Apparently a clarification is in order. My mom admitted to me last night that Edward actually ate his first Cheerios while she was watching him earlier this month. I don't know why she thought it had to be a secret, but I'm sure he'll have more "don't tell mom" moments with his grandparents (both sets) in the years ahead!

Anyway, unless my mom also gave him meat on that babysitting gig, tonight Edward officially left vegetarianism in the dust (sorry Bridget!) He ate a baby food combo of sweet potatoes and chicken. John thought this sounded terribly suspect so he decided to taste a bite first to be sure it was OK. I know, I couldn't believe it either! But I guess it wasn't too bad because he started feeding it to Edward, who ate the whole 4 oz. jar.

Today's mail brought yet another request from our insurance company to complete a survey regarding one of Edward's recent doctor visits. I think they're sending one after every appointment. Or maybe it's just May and June since residents are finishing their years and need evaluation. Regardless, it takes too much time so I've ignored them. Today I decided to give it to Edward so he could provide his own feedback. Needless to say, we will not be returning this by mail.

And here's one more for the adoring masses (i.e. Aunt Nora). Clearly he's tired of being cooped up in the house with his parents as we slog our way through Heatwave 2006. I was outside for a grand total of one hour this weekend--from 7:30 to 8:30 Sunday morning tying up the bountiful tomato vines in my garden. Ed only stayed out 'til 8, sitting in his stroller playing with toys, but then John took him back to the cool comfort of our air conditioned house. Another scorcher tomorrow, but then Wednesday is supposed to bring rain and relief!

Edward ate his first two Cheerios today. I was having them for breakfast and he needed entertainment while I ate so I put three on his tray. He didn't quite know what to make of them so I picked one up and put it close to his mouth. He took it from me and put it in his mouth where he proceeded to "gum" it for about three minutes. A friend of mine noted that we'd all be skinny if we ate that way! He made some funny faces while rolling it around in his mouth, but eventually it must have gotten soggy enough to go down and he took a second one. We were on our way to work and daycare, so not much time for further experimentation. We'll see how he progresses in this area. Some teeth would help, but so far, nothing to show.

It's a good thing there's no such thing as Edward photo overkill, because, after a record-setting five-picture post last night, here comes one more photo. This is Edward's seven-month picture, taken this morning before he headed off to daycare. It's amazing how big he's getting, even compared with his six-month and five-month photos. He's sitting up like a champ -- there's no need for one of us to be just out of frame to catch him as he slides down the couch cushions anymore -- and it's a lot easier these days to catch a smile, too.

We've been trying to stay cool here at the Kenyon household these past couple of weeks, as the heat, humidity and dew point all conspired to make things seem quite tropical. We passed the time in a number of different ways. Edward, with a lot of help from Mom, reads Moo, Baa, La La La.

Here Edward keeps cool with some water from his new sippy cup. He hasn't quite mastered this -- he doesn't know to tip it up so the water actually comes out, but the spout has proven to be a tasty new chewable toy. Once he figures this out, it will probably be more fun for him and messy for us. The doctor suggested taking the no-spill valve out until he gets the hang of it, which means it's free-flowing when upside down. Because the bottom has proven as appealing to chew as the top, this will mean frequent spills. It's only water for now, so we'll just have a soggy Edward.

As mentioned last week, Ed has a new "breathable bumper" on his crib. He's found ways to make that fun, too. I laid him down for a second on Saturday while taking out a dirty diaper. In the moment I was away, he rolled from his back to his front, and found himself lodged up against the side of the crib. I came back into the room and called his name. His head popped up to reveal a pair of eyes over the top of the pad. I pulled it down to reveal him giggling. He was more than happy to reprise this for the camera a moment later.

For recreation he took a piggyback ride around the house with me (note his ingenioius use of hair as a handle) and, once the heat broke over the weekend, went swinging in our neighborhood park (after donning his soon-to-be too small hat and a good dose of sunscreen) with Mary. All told, it was a good full week.

The only real news to report is that we got our car back last weekend after it suffered another minor relapse while we drove back from Davenport weekend before last. They had installed a "black box" which recorded the problem, and we hope the fix will do the trick. We'd kind of like to get back to the "worry-free" part of having a new car.

