Goin' to Carolina

We are busily packing for our trip to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina to see Jack. All the Kellys are going to be there, so it will be a nice vacation. We have already picked up the rental car, a Jeep Liberty. This will be a good test drive to see if we will want to buy one in a few months. Mostly everything is packed and the PB&J sandwiches are made. We'll be there until Tuesday. It will be interesting to see how the Chipster does on his first road trip. We think he'll handle it as well as he handles everything.

We've been told that we don't have enough pictures here in our blog (we'll send more when we get back to Atlanta, Aunt Kay and Uncle Joe!), so we took one of Gabe after his dinner. Obviously, he had sweet potatoes tonight!

He's having such a hard time getting to sleep tonight. We subscribe to the "cry it out" philosophy, which is supposed to teach him to fall asleep on his own. He sleeps through the night and has no problem getting himself back to sleep when he wakes up, but getting to sleep the first time is still a big problem. If he has an extra tough time falling asleep, rubbing his back always helps. Sometimes, after he's asleep, we'll find that he's scrunched himself up into a corner of his bed and has his face pushed against the side. Other times, he's got his face buried in one of his stuffed animals. Rather, the animal's got its face stuffed into Gabe's mouth.

He likes to listen to music as he's falling asleep. His favorite is the jazzy music from the crib toy the Wolfgangs gave him, but since it doesn't fit onto his playard, he's been falling asleep to his Mozart CD. He has good taste in music.

Fire Alarms, Pears, and Locomotion

The fire alarms went off again today for the third time in two weeks. Granted, once was a bunch of drunk people in our hallway who pulled the handle, but we are getting so frustrated with our complex. We are convinced that the volume and pitch of the alarms are hurting our ears. Today, the alarms went off at 5:15 pm; Gabriel had finally just fallen asleep after a long day of refusing naps. Miraculously, he slept through the whole ordeal. Normally, we can't even sneeze while he naps. Screeching fire alarms, he sleeps through. Go figure.

Gabe ate like a champ today! He had a double serving (which has become his single serving) of rice cereal and a jar and a half of pears. He's really getting good at this eating thing.

After the Chipster finished his dinner, we ate ours. It was spaghetti that at one time had been hot. Anyway, we left him in his walker, and he started motoring all over the place. This was the first time he'd really gone exploring in his walker. This morning, he walked up to a potted plant and started picking leaves to snack on, but that was only about a foot or two away. He walked to the "barn door" (the door between the living room and bedroom) and opened it, and then he walked into the bedroom and tried to get into his playpen. Since he hasn't yet developed the ability to pass through solid matter, he only succeeded in bumping into it and laughing. We laughed too.

A Day at the Park

Today was a beautiful day in north Georgia - low 70s and sunny. It was the perfect day for Gabriel and Mommy to walk to Piedmont Park. On the way there, we stopped to watch the fountain across the street from Margaret Mitchell's house. Gabriel thought that the water falling over the side was funny, especially when Mommy caught some and put it on his hand.

When we got to the park, we went to the playground by the lake, where Gabe investigated the texture of dry and wet leaves and discovered that they taste good, too! He also practiced standing, as you can see in the photo.

When little Chipdip got tired, we walked around and around the park. We saw a hawk land right over our heads in a tree, and we saw lots of other babies with their mommies and daddies. We stopped only for a few minutes at the Noguchi playground so we could swing, and then we walked some more until the Chipster fell asleep... and then we walked some more. When he woke up, we walked back home. In all, we probably walked about 5 miles. It was exhausting, but it was fun!

We noticed that Gabe's bitten his lower lip with his new top tooth. We guess that he has to learn how to work with opposable teeth.

A New Tooth

Gabriel has gotten his third tooth today. It's his top right tooth and has come in pretty quickly. We only noticed yesterday that it was moving down. This one was much easier for him then the other two - no fever, no pain, no drooling. It's a little scary to think what this means for nursing, but so far so good.

Last night, he ate really well. The solid food thing has been a struggle, but he ate 1 1/2 servings of rice cereal and most of a jar of - no kidding - peas! He actually went 8 1/2 hours before he ate again at 4:30 am. It was a miracle. Hopefully, he'll keep this sort of schedule so we can go out this weekend with Jack and Laura in North Carolina.

Oops!

Changed the name to "Complementary Angles" - turns out that's the spelling of the word we want. Thanks to Mom K for pointing out the typo!

Our First Post

Since we've been filling everyone's e-mail boxes with pictures of Gabe Luke, we decided that it would be easier for everyone to keep up with the little guy if we started a blog. Of course, you can keep up with us too, but let's be realistic. We know who's really important here! This way, you can check in whenever you feel like seeing what's going on with us. We are naming this blog "Complementary Angles", since we think that the three of us complement each other perfectly. Anyway, today is Gabriel's 7 month birthday, and he had a pretty good day. That is, he had a good day until we tried to feed him his dinner. There are days when he will eat everything we put in front of him, at least as long as we're creating a three ring circus for his dining entertainment, and there are days (more often) that he will cry and fuss the whole time and feeding him is practically impossible. Hopefully he will learn to eat by the time he's three. Today, we went to the Cheesecake factory because it was one friend's (Morena's) birthday and another friend's (Tanya's) last weekend in town before she moves with her husband and son to Cleveland (shiver). It was some good eats. Our cheesecakes - white chocolate raspberry truffle and Godiva chocolate - were unbelievable. Between three of us, we couldn't finish two pieces. We had a pretty special moment during dinner today. Gabriel was fussing, so Matt picked him up. Gabriel laid his head on his daddy's shoulder, and just laid there contentedly looking around until he fell asleep. Matt has an amazing ability to calm him, and its obvious that Gabe adores him. It was so cute that Matt cuddled him instead of eating. His food is in the refrigerator still. Time to make the birthday brownies...