The last several weeks have been pretty busy for the H-man (or the X-man, as my friend
Ben Charny likes to call him).
But the big news is this: Henry has learned to roll over from his back to his stomach!
The little guy had been trying for a couple weeks. Last month, he learned how to roll over from his stomach to his back. Ever since then, when he was on his back, he rock himself over on to his side. He gradually got further and further.
By last week, he could turn himself over 90% of the way, but would get hung up on his left arm. It would get stuck underneath him, he would get mad, and he'd eventually roll himself back on to his back.
Well, on Monday, he finally learned to just power through it. He rolled over onto his tum--and stayed there long enough to pull his arm from underneath himself to head level. It was pretty impressive. You can check it out yourself by watching the
video. (
Beware: That's a 14MB MPEG file, so it may take a while to download. If you're on a dial-up connection, you might want to try the RealMedia
version, it's only 1MB. However, you might have to press the "play" button to get the RealMedia one to startup.)
If we were afraid of his mobility before--now we're really scared. The kid just won't stay still! If we put him on his back, he almost immediately starts to roll over, no matter where he is: floor, changing table, our bed, his crib, wherever. Tara said today he turned over while she was changing him. We're already starting to take a critical view of our house, looking at all the things that are going to need to be baby-proofed or placed in storage before he begins to crawl around. I'm guess that day is coming soon.
Anyway, as I said, it's been a busy couple of weeks for the Baby Man. First Papa Pete and Grandma Betty (my parents) came for a visit. Then he went to the doctor's office for his four-month checkup and shots (what a birthday present, huh?). Next he learned how to roll over the new way. Yesterday, my sister Kim and her husband Mike came up to visit Henry. And tonight, the five of us are going to watch the opening ceremonies of the Olympics with Tara's sister Anina. Whew!
Henry had a great time with Papa Pete and Grandma Betty. He seemed to be a lot better this time about letting them hold him, which was not the case when they visited in May. In fact, he
slept in his Grandma's arms for a while, and he
hung out with Papa Pete a number of times.
Papa and Grandma spent an extended weekend with us, and we made the
most of it. That Saturday, we went to the farmer's market with them. And on Sunday, we went to Moss Landing for the annual antiques flea market there. Nobody bought much, so in that way it was kind of disappointing. (I was shopping for an Art Deco-era dresser.) But it was fun to see all the antiques. And we enjoyed a nice lunch at Aqui's in San Jose afterward. (Well, some of us did. Henry was a bit cranky for the last half of the meal.)
A week after my parents left, we took Henry in for his latest checkup. The bad news (for Henry, anyway) was that he got four shots. The good news was that we got to see Henry's
latest measurements. The upshot is that Henry's a healthy guy and doing great. He's in the 75th-percentile for both weight and head size, so he's big for his age. In fact, he's already doubled his body weight and is almost as big as kids who are twice his age.
Unfortunately, he's only in the 20th-percentile height-wise. So, he's inherited the short-man's disease from his dad. (Actually, he's likely ahead of his Dad at this point. Papa Pete said I wasn't even on the charts, I was so short!) Oh well.
Speaking of other kids, we got to see Kimi last night for the first time since she became pregnant. Charlie Michael, Henry's cousin-to-be, is scheduled for delivery in late November. Kimi looks great! And both she and Mike seem really excited about Charlie's coming. In fact, they quizzed us looking for a number of baby tips. We offered all of our knowledge and ignorance, which is to say, not much of the former and lots of the latter!
If you haven't seen them already, I added lots of new
pictures and
movies to Henry's site. In addition to the giant MPEG videos, all of the movies are now also in RealMedia format, meaning much smaller file sizes and faster videos (at the expense of somewhat poor image quality).
-- Troy