Ed has started to roll around a lot in his crib, so he's not always sleeping on his back. This is him napping today. This particular nap ended when he wound up on his stomach pressed up against the side of the crib and couldn't manage to roll himself back. We added the white "breathable bumper" after he woke himself up that way several times over the weekend. I guess it would be a rude awakening to roll over and suddenly have your face pressed against a wood rail. Without the bumper he also was getting his arms and legs "caught" in the slats. They weren't really stuck, but he couldn't figure that out on his own.

We never had bumper pads because of the cautions of the risk for SIDS. This is a very thin layer that is easy to breathe through. When I looked online to see if I could find a product like this, I found many parent comments like: "I bought this after I heard by baby cry in the night and found her with her head pressed into the corner of the bumper pad." Glad we never bothered with what is essentially a decorative item. We didn't spend a moment of the pregnancy considering "nursery decor" so it just never came up. After Ed arrived, we ordered a crib, mattress, and sheets and that seemed enough.

The new thing around the Kenyon household is sitting up on our own. While Mary and I usually have no trouble with the task, Edward's skills in that arena are a work in progress. He seems to get better with each passing day, able to spend more time upright than tilting or falling. As you can tell from this photo, he doesn't think this is any big deal. He was sitting up for several seconds at a time tonight, though as the video below will show, there is little warning when he's had enough and is ready to go down.

He is still very enamored of his toes, grabbing them any chance he gets. When he's sitting up, that can lead to a falling forward that leaves him curled up in a ball with his face meeting his feet. He doesn't seem to mind the pose, though it doesn't look very comfortable. Here he's in a better position for optimal toe-grabbing. That's an instantaneous reaction when we put him on his changing table. Once his back hits the pad, his legs fly up into the air and he grabs on. That helps when powdering him, but it's not the easiest pose when one is trying to actually put the diaper on him.

We can tell that Edward is getting bigger, because it is becoming increasingly difficult to get some of his onesies over his head when putting them on or taking them off. Lucky for us, he's pretty tolerant of the process.

For video evidence of his ever-growing sitting skills, click below.

Edward sailed through his six-month check-up this afternoon. He weighs almost 18 pounds (45th percentile) and is 26 1/4 inches long (35th percentile.) He is doing all the things his doctor expects of a boy his age--smiling, laughing, rolling over, grabbing, moving objects from one hand to the other (with a stop in the middle for the mouth of course!) He's eating and sleeping well (except for our recent run of 2 a.m. wake-ups.) No new instructions, really, other than to watch him grow and be ready to childproof the house when he becomes mobile. He screamed when he got his shots (but who wouldn't?) but he calmed down pretty quickly.

Probably the most interesting tidbit is that he does have an ear infection after all. Same ear as before--left side. Our doctor said it's not uncommon that it would look fine on Monday and be infected now. Virus leads to fluid in ears leads to infection and just one day can make a difference. That explains last night's screaming fits, I guess, but I wish we'd been able to start recovery on Monday rather than waiting until today. Let's hope this is the answer--John and I really need some sleep! The hand, foot and mouth disease isn't getting any worse--that is, no more visible spots on his hands and feet, none in his mouth, and the original spots are starting to blister over. So I guess we can check that one off on the list of childhood illnesses. I'm sure many more await.

The car did not have such an easy diagnosis. In fact after running it through a battery of tests that took a full page to enumerate, the Mazda folks report that there is nothing wrong with it. They have no explanation for Saturday's break-down, except possibly that we got some bad gas. On the one hand it's nice to know that our brand-new car is fine, but on the other hand, we're a little gunshy about getting back on the open road with nothing "fixed." John drove it around this afternoon and couldn't replicate the problem. Let's just hope it was a fluke. For future reference though, don't buy gas at the Citgo on Ingersoll in Des Moines!

This week also marked Edward's first professional portraits--preserving the memories of his six-month self for the ages. We joined the "smile saver" club (or some similar goofy name) at Sears, which has a few ongoing benefits (like no sitting fee for two years) and also some that change from month to month. This month's promotion allowed you to buy a CD with all the images plus copyright ownership for a fraction of the normal price. So we did that, which allows us to post a few favorites here.

