is now sitting up for 5 or 10 minutes at a time. Whee! This is new in the last week or so. I think it's all the time he spent around his cousin Blythe when we were gathered in New Jersey, since she's a month and a half older than he is and about one developmental step ahead. Hooray for positive peer pressure. He's so cute with his new skill, reaching all around himself for things, then getting too excited and accidentally knocking himself over. He's sitting near me in our bed right now, since he can plant himself firmly on our pillowtop mattress and hold onto the sheets all around him for stability.

He chomps in a major way, working on some teeth that have yet to emerge. We're probably still a couple of months away from that. He chews lightly on his own fingers, but when he gets a hold of Jack's or my fingers, he tries to extract our knuckles like a dog taking the squeaker out of a squeaky toy. It's fun. I promise.

Dean is also responding more to things we do and say, especially with his sweet smiles and uproarious laughs. Kent was blowing raspberries at him in the car the other day, and he was totally cracking up. I think it warmed my heart even more that Kent was excited to be having such an effect and that he kept saying, "I made him laugh!"

For over a year now, we've been singing "Skinnamarink" at bedtime as part of our ritual with Kent, and just recently, Dean has started getting a big goofy grin on his face whenever we start the song. I guess he heard it for a long time in utero, in addition to nearly every night he's been alive, so it's ingrained by now. It's so sweet to see his face light up upon hearing it.

Also, he can't get enough of that baby in the mirror. We have many silly mirror games.

Now he has tumbled over to the side and is examining his toes in painstaking detail. Much busy work to be done. And so very many big smiles for his mom.

Labels: Dean, photography

• posted by erica 7/12/2010 09:20:00 PM
•