KaGaKaGa

Alex is broadening his horizons. After seven months of vowels, he is leaving familiar waters and charting into the unknown world of consonants! Actually, he managed to produce them before, but those were all accidental. Over the past two months, he has actually managed to say relax, hi and ja, but those were all accidental. On Independence Day, however, he managed to utter many consonants intentionally, and he treated Rob and Cindy to a long string of KaGaKaGas. He even gave away an encore that we managed to record, and put on the web. Listen to Alex' first consonants.

A Day in the Life of Alex

Alex' schedule is continuing to change. Currently, he wakes up at about 6 a.m. for a morning snack, and, if he gets the chance he will go back to sleep until about 8 a.m. Whether he can go back to sleep, depends on whether Rob is working at home or not. If Rob is not, he will take Alex to daycare between 7 and 7:30 a.m. At daycare Alex usually does not nap as much during the day as he would at home. Consequently, he tends to be quite tired in the evenings, and he usually has to take a nap when he gets home. After his early evening nap he is awake for about an hour and a half, and sometimes even less, giving Rob and Cindy little time to play with him. Before they know it, it is 8:30 p.m., time for Alex' to get his bedtime meal and go to bed. Lately, Alex has been sleeping well and most nights he does not wake up until the next morning.

Because Alex needs about 12 hours of sleep during the night, there is little time for Rob and Cindy to see him, unfortunately. To solve that problem, Cindy has changed her work schedule. Starting July 1, she will get up at 5:30 a.m., feed Alex and put him back to bed, and take the 6:45 a.m. train to work, and return home at 5:45 p.m. Alex will probably go to bed at about 7:30 or 8 p.m., giving us more time to be with him!

Alex' food schedule has also changed. He is getting more and more food, such as sweet potatoes, green beans, apple sauce and apricots, and he really likes it. Alex starts the day with breastmilk at 6 a.m., followed by rice cereal, vegetables and a bottle of breastmilk at 8:30 am, then cereal, fruit and a bottle of formula at 12:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m., and finally cereal, fruit and breastmilk at 8:00 p.m. Alex loves to eat, but he also loves to look around, especially if Rob is walking past while Cindy is feeding him, or the other way around. It can take quite a while for him to focus on eating again... As a result, when one of us is feeding him, the other has to stay away from Alex!

Footclappy

Alex' feet are becoming a more and more important part of his life. At this point, he does suck on his thumb on occasion, but he seems to find more pleasure in sucking on his toes. When he is trying to reach for something, he will gladly use his feet. But the most amusing of his foot gestures is his foot clapping. Especially when he is happy, he really likes to clap his feet! And after several weeks of practicing it, he is so good at it that he can actually make audible claps with his tiny feet!

Alex' Baptism

The pictures of Alex' baptism are available now!

On Sunday, May 19, Alex was baptized in the same church that Rob and Cindy got married in and by the same priest. From Alex' perspective, the church was a great place to doze, while listening to the intriguing sounds of two men singing and the organ playing, the sound of the priest whispering because he had laryngitis. Before long, Alex was deep asleep. He did not notice the ceremony, nor the blessing of him and of the rosary and the cross he received as gifts for his baptism. The only thing he noticed was the splash of cold water on his head. He woke up briefly and looked disturbedly at Rob, who was holding him, but he fell back asleep almost immediately.

Changes to this Website in the Past Month

Jul 25 Added Stand up by himself holding on to furniture under first things.
Jul 20 Added First steps under first things.
Jul 16 Added Crawling under first things.
Jul 13 Added Dada!!! under first things.
Jul 7 Added Alex can sit himself up under first things.
Jul 5 Added new sounds, and added KaGaKaGa and Footclappy to this homepage.
Jun 30 Major update, with new homepage, new pictures, a new closeup, and Alex' baptism pictures.
Jun 15 Updated Alex's length, weight and head circumference.
Jun 13 Added pictures of Alex on all fours to this homepage, and added On All Fours under first things.
Jun 8 Added Embracing Reach under first things.
Jun 6 Added Rolling Back to Front under first things.

Next major update: July 31, 2002

Do you think you may have missed something? Check our list of previous homepages. If you want to be informed when this website has been updated, send an email to webmaster@robandcindy.net.