Edward does not have an ear infection, but does have a virus called Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease. Clicking on the link will bring you to a CDC information sheet about the disease. It's apparently very common in babies and young children, especially in the summer months. So far he only has a few spots on his hands and feet and nothing in his mouth. It's not serious unless he gets sores in his mouth that make him not want to eat. That plus the diarrhea associated with the virus (which he's had this weekend, but we didn't connect to the other symptoms) can lead to dehydration. So we'll just have to be sure he has plenty of wet diapers and lots of his usual slobbering. He has his six-month check-up on Wednesday afternoon so they'll be able to follow up then to be sure he's on the road to recovery.

They didn't say why this would interrupt sleep, so the pattern of the last few nights where he's waking up and rejecting being put back in his crib after eating may be unrelated. We'll see. We had him sleep in his carseat last night and he did pretty well, sleeping from about 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. After I fed him he was wide awake and playing with his feet. This was not so cute at 2 a.m. We brought him to bed with us (which is very unusual for us--we're not subscribers to the "family bed" theory) and he eventually fell asleep until about 5:30 a.m. Needless to say, his parents are longing for his old habit of sleeping through from 7:30 p.m. to 6 a.m.!

A few weeks back some friends who live across the street told us they had a baby "exer-saucer" in their attic that they'd be happy to pass on to us since their kids have long since grown out of it. Edward has used one at daycare a couple of times and he's been working hard to stand up when we're holding him so we thought that might be a nice step up from his playmat for entertainment. Plus, we think he might be getting another ear infection (or the last one didn't fully go away) because he's been fussy at night--waking up whenever we try to lay him down. The doctor said that when babies have ear infections the pressure is greater when they're laying down so that would be consistent with his pattern the last couple of days. What better time for some upright entertainment? Looks like a good decision so far!

We'll have to call the doctor in the morning and go in for an ear check. I hope we can get this knocked down. I really hate seeing him in pain and I've heard horror stories about the endless ear infection--ugh!

Other than that, we had a nice visit with the extended Kenyon family yesterday in Des Moines at John's cousin's 40th birthday party. It was great to see everyone and for them to be able to meet Edward in person after following his news and photos on this blog. We had some car trouble on the way home--in our NEW car no less. Just when I was thinking it was so nice not to have to worry about breakdowns since we made the decision to upgrade to a station wagon. We think it might be a fuel injection problem, but of course our combined knowledge of the inner workings of the automobile would be a lot shorter than our average blog post so we really don't know what's wrong with it. We managed to limp home though and we'll take it in tomorrow for a diagnosis. Ed and the car then can mend together.

After a weekend of travel and a busy week, we finally had time to get some "official" six-month photos of Edward tonight. He was pretty smiley and very patient with us, so we got some good shots. Unfortunately, the excitment of seeing him smile for the camera obviously made me shake, because the best shot was a little blurry. If you don't blow it up too big, however, it looks pretty good.

This is a better shot in terms of focus, though I like his expression better on the first one. Either way, it's amazing to see how big he's getting and how much better he is at sitting up. He's obviously propped against the couch here, but he doesn't slide around as much as he did a couple of months ago, or even just last month.

We have been told that there is no such thing as too much Edward, so here are a couple more from our marathon photo session this evening. Ed was quite a trouper, and put up with that annoying flash for much longer than I expected. He's not a fan of that, often trading his smile for a stern look by the time the shutter clicks. Tonight, however, he seemed willing to cooperate, and we caught some good grins.

As you can see from this photo, he is getting good at standing up, with a little help, of course. (OK, you can't really see that here, but trust me). His legs are getting strong, though, so it sure doesn't seem like it will be very long before he's sitting up, standing and walking. There is a lot of baby-proofing to be done at the Kenyon household before he gets too mobile, however, so while we'll love it when he's able to run around and play, we'll enjoy his lack of mobility while it lasts.

