Welcome to Gavin's new blog! This will now be the one-stop web site for all things Gavin. Eventually, all entries from the old blog will be copied here and all of the videos from MuddyDiapers.com as well. Photos will remain on Flickr and the most recent daily photo will always be posted at the top of the page. Gavin hopes you enjoy his new home on the web!

Gavin will soon be chomping M&Ms - he now has teeth! Today, while changing his diaper in the car in the Babies R Us parking lot (nice setting for such a momentous occasion, eh?), the little goober smiled at me and I first noticed two little tooth buds on his bottom gum line. The left tooth is in just bit more than the right so it probably broke through a day or two ago. Click on the photo above to see the little teeth in all their glory!

We have no idea how he's hitting milestones like this early. Both Jeff and I cut our first teeth around 6 1/2 to 7 months old and here Gavin is a week shy of 5 months. Aside from being a little more clingy and adopting a high-pitched whine in the past week, we didn't suspect that he was teething. The flood gates of drool opened over two months ago so that was nothing new. He's still sleeping through the night and isn't crying any more than usual. He really is such an easy baby!

In other Gavin news, he is able to sit for 5-10 seconds unattended now. It's fun to watch him start to lean to one side and he's strong enough to correct himself by pulling himself upright again. We still always keep one hand an inch away so he won't hurt himself by falling over too hard. We (Gavin included, I'm sure!) are looking forward to the day when he can sit and play with his toys. He loves to do that now while we hold him up.

Today his Grandmommy will have her last radiation treatment. She's cancer free!

Gavin will always be able to find inspiration in his grandmothers: They've both beaten cancer.

Gavin says, "bleu... tee hee hee!"

A few things that Gavin's been up to lately (in addition to traveling great distances like an upside down inchworm):

• Gavin thinks French is a funny language. He has an octopus toy with a different color on the end of each arm. When each arm is pressed, the toy says the color in either English, Spanish, or French. He has no reaction to English or Spanish, but always laughs when I press all of the legs and repeat the color names in French.
• Daddy discovered that Gavin isn't able to make obscene noises with his arm pits yet. His little tyrannosaurus arms just aren't long enough to reach across his chest to reach the opposite arm pit. Boys... *sigh*
• The Bizarro Gavin who lives in the bathroom is a nice kid. At least, Gavin thinks so. Whenever he sees himself in the bathroom mirror, he immediately starts smiling and worming around. He's so excited! Gavin still doesn't enjoy baths much but he smiled during a bath for the first time today when he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror.

Gavin has officially entered the world of self-mobilization. Today, as Gavin was entertaining himself under his activity gym while we ate lunch, he pushed off with his feet and inched backwards resulting in the picture above. It's no longer safe to leave him alone on a blanket while we check the laundry or yell at Burt for pawing at my computer screen again because Gavin could be in Abu Dhabi by the time we'd return.

This morning we broke out more of Gavin's 6-12 month clothes from the storage drawer. Included was this outfit which I love because it makes Gavin look more like a little man than a baby! It's fun to shop for cute baby clothes with crabs, cars, or dinosaurs on them but I also enjoy the plain styles that are simply miniature versions of man clothes. We let Gavin practice sitting during his photo shoot:

Aw! So cute! Let's try it without Daddy's hand for support...

He holds it for a second...

Bonk! The drool splatters add a nice effect to his shirt, don'tcha think? 

Gavin's four-month wellness exam was this morning so he has a new round of stats:

• 17 pounds, 11 ounces (90th percentile)
• 26.75 inches long (90-95th percentile)
• 45 cm head circumference (90-95th percentile)
  

Since his two-month check-up, his weight gain has slowed just a bit and he is growing faster height-wise. In the head size department, I'm sorry to say that he appears to be taking after his mother! Just last week we ordered him a sun hat in the 6-12 month size and it's too small. The 12-18 month size hat fits great!

Gavin in Robonanny at 6 days old and 8 1/2 pounds,
and at almost 4 1/2 months old and 17 1/2 pounds

He got another round of immunizations. Daddy held him for comfort and Gavin reportedly "soiled his armor" after the first injection. The poor little guy got scared by the bee the bit his leg!

The pediatrician had no concerns about his development (Mommy was just being paranoid about a few things!). Although the average baby "should" be rolling over around this age, she said those milestones are outdated since they were set when babies slept on their tummies. Now that sleeping on the back is recommended, babies don't hit milestones like rolling from tummy to back as soon. Gavin still isn't too pleased with tummy time and usually tries to escape by scooting forward like an inchworm. When he's laying on his back and we pull his arms up, he no longer bends at the waist to sit and makes us pull him into a standing position instead. He loves to stand! I'm sure he'll learn to crawl and stand on his own before he ever rolls over or sits alone!

A solid attempt at rolling over

Gavin has reached the age for starting solid foods (4-6 months is the current recommendation). Since he never wants more food than the bottles we give him and is currently only eating the minimum daily amount of formula for starting solids (30 ounces), the pediatrician told us it's perfectly fine to hold off on expanding his diet. He'll be less likely to develop food allergies if we can wait until he is closer to six months old anyway. I plan on making his baby food and am looking forward to concocting all sorts of organic pureed foods for him!

Trying to find a decent segue to the next topic... This was Gavin's last visit with his Florida pediatrician. We will be moving to Raleigh on June 20th. We will sadly be temporarily leaving Gavin's paternal family behind (but hope they can join us very soon!) and will be moving close to his maternal family. We're beyond excited to be moving to a beautiful area with four distinct seasons (Winter? What's that?!) and the best environment to raise our son. The moving van will arrive to load up on the 19th and we'll hit the road on the afternoon or evening of the 20th. With the baby, we figure it will be easiest to drive through the night since Gavin should sleep most of the time. Grandmommy will be flying down over a week early to help take Gavin off our hands while Jeff packs and to be a driver/back seat nanny during the move. Driving our two cars on the interstate for 13+ hours with a 5-month old and two cats (who can't travel to the vet 1/4 mile away from our house without becoming hoarse from meowing so much) should be an unforgettable adventure for sure!

With pastor Tim Halverson (who married us two years ago) following Gavin's baptism

My first Mother's Day this past Sunday was highlighted by having Gavin baptized. We were convinced that our happy, social baby would just smile at the pastor and the congregation would melt into a chorus of "aw's." Instead, Gavin ended up being tired and was certainly in no mood to have a bath in front of 300 people, so he cried the entire time. He'd gotten a case of the hiccups just before the baptism started so it seemed at first that he would spend the entire baptism hiccuping, but the crying quickly rid him of that predicament! Once the baptism was over and he was reunited with Mr. Sucky, all was fine and good in his world again and he slept through the remainder of the service. There is a video of the baptism available thanks to Gavin's Aunt Beth. Be sure to listen for some great hiccups in the beginning!

As I haven't been keeping this blog updated very well, I thought I'd start a new feature and occasionally post Gavin's latest developments. He is changing so quickly now and doing new things every week, so I don't want to forget anything!

Here are a few new things that Gavin has been doing in the past week:

• He enjoys feeling different textures with his hands and will look closely at his toys, studying them for a long time.
  
• Rolling from his back to his side (still working on the complete flip from tummy to back or back to tummy)
  
• Rubbing his eyes when he's tired - so cute!
  
• Pulling Mommy's hair! He discovered my necklaces a few weeks ago, but recently started gripping my hair and not letting go!

Gavin was welcomed into the church with what may appear to be trepidation, but actually turned out to be nothing more than a hankering for suckage.

View the Video

Gavin has just about outgrown his infant bathtub, so we decided to let him try a bath in the big boy tub - with Mommy's help, of course. Considering that he is quite the twister and reacher when we play in the living room, it seemed obvious that he'd have a blast splashing and grabbing ducks. The warm water had more of a calming effect, however, and Gavin remained unfazed by the experience.

Yes, another blog entry centered around Gavin's fundament. Cue up your favorite Sir Mix-a-Lot Song and read about the complete retooling of our baby transportation system.

Au naturel, Gavin is well proportioned, but you may have noticed from the picture in the last blog entry that Gavin's cloth-covered caboose is the biggest car on his little baby train. Until recently, we've been using disposables for all travel, as we couldn't bring spare clothes for both him and whoever might be holding him when he leaked. Now that we've found cloth diapers substantial enough to contain his prolific, uh, outflow, we've decided to keep his gluteus maximus environmentally friendly for the shorter outings, at least. We immediately discovered that the added thickness of the cloth was just enough to make his infant car seat/stroller combo too small for him. He fits with a disposable, but with a cloth diaper on, the straps don't reach. The only stroller we had was the stroller frame that attached to the car seat, so when the car seat was too small, so was the stroller. Time to go shopping, again.

While waiting for Gavin to be born, we channeled our preparental anxiety into researching what gear to outfit the incoming infant with. As such, we already had the Maclaren Volo stroller picked out for the latter half of Gavin's first year. "But wait," you say, "he's only four months old today, that's not the 'latter half'!" That's correct, you win a prize. We hadn't figured on our son's prodigious growth, and had a stroller picked out that was designed for babies with a bit more neck control than our own bobble-headed boy. Playing it safe, we put PB&J on the menu for a month and climbed up the price ladder to the Maclaren Quest, a one-hand-folding umbrella stroller that reclines to accommodate fellers with less-than-stellar stability. It's the perfect perambulator to convey our beefy bundle of joy over any paved path, whether to the mailbox or around the mall. It's a lot easier to push with one hand, which is perfect when the young master decides (usually halfway through the store) that he'd prefer the personal touch of hand-carrying to the cold and detached rolly-polly contraption.

We weren't done stroller shopping, yet. The Maclaren Quest is quite a fancy little pram, very sturdy and versatile. Like most parents, however, Traci and I would really like to start getting out more, including but not limited to outdoor exercise like walking and skating. We want to do a fair amount of said walking on unpaved park trails. Trail walking and inline skating are most safely matched with a three wheeled jogging stroller designed for irregular terrain and higher speeds. As mentioned in the last post, Gavin took advantage of a visit to Raleigh to pop into REI and test-drive some BOB strollers. Just this morning, we jumped on REI's annual 20% off sale, and have a black Bob with creme trim on it's way. Strollers are now taken care of.

Next up on the shopping list: car seat. When the Duke of Drool hits the road to visit the peasants - er, grandparents, he needs a proper mobile throne to comfort and protect him. We thought that we would be overwhelmed with car seat choices, but we ended up narrowing it down to the safest manufacturer we could find (within a reasonable price range), and then chose the model that would last the longest and possibly fit into Traci's little Civic's backseat. Thus we came to the Britax Marathon. We would have had an easier fit into the Civic with the Roundabout model, but the Marathon will last until 65 pounds while the Roundabout would have sent us shopping again when Mr. Miracle Grow hit only 40 pounds. The fancy new Marathon has plenty of room, of course, and some nice extra features like better safety tethering and velcro on the baby harness to keep it out of the way during baby insertion.

Feeling poorer but better, we've got Gavin set transportation-wise for quite a while. Not as long of a while as if he had an average growth rate, but quite awhile nonetheless.