Gavin meets his new friend Ella

Today, Gavin turns the big three-oh. Thirty weeks, that is. Here's what he has been up to lately:

• Gavin will proudly challenge any of you to drool gurgling. Whenever he's happy and able to lean backward far enough, he makes a "gheeh" sound and gurgles his drool. Sounds gross, but it's very cute!
• Gavin's still in pre-crawl mode. He excitedly bounces on his bum when sitting down. He'll lean forward, and sometimes lunge onto his tummy, but still can't quite get his legs to work correctly.
• He's developed a new cry that he uses when a toy (such as one of Daddy's dirty shoe laces) is taken away from him.
• He's warming up to vegetables, but still won't have anything to do with peas.
  
• Gavin made some new friends visiting with Ella, Marshall, and Harvey (ages 5, 3, and 1). After a period of intense observation, he joined them in play, sharing smiles and gheeh's (which the kids had fun immitating).

The following sequence plays out almost non-stop all day long:

Gavin sits, looking around to see what sort of mischief he can get into.

Ah, HA! He spots his prey and starts his best crawling stance.

He remembers he doesn't know how to crawl yet and falls to his tummy.

Success seems imminent with a long reach, but, alas, Daddy foils his plan to snatch Mommy's lens cap.

Saturday morning means shopping here at the Highsmith house. Whether it's for household necessities at Target, groceries at a supermarket, or something else from the mall, there's always shopping to be done on Saturday morning.

Gavin is always an excellent shopper. As long as he has something new to look at and we keep the stroller moving, he's happy as a clam. Inevitably, we run into several other babies his age. Without fail, they are always smaller than Gavin and are riding in infant car seat stroller systems like the one Gavin outgrew two months ago! It's fun to see other kids his age, though, and it's nice to have brief conversations with friendly North Carolinians while shopping.

This morning, we headed to the mall again, then to REI and Target. While he'd been well-behaved as usual all morning, I asked Gavin how he was enjoying his day while we waited for Daddy to pay for his purchases at REI. This was his response:

Gavin thoroughly enjoys a good game of Peekaboo with his mother.

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Gavin was in a rather boisterous mood the other day, singing and cooing while Traci tried to put him down for some Tummy Time.

Gavin was born on a Thursday and therefore celebrates his weekly birthday every Thursday. After his first month, I lost track of how many weeks old he is. It was strange to switch to expressing his age in months since age is now expressed in weeks before babies are born. The pediatrician measures his length in inches but his head in centimeters. Why is that?

Anyway, back to Thursdays... In addition to the usual blog entries, I am going to start posting every Thursday with a brief update of developmental milestones, daily activities, and the like. Here is a snapshot of Gavin's life at 29 weeks old:

• Gavin started eating vegetables three weeks ago. He doesn't enjoy them yet, but he's tolerating sweet potatoes, butternut squash, and carrots. And I do mean tolerating. While he's willing to eat his veggies, he's sure to convey they he doesn't enjoy it! We've tried peas and plums as well, but probably won't try those again for a while.
• He loves to "hop" on the floor. When he's sitting among his toys, he hops up and down on his bum and leans forward on his arms, lifting his rear end in the air. He definitely wants to crawl but hasn't quite figured it out yet.
• Gavin is getting lots of exercise by walking every morning. I take a two-mile walk on weekday mornings and Daddy also joins us most days. It's a great way to start the day since I stay home all day to work. Raleigh mornings are beautiful and much more pleasant than Florida's searing morning sun. The hills definitely provide a work out!
• He earned a brown belt in monkey wrasslin'.
• He loves the sound of his voice. Gavin will sit in the living room saying, "gheeh gheeh, ooh ooh, hee hee, hoo hoo." The "gheeh's" are more of a gurgle! These are accompanied by giggles, screams, yelps, and belly laughs.
  

Mmm...squash!

Goodbye, Emmy and Pendergast! We'll miss you!

Until today, Gavin has been cruising around town in Jeff's orange Honda Element (named Pendergast). However, today he has new wheels! Now that I'm working from home full-time, I've hardly driven my little Honda Civic (named Emmy) since moving to North Carolina. Whenever we're out, we always take Pendergast since it's a tight squeeze to fit any adult passengers in Emmy when the car seat is installed. Regretfully, I've never learned to drive the Pendergast. Despite taking several lessons about manual transmissions with Jeff over a year ago, I didn't stick with it and now there's no way I'm going to learn how to drive one on these hilly Raleigh roads! That means Jeff is the only person who can drive Pendergast while Emmy sits and sobs as she gets left behind again and again every time we run an errand.

