All About Blake

... because a baby is just such a fascinating study. So much changes, so fast!

August 2010
Blake was a very cooperative travel bug. We went to Sunriver, Oregon and Bucks Lake and he traveled and adapted just beautifully. I love this photo - you can see him really concentrating and trying to command those little hands to grab that very desirable toy.

In this picture, he got it!

And this may be our very favorite of all baby pictures of Blake:

Blake's first MLB game - the Oakland A's

Blake with Great Grandma Swickard ("GG")

September 2010
At his 6 month well check, the Doctor asked if Blake was doing any shrieking yet. No, not yet. Just a week later, shrieking was Blake's favorite activity. By now, Blake universally earned the nickname of "Smiley." He had an immediate smile for anyone who'd give him more than a glance. He'd watch and wait and, just when eye contact was made, turn on the big smile.

The ease of a fourth child is there is always something interesting going on to entertain the baby. Better than television:

October 2010
Don't remember what happened this month ... just dragging him around to all of his siblings activities, I guess. But he did it just wonderfully, always smiling, of course.
November 2010
Eliza fed Blake his first "meal" of rice cereal. Talk about adaptable, Blake ate his rice cereal mixed with cold filtered water with nary a complaint.

For some reason I just love pictures of babies "finding" their feet:

December 2010
Blake played the role of baby Jesus in this year's Behold the Gift. He was so perfect. He sat on Mary's lap, and smiled and goo-ed and reached out to all the dancers who walked forward to see him. He'd fall asleep backstage in the middle of the show, then came back on stage for the finale only to wake up to the sound of applause. He'd just sit up and look around like, "hm... what's going on here?"
Also this month, Blake started rolllllling all over. He could get wherever he wanted to go just by rolling. Soon that turned into an army crawl. After moments like in the following picture, I became very aware that our house and habits were in definite need of baby-proofing.

After that he became a confident sitter (love that transition!) In the meantime, we were thrilled to hear him start babbling!

January 2011
Blake learned to do raspberries this month. Ethan was the best teacher of this particular baby trick. Here's Blake getting friendly with his 6-week-younger (slightly overwhelmed) cousin, Annie:

And here's his first time sitting in a grocery cart (wearing the yummiest sweater, hand-knit by my friend, Sarah):


February 2011
Oh, the places a baby can go with mobility...


Blake was the subject of Ethan's science fair project this year (which won 3rd place for the 5th grade, by the way). The subject was "Are Babies Attracted to Certain Colors?" Can you guess what color Blake preferred? He was such a cooperative test subject. Ethan would set the 3 balls down out of reach and wait for Blake to crawl to one. As Blake would reach for his chosen ball, we'd take them away and smile and say "red ball!" or whatever color. Then Ethan would place them on the other side of the room so we could repeat up to 10 times in a row. After a few days, he clearly caught onto the "game" and would slowly reach for the ball while looking at us and smiling in anticipation of what would happen next. So cute! It's hard to explain succinctly here, but it really was a lot of fun and super gratifying.


March 2011
So far just this one shot of Blakeydoodle (our current nickname of choice) enjoying a finger food snack in his high chair, sporting a mohawk and a mouth (almost) full of teeth. One more of the initial eight teeth to go!

Newly emerging (improving) skills are cruising, babbling (baba, ma ma, da da, and this lispy s sound), and remarkable mess-making. I would love to see night-time sleep-improving, but moving him to a separate bedroom and weaning will need to happen first, it seems.