Catch-up!

Well I did it again. Just dropped completely off the face of the earth. Sorry! Needless to say, David is NOT sleeping all that well--better, but not by much!--and I'm still trying to get this darn dissertation written. I'm going to try try TRY to post more regularly again, because I really love doing it, but who knows how successful I'll be!

So here are the photos I've been planning to use on the blog, just all thrown together! Some of them are getting pretty old, so I'll post them in order:

Fresh out of the bath. I wish I had such a comfy bathrobe!

He loves this little baby aquarium thing

Playing--in PJs and a baseball hat--with Michael and Timo

Baby Crack. We don't really let him watch, but as you can see that means we can't really have it on!

We've started playing ping-pong at a park around the corner from us. David sits in his carseat all bundled up!

He's very into faces these days. It's very sweet, and a little funny.

David's first snow! Two things to note: (1) It really was snowing out, though you can't tell in the photo. (2) He was only out there for about 10 seconds, which explains the lack of hat. (And the lack of German lady yelling at us about said lack of hat.)

And finally, he's been making this face all week. We're not sure why, but he seems to think it means something!

It took about 5 shots for me to get this semi-smile, rather than the face above.

Giggling!

Sorry I went MIA again! We are in the midst of a little something called the "four month sleep regression," and it is not fun. It seems to be getting better, so here's hoping!

What IS fun is all the giggling that David's been doing. Here is a video of Michael cracking David up. Warning: it contains great silliness on Michael's part, so if you are not sure you want to see him with, say, a sheep on his head, you don't want to watch this video.

One funny thing about David's sense of humor: he has extremely high standards for a tiny baby. Lots of things that make almost all babies laugh--like blowing bubbles on their tummies--do absolutely nothing for this kid. Things that DO make him laugh tend to make him laugh once. And only once. (Unless you wait a day or so before trying again; that sometimes works.) Basically, you wrack your brain for the goofiest thing you can think of, get a few belly laughs out of David, try again, and get a look that says "Yes, that's nice, but what else you got?"

Like I said, high standards. Anyway, here's the video!

Best Friends

We've posted a number of pictures of David & Emmanuel already, but today I just have to post another. This morning, and our play group, Emmanuel and David were very happy to see each other. We had them face to face on a blanket, on their bellies, and they were smiling at each other and babbling a little bit. Emmanuel kept touching David's head and face--really gently, it was very sweet. (He did occasionally get close to the eyes, but Anja was like a ninja preventing him from actually getting them :)

After a few minutes of this, Emmanuel scooted towards David, leaned over, and planted a big, wet kiss right on the top of his head! It was so, so cute, and of course neither Anja nor I had our cameras with us. Still, I have to put some pictures up of the two of them. These are from the other day, when the whole Koch family stopped by for a fun surprise visit.

Favorite Toys

All of a sudden, David is incredibly playful. He's always had a great disposition, and we love watching him babble and chat with his toys (or the plug in the wall over the changing table, his other favorite conversation partner), but this week he's just been a ton of fun! It's very weird how quickly he grows, and how much more he can do than he could just 2 or 3 weeks ago.

Our favorite new development is definitely his giggle. He used to giggle on very rare occasions, and only when we tickled him. He would giggle, then give me a look like "What was that all about? Seriously, what's your problem?" So I didn't tickle him all that often. This week, he giggles for all sorts of things, and doesn't give us dirty looks afterwards, either!

So here are pictures of him with 2 of his favorite toys. One is a baby lamb that my parents had sent to the hospital when he was born. It's his little Clover, for those of you that remember Clover.



The other we call his "Froggy friend." It's one of those mini-blankets with a stuffed animal in the middle, and it was a gift from Michael's mom just last week. Terry thought he might like the soft texture, and boy was she right!

(Note how impossible it is to get a candid shot of this boy. I tried, and tried, and tried and finally got ONE. No matter what he's doing, he sees the camera and just has to look at it :)