So Long 2013...

You know it's been a big year when it starts like this...

And ends like this...

Here's 2013 by the numbers:

• We visited 0 foreign countries.

• 1 baby boy was born in February.

  

• 2 new parents are thrilled, thankful, busy, and want more sleep.

  

• Our new ride is a sweet 3-wheeled stroller.

• We took 4 out-of-state trips with our new addition: family weddings in Colorado and Georgia and family vacations in Tennessee and Florida.   

 

• Our growing family moved 5 minutes down the road to a bigger place.
  
  

• We had 6 visits from four loving grandparents.

• Randy and I celebrated our 7th anniversary.  But who's really counting anymore?

• Tiger Cub, who is always growing and changing (too quickly!) right in front of our eyes, hit at least 8 exciting milestones: smiling, rolling, babbling, sitting, crawling, standing, cruising, and ball chasing.  Walking is reserved for 2014!

 

 

• After 9 months of cooking on the inside, we've already celebrated 10 months of Tiger Cub growing on the outside.  Sheesh, where does the time go?!

11 cheers for 12 great months of 2013!  Basically it's been the year of the Tiger Cub, probably not unlike many years to come.

2014 here we come!  And dear time, please slow down.

Santa Time!

Around Thanksgiving it occurred to me that it's the time of year when parents take their kids to see Santa.  My thought process went something like this...

NO WAY am I taking my 9.5 month old to see Santa...what a waste that would be!...although we do live just a subway ride away from the Herald Square Macy's...they have that whole Santaland thing going on...everyone knows that's where the real Santa and his elves hang out...the grandparents will be in town and they might enjoy it too...well MAYBE it could be fun, but ONLY if we go early in the morning on a weekday.

Next thing I know, it's a Tuesday morning and this is happening...

9 AM is right!  We were practically the first ones there which I highly recommend.  No lines!

Tiger Cub got up close and personal with lots of Santaland characters.  Everything is life sized when you're a wee little man!

 

Of course it never occurred to me that I should get Tiger Cub something cute to wear for the (sort of spur of the moment) occasion.  Luckily GiGi came through with Santa Claus pajamas which seemed appropriate enough.

Tiger Cub was underwhelmed by his first meeting with Santa.  Despite the elf waving a rattle, he remained skeptical and unsmiling.  In his defense, Santa wasn't really all that jolly.

Afterward we sat down at a cafe in Macy's.  GiGi's empty coke bottle and pictures of gingerbread men were just as amusing to TC as Santaland.

Santa Baby!

Photo credits:  Tiger Cub's Papa

A Successful New York Thanksgiving

We had visitors this Thanksgiving!  My parents drove north and my brother flew east so we could have a "big" family holiday together.  Outside of T-Day, Randy and I went to work and my family played with our baby.  Good times all around!  We also benefited from their culinary skills and their car.  When you've lived without a vehicle for six years, taking a car to the grocery store becomes the best thing ever.


If you come all the way to NYC for Thanksgiving, it's pretty much a requirement to go to the Macy's Parade.  We came *this close* to not going but made a game-time decision to go the morning of.  We were glad we did!  Besides shivering off holiday calories, we spotted a few famous people on floats.

Well, three of us made it anyway.  Two men and a baby stayed behind to cook a turkey. 

Hardly amateurs, we showed up with hand warmers and hot drinks.

Are these two the parents or the grandparents?  So young and fit looking! 

 Pre-dinner entertainment.  Some families watch football.  We have a wonder wheel.

 Tiger Cub looks up to his Uncle Matt.

And...this is my 100th post to this blog!!!  So I'm averaging 20 posts/year for the past 5 years.  Thanks for reading!

9 Months!

Tiger Cub has now been on the outside for as long as he was on the inside.  With 3/4 of a year under his overall strap, Tiger Cub has this to say...


"I don't know what's going on here but I sure love all the attention."

"If I was a baby model, this would be my headshot."

"When they say, 'it takes a village,' they're talking about getting a halfway decent baby picture."

