Daddy's Birthday and more

Hooray! Michael turned 31 on September 12th which he enjoyed with a Husky football game Saturday followed by a Seahawks game Sunday. Mommy and baby got up early (at Harrison's insistance) and bought so birthday donuts for breakfast. We put some candels into the ones with holes and viola! A rendition of "Happy Birthday" was sung and then dad with friends Aaron and James were off to Husky stadium.



Of course dad couldn't resist letting him taste the maple icing; he barely touched his tongue to it and gave the following looks:

I would like to take the opportunity to address a concern from Michael. He says that I only post fabulous pictures of myself and post terribly pictures of him. As mentioned in early posts, he has blinks-a-lot syndrome so the pickings are usually pretty slim. But let me tell you, he also makes faces or refuses to look at the camera etc and that leaves me with pictures like this one for posterity to remember him by:

Grandma Dreslaine's birthday was celebrated on Labor Day with a "work party" at her house (there was a lot of chopping firewood involved) with dinner thereafter. Harrison loves being around his family and surprised mommy and daddy by refusing to go to sleep after dinner and insisting on staying awake until almost 9:00pm! Needless to say, he quickly fell asleep in the car and even stayed asleep when I transferred him to his crib.

Harrison has become quite the connosieur of pureed foods. He has yet to reject anything we offer him although he usually make a face the first time it hits his tongue. His current favorites include sweet potatoes, zuchinni, apple sauce, pumpkin, peas and yellow squash. Evidently this kid is like his mom because he L-O-V-E-S pumpkin! I had an organic pumpkin from Uncle John's garden that I pureed and added just a touch of cinnamon (baby's first spice) and let me tell you, nary a drop of pumpkin was wasted. Not a spot on his bib and hardly any on his chin!

Today I sent two jars of food to school with him instead of one since he has been eating so well. Actually, he has been kind of "snacky" with his milk at school, eating just a little or refusing the bottle altogether so I took that as a sign that he wants more solid food. I sent over one veggie (yellow squash) and one fruit (apple sauce) and I am interested to see how he does with the meal plan.

We have been trying to "nap train" Harrison to take longer naps during the day. Kids his age should be taking two naps at 1-2 hours a piece. Our kiddo likes to take four 30 minute naps. Harrison must have inherited Michael's internal clock becuase they both have the uncanny ability to wake up at an exact time without an alarm clock and in Harrison's case, it is 30 minutes on the dot any time he naps. The only way we can think to effectively remedy the situation is to drug him witht he swing. He will happily sit in it until he dozes off and we leave it running for an hour to try to lengthen his sleep time.

With the development of his abs, or at least his basic stomach muscles, he has learned to lean forward and then use his hands to grab the tray and sit up to look around while in the swing. He will just sit up and lean over and watch me walk through the living room while cleaning up the house until he leans back to relax and sleep. Recently, he sat up for 15 minutes and I said to him, "buddy, you need to take a nap." When I walked into the room again 3 minutes later, I found him in the state below...

He had fallen asleep leaning forward... he literally nodded off! I took out the camera and the rustling caused him to open his eyes which immediately began to droop closed and then his head and body slowly nodded forward again. If he inherited his internal alarm clock from Michael, then he inherited the nodding off from me... I do it on busses and airplanes all the time! He did this several days in a row so now I have to go over and lean him back down so he can sleep properly.