We had a busy weekend with the whole Geraghty Gang in Evanston--19 of us now! Gram had ice cream cones for celebrating Edward's six-month birthday. Of course, he could not partake directly (in fact he was asleep when we busted out the ice cream Sunday afternoon) but he did seem to enjoy his next nursing session immensely! Here's a six-month picture. I'm hoping to get one sometime this week in a similar position to his previous "month" pictures so it will be easy to compare how much he's grown. His cousin Colleen spent the whole weekend reminding him that he was a "chubber"--a term of endearment in our family. She had lots of love to share with him. He will miss her and all his cousins!

Oh, the weekend also included Edward's first hotel stay (too many Geraghtys for one house!) John and I are VERY glad he has his own room to sleep in at home. He is quite a noisy sleeper. We've known that he twists himself around at night because he's never in the same position we put him down in by the time we get him up in the morning. But we were unaware of his tendency to lift both his legs and thump them down on the bed simultaneously. He stays asleep through these aerobics. We did not. We did apparently sleep through a monster of a thunderstorm Sunday night into Monday morning though.

In the excitement of the ear infection news, I forgot to mention that Edward weighed in at 17 pounds this morning. Needless to say, he is a hearty eater! All that good food plus milk plus medicine should add up to a quick recovery. He's asleep now--I hope he'll last through the night. We all need it!

Poor Edward has his first ear infection. He's had a cough and congestion for the last two weeks, but seemed to be weathering it fine until last night. He woke up coughing at 2:30 (after going to bed around 7:45) ate a little and seemed to fall asleep, but when I put him back to bed he just cried and cried. We tried this pattern a couple of times--holding, falling asleep, back to bed, crying, holding--until it was clear he would not sleep in his bed. This is highly unusual for Edward in the wee hours. He usually sleeps through the night, and, if not, just has a little snack and goes right back to sleep.

So I held him upright sitting in our big soft chair for a little while, but that didn't last long. We tried him in his carseat on the floor in our bedroom, but that only worked for about 15 minutes. Finally, he fell asleep on my shoulder as I walked around patting him and stayed asleep as I stopped patting, stopped walking, then carefully and smoothly transitioned to lying down on the couch with him resting on top of me. That's how we passed the time from about 4:30 to 6 this morning. In that short time I had two bad dreams about having a sick child including one with an intensive care setting and lots of respiratory equipment.

I called the doctor as soon as they opened at 8 and got to take him in a little after 9. After removing what seemed like a pound of ear wax (!) the resident and then the doctor agreed that the left ear was infected and should be treated with antibiotics. They said that pressure in the infected ear could cause pain when lying down so that explains why Edward couldn't go back to sleep. The pressure also can trigger the coughing reflex, making the existing viral cough a little worse. So I guess it all fits together. Edward did not like the ear exam, by the way. He was happily playing with his toes and blowing raspberries until they stuck that probe in there. No wonder.

He fell asleep in the car on the way to pick up the prescription and has been sleeping in the carseat ever since (obviously, I brought the seat into the house when we got home!) As soon as he wakes up we'll start the medicine and then it's twice a day for the next 10 days. Hope he likes it--or at least tolerates it!

In other Edward news, he rolled over on Wednesday evening. Demonstrating what may be a lifelong independent streak (if he's anything like his father) he waited until I stepped out of the room for a moment to perform this latest trick. He was about 3/4 of the way over, which is as far as he'd gotten before, always getting hung up on the shoulder. I stepped into the kitchen to grab a plate of food from the microwave and when I came back he was all the way on his belly. He does not particularly enjoy tummy time (I mean, really, what's the point if you can't reach your feet?) and has not repeated this maneuver. Once he figures out how to go front to back look out--no more setting him down in one place and finding him there after a quick trip to the kitchen or bathroom!

Edward had a big weekend with another new discovery: He learned how to blow spit bubbles. Though he claims he played no role in this, Edward did suddenly figure this out while playing with his Grandpa. We'll let you be the judge.

First, there was some playtime...










And then this:
























It was part of a good weekend during which Edward got the chance to visit with his great-grandparents in Chariton, and spend the night with Grandpa and Grandma Kenyon in Des Moines. He also got the chance to visit his friends Julia and Lydia (while we visited our friends Blair and Mary).

