Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving Dave and I drove over to Boston, MA (or Newton to be specific) to see Matt and Harold's new, lovely and spacious domicile. It was a special long weekend (W-Su) because we got to meet Harold's mom, Cleo for the first time. Bubbe and Pop pop were also visiting from Miami, FL. Matt and Harold generously let us use their room, which helped with Gavin, while Mia (as usual) bunked with the boys. This led to nightly sleepless slumber parties where kids were heard playing until past 10pm despite waking up every morning at 6am but alas these are the days memories are crafted from. Without further ado, here are our Thanksgiving day memories, which come complete with some wild Turkey sightings too!

Jeremy & Gavin

Mia & Randall

Thanksgiving day "adult" table

The kid table

Jeremy, Dave, Mattie & Mia

Can you spot the 2 wild turkeys?

A daddy/uncle sandwich

Pop pop & Gavin

Everyone was so captured by their conversation they didn't even notice the photographer, of course except for Gavin.

Mia's first time bowling EVER (duck pin bowling, a good invention for toddlers)

Look at that ball go! On a side note: I had no clue bowling shoes came so small!

Back at the house: Mattie & Gavin

Making hand print Christmas tree decorations and play-doh!

Half a Year old!!

In a nutshell this month has involved a lot of socialization, sleeping, eating, rolling, sitting, talking and traveling!

As of October 1st (his 5 month birthday or the beginning of his 6th month) Gavin started sitting up on his own. (see picture above with an unintentionally well-placed jar)

Mia and Gavin has been interacting more and more these days, which can be great and not-so-great. Great: Gavin and Mia played together for the first time this month. Mia grabbed Gavin's hands and did "row row row your boat". Not-so-great: I walked by Mia with Gavin in my arms and Gavin pulled Mia's hair. Mia doesn't get it that he is not TRYING to hurt her. Here are two pictures of them playing nicely together:

Normally Gavin's naps are 30-45 mins long but he took a a 3 hr nap this month and I believe that was his 6 month growth spurt because it hasn't happened since but he continues to sleep around 12 hours with a quick feed towards the morning, though if I ignore his babbling he is likely to go back to sleep without that feeding but sometimes this can lead to him waking Mia up so it is a gamble. He is starting to give up his 4th nap, which usually happens around 5pm so on nights when he can't sleep at 5pm, he goes to bed at 6pm instead of 7pm, which is sad because I hardly get to spend time with him after work but. . . we hang out in the mornings and weekends to and he is in good hands all day (Thanks Dave!)

Oh also, he started rolling from back to tummy towards the end of this month and with that getting around in his crib better he started to get limbs stuck in the railings and got upset when he wanted to sleep on his back but found himself on his tummy. Sarah L. to the rescue with a mesh bumper, which magically solved the rolling over problem too somehow (or it was, like many things, just a phase).

This month in new foods he tried sweet potato, brown rice cereal, avocado and pear. I realized that his gagging during feeding was mostly happening because I would feed him food just after nursing him. Waiting an hour works much better.

Gavin's vocalizations are sounding more vowel-y and he was beginning to babble (including "dada" but not yet "mama") but we actually haven't heard any babbling recently. He likes to screech really high, which Mia and I can imitate (not Dave).

Recently, Gavin seems to be evening out with his weight. He is in no way a petite baby (and we will get an official 6 month checkup weight/height at our appointment 11/9) but I think we are occasionally getting glimpses of his neck, which is always a fun development.

Travels and visitors this month:

Buffalo, NY to Charlie and Maria's (went to Niagra Falls)

NYC-ish to Uncle Ben and Aunt Nichole's place

Uncle Matt and Tio Harold visit