Tub Eating

Dylan loves his food when he is in the tub having his bath. Sometimes he won't eat something but then when he is having his bath, he'll gobble it right up! He's had a couple green vegetables and some sweet potatoes, and apple sauce is next on the list.
Today (Sunday) Briana had to work, so me (Ryan) and Dilly went to church to the early service. Dylan "played" in the nursery for an hour, then I took him home and he has been napping for 3 hours! Little sleeping champ. But he had a crappy night last night (became overtired, screamed for 2 hours, then nursed off and on all night).

Thanksgiving

We've officially graduated Dylan from his infant carrier to a rear-facing carseat. We took back the bum stroller and infant carrier the other day to Babies R Us and they gave us store credit (funny how one store will do it and another will refuse). They made us return the whole travel system, so we were stuck without a way to bring Dylan back home and had to figure out which carseat he'd be getting there on the spot. We picked the Graco ComfortSport. He seems to like it well enough. He still hollers and fusses when we first put him into the carseat, but now falls asleep occasionally, which is a major step up in the world of traveling in the Drenan car.

Yesterday we had thanksgiving dinner at the Pohlman's house. Dylan met their cute little dog, Jack (see picture). We played a traditional game with their family after dinner where you pile up tons of presents in the middle of the table, roll three dice, and collect presents based on the number of pairs you roll as you go around taking turns until all the gifts are selected. Then you go around 3 more times, "robbing your neighbor" of gifts until the game is over. Then you open them all up and see what goofy presents you selected and stole. It was really fun, especially with the family alliances that were formed against little Emma, the youngest in the family, who naturally wanted as many presents as she could get (all the while, the boys stealing all that she had). We had lots of fun with everyone. And dinner was FABULOUS! Judy Pohlman is one fantastic cook!

Update on Dylan's first bites: Today he tried green beans. So as of now, he's had rice cereal, sweet potatoes, peas, and green beans. He seemed to like the green beans better than the peas. He ate almost the entire container this morning in one sitting! By the end of it all, we were both covered in green.

Finding Teddybear

Tonight after Dylan's regular routine of bathtime, nursing, cereal-time, book, and snuggling, we put him down for the night (swaddled with pacifier). He cried and cried as usual. Then he got quiet and after a few more minutes, I asked Ryan to go check on him to make sure he was okay (probably just asleep I thought). Nope. Ryan came back and said, "you've got to come see this!" I followed him back into Dylan's nursery to find Dylan unswaddled, rotated around to the opposite side of the crib, smiling and playing with a teddybear he apparently selected from the other end of the crib. He was too cute. I videotaped a few minutes of him snuggling and smiling with his new friend for the record before getting him re-ready for bed. Now he is back to his former state, swaddled and crying himself to sleep for the night. Silly Dylan.

Open City Cafe

Yesterday we went downtown to visit the monuments and some museums yesterday. We had lunch at the Natural History museum and also visited the Air & Space museum.
Later we went to walk through the Veterans Memorial Wall. The pictures are from down by the Lincoln Memorial with the capitol building and Washington Monument behind us.
Ryan left early this morning for the neuroscience conference, while Dylan and I explored the neighborhood around our hotel. We had breakfast at a place called Open City that opened just this morning across the street. It was really quaint and Dylan was cute and non-fussy for me, which I appreciated since I was being pretty ambitious ordering a meal to start with.
Then we headed out for a walk along Calvert Street across the bridge and through a sweet little park. The fall colors were beautiful and the brisk air felt nice as we walked. Dylan was content and fell asleep on the way back. Then we went back to our room where Dylan nursed for over an hour! I don't think he is due for a growth-spurt, but he is sure acting like it. I finished him off with some cereal to try and fill him up before coming down here to the hotel lobby with him. He is being fairly entertained by watching people and his toys, but who knows how long this will last. Just as I typed that last sentence, he began to fuss. Drat!

