad and my dogs. Then Mom and Dad let me play in my new toy, a Johnny Jump Up. It was given to me by my Aunt Jen. I'm still learning how to use it, but it sure looks fun. Sunday, I went to play tennis with my Dad. We need to find a tennis racket that is more my size.

Later this week, we're flying to Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving with my grandparents. I can't wait!

You can see pictures of my sporty weekend here.

Doctor's appointment

This morning I had my four month doctor's appointment. I was excited about going to the doctor. All of the nurses and doctors think I'm so cute, and I get to hear all about what's in store for me over the next few months. The doctor gave me a clean bill of health and said that I was developing great. I am growing and doing all of the right things. Mom and Dad were happy to hear that. I also had to get my shots. That wasn't as fun, but I handled it much better than last time, and I was smiling again before we left the doctor's office.

For the record, I now weigh 10 pounds, 13 ounces. I am 23.25 inches tall (almost 2 feet!). My head is a whopping 39.5 cm. I updated the growth chart on the right side of my blog. You can click on it to see how much I'm growing. Here's a direct link.

Cousin Amy

Tonight I went to dinner with my cousin Amy. She was visiting from Washington, D.C. Amy is my 3rd cousin, once removed. For those of you who don't know what that means, I'll explain. Amy's great-great grandmother was my great-great-great grandmother. That's a lot of "great's", so she must've been a really spectacular lady.

Mom took some neat pictures of me on my tummy and hanging out with Dad. You can see them here.

I'll tell YOU when it's tummy time!

Sometimes, Dad and Mom put me on my tummy so I can try to figure out how to crawl. They say tummy time is important but I'm not always in the mood to work out. On the other hand, sometimes I'm bored and would like to learn how to get around on my own. Last night was one of those times, so I took destiny into my own hands and rolled over onto my tummy all by myself!

Unfortunately, I still haven't figured out part II of the process - how to roll over onto my back when I've had enough - so when I was tired of it, I just started screaming like a banshee. Usually when I cry at night, Mom changes me and feeds me, and it's no big deal. When she found me on my tummy last night though, she was very surprised and proud. She and Dad say it will only be a matter of days until I can crawl all over the house on my own, exposing holes in their babyproofing. That sounds fun to me - I like a challenge!

Dad is pretty funny

Last night, Dad was tickling me a bunch, and I laughed for the first time. I really liked it, so a little later I laughed at Mom and Dad when they were getting ready to give me a bath. I'll probably laugh a bunch more. It was a culmination of the progress I've made by smiling more, making new noises, and being a lot more alert and responsive.

Now that I'm three and half months old, I thought this would be a good time to summarize some of the changes I've been going through lately. They say that developmental growth comes in spurts, and I'm definately going through a spurt right now.

Last week, I started making all kinds of new noises, and doing it more often, usually in response to silly things that my parents did. Around that time, I also became a lot more alert, looking around the room, following moving objects, and noticing interesting things. I especially like looking at my hand - its pretty cool, trust me. I had stopped taking my pacifier completely by then, and decided that thumb-sucking was the way for me. In fact, the other night, I thumb-sucked myself right to sleep, all on my own. Mom is pretty excited about me "self-soothing," whatever that is. Not wanting to make my thumb jealous, I also suck on my other fingers occasionally (up to four at a time!), and will often grab my blanket or shirt and put it in my mouth as well.

I've also been excercising a lot more. I've been trying to sit up for quite a while - not quite there yet - and I've gotten pretty good at breaking out of my miracle blanket. In fact, Mom has now abandoned the miracle blanket for a sleep sack. A pretty exciting development, if you ask me. Last night, I even managed to roll over on my side, and slept that way for a bit.

I am a completely different baby from the Mitch of July and August. If you haven't seen me since then, you might not even recognize me.

In two weeks, I've got my four month check-up. The doctor had wanted me to talk more (check), laugh (check), and grab stuff (check). He's going to be pretty impressed.

Boozin' it up with Mom and Dad

What a fun weekend! Mom had another assignment that gave me the chance to take my second road trip. This time, she is writing an article on Texas wineries, so Mom, Dad, and I hopped in the car and drove to four different wineries in the Hill Country. Mom drove so that Dad could taste the wine at each stop. At the first stop, I got to see my very first winery. The people working there were very nice and they all thought I was really cute. They took some pictures of the three of us in front of some wine racks. Dad got to taste the wine there. I can't wait until I'm old enough to try wine. Mom says it'll be a while. At the second stop, we got a tour of the wine-making facilities. It was neat, but cold. After Dad was done tasting all of the wine, we had a nice lunch together. The third stop was a little farther, but they had a jalapeno wine that Dad said tasted like Texas. The fourth stop was pretty crowded, so we just took a nice walk and then headed home. It was a long road trip, but a lot of fun.

I don't like my old sling anymore, so Mom got something new that we both really like a lot - a wrap. Dad took a bunch of pictures of me and Mom in it. Peepa and Matty ran into the pictures too - they were sad because they hadn't been in the blog in a little while - and Peepa looks a little like a monster in one of the photos.

With the time change last night, I now get to go to bed an hour earlier. Mom and Dad seem pretty excited about that. I'm excited about waking up an hour earlier - heh, heh.

We got some great pictures of the road trip, along with the pictures of our wrap and the dogs, as well a bath time picture, and a couple of pictures of me hanging out with Mom and with Dad. You can check them out here.

Grandma's visit

Grandma sent us the pictures from her visit in October. She took some pictures of me in the same clothes my Dad wore in a picture taken when he was a baby. They're the ones with the baseball and cap. You can see the pictures here.