[Nicolas] Cooker Baby

We've been having some fun around here lately. Nicolas is pre-teething, so we've got lots of drool and biting of everything, and of course a healthy dose of fussiness. But throughout each day we're also finding a good bit of time to laugh and giggle and get huge toothless grins from him that just make us melt. And today we were really excited, because Nicolas started reading! I know it seems impossible for a 3 month old to read, but see for yourself: Okay, so some skeptics out there may be saying, "Hey! He's not reading! He's just staring at the pages!" Yeah, well. If that's true, then why would he do this? He's obviously tasting the book so he can decide if it tastes as good as it reads. Don't you think? Or maybe he's just teething. Oh well, we're having fun either way.

We've been spammed! Just wanted to let you know that we've had to change the way you can post comments to the blog because a spammer has started posting to it, and we had 62 bogus messages this morning. So in order to post comments in the future, you'll need to sign up as a user with blogger.com and login before you post. It's free and only takes a minute, and we'd love for you to keep commenting, but we understand if it's too much of a pain to do so. Fortunately many of you who read the blog are already members - so keep commenting! unless of course, you're a spammer.

jeremy gave nicolas a bath tonight. nicolas really loves bath time.

we had a great time with nicolas today, despite his somewhat-fussy demeanor, he found time for several laughs and giggles with us. new pics in the flickr set.

today was the first day we heard nicolas trying to talk, or at the very least experimenting a bit with sounds he can make. mundane? sure. silly? a bit. exciting? yeah, it was pretty exciting for us all. it's a little over 2 minutes, so unless you're a die-hard nicolas or baby-talk fan, you may not make it through the whole thing. enjoy:

nicolas has been a blast lately. smiling a lot and making silly sounds. we've had a few recent sleepless nights, but we're hoping to get back on track and on a normal schedule again soon.

we had a nice 4th of july at our friend rusty's house in brandon. nicolas enjoyed the pool and a walk along the golf course. rusty liked holding him too.

hi everyone. nicolas will be 3 months old in less than a week. as you can imagine, he's interacting more and more with us - making new sounds and smiling all the time. sure, he still cries and has fussy periods, but the fun times seem to be increasing. we're having a blast. hope you can meet him soon if you haven't already. we also added some new pics that we took this morning to flickr.

hey, nicolas is putting on some weight. check out this chubby leg: more new pics are in the flickr set .

i love being a dad. happy father's day everyone. new pics in the nicolas flickr set .

nicolas loves to hang out with his blue bunny in his bouncy seat. today i turned on some of uncle midnight's music for him and recorded the event. if you've got 3 minutes to kill and like watching babies dance a bit, check it out:

mary got this cool kangaroo sling the other day and nicolas and i tried it out for the first time today. he reminded me of a buddhist monk, meditating, once he stopped crying and got in. we took a nice walk with the cats up and down our street.

due to some fortunate timing, on our return trip home we were able to stop and have lunch with one of our best friends, jason berry, in valdosta, georgia. he bought us lunch and we caught up on what's been happening with him. we were really happy to introduce nicolas to him, and they seemed happy to meet each other as well. here's a little video clip from their time together:

we arrived in charleston later than we'd hoped last night and had to head out early today (but didn't get on the road until after 3). it was much too short of a visit with our cousins and their loved ones. we had such a good time seeing them, and were sad that we had such little time to spend there. we're not really on vacation here, so it was more of just a "stopping by on the way through" kind of thing. we promised to return and spend several days there soon. the night we arrived, nicolas got to meet and hang out with his 3 cousins - noah, eli, and jonah. he loved staring at their faces and they seemed to really dig him too. their home in west ashley had such a nice vibe to it - nicolas (who'd been screaming a good bit of the last 10 hours in the car) mellowed out great once we got inside and really just enjoyed himself there. alex made some delicious shrimp and grits for us, and Melissa bestowed more helpful parenting tips upon us, while taking care of her ...

hi everyone. sorry for the delay in posting. it's been a crazy week. nicolas' aunt jennifer came to visit last weekend while jeremy was in new orleans. we have some nice pics from her visit that we'll try to post in a few days. nicolas is interacting with us more each day - he's starting to smile back at us, which is pretty fun. he's been a bit fussy lately, so we haven't gotten much sleep, these past 2-3 days but we believe (and hope) it's just a temporary growth spurt. we're visiting cousins tomorrow and will update you from the road or when we get back. much love to you all until then.

Nicolas went to the doctor today for his 7-week/2-month checkup. All signs are good - he's growing well - length and weight (and head size) are all right in the middle of normal percentiles. he got his immunizations today. our pediatrician takes a very holistic approach to medicine, and assured us there was no thimerosal (a mercury-containing compound that has been linked to autism) in any of the shots. he did fine - a little crying right after the shots, but not for long, and he enjoyed the ride home too. the big news is that he can now see friends and more relatives and go to public places with us. we're planning a short road trip in a few weeks, so we're open to any advice you might have for us about extended car travel with a two-month old. (what to bring that we might not have thought of, what to expect, etc.)

jeremy's mom and dad are in town this weekend to see nicolas. they've been having a great time with him. a few pics are in the nicolas set on flickr . more to come soon.

hi everyone. sorry for the delay writing. it's been a busy week. Here's the latest: Mary's sister Leslie came to visit over Mother's Day weekend. She and Nicolas really seemed to bond - he brightened up whenever he saw or heard her, and she actually got him to follow her voice and face. We were pretty excited about it all, so Mary tried it on Sunday . We realize that something so simple may sound kind of silly, but we had a blast with it. It's like we're finally starting to see signs of real interaction with Nicolas - he's responding to us in new ways - reacting to our voices and facial expressions, and yes, it's really really fun. Sure, we're still having a rough night now and then, but things are improving a lot (the book our friends Brian and Julie recommended - the Happiest Baby on the Block - has been a great salvation). And the more we begin to connect with him, the less we seem to mind the few bumpy nights that come along. My parents are visit...

mother's day is this weekend, so i thought it fitting to add some nice mother and baby pics to nicolas flickr set. enjoy!

nicolas turned 1 month old last thursday, since i was out of town until late last night we had to wait until today to take some new pictures of him and post them online. many thanks to everyone who offered advice on dealing with his fussiness. the book our friend brian recommended, "happiest baby on the block" is excellent and has also helped a lot. hope everyone is well. we'll post more updates as they happen.