Uncle Matt

Today Dylan met his uncle Matt for the first time. We took a daytrip to Baltimore where he is a freshman at Johns Hopkins. It was neat to introduce him to little Dylan. We spent the afternoon down at the inner harbor for lunch and ice cream, walked around the Monet exhibit at the art museum, and bummed around his campus for a while by his lacrosse stadium, which was really cool. We even got some great pictures (not of the totally naked bum we saw just standing by the road at the inner harbor, thankfully)!
It was hard to say goodbye to Matt at the end of the day when we dropped him back off at his dorm building. We realized earlier that it had been over a year since we had seen him last. It really was great to see him again. He has truly grown up into a nice young man.
Dylan did pretty well on the drive from D.C. to Baltimore this morning, sleeping most of the way. Unfortunately he screamed the ENTIRE hour and a 1/2 long trip tonight on our way back to the hotel. He must have one serious issue with the car! I mean, he almost always cheers up the moment he gets released from the "death seat" (that is, his carseat). The amount of traveling we do from now on is seriously being reconsidered if it is going to continue to be this awful to go anywhere with him in the car!
Tomorrow Ryan will be spending most of the day at his neuroscience conference downtown. I will be hanging out with little Dylan here at the hotel. If the weather is still nice, we might take a walk with our super-terrific stroller to the national zoo (which I've heard good things about) or to a park nearby the hotel. We'll see.

starting with the stroller

It all started with the stroller at the security gate in the airport this morning. What should have been a simple "pull the lever up and slide the other one over" thing, turned into a nightmare of a day. We couldn't collapse the stroller to check it through security, or later on, without jamming our keys into the frame and needing both of us to finally get it folded back up. So now we have a broken stroller that takes 15 minutes and two people to collapse for travel.
Then once we arrived at the airport, piled into the shuttle to the car rental garage with our broken stroller, rented the car, and got our screaming baby settled in the backseat, we set out for a nice drive over to see the Washinton D.C. monuments. NOT. We missed the turn to get across the river, got stuck in a maze of one-way streets that don't connect how they should to take you where the map shows that they might, and ended up over-hungry, downtown with nowhere to park and THEN realized that we didn't have any cash to park even if we had found a place! We were all hungry and tired (Dylan especially) and couldn't find our way to the hotel even though we could see it, because the streets kept leading us back the opposite way.
Finally after about an hour and a half of that, we got to the hotel, got something to eat, and decided to call the nearest babies-R-us to see about exchanging our stupid stroller. To our dismay (although it seems to fit with the rest of the day) we learned that they won't take back the stroller because we don't have the original packaging & receipt with us (which clearly we wouldn't since we are traveling) AND it has been more than 90 days since we got the blasted thing! I begged the guy on the phone to help us find a way around that since we are out of town and obviously stuck with a faulty piece of baby-gear... but he insisted that he must follow their return guidelines and wished me a good night.
So that was our day in a nutshell. It started and ended with our lovely stroller, which stands uncollapsed next to me as I type this in our hotel room. However, I'm happy to report that Dylan has finally fallen asleep and I get to hear myself think again. (sigh).

First Bites

Dylan has officially started eating solids as of last night. We went to his 4 month checkup yesterday. He is in the 50th percentile for both length and head circumference, but only in the 3rd for weight (11lbs. 12oz.), so we decided to go ahead and start him on rice cereal (since his weight gain has plateaued, per the doctor's recommendation). He had a blast with those first few bites. Initally we videotaped the event, but later decided to pull out the camera for some still pictures to enjoy. It was so fun to watch him reach and lunge at the spoon in anticipation for each new bite. And after it was all said and done with, he had eaten about 4-5 tablespoons of cereal! Wow. I guess he liked it!

And with everything else that Dylan does, once he is done, he is DONE!

Another new development has been when we read to him at night. He likes to help turn the pages. It is really amazing. He actually reaches up for the page at precisely the right moment to turn it when we put it halfway for him. What a little intellect he is!

I have feet!

The other day Dylan discovered his feet for the first time. He likes (to try) to suck on them or at least taste them. And his fingers? Forget it...He will probably suck those off soon!

Meramec Park

We were inspired today to take a road trip by our friends Rob & Julie. Since Dylan loves the car SO much (yeah right!), we decided to drive about 175 miles round-trip to Meramec State Park and check out the caverns. Despite Dylan enjoying the actual drive about as much as he did getting his 2 month shots, we had a wonderful time together. Ryan and I got a chance to visit and relax and reminise our trip along highway 44 when we moved out to the midwest 4 years ago.
When we got to the park, we decided to just play outside with the camera and enjoy the last of the fall colors. What a beautiful day for an outdoor adventure!

Then we came home and I thought I'd be a good wife and mother and do some laundry. Bad decision. Just as I was getting to the bottom of the basement stairs, on the third step from the bottom, my feet somehow came out from under me and I crashed down on my left hip.
Ryan came to my rescue (and thankfully offered to finish the laundry tasks down in the basement for me). My hero. Anyway, hope I can still walk at work tomorrow.
Tonight we are headed off to church for a Science & Faith forum. Dylan is currently sleeping soundly (thankfully since he cried enough for a week today and I think exhausted himself in the process).