Furbabies

Ernie has been expressing a lot of interest in Ally Cat in recent weeks, and loves the opportunity to pet her. She's pretty receptive, as he's not too grabby yet. She'll evey do her roll over/tummy exposure sometimes when he's having floor time. This is a huge improvement from her initial reactions to Ernie (i.e. persistant vomitting for weeks on end whenever he made a noise, or was in the room). I think they like each other!

And Grandma Bonnie's furbabies were also very willing to let Ernie love them. Here he is practicing his pet with Shadow and Tiger in the foreground.

Ern seems to have his father's love of cats. When he's being read to and Ally enters the room, he turns from his book to see what she's up to. If he's in a room and hears her collar clinking somewhere else, he'll turn on his side to find where she's at. Ally's a good little nanny now.

The razor rash was worth it

Ernie's starting to get ticklish. It's mostly his neck and ears that elicit the strongest reaction, but he also finds playing with his feet pretty funny. Last night Grandpa Darrell blew some raspberries on his neck several times, and he anticipated it with joy!

I remember my Dad's tickling techniques. They always started out fun, and slowly built up into hysteria that bordered on child abuse:

"Dad! Stop!!!! Don't!!!! Stop!!!!"

"Don't stop? OK!" (resumes tickling)

At least Ernie's enjoying it (for now).

Ernie's Endorsement of the Week: Sitting Up!

We just thought we'd try it, and it turns out we like it! Since last Thursday night, we've sat up for a period of 60 seconds or more three times, and much more often for shorter periods of time. Some positioning from Mom helps, and as long as someone is on hand to prefent nose-dives, we feel pretty confident. Mom thinks some of the credit goes to our new diapers, which provide firmer lower ab and lower back support, but nonetheless - we're learning to sit!

Grandma Chris and Grandpa Darrell also gifted us a Bumbo seat. It's a little device to assist babies learning to sit up. We still get tired after too long, but our muscles are developing by leaps and bounds. Look out, Ally Cat! Soon we'll be crawling!

We're crossing over

to cloth diapering. Ernie seems willing, and for the past two days now we've been exclusively cloth-diapering him with eight Bum Genius pocket one-size diapers. They change Ernie's delicate figure from a sweetly tapered chest to bum, to a bit more straight to eggplantish, but they'll fit him until he's potty-trained. If you're browsing on-line cloth diapering, my second sentance would read "ECDing with 8 BG OS 2.0." I've basically had to learn a whole new language to even research where to begin with cloth.
We've even had to change a poopy dipe already. Well, Jeremy changed it but I washed it. Ernie doesn't go twosies everyday, but when he does you could feed a small family off it. It went fine so far!
I ordered some of the prefold diapers (these are like the traditional ones but more absorbant). We got Indian (as opposed to Chinese) prefolds, a snappie (which is a fancy tool to secure the diaper closed instead of using pins - as Jeremy can attest from our formal dances, I should not be pinning anything on anyone, much less a baby) and two Bummis whisper wrap covers. Jeremy is less enthusiastic about the prefolds. He looked at me like I just got off a spaceship when I showed him how they should be folded.
But his reaction to that is nothing compared to my news that we will also be transitioning to cloth wipes. I mean, with disposable wipes you have to keep a pile of trash next to your cloth for washing. With cloth wipes, they all go in the same bin. And you can keep them in a wipe container with homemade solution and just pull them out as needed. When I told him all this, he looked at me like I'd just sold Ally Cat.
But I'm excited. I don't know if its the thrill of buying things for Ernie online (we were so set from our baby showers that we really haven't had to buy him anything outside of disposable dipes and wipes yet) or just glad we'll be helping the environment and our pocketbooks at the same time. Wish us luck!

Ernie's Endorsement of the Week: Minis!

We're sure to love items small enough for nostril-insertion even more in the future, but we still enjoyed out recent welcoming by the Omaha-Council Bluffs Miniature Guild. These talented crafters managed to replicate our nursery in 1:12 scale, and everyone contributed a small accessory item. We have more than enough for several mini-nurseries! Here's the spread:

And here's the completeish project from last night. Can you believe they have everything down to Grandma Bonnie's handmade curtains and the "It's a Boy!" balloon from Rob & Becky on the closet door? Our favorite accessory is probably the rug Susan Curtis made to match our full-sized version. Even if we grow inversely, we've still got a place to sleep.

Full Frontal Ernie

This post is mostly for Grandma Chris, who loves giving Ernie baths. But who doesn't love a good chubby naked baby?

This brown puppy towel was made especially for Ernie by Mom's former boss at American Quilt Study Group, Judy Buss. He also has a hooded bath towel given by cousin Teresa, that says "Little Bath Star" on it. Whenever Mom refers to her "Little Bath Star" during bath time, Dad always gives her a queer look. She has to remind him to read the towel, and that she's not questioning the legitimacy of Ernie's parentage.

Speaking of chubby and naked, check out the placement of Dad's t-shirt right behind Ernie. The one and only F.N.E.P. (Fat Naked Elf Page) seems like the perfect attire for bath time activity. Ernie likes the shirt, too. He's got some original art from F.N.E.P. creator Eric Kerkove in his nursery. You can visit the elves at: http://www.geocities.com/ekerkove/

Good-bye kisses

A few days ago Ern was looking very intently at Mom while she was kissy-facing all over him. Turns out with a couple of days' worth of processing, we can learn to smack lips just like the big kids! The new skill was exhibited for the very first time last night for Aunt Laura. Especially for Aunt Laura. Here's her good-bye kiss from Ernie:

Baby vs. Baby

Baby Brison was born a whole 9 days before Ernie, but he's got quite a solid lead on our boy in the size department. Let's just say he's no one we'd want to meet in a dark alley. But since we met him in the light at Grandma and Grandpa Mohrs' house, it was A-ok! Here's the face-off:

And before you know it, the two contenders are (commence womb-aching in 5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . .) HOLDING HANDS (. . . and 1).

She'll be back at Christmastime

Aunt Laura left this morning to begin her own adventures (Laurventures? not the same ring to it) in New Paltz, New York as she begins her Masters of Art in Painting. We saw her last night, and we started missing her before she was even gone. We can't wait for Christmas.

We love her so much.

Ernie's Endorsement of the Week: Erniewearing!

Mom got this jaunty little handmade number from Laura Kiefer. She didn't even know how much we wanted one until we had it. Especially with all our recent trips, this ring sling is not only a handy way to tote an Ernie, but it's a sure way to calm down a baby who's had too much stimulation.

And anyone can wear an Ernie! They look good on every figure!

Ernie returns from the Pacific Northwest

Ernie finally got to meet his Uncle Darren, and boy what a time he had. There were sites to see, but most of them were of little interest to him. He did enjoy a gander at Multnoma Falls.
His most pleasurable times were spent drumming with Uncle Darren, making Darren's hot girlfriend Liz smile, and just generally commanding the attention of eight adults for a week straight.

Here he is on his first plane ride:

Here's his first meeting with Uncle Darren: And here's some of Uncle Darren's best tricks

1) Funny faces

2) Playing guitar

And through it all, we had Bob the Bear to bring us comfort and memories of home: