Happy Days Are Here Again!

Oliver has many happy moments these days. Teething seems to have paused for the time being and his sleeping habits have returned to normal. He's gaining more independence through crawling and furniture cruising and is truly interacting with us. He mimics our expressions and sounds and understands cause and effect. He's getting braver by the second and consistently challenges himself to start walking.

It's an utter joy to watch him grow and learn and become a "real" kid. Sometimes Jennifer and I look at each other and just can't believe that he is our son...this beautiful, happy, sweet boy is our son...how can that be? How did we get so lucky!?

Here's a video of our little man getting tickled by his Mommy and loving every second of it!


Here's a video of Oliver's tummy as well as his is language skills.

Look Ma, New Tricks!

Oliver has honed his detective skills to precision and has finally discovered Stella's hiding place...the place where she finds solitude and peace...the place where she can hide from the world...her crate. It was only a matter of time before he found Stella's hideaway. Now no one, not even Stella, is safe from the loving pats and the tender kisses from Oliver. Thank goodness for that!

Another trick Ollie learned recently is how to clap hands. He particularly likes doing it when one of his Moms enters the room! He's also is waving hello and goodbye now which only means we can start teaching how to blow kisses...a fundamental skill every boy/future man should know.

Another very important skill for every young man to learn is to put his laundry away. So we've started a new rule in the Novoa house..."if you dirtied it enough to go in the washing machine then you put it away when it's clean."

Ollie has also learned how to be kind and gentle to all other creatures besides pugs. Up until this point I'm pretty sure he thought the only other animals out there were his curly tailed friends. Ollie made good friends with this baby bird when we took a trip with his friend Zoe to Davis' Farmland. Soon he will be feeding all the animals just like his buddy did.

Oliver has also learned the fine art of eating corn on the cob (ok, not really but he came very close). He was simply obsessed with having the corn on the cob like all the adults that we caved in and let him have the greased up yellow beast even though he had just had a bath and was all clean.

While at dinner at Aunt Danielle and Aunt Patri's house, Oliver learned how to play acoustical guitar. He's a quick study. He really enjoyed banging, I mean, strumming the strings.
Lastly, Oliver took some notes while watching Miley Cyrus on the Teen Choice awards and has taken up the new and totally age appropriate art of pole dancing. Hey, if college doesn't work out then at least he will have something to fall back on.

The sleep saga

We have been blessed to have a son who loves his sleep and his food. For the past 10 months we have hardly had to complain about his sleeping habits...until recently. For some reason Oliver went from sleeping from 7:30 pm - 6:00 am to waking up a 4:45 am! Not good for the Moms. The normal thought would be "keep the kid up a little later and maybe he'll sleep later." Well, that was easier said than done at first. You see, Oliver gets very cranky when he doesn't get to go to sleep on time, and when he comes home from daycare very tired it's nearly impossible to keep him up later than 7:00 pm. Well, the past two days Oliver has gotten some good naps at daycare so when he arrived home he wasn't so tired so we could actually keep him up later and this morning we finally struck gold!!! He slept until 6:30 am!!! Woo hoo! I know it seems like a small difference, 4:45 am vs 6:30 am, but that little bit of extra sleep really does make a difference.

Part of helping us keep Oliver entertained while he stays up later was a trip to Bertucci's last night with Carey and Karen. Oliver was the consummate patron. He sat politely in his high chair and ate his chopped up food while we ate our entrees. It was awesome!
Recently, Oliver also enjoyed some time on the playground swing. He was very sleep (it was right before bed time) so he doesn't look so enthused, but believe us he enjoyed it.

Crawling leads to standing which leads to lots more baby proofing

Oliver is getting better and better each day with his motor skills. He is now consistently crawling and is finally pulling himself up to a standing position on almost everything, and when I say everything I mean everything. He is also mastering furniture surfing and pulling conspicuous objects off my bedside table. We are definitely going to have to step up our baby proofing.
Oliver also had lots of fun in the past two weekends. He got to spend some quality time with Jeff, Shawn and Zoe. Shawn thought it would be cute to let Oliver try one of Zoe's hair barrettes. Oliver didn't think it was that funny. (I have a feeling Oliver is going to kill me for posting this one day but perhaps he will understand the humor in it).
He also sat through an entire lunch at the Rainforest Cafe and fed himself some of my chicken & bread and some of Jennifer's peppers without choking! Truly one of the best restaurants for kids.

