Crawling

A few weeks ago, Brennan began crawling. Brennan's a motivated kid -- just put one of his favorite toys a little out of his reach, and he'll crawl to get it. And by "favorite toys," we're not talking about a teething toy, or a device with buttons that play songs when you push them. We're talking about things like junk mail, the TV remote, and my blackberry. Below are a couple videos from a few weeks ago of Brennan going after my blackberry.

For, the first one, it was about naptime, and Brennan wasn't too thrilled about me making him crawl to get my blackberry:



He was a little happier for video #2.

"Papa"

Bring your Brennan to work day

It's bring your Brennan to work day! Aka Saturday. Brennan doing some snuggling in my office:

Snuggling

This morning, I had a nice moment with Brennan. Usually, our agreement is that if Brennan wakes up after 6am, I will get up with him, feed him, and play with him for a while before I get ready for work. If he wakes up before 6am, Daddy gets up and feeds him, and then puts him back down to bed. I had to get to work early this morning, so when Brennan woke up at 5:15, I decided to give him his "night" feeding because I figured I might have to leave before he wakes up again. The fun part was when Brennan was done with his bottle, he just turned around and snuggled into my chest. Somewhat selfishly, I let him snuggle for about 10 minutes before putting him back down in his crib. This was special because Brennan is going through a not-so-snuggly phase. As he's been getting so strong with his arms, whenever you try to snuggle him chest-to-chest, he will do a pushup away from you, sometimes with just one arm, so he can keep looking around the room, rather than being smothered in your chest. Nothing personal against us, it's just that he wants to be able to look around and observe. Because of this, I haven't had a good snuggle session with him in a while, so this morning was nice, even though brief.

Brennan is doing all kinds of fun new stuff lately. As always, we have a large backlog of stories and pictures. He's becoming very vocal and using a variety of sounds. He might be catching on to saying "baba" when he sees or wants a bottle. Daddy has been calling bottles "babas" for a while now to see if Brennan catches on. Brennan now seems to sometimes say baba when he might be hungry (although not consistently enough to confirm that this isn't just coincidence). Yesterday, he was rolling around the floor and started smiling and saying "baba." Daddy figured he was just babbling, but then Daddy noticed that under the couch, in Brennan's view from the floor, was a bottle. So maybe he's catching on.

Speaking of bottles, Brennan now holds his bottle, which is great:

Six Months Old!

Brennan turned 6 months old a couple of Fridays ago. You know what that means -- formal pictures in preppy clothes!







There's plenty more to update on. Hopefully I'll get around to it!

Garden in the Woods & Hanging out on the Balcony

A couple weekends ago, Brennan, Adrienne, and Papa went to the Garden in the Woods in Framingham. We saw some beautiful plants and had an extremely peaceful stroll in the woods. Brennan loves trees, so this was right up his alley.







After the gardens, we kept enjoying to beautiful day. We all met up with Daddy back at home to hang out some on the balcony.

Some more dedication weekend, and beyond

OK, so it was a month ago, but finally, here are the rest of the pictures, from the reception:






On Monday, Carl, Brennan and the girls went to Newport:




The following weekend, Papa and Brennan went to a Cultural Survival Bazaar in Boston Common. We got to listen to a ton of great music and do some of Brennan's favorite activity -- peoplewatching. He loves just watching people walk by, occasionally shooting a smile their way.

The backlog continues

I still have all kinds of stuff to post about -- some more stuff from Brennan's dedication, the fourth of July, our trip to some pretty gardens in Framingham, the Friends in Adoption picnic. But right now, Daddy and Brennan are in Chicago while I'm still in Boston, and Daddy's been sending me some pictures -- looks like Brennan is having a fun time! Especially in his new umbrella stroller.

Getting Stuck

As we've talked about in some recent posts, Brennan moves around quite a bit in his crib. It's not unusual for him to migrate from the center of the crib to one end of it, and then make a u-turn and end up at the other end. At first, he got stuck pretty often in the side slabs and needed help getting out, but he's gotten better at freeing himself. Sometimes, though, he'll just fall asleep with one arm or leg completely out, like this:


Even when his arm is outside the crib, he'll find a way to get those fingers back into his mouth:

Dedication Ceremony

A couple of weeks ago, we had a beautiful dedication ceremony for Brennan in the Public Gardens in Boston. Here are some of the highlights. First the program, which Carl spent endless hours drafting, printing, etc.:


The baby boy arrives in the Garden:


Brennan greets all his friends as they arrive:


Brennan & Papa:




The ceremony begins:





Brennan's godparents:











Ceremony's over, time to take pictures!







After the ceremony, we had a great lunch at Maggiano's. We'll post pictures from that soon.