For those wanting to see Ed's bubble-blowing skills in action, here is some video (warning, this is not for the squeamish):

Edward is sleeping off his dinner of peas and cereal so I have time for a blog update. It's really amazing how fast the days fly by. I was talking to a coworker about how I spend my afternoons and saying that I'm SO SO lucky to have been allowed to move to part-time hours because afternoons are when I accomplish basic necessities of life like laundry, dishes, cleaning, groceries, etc. She said, "Well, you got all that stuff done before when you were working until 5 every day, why couldn't you do it after 5 now?" It's totally different. Practically every minute Edward is awake there is some task related to him that needs tending to. I guess if I had to work until 5, I'd just be getting less sleep--staying up later to get done all the things necessary to keep the household functioning.

Lucky for all of us, this is not an issue. We even had time for a few days to play with Gram and PopPop in Evanston over the weekend. John was attending a conference in Little Rock, and I was a little nervous about being a single parent for three days. So we decided to head for Evanston and, while we were at it, squeeze in a morning in Milwaukee to meet our new niece/cousin Katherine and, of course, to play with her sister Maggie and check up on the bleary-eyed parents. They are all doing well. Here's my dad with three of his eight grandchildren.

Maggie doesn't seem too bothered by the new little person who has invaded her territory. In fact she mostly ignored Katherine and focused on Edward. She was fascinated by him, and he returned the favor. He watched her constantly and when she stopped moving (only momentarily) to kneel down next to him, he reached out to touch her (no doubt disappointed that he couldn't figure a way to involve his mouth in the exploration.) Maggie squealed with glee, "He touched my knees!!" Very cute.

Gram and PopPop also have a swing set in the yard, complete with a baby swing that was all cleaned up after the long hard winter. Of course Edward had to check it out. He didn't seem to care one way or the other about it, but the five adults standing around watching him got a big kick out of it. (In addition to my parents and me, my sisters Nora and Bridget were also in Evanston for the weekend.)

Edward does seem to like being outside though. He stares up at the trees and watches bunnies and squirrels in the yard. Today I had him out on his blanket and he was very happy rolling around (not over, just around!) He even inched his was to the edge of the blanket and started pulling at the grass. He liked rubbing his feet back and forth in it too, and I preferred that to grabbing with his hands since it was harder (though still not impossible) to get grass to his mouth that way. I don't think he actually ate any! Here's an outside picture from Sunday.

It was a big weekend here in the Kenyon household because Edward discovered his feet. He's always had them, of course, but they didn't do him much good. This weekend, however, he started playing with them, raising his legs into the air while on his back to get better access to them, and using the positions afforded by his new high chair to get at them.

As you can see from the photo, he's also quite happy about this development. He's been very smiley for quite a while, but it has been hard to catch the moment with our digital camera. I read a story in the Wall Street Journal on Friday about this, and we're not alone. To keep camera prices low, they sacrifice processing speed, which means a lag of as much as 2 seconds between the time you press the shutter and the time the photo is taken. So, We've missed quite a few of Ed's smiles because he notices the camera and replaces his smile with a stoic stare by the time the picture takes.

Today, however, was so smiley that it didn't matter. I was so excited to capture this one that I cheered loud enough to startle him; a moment later, the smiles started again. I was so eager to catch more of this, that I rattled off several shots (after the built-in time lag, of course). I then switched to video mode to catch some of his foot-playing. Enjoy.

Every baby's birth is a miracle as we all know. Apparently though, something about the Geraghty family brings out more than just your average garden-variety miracles.

Edward's cousin Katherine Claire was born at a healthy 7 lbs. in Milwaukee last night by emergency C-section. My sister, in her 39th week of a healthy pregnancy, had extremely high blood pressure at her check-up yesterday afternoon and so was admitted to be evaluated to determine whether they would induce labor or do a C-section. Without making public too much of Ann's personal information, suffice it to say that after several hours of monitoring her doctors decided a C-section was urgently needed so she was rushed to surgery under general anesthetic. Both Ann and Katherine came through like champions, and the doctors' urgency turned out to be justified. Katherine had a knot in her umbilical cord and was laying in such a way that contractions were causing her head to press on the cord.

