Nathan seems to be finding his hands more lately. Over the last week or two he’s started opening and closing them a lot, especially when he’s eating. And just in the last few days Ive noticed that his hands seem to be connecting with his mouth on purpose a little more often than before. He’s also grabbing things that he comes in contact with, especially burp cloths and shirts.

It seemed like as soon as Nathan hit 12 weeks he started to do all kinds of new stuff. It’s a shame that so many moms have to go back to work right around this time, because it seems like it’s when babies get to be so much more fun. It’s sad to miss out on so much of Nathan’s day while I’m at work, but it does make me enjoy the time I have with him a lot more. Its really amazing to watch him grow!! And all the smiles and goos are so wonderful.

We’ve decided that Nathan is definitely a morning bird. He is always really happy and smiley shortly after he gets up. I’m mentioning this because when he first started ‘talking’ to us, it was often when he was on his changing table in the morning. It’s a lot of fun to wake up to a happy, smiley and chatty baby, especially when he started goo-ing. He says “ah-goo” a lot. I haven’t managed to catch him doing it on video yet, but here is some happy baby footage from July 18.

Nathan always has the most fun with Dad.

Here’s a video of Nathan having some fun with Grandma. He got to spend a few days with her in early July when I had to go back to work but he hadn’t started daycare yet. Grandma was thrilled of course, and we were really happy to have Nathan spend some quality time with her since she lives 300 miles away!

Wow, when it rains it pours. We’ve had a series of firsts with Nathan this week. His first trip to the beach is right now ongoing and I know Danielle wants to talk about that so I will leave it for her.

The other firsts for this week however I am taking ….

On Wednesday we saw his first smile of recognition. He’s been smiling a lot for the past several weeks but on Wednesday I was sitting with him on the couch and Danielle walked in the room he started beaming the biggest happiest grin I have ever seen him give. It was awesome. Incidentally, I am still waiting for mine.

Also this week he has started “goo”ing. He’s been ‘talking’ in his baby talk way for a couple weeks but this was the first time he actually started saying “goo” which was pretty cool. He says it a lot now.

Then finally on Friday he managed to roll himself onto his side. We put him in the pack and play to sleep while at the beach and when I came back to check on him a couple minutes later he was lying on his side trying to get onto his stomach. So I put him on his back and watched and sure enough he pushed himself over onto his side. I have been trying to teach him how to get the rest of the way over but he’s not getting it.

That’s all for now. We’ll have some beach pictures and videos in a couple days.

Well we took a couple of big plunges in the past week or so.

First Danielle went back to work on the 10th. Unfortunately the day care we really liked didn’t have an opening until the 16th. Luckily Danielle’s mom was able to come down from Ithaca to watch Nathan for last week. It was a transition for Danielle but I think she did really well. I was very impressed and relieved. I’ll let her talk more about her experiences. I know that she missed him like crazy though.

Then yesterday Nathan started day care. Danielle was able to take a half day yesterday and today and is taking off tomorrow to ease the transition (also because Ethan is in town). Dropping him off yesterday was really tough. Standing there getting ready to leave and hear him start fussing and having to let other people comfort him was not at all fun. But he slept through most of the first day and apparently he had a lot of play time today. Also all the teachers from the day care center came and visited him and commented on how cute he was (a testament to the fact that he is starting to look more like Danielle).

Here is Nathan sleeping after his first day. He slept and slept and slept….

This is after his second day. He wanted nothing more than to sleep as soon as we got in the car but mommy kept him up a few extra minutes for some quick camera phone pictures.

So we’re not looking forward to Thursday, that’s when he has his fist FULL DAY of day care.

Here’s a nice picture from when our friends Marc and Mariah came over with their daughter Olive for the 4th of July. It’s just a coincidence that he was stretching as she was falling over but it really looks like he just clocked her. I think it’s my new favorite Nathan picture.

So the other day we had our two month doctor appointment and I have to say that our little Nathan is not so little anymore. When he was born he was 5 lb 14.8 oz (which put him in the 10th percentile) and 19″ long (which put him in the 15th percentile). Well now he is 11 lb 13 oz and 22.75″ which puts him squarely in the 50th percentile for both. So we’re excited that he’s caught up, but we really doubt that he is going to stop at the 50th percentile. My money is on him going to the 75th percentile before leveling off, but we won’t find that out until his next doctor’s appointment which is in 2 months.

Other than that the appointment went well. He’s healthy and all that. He seriously did not like the four shots he got and we’re still struggling with reflux. Hopefully that will get under control soon.

So here are some pictures showing how he’s grown in the past two months:

Nathan on May 8th

Nathan on May 28th

Nathan on July 2nd