So, we decided to consolidate and trade in both vehicles for one that we can both drive and sit comfortably in. We just don't need two vehicles anymore but neither of the Hondas would work as our sole vehicle. We initially thought the Honda CR-V was our primo top choice, but after visiting the Honda and Toyota dealerships over the weekend, we decided that the Toyota Rav4 better fit our needs. Yesterday, Jeff cleaned both of our cars inside and out so they'd get top dollar at trade-in (it seemed to work - we got Kelley Blue Book or higher for both).

Today, we sealed the deal and said "goobye" to our Hondas which we each adore so much. Seriously, I would have been crying as we left the lot in our new vehicle had Jeff not been there to make fun of me! I love that little car so much and had been looking forward to keeping her until Gavin started driving! I could go on and on about her six years of reliability and the legendary 40-miles-per-gallon tank of gas she got on a road trip last summer, but I'll refrain from singing her praises too much for fear I'll break down and won't be able to finish this blog entry ;).

Hello, Puddy!

We chose red for the new Rav4, a nice deep, sophisticated red. It's Gavin's favorite color. And, we've chosen the name Puddy... because he spends most of his time in the parking lot just staring and squinting. Gavin doesn't see the big deal about the new vehicle, though. His seat doesn't feel any different, after all!

One year ago today, I was 18 weeks pregnant and we learned that our baby was a boy. We had our first ultrasound and at that point, I hadn't even felt the baby move yet. As we hit these "one year ago" milestones, I'm constantly in awe of baby development. Just one year ago, Gavin was about six inches long and weighed just a few ounces. Now, our almost-twenty-pounder sits on the floor behind me trying with all his might to launch himself into crawling! Four months ago he couldn't even hold a toy and now he's rolling, sitting, and grabbing at the cats whenever they come within arm's length. What other time in our lives are we able to boast so much development and learning in such a short period of time?

It was amazing to feel Gavin grow inside of me for nine months (or the five months that I was actually able to feel him!), but I've been surprised by how I continue to be fascinated by seeing him do new and wonderful things all the time. Even when he's quietly sitting alone carefully examining a toy, I love to just watch him and wonder what he's thinking. I'm curious how what he's doing at that very moment could be something new that he's learning for the first time and what will develop next because of what he's learning at that momen.

Anyway, not sure where that philosophical route started. :) As I was saying, our first ultrasound was one year ago today and we got to see our little boy for the first time. Naturally, we left the office that day with the first pictures of our boy. The ultrasound technician gave us five. Five. It's hard to believe we only had five photos of Gavin once! I've photographed him every day of his life this side of the womb and the total number has grown to 1,161! That's after discarding about 75% of the pictures I take that are either a little blurry, framed incorrectly, too similar to another photo, or flawed in any way. It's quite addicting, but when he's changing so quickly and doing new things all the time, it's hard NOT to want to take dozens of pictures a day!

You often hear that babies change every week and that is so true! This past week, Gavin has started pushing up and forward when he's sitting to reach for things - not always the cats, but they're his favorite targets. It's his first real indication that he's progressing towards crawling. He's also snorting when he gets all smiley happy. My mom says I did this as a baby, too. Why did Gavin inherit all of my strange and bizarre traits?! Sorry, Kid! And, just yesterday as we sat in the humid breeze of an oncoming rain shower at the Toyota dealership (a blog entry for another time), I noticed the hair on the back of his head getting wavy. It looks like Gavin has inherited both parents' curly locks after all!

Yesterday, we bought Gavin's very first shoes - a pair of size 5 velcro boat shoes from BabyGap.This morning he wore them to church and then out to breakfast at the North Hills mall where we had a photo shoot. Surprisingly, he doesn't seem to mind them at all. I thought for sure he'd fuss or try to take them off! He won't wear them much yet and we bought them about a size too big so he'll grow into them by the time he starts standing and walking on his own. For now, they'll be saved for church and any other outings where a full outfit seems necessary!

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While Doozer still gives her furless brother a wide berth, Burt will sometimes nuzzle a dangling baby leg. Burt has even been known to let us bring Muddy close enough for a fur yank or two. In this rare moment, captured forever (or until the hard drive fails), Burt actually approaches the grabby little hiccuper for a coupla minutes of brotherly bonding.

This evening, Gavin became a true Raleighan: He visited Goodberry's. By next summer, he'll actually be able to enjoy this smooth, delicious frozen custard. On this cool July evening, he merely provided entertainment for his family while we all indulged!