We count our blessings every day, and today Katherine is at the top of the list! In fact, she might take up the first five spots or so.

Today Edward is five months old. He has lots of new tricks, but his favorite is jamming his hands in his mouth as far as they can go, sometimes to the point of gagging himself. He loves the taste/texture of his own hands and will happily suck and slurp away for, well, not hours given his attention span, but many minutes. He also is grabbing things like toys and parental hands/fingers or whatever happens to come within arm's reach. If he can manage, he will work to get these things in his mouth as well. A couple of times he's gotten so slobbery that I've actually checked for teeth, but nothing yet.

He still stops smiling the second he sees the camera so those who want to witness this heart-melting phenomenon will have to visit in person. He also giggles sometimes.

Now he's eating one new food each week by spoon. This week was green beans. Who knows what culinary treat awaits next week. We've gotten into a pretty good pattern where he'll eat either right before or right after John and I have dinner. He stays in his high chair while we eat so he can see what we're doing and join in the conversation. He doesn't really know about waiting for his turn to speak though. He just has so much to say and it's all so exciting he just can't wait. It's fun to think up responses that make it seem like he actually said something we understood.

He sleeps well--usually making it from about 8 p.m. to about 6 a.m. These are not iron-clad though, as he sometimes decides around 2 a.m. that a little snack will be just the thing to get him through the rest of the night. It doesn't take long and then we're both back to bed within 20-30 minutes. He also has a tendency to fall asleep in the car, no matter how short the trip--even just the 10 minutes it takes to get home from daycare. When this happens I usually just leave him in his seat to sleep, rather than waking him up to transfer to the crib.

These OshKosh overalls got rave reviews at school today. Yesterday's shorts romper was also a hit until it did not provide enough of a barrier when he decided to poop for the first time since Sunday. His poor teacher picked him up to snuggle without realizing what he'd been up to. Luckily she had a spare pair of jeans in her car. Ed, of course, always has spare clothes there for just such an event as this one.

Poop and all, it's been a great five months, and we can't wait for what lies ahead.

I've been wanting a picture of Edward in this purple chair at daycare for a couple of weeks now. Not wanting to be too disruptive to the classroom, I've refrained from hosting my own personal photo session, but I've had the camera in my bag just in case the right opportunity arose. This morning, there it was. There was an extra teacher in the room and all the babies were calm. So when I took him out of his carseat I grabbed the chair and my camera and took a few quick shots before I left for work. The teachers agreed that this image is definitely a keeper. They love him in the chair as much as I do. I don't know why I find it so hilarious, but it just cracks me up whenever I come in to pick him up and he's just sitting there observing the world. We often say Edward looks like an old man with his serious expression and his pants hiked up to his chest, so maybe this is the "old man baby version" of the La-Z-Boy.

Over the weekend we had Edward out at a street festival. We brought along the all-important sun hat in case he decided he wanted out of the stroller with its protective canopy. He stayed put so he didn't need it, but we tried it on at home anyway to see how he'd react. Definitely something we need to know since he will basically need to wear a hat from now until October. Poor little bald head! He seemed to like it--or at least he didn't thrash about trying to get it off his head. Perhaps the early training with his ever-present penguin hat and the "parade of hats" that kept him warm is paying dividends.

We tried spoon feeding with Edward for the first time last night, and the results were surprisingly good. While he surely ended with more on his face and bib than in his mouth, it wasn't nearly as messy as I had feared. We started with a mix of rice cereal and breast milk (much more of the latter than the former). At first, he wasn't overjoyed with the whole thing, refusing to swallow much of what we gave him.


As it went on, and we all started to get the hang of things, he began reaching his hand out as if to help guide the spoon, and actually opened his mouth to eagerly welcome this new food source. Given Edward's track record with eating (in short, he likes it quite a bit), we knew he would be willing to work at it. He actually took to it more readily than he did the bottle.


These days, the bottle is no trouble for him. As you can see here, he's confident (perhaps overly so) in his abilities to take things into his own hands. We're not quite there yet, but compared to the screaming fits that accompanied our first attempts with the bottle, this is significant progress.


For those wanting to see more of the action, here is some video of this momentous occasion.