Grateful Grateful Truly blessed and duly grateful

Five months later

I got to work extra early this morning, so I'm going to take the time to post a five month update. (This will be a long one, as much for me to record for posterity what our lives look like now as anything else.)

Eddie has survived 5 months breathing oxygen, and it appears to be working for him. He's going to daycare for 15 hours/week, which is just long enough to pick up every little bug and bring it home to share.

He is a very happy baby, as is evidenced from the pictures this month. He is learning more about how to interact with the world around him, mostly by licking it. He has gotten very good with toys, using both hands to bring them to his mouth (to lick.) He will also hold your finger and bring it to his mouth (to lick.) His hands are also by his mouth a lot (to lick.) Just this weekend he started frequently reaching for people - dad when mom is holding him, Nonna when she picks him up from daycare. Rolling over still does not interest him, but he can prop himself up on his forearms when on his tummy, and is working towards scooting across the room on his tummy. He is also making decent progress towards sitting up on his own.

He is still a good sleeper. We lucked out.

In his need to check everything out, he's lost all interest in the bottle. As a result, we're starting to transition him to the sippy cup, hoping that will keep him interested longer (and free our hands!). While formula has apparently gotten boring, he is really enjoying solid foods, though neither of his parents are big fans of messes, so it's a growing experience for us. So far Eddie has tried (and, at least eventually, liked) rice cereal, bananas, carrots, pears, and sweet potatoes. His favorite is probably pearnanas - one part pear, one part banana, with some rice cereal thrown in for good measure. The next food we'll introduce is avocado, then we'll bring in peaches, apples, and who knows what else.

An average day in the life of Eddie: Get up around 8:00 for a sammich (recently, about 5.5 oz.), go back to bed until noon, when he wakes for another sammich. Hang out with dad for a few hours, eat some "solid" food, go to school at 3:30 and hang out with Miss Nima and those other babies. Get picked up by someone at 6:30, go home for another solid meal and to hang out a little bit. Doze off around 7:00, wake up around 8:30, be friendly and happy until 9:30 or so, when you go to bed for the night, ready to start again.

Mark is back at the theater. Rehearsals started yesterday for Hedwig and the Angry Inch at Actor's Express. Mark is playing in the band (piano and guitar, as far as I know). The show runs June 19 - July 19, with a possible extension through August 9. This weekend, we found out that Mark is going to have the opportunity to direct Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams at Rosewater Theatre, now in Roswell. That show will run August 15 - September 27. After that will be Big River at Theatrical Outfit. It will run September 10 - October 5.

Outside of the crazy theater schedule, Mark is hanging out with Eddie every day, and doing all the stuff that comes along with that. Eddie thinks his dad is hilarious, and it is so much fun watching them together.

Em really has nothing interesting to report. I work, I go home and hang out with Eddie, I do more work, I do laundry, I go to bed. This week is a unique one in that we have management team visiting from Europe and the rest of the North America studios in our studio for training. Lots of events are planned, and I need to be in the studio at 8:00 every morning. (That makes for pretty long days when there are things going on until 10:30 at night.) But, other than that, it's just more of the same. I officially weigh less than I did at the start of my pregnancy, which is nice, but I still have a long way to go. And, really, that's all I've got!

If you haven't checked them out, the five month pictures are up at mrbaby.shutterfly.com.

Hope everything is well with everyone out there in internet land!