Pppppbpbpbpbpthhhhhh?

Pete updates:

1. Pete's all about rolling over now. I put him in his crib last night and stayed with him because he wasn't settled. He was having a grand old time rolling back and foth, back and ofrth, grabbing one side of the crib bars and then the other. He has gotten better and flipping completely over, too, and he's just starting to figure out how to lift up his knees and look for scooting traction.

2. For a little while, Pete was making delightful little raspberry sounds with his mouth along with his little happy squeaks. The little rasperries have now been replaced entirely by odd closed-mouth grunting noises from the back of his mouth. We try to get him to revert to the rasperry noises by doing them ourselves, as questions: "Pppppppppppp?" But we get no answers.

3. Pete started solid food this week--specifically, oat cereal mixed with breastmilk. The first time, he just cried and let the cereal sit in his open, wailing mouth. Taking courage from the fact that he didn't spit it out, we tried again the next day, and he got some of it down. Then, yesterday, after doing pretty well for half the feeding, you could see it click for him: hey, this is food! And pretty good food, at that! And he got all excited about the rice cereal, trying to grab the spoon and put it in his mouth, kicking in glee. I've discovered that Pete is now extremely good at reaching and grabbing with his arm extended (and when he does grab, his grip is tremendous), but he's not so good at bending his arm and reaching with any accuracy. Therefore, the key to feeding is to get the spoon within the radius of his arms. As astronauts know, it's getting into the atmosphere that's the problem, not the landing.

4. We've seen cousin Blake and other babies start to articulate the typical baby syllables at about Pete's age, so we occasionally say them to Pete to help him along: "baabaabaabaabaa, laalaalaalaalaa," and best of all "yaayaayaayaayaa." Pete made no sign of picking these up at first, until about a week ago, when he was wailing in deepest despair about something, he cried "AAYAAAYAAYAAYAAYAAA." Very clearly. We still haven't heard the happy syllables.