Oliver also learned how to give Stella her bone. Stella's really happy about this new skill and hopes Oliver will be giving more of his things (i.e. his food) to her in the near future.

As most of you know already, Oliver really enjoys his bath time. Take one excited little boy add bath bubbles and you get some serious bath time smiles.
Oliver also got to spend some time in Boston this weekend. It was such a beautiful Saturday that we had to take advantage and go into the city to take in the sites. We walked up and down Newbury St and zig zagged our way through all the people. Can I just say that one of the things I really miss about New York are the wide sidewalks. What's with the midget sized streets in Boston? Anyway, we made our way back to the the gardens where we laid our blanket out and had a little lunch. Oliver got very thirsty but really didn't care for his sippy cup so instead he took matters into his own hands...for real.

Oliver is 10 months!!!

10 months ago our lives changed in the most dramatically miraculous way. Our little boy has certainly grown in to a big boy over these past few months. He weighs in at 21 lbs 10.5 oz and 29" tall. Our muscles are getting a good workout but we are loving every moment of watching our son grow.

Ollie was his usual happy self at his well visit at the pediatrician's office. Thank God for the paper sheet on the exam table and all the fun medical wires.

Oliver was such a good patient. He sat very well while Dr. Rosenthal did his 25 point health inspection.
He also enjoyed spending some time with Gabriel last week and seeing all the fun things he will get to do when he is 2.5 years old.
Oliver also enjoyed some time with Grandma and Grandpa in Connecticut for Grandma's birthday. One would have thought it was Oliver's birthday with all the fun new toys that were waiting for him when we arrived. I think the Choo Choo Train was his favorite.
Ollie also got to practice his crawling skills while in Connecticut. He's really doing well with it now and is already working on pulling himself up and walking. In the mean time, he's enjoying taking things off my bedside table, turning over the garbage pale in our bedroom, and being a overall good little destroyer. Here's a quick video of him burning rubber on my parent's kitchen floor.

Oliver is also doing really well with feeding himself. He started working on the pureed food which really made a good ole' mess.

He also enjoyed eating mini bagels in his new walker (what a good little 1/4 Jew).
Oliver in his new walker with his best friend Stella always near by.

Recaping the past two weeks

I know we've been bad and have not posted recently but it's been a busy July so far. We've included lots of photos for this post to try and make up for lost time. Now, let's recap.

A few weeks ago we went blueberry picking with our friends Jeff, Shawn, Zoe, Angie, Katie, Aliza and Auntie Q (a.k.a. Suzanne).

Oliver found his super dexterity to come in handy while picking some plump and juicy berries.

Ok, so he wasn't actually picking any blueberries but he was doing so in his dreams...we promise.
By the end of the afternoon Zoe was an expert blueberry picker. I'm sure she and her Mom cooked up a yummy blueberry pie later that day.
Aliza was all cozy in her carrier while her Moms selected some juicy blueberries.
Ollie enjoying a little awake time after all the blueberry picking. This kid really knows how to avoid doing any of the work yet reaping all the benefits. Ummm. I think we are going to have our hands full with this one!
Oliver and Aliza (and Jennifer and Angie) getting ready to depart the blueberry farm.
Oliver also discovered a new toy at Zoe's house...a school bus. Observing how much he seemed to enjoy riding it and being rolled around we ran out and purchased his very own (although his is a fire truck). I think Oliver likes it. What do you think?

Oliver also discovered his newest food love...pickles! That's right, pickles. I guess he does take after both his pickle loving Moms after all.
The biggest thing to happen in the past two weeks was that Oliver finally learned to crawl!!! Just shy of being 9-1/2 months old, on Saturday July 11th, Oliver took his first real crawling strides on his knees!!! We were so excited to be able to capture it on film (or digital file for all you semantic sticklers). Oliver has been teasing us for a while with crawling attempts and frustrated angst but he finally bit the bullet and got off his belly and took his first strides towards being a super evolved homo sapien. Check out the movie below!

Thanks to Zoe for supplying the awesome homemade toy that Oliver coveted enough to motivate him to take his first crawling steps.

BONUS PHOTOS

My two people watchers.

My three little beggers. Really, they were all begging for the cheese I was eating.