Mexico

So Nate’s first vacation was to…Mexico! We rented a house for a week on Isla Mujeres with Anne, Jamie and Zeke. Nate swam in the pool—and liked it after a few nervous takes. He got his first mosquito bites and felt the hot sun for the first time in his life. He met Zeke in what we hope will be the beginning of a long friendship. And he seemed generally happy to be there.

We also had a fun time but traveling with baby is rough. The plane was a truly difficult four hours of trying to keep Nate entertained and calm. Sleeping was tough—Nate who was in our room kicked the mattress so hard in his sleep that we had to move to a different room (one without a/c). But the adults finally figured out that in order to have some vacation in the vacation we had to hire a reliable babysitter so we found the amazing Elise who walked in, fell in love with the boys and told us to go have a good time. Which of course we did. When we returned day after day, Elise would have a list of what the boys did while we were gone—see above. On day 5, Nate ate, napped, ate, napped then at 3:45 he "gave speech" shortly after which he pooped.

Taking a Bath

SLEEP

Dr. Newman told us we had to stop feeding Nate at night--he was generally waking once between 1-4am to eat. She said he could go without food (he's 17 pounds now!) and he should learn to do it sooner rather than later. We discussed this with great fear and after a couple glasses of wine, Michael proposed an alternative: I could opt out of the whole experience if I got a new tattoo. I decided to stick it out. Night one: Nate wakes at 3 and cries straight until 4, then is quiet. He wakes at 7:30 happy and naps well all day. Night two: Nate wakes at 4 and cries until 4:30 then sleep until 8! He wakes so happy he doesn't even call out for us--and then proceeds to eat an enormous amount of yogurt (his new fave.) How did we get so lucky?

Nate at 6

We reached a milestone--six months! And just around this birthday, Nate finally rolled over (which sounds like a puppy I know--there are a lot of child/pet similarities which I excitedly pointed out to members of my mom group who looked at me like I was an alien. But still.) He rolled back to front on the floor first (see picture--we were both kind of surprised.) And now in the mornings we find him in the crib on his stomach--weird for a boy who despises tummy time almost as he despises avocado (see video.)