"If my parents are too cheap to buy the month stickers, what does that say about them getting me a car someday?"

"Why hello there, Cat in the Hat.  I hardly noticed you sitting next to me all this time."

"Please tell me I can take a nap soon."

 

Fall Update

Fall is here and Tiger Cub is dressing the part.  Thanks Aunt Claudia and Uncle Dan for Tiger Cub's cute Halloween hat and bib combo!

It's our sixth (!!!) fall in New York and Randy and I agree that this one might be the prettiest yet.  The weather has been really nice (warm-ish) and the changing leaves are just beautiful.

Our little stinker was a skunk for Halloween.  Thanks Gigi for the great costume!  It got tons of positive reviews.

 

Being a skunk is tiring stuff.  So are holiday themed get-togethers with lots of other babies.  I told our little skunk he would have problems if he skipped his morning nap but he didn't listen!

We try to expose Tiger Cub to wildlife whenever we get the chance.  Squirrel chasing is about the best our urban locale has to offer.

Not sure how much longer we can keep this up with the temperatures dropping, but TC makes a great running partner.  I think he enjoys the faster pace.

Things That Make a Tiger Cub Smile

 Eating and wearing broccoli.

 

Fall clothes from Aunt Jane that make him stylish even by New York City standards.

Mirrors.  Always mirrors.

Riding in a stroller in an elevator.  Obviously.

Mexican food.  Ok, Mexican food makes the whole family smile.

On the Move...

Tiger Cub has learned to crawl and it has changed out world.  We knew this day was coming but I guess we assumed the process would be a little more gradual.  It started innocently enough...for a few weeks TC would get up on all fours and rock back and forth.  We anticipated crawling and even encouraged it.

Then on vacation he took his first few hesitant steps forward.

Within days he was all-out crawling and within a week he was all over the apartment, following us from room to room.  I wondered if making him wear socks would give him less traction and slow him down.

But that's not all.  A couple of days later, Randy checked on him during nap time and found this...

 

Why sleep when you can stand?

What?!  How did you learn that so fast????  Now Tiger Cub loves to pull up on stuff with no regard whatsoever to whether the object can hold his weight.  Don't worry, we've lowered the crib.  Furthermore, he's a bit unsteady and his head has a magnetic attraction to the edge of the coffee table, doors, and other hard surfaces.

Randy and I have been playing defense, grabbing small/important/dangerous stuff before it's within his grasp.  Throwing things into drawers, closets, and onto high shelves.  Anything in the bottom three feet of the apartment is in the "danger zone."  One minute Tiger Cub is sitting innocently on the rug and the next he's reaching for my tea or trying to pull the power cord out of my laptop!

Our office is on lock-down until further notice...

Luckily Tiger Cub goes to the baby gym twice each week.  It's a safe padded place for him to expend [hopefully a lot of] energy.

Ahh...sweet containment.

Vacation, Florida Style

In the waning days of September we spent a week with my family in Destin.  It was a fabulous final hurrah for the summer with copious amounts of shrimp, sand, and salty air.   

Here's a poolside selfie of a relaxed mom and baby.  We lounged below palms while Tiger Cub rested his chin on his left foot.

We ate lots and lots of great meals.  Seafood, burgers, a bag of Rolos, and everything in between.  Randy and I even had a few glorious evenings out alone (yikes! what's that?) thanks to in-house babysitting. 

You might think that we did something to make Tiger Cub turn around for this picture.  Actually he just preferred to face away from us for most of the meal.

Tiger Cub turned seven months in style, with a beach view.  The pic doesn't match the rest of our birthday month photos.  Ahh, the sacrifices one has to make on vacation. 

Five states in seven months - that's something to smile about!

Tiger Cub did not welcome the beach with open arms for most of the week.  He much preferred to stay sand-free and away from the loud, moving, and impossibly big bathtub that we know as the ocean.  The pool, however, was a big hit!  By the very end he did warm up to the ocean...

This baby loves some water!

