Last saturday night Laura and I screwed up Andy's bedtime routine. We were coming back from a family birthday party, and we left for the hour long drive home a little late. Of course, Andy slept in the car most of the way home. Then, after we got home, he was not at all about going to bed. Instead he jabbered to himself in his crib for a good hour and a half before finally getting upset and then falling asleep.

Now, Laura and I both understand that we're the luckiest parents ever when it comes to sleep. Usually we put Andy in his crib awake. He fusses for a few minutes. Then he finds (or remembers?) his thumb and falls happily asleep. Not so much these past two nights. Since we screwed everything up, we put Andy to bed and he screeches until we go in there and pick him up. This isn't the typical bedtime cry-it-out; he sounds legitimately unhappy.

We're starting to craft elaborate theories to explain this behavior: he's going through a developmental leap and the corresponding sleep regression, his routine isn't completely back to normal and he doesn't like it, his normal cry has actually changed to this new screeching cry, etc.

Whatever it is, I hope things settle back down soon. I liked it much better when he was easy to put to bed!

It's been a while since I've posted, and since I know everybody really only wants to see pictures of Andy, I have one better for you: videos of Andy!

Here is Anderson, sitting on his own:

Here's another one of Anderson finding peek-a-boo absolutely hilarious:

And finally, if I had a compound eye, Andy might look something like this:

Anderson will be four months old this week. He's growing like crazy, and every day it's something new with him. Yesterday was the first time we gave him a bath in several months (no, we don't keep a dirty baby, we've been showering with him since he absolutely hated the bath at first). He loved it. He kicked and splashed to his hearts content. And then kicked and splashed a little more. Its true that bath's really tire babies out -- 5 minutes after I had him out and dried off he fell asleep in my arms. Silly guy!

We've been taking evening strolls through the neighborhood for a while. However, it was only on Saturday that we actually started stopping at the park at the end of the street. Andy totally digs the swing. Not only because he likes the actual swinging, but also because it keeps his arms in a position where he can easily stick them in his mouth. Usually after swinging we'll hit the seesaw. I'm not sure who likes it better though -- Laura or Andy. (My guess is Laura).

Andy gets his next round of shots on Wednesday. I'm definitely not looking forward to this, as last time he was very out-of-sorts for the rest of the day. However, on the bright side, we should get the go ahead to start on solid foods! In preparation of this, we've bought all the necessary supplies (spoons, rice cereal, bowls, baby food cookbooks, etc.) and we've started giving Andy a little formula now and then. We made the executive decision that we'd mix his solid foods with formula to start with, just to give Laura more of a break when it comes to feeding Andy. And so far so good. None of the vomiting of previous formula experiments. We're using a different soy based formula. He really didn't like it at first, but I'm chalking that up to taste association with the formula that made him sick.