twelve weeks

It's exhausting turning 12 weeks.

Today our little blueberry turns 12 weeks old. The fourth trimester is over (or so they say) and his development really takes off now - according to various development schedules anyway. Since the genius kids out there roll over at 3 months, we figured he'd roll over this morning. No such luck. But he's just 3 months - he's got some time yet!

Every day with him is wonderful and it's been incredible watching him grow and change. He's holding his head up most of the time now, looking around. He tracks people across his vision and stares intently at people and objects in his field of view. He loves to laugh and giggle and talks incessantly when he's inclined (often while on the changing pad).

I often use the word awesome when I describe the experience we've been having with him. And while awesome is bandied about now in place of great; it's the original meaning and synonyms of the word that I mean when I say it is awesome with him - extremely impressive, awe-inspiring, magnificent, wonderful, amazing.

and we're only 12 weeks in.

pardon the dust

if you got stopped at a new splash page on dinaandphilip.com and had to click to get here, then you know what i mean. if you came right here, then you have no idea - skip to the end. i've started making some adjustments here and there to the site. the one most of you might encounter is probably that first page at dinaandphilip.com. if you haven't seen it take a click: dinaandphilip.com. you'll notice the page doesn't automatically forward you anymore - some of you may not know what i'm talking about. that's ok.

suffice to say, you may need to update your bookmarks. dinaandphilip.com/site is the URL you should have bookmarked.

like i said, if you didn't notice anything and just started reading this page, nevermind. go back about your business!

and an old shot of Alexander from back around Christmas (this series hasn't been posted - exclusive!)

monitor this!

those of you who know me well, know i've got a bit of a technolust problem. thankfully budgetary concerns keep me from acquiring every thing i want (although the PS3 is still on the target baby registry. for alex. really!) so when i saw some of the baby monitors out there, i was quite disappointed. i mentioned that i'd be setting up video monitoring myself, and that's worked great. but for some things i need monitoring as i move around the house. so i found this:

at first i was dubious. sure, it was expensive. but it had a ton of features, including DECT - a digital technology to help with interference and sound quality. but it was expensive. could it really be better then a cheap $30 monitor? everyone complained about the cheap ones audio quality and some didn't seem to work - choosing on their own to break the connection between monitor and base and then emit ear piercing sounds at 1am or just passing static the whole time.

i held off. we have a small place and i knew for a while we wouldn't need one as the boy would be with one of most of the time. but he's bigger now, sleeping more regularly and i'm getting busy with work. so i pulled the trigger and bought it. trusting that the glowing reviews would be rewarded.

man am i happy with this thing. small, convenient and efficient - it does everything i expected and more and better.

wanna not here the actual sounds in the baby's room until they get to a certain volume? no problem. want to turn the microphone sensitivity in the room down so it doesn't always transmit the white noise? done. want to talk to the baby from anywhere? sure thing. how about the temperature in the room? and while you're at it, give me an alarm if it gets too warm or too cold. easy. oh, and that DECT stuff. audio quality is CRYSTAL clear and sensitivity is amazing. and i have a ton of EM emissions in this house (not counting the wireless phones, cell phones and microwave, we've got 4 wireless access points broadcasting across all three 802.11 standards).

it works great. better then i expected. love it when a purchase like this works out!

my only regret? i didn't get this guy: http://bit.ly/9KQhi5

i'll put the $60 towards a PS3.

talkie talk

Alex gives a little talking and then he realizes he's on camera and stops. Silly boy! video from January 22, 2009 [quicktime]http://dinaandphilip.com/site/wp-content/video/alex_talk_012210.m4v[/quicktime]

music man

So Alex has started to like talking and cooing. My attempts to film this have not gone well. As soon as he sees the camera he stops and stares. But I've managed to capture some of his attempts. The first is him jamming to some music, the second is him staring down the camera. video from January 12, 2009 [quicktime]http://dinaandphilip.com/site/wp-content/video/alex_music_012209.m4v[/quicktime]

video from January 27, 2009 [quicktime]http://dinaandphilip.com/site/wp-content/video/alex_stare_012709.m4v[/quicktime]