Old School…

I came across this product the other day and can’t imagine who buys one of these for their child. Maybe I’m a little old school. I had one of those fathers who said “Let him touch the hot stove. He won’t do it again.” when I was growning up. I can understand not wanting your kid to knock their noggin but kids are kids in my opinion. They need to experience different things and learn there are certain consequences for specfic actions (like head-butting the coffee table). I’m sure I knocked my noggin a few times while I was growing up and I turned out OK. I know, OK is relative…. It’s similar to the theory that kids need germs around while growing up to build up antibodies. Who hasn’t eaten dirt when they were little? My other complaint with this product is that it looks like an upside down diaper on your kids head. If you want a helmet for your kid, just give them a plastic bowl to wear on their head. That’s what we do.

Thanksgiving has come and gone and we have so much to be thankful for this year. Obviously we are most thankful for B and that he is healthy and happy. We would be even more thankful if he was sleeping through the night but that is another story for another time. The Chicago Toons went to Connecticut for the long weekend and stayed with Claire’s parents. I cant believe that we’ll be leaving Chicago and moving to that part of the country in less than 2 years. For the longest time, moving back to the east coast has been something far out in the future. Now that Claire is getting closer to finishing dental school, it seems more tangible. This picture shows us that we didnt have to bring any toys to Nanna and Grandpas. Turns out they had plenty of things B could play with. In honor of Thanksgiving, here is list of some of the small things (outside the usual big ones like: family, health, etc.) I am thankful for:

SNAPS: Only a parent of a newborn can truly appreciate the simplicity and ease of the snap.

CHEERIOS: This is a love hate relationship. They can stop B from fussing in a heart beat. However, its no fun finding them all over the place. Its even worse when you hear something crunch under your foot.

ANYTHING THAT BLOCKS OUT THE SOUND OF A CRYING BABY: Including but not limited to wireless headphones to watch tv, ipod, and headphones to use with the computer. Sometimes babies just need to cry. And when they do, you need something to block out the crying.

DIGITAL CAMERA: Take as many pictures as you like. Keep as many of them as you like and get rid of the bad ones.

HEADSET with MUTE BUTTON for CORDLESS PHONE: When you have to watch your child and work from home, this is a must. The mute button on the headset is also non-negotiable.

I hope your Thanksgiving was as wonderful as ours. The only bad part of going back east for Thanksgiving… no leftovers.

Oh yeah… new photos are posted on the photos page.

We knew this day would come. Brendan is now full on crawling. The care-free days of putting him down and knowing he wasn’t moving from that spot are completely gone. We now spend a good portion of our days trying to make sure he’s staying in baby-friendly areas of the loft….and suddenly we’re realizing how very baby-unfriendly our place is- the sharp corners, the uncapped outlets, and did I mention the WIRES?

God help us when he starts walking.

Click here to see all of B’s videos.

I’m going to start to put short videos of B man on YouTube.com. Click here to visit his videos on YouTube.com. You can subscribe to my channel to get notified when I post new videos.

The weather in Chicago was sunny and in the upper 70’s today. We decided to take advantage of it and headed out to Kuipers Family Farm about an hour outside of Chicago. We were excited to have Little B experience getting some fresh apples, cider, and visiting a pumpkin patch for the first time. When we arrived and saw the parking lot, we realized that everyone else in Chicago had the same idea. The line to buy and pick apples was crazy. Although Claire was a little disappointed we didn’t get any apples, we still had a great time. You can see the pictures from our day here.

I’ve also put some videos up on the web for everyone to download too. They can be found in this directory and you can view/save them by right clicking on the file and choosing save as. Some of the videos are him in a swing, him laughing (very large file), B laughing (smaller file), and him sneezing (one of my favorite). I’ll probably look to put them up on youtube in the future. Stay tooned…. I know. That was bad.

Every now and then we need to get out of Chicago. Don’t get me wrong- its a fantastic city, and we really enjoy living here, but sometimes it’s necessary to leave the honking horns and throngs of people behind and enjoy some peace and quiet. This summer we discovered the Chicago Botanic Garden and it has become a favorite Sunday afternoon destination for our family. The place is big enough that we can stroll around and admire the gorgeous flowers with other people or meander down some path and listen to the birds chirping and leaves rustling. Ah, we must be getting old….

Brendan reached another milestone this afternoon- we’re proud to announce that he can sit-up unassisted! He’s still working on the balancing bit (Read: he does still occasionally fall over face first) but that will come with more practice. In other news there is a new tooth poking through which means that he has been even droolier than usual. (sniff) Our little boy is growing up so fast.

Click here for the sixth month pics.

Like any adult walking around in the World today, B has about a thousand different looks at four months old. Thank God for digital cameras. We are not trying to document everyone of them but find that have captured a lot of them digitaly. In actuality, we are only trying to capture the cute ones. This sounds a lot easier than it is. I don’t have any idea how parents captured cute pictures of babies before there were digital cameras. Maybe this explains why there are so few baby pictures of me. Nope… I’m pretty sure it’s because I was a third child. For every 10 to 15 pictures we take, there is 1 photo that is worth keeping. Don’t get me wrong… We keep all of them :-). You never know when they might be worth something someday. Either as blackmail or to sell to the tabloids when he becomes famous. For now, I’m finding that the pictures tell a nice story when put all together. This is just one example. I’m going to start posting more of these in the future.