And finally a group shot of all the "kids."  So glad we got to see Uncle Matt, even though our trips only overlapped by a few days.  Gosh, I love this baby carrier more every time we use it.

Which tan person does not live in New York?

Solid Foods Lab, Hold the Blender

Tiger Cub is into solid foods now and it is a whole new world for us!  We're trying what is currently the most fashionable thing in baby feeding...Baby Led Weaning (BLW), also called Rapley Weaning for it's British founder.  Ms. Rapley has written several books, none of which I have read.

Caution...if you've never heard of this, you're going to think I'm drinking the crazy juice!  If, however, you have a 6-month-old, there's a good chance you know about it because it's the happening new thing in baby meals.

The gist is that the baby feeds himself.  You give the baby pieces of food that are large enough to grab and he is in charge from there.  And the parent just watches.  Which is freakin' hard to do!  Which is why I take lots of videos/pictures while I sit there.

And it looks like this...

 Always efficiency-minded, this apple is doubling as a teething toy.

But wait, that was a few weeks in.  It started much slower as you can see in the next video.  You might hear parental confusion in the background as we try to figure out what the heck we're doing.  When Randy puts the banana in Tiger Cub's mouth, that's a BLW no-no, but we didn't exactly go over the rules before the camera started rolling.

 Some Points on BLW:

• You start no sooner than 6 months of age.  This is also when the AAP now recommends introducing babies to solid foods.  And about the time babies are ready to start finger foods anyway.  So you breastfeed or formula feed through 6 months and then jump immediately to finger foods, basically just skipping the traditional pureed food phase of 4 to 6 months of age.
• The baby is in charge of eating.  He gets to explore new textures, tastes, and smells and makes his own food decisions.  No pretending the spoon is an airplane or other games to get baby to open his mouth.

A smorgasbord of breakfast opportunity.

As soon as I heard about BLW, I was interested for admittedly selfish reasons.  I really didn’t see myself making purees.  Heck, I don’t even own  a food processor!  With BLW I would not have to make baby food or buy baby food.  Win win!

Any health claims I've read about (that this method reduces the risk of childhood obesity or babies become less picky eaters) have failed to impress me.  The research seems pretty scant so there's just not much to back it up.  I would not do it based on those reasons alone.

  Eating an apple while wearing asparagus as a mustache.

But we've been doing it for 4 weeks and here's what I do like about BLW from our experience:

It's fun watching Tiger Cub explore new foods and figure out how to feed himself.  Basically another form of playtime.  I think it's great for his motor skills and coordination.  We went to a restaurant recently and ate pizza while Tiger Cub chowed down on his apple and rice cake.  Neither of us had to spoon feed a puree.  Practically a family meal!

What I don't like is there are times he doesn't seem to eat much at all.  This is when I think, "Hey I just steamed those vegetables; can you put them in your mouth instead of dropping them on the floor?!"  I know that something is going down his throat because of evidence at the...ahem...other end.  It is oddly satisfying when baby does find his mouth and crams something in there.

Rice cake over produce any day.

What he likes:  Green veggies (asparagus and broccoli have built-in handles!), steamed fruit slices, yogurt, and especially rice cake.  He likes rice cake so much that I've been smearing other stuff on top (applesauce, mushed carrots, black beans) so he'll eat that too!  Is it cheating?  Maybe.  Is "cheating" even possible when feeding your baby?

What he doesn't like:  Orange veggies like carrot and sweet potato (surprisingly!).  And he's lukewarm on the white stuff like banana and potatoes.

He might not touch carrots, but he will go to town on some broccoli.

I guess time will tell whether the concept sticks around or goes the way of the grapefruit diet.  For now, it seems to be working okay so we will continue to make baby food without the help of a blender.  Keeping our kitchen puree-free since 2013!

For the record, this might be the first time I've ever ridden the wave of a trend.  I was horribly behind with rolled up jeans in elementary school, missed the memo on swoopy bangs, and didn't own a smart phone until 2010.  Mommy-hood just makes me cool like that.