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I often need a way to burn off some of Muddy's excess energy. This is the best way I've found.

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You've read the blog entry , now see the movie!

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It's Father's Day 2008. Family and friends from all over gather around to celebrate the joys and wonders of fatherhood. We ignore them all, and shoot a video of Gavin's first swim.

We spent a busy weekend continuing the long unpacking and organization process. I'm not sure this really warrants an entire blog entry, but I took this picture and it strikes my funny bone for some odd reason so I had to blog about it.

Gavin is "helping" me organize his clothes, part of the massive mid-day closet organization project (which followed the massive late-morning bathroom organization project and preceeded the massive afternoon living room organization project). To me, the little guy is looking quite ridiculous - in a good way. I always think he looks funny wearing socks, as does he. Gavin always stares at his feet when he has socks on probably because he doesn't wear them often. He's also wearing two dress shirts at the same time. The green shirt is what he wore to church while I was trying a few other shirts on him to see if they still fit. All the while, he could care less and just wants to get a hold of those enticing striped shirts all hangered up and ready to go back in the closet.

To top it off, Gavin's hair is a mess. Earlier last week, I thought he was having a bad hair day but after noting his hair tendencies every day since then, I've decided he's going through a "bad hair phase." It's always sticking up in the back and looking disheveled in the front. No amount of brushing seems to help.

It's photos like this that make me glad digital photography exists or else I wouldn't be taking nearly as many photos to document the miniscule happenings in Gavin's life!

Gavin's first visit with his Raleigh pediatrician was this afternoon. Here are our perfectly healthy baby's new stats:

• 19 pounds, 5 ounces (80th percentile)
• 27.5 inches long (85th percentile)
• 46.25 cm head circumference (100th percentile)

Since his last exam two months ago, he's gained just over a pound and a half and has grown a little less than an inch. He's out of the 90th percentile in height and weight for the first time while his head size is off the charts. Again, my fault. Sorry, Gav!

He cried quite a bit when his three shots were administered but calmed down in a minute. An hour after arriving home, was our usual super happy baby again like nothing had happened! Note the fashionable purple band-aids on his chubby little thighs (click to view full size):

In other news, we've finally unpacked enough to allow the kitties to come home. Gavin is too tired to play, but I'm sure that he'll enjoy having Burt back home as a play mate tomorrow!

When you're still only six months old, almost everything you do is "for the first time." This morning we took Gavin to a park in Aunt Kristen's neighborhood so Gavin could swing for the first time. He thoroughly enjoyed it as long as we didn't swing him too high. We'll definitely have to go back again soon!

Today is Gavin's 6 month birthday! Just a year ago we were beginning to purchase baby gear and didn't even know if our little chickpea was a boy or girl yet. I'm still amazed by how fast this whole process of baby development happens!

Yesterday, the moving truck finally arrived and unloaded all of our boxes and furniture. The three of us have big plans for the extended holiday weekend unpacking. Well, Gavin will spend most of his time trying to take over the world in his command center while Mommy and Daddy unpack and organize the new place.

Gavin recently started taking naps laying on his side and on Tuesday, he rolled from his back to his tummy for the first time. The next morning, he woke up laying on his tummy and immediately started crying when he realized the position he was in. He doesn't hate it as much as he used to, but Gavin still isn't a fan of laying on his tum-tum. Now we really have to keep our eye on him because he's rolling all over the place!

Diaper changes are nearly impossible now because he isn't content to just lay on his back. He's always twisting and turning over making a simple task quite a workout for all parties involved!

Gavin is "talking" up a storm these days. He's using many difference syllables and sounds, blowing raspberries, and making all sorts of noise! He likes to sit and talk to his toys or just sit and look at us making all sorts of sounds.

Now that we're starting to unpack, life is slowly returning to normal. Gavin is sleeping in his crib again instead of his pack 'n play and was joyfully reunited with his "command center" activity jumper. He won't be completely content, I'm sure, until his buddy Burt returns home this weekend. The cats have been living with Gmummy for the past two weeks and Gavin's face lights up whenever he visits and sees Burt. He immediately starts reaching for him while Burt, being the laid back easy-going cat that he is (a Highsmith to the core!), is always more than happy to offer a fist-full of fur.

If I don't have time to tear myself away from unpacking this weekend, the next blog entry will be on Monday when Gavin visits his new pediatrician for his 6-month wellness exam.