41 Week Letter

Dear Daniel.

Here are some notes about your forty first week in our home, which happened during the month of May.

During this week, you began to point consistently. You point at your parents, the fan, lights, windows and outside, and a few other familiar things.  Sometimes you point with your index finger, but more than not, you point with your entire fist.  It looks really cute. I find it interesting that you are pointing at objects and people that you know very well instead of pointing at unfamiliar objects.  I think you are saying "I see this here!" or "That's my Dad!" instead of "What's that over there?".

You giggled a lot this week.  You laughed hysterically at nothing I could notice as being funny.  You must be thinking of funny jokes. 

Our friend Ann Hoemann visited us this week.  She played with you a lot and marveled at your growth in just one month! You have really taken great strides in your personality, crawling speed, and capacity to express your emotions!

I had your car seat properly installed this week at the fire department.  It was not installed correctly, so you've been riding in less safety than I'd have liked.  All is better now, and you are on the passenger side next to the window, which you seem to really enjoy.  The view is much better!  During the installation process, I let you play in the front seat. You love to play in the car almost as much as you love to play with the dishwasher.  I could tell that your silly giggles and shrieks made the car seat installer lady really happy.  You were just in such a good mood!

You gave me a good scare this week  Its been awhile since we've had a medical scare, so I guess its okay.  But this one... bloody stools... shudder.  Gross.  And unpleasant to consider the bacterial causes that could be behind such an unfortunate behind issue.  Dr. Wheeler took good care of us and made sure to get your poop cultured.  With any luck, it will have been some minor thing that your immune system made quick work of.

You follow me around the house each day while I am doing chores or just going into another room.  You get really excited when you "find" me, as if I've been playing a game of Peek A Boo with you.  I scoop you up and give you a hug and show you what I've been doing in that room. Sometimes I put you back down and go back about my business and you track me into another room and the game is repeated!  You really have mastered the floor plan of this small house.  Good for you!  I hope you will be very spatially oriented.

It was a very rainy week, so there was minimal outdoor play time.  Sorry, bud.  Instead, you did play one day in the rec center day care.  I think you had a good time and the nanny there told us you loved to stand up at the snack table and smile at the little girls.  She said, "He is such a happy baby!" several times!  You can add another member to your fan club, I suppose.

This week your smile changed again as your top teeth came in even further.  It looks sweet, though crooked.  I wonder why you don't want to chomp with those things... you still prefer baby food purees!  Textures and crunch are not fun for you for some reason.  And so you eat a lot of mush - bananas and oatmeal, mango smoothies, steak shakes  - really soft and mushy things!

As you can see from these photos, you are very cute.  We love you so much!