"Bbbbbb...Mmmmm"

Calvin's moving away from growls and trying some new sounds. He's pretty good with his Ms and here he practices his Bs. He has a rich vocabulary of "mom", "bom", "bob", and "mob". So he can alert his mom if a mob of Bobs approaches with a bomb.



The last month has brought a lot of changes. Calvin now eats several kinds of solid food every day, sleeps in a crib, and can easily and quickly scoot from room to room. His newest feat of strength is going from his back or belly to sitting up. He has managed to scrape his ankles enough in all this activity to develop his first scabs. The crib sleeping, sitting up, and ankle scabs are pictured below.

New moves, new foods

Calvin enjoys sitting at the table with us while we eat our meals. To keep him happy, we just keep a steady stream of toys or foam circles in front of him.



We've been introducing new foods one at a time to Calvin. Today he tried chicken for the first time and was underwhelmed.





At last, here is the famous scoot. The grunts that accompany the scoot in this video are a little raspy. Calvin managed to growl himself hoarse for a day, but he's starting to sound better (and resuming the growls).

Boat trip!

Last weekend, Calvin took his first boat trip to his first National Park. We went to the Channel Islands to do some birding. On the boat ride, Calvin danced on the tables below the deck and fit as much as he could of a water bottle into his mouth.











After we docked, we spotted an Island Scrub Jay with Uncle Max and explored a little bit of the island before returning to the mainland.











For a few more recent photos of Calvin, see our Flickr stream. And check back for video of Calvin's scoot--it's not a crawl, but it gets him where he needs to be.

Solid foods and belly laughs

We're vacationing this week with extended family and will have some exciting photos for the next post, but here are two recent videos. They're linked from Flickr. Please tell us if there are any problems playing them.

Eating the floor

We put down some foam tiles to give Calvin a soft scooting surface. He recently discovered that the tiles come apart and are delicious! Here he is caught in the act of ripping one up and then tasting it.





















Calvin has odd hair. He was born with a healthy head of dark hair that he lost in a few weeks except at the nape of his neck. He's now losing his second round of hair and the top of his head is very patchy. There's a distinct whorl and then a patch that he has rubbed completely bald just above the remnants of his original head of hair.















Today we took Calvin on his first hike on Mt. Hollywood. He did pretty well on the trail and enjoyed hanging out near the picnic areas afterward.






















Moments after that last picture was taken, he noticed the camera and, of course, lunged for it mouth-open.

Heat wave

It's been a steamy week here in L.A., but we're finding ways to beat the heat. Last weekend, Calvin took his first dip in a pool at a trial session for parent-tot swim classes. Here he is nervously watching the plastic doll used in demonstrations.














And at home, he's spending a lot of time in just a diaper. He especially likes rolling around and lounging in bed. It's the most forgiving surface when he gets tired of sitting up and topples over.

Sleeping patriot

For the 4th of July, we took Calvin to a parade at the neighborhood elementary school. In the past, he's been fascinated by kids so a whole parade of kids seemed perfect. We didn't count on Calvin sleeping through most of the commotion.











Calvin's getting much better at sitting up without support. He's so much better that this video is a little boring: a little over a minute of a sitting baby breaking the fourth wall. Enjoy!




In the past few days, Calvin has developed a very guttural growl. It's a strange noise to come from such a cute face, but I imagine Tom Waits's mom thought the same thing and that worked out pretty well for her baby. This video features some little growls and Calvin enjoying/abusing his Exosaucer.