Milestones - Feet and Rolling Over

Jamie hit two major milestones this week.  Early in the week he discovered his feet.  I had him on our bed while I was taking a shower and came out of the bathroom to find him holding on to his toes for the first time.  Later that day I put him on the sofa and took a ton of pictures of him playing.  The last one pretty much summarizes how he feels about himself.

Now he grabs his toes non-stop.  Today he figured out how to use them to grip objects hanging from his playmat.

The other big news from today is that he rolled over from front to back completely unassisted.  He has been close to this for about a week now, but we have been helping him figure out where to put his arms and giving him a little push now and then.  Today I set him on his stomach for some tummy time and he decided that he'd had quite enough of that, thank you very much!

I love watching him master new skills.  It is a wonderful reminder of all the abilities I take for granted and I can't wait to see what comes next.

New Camera!

I think that often when people become parents, they examine their life to see if there's anything they want to do differently now that they are "role models".  Maybe some people don't - we didn't do much of that except that I try (unsuccessfully) not to swear as much.  One thing that struck me in our first weeks as parents was that I was unhappy with the quality of pictures I was taking.  I want every new ability captured for all time in HD quality!!!  Or something like that.  I've never been dissatisfied with the photographs I've taken in the past, but once I had Jamie I found myself wanting to develop some picture-taking skills.

I contacted a family member who was able to give me some very good advice, purchased a camera - a Nikon d90 if you care about such things - two lenses and a flash, and we're off!  I was impatient for the camera to arrive, and in the interim bought "Nikon d90 for Dummies" and read it cover to cover 3 times.

So far I have enjoyed this new hobby in the extreme.  I am a picture taking fool.  I mean, if your baby is throwing a tantrum because he pushed his favorite toy just out of his grasp, why wouldn't you want to capture that in fine detail?

I think one the of things I've come to love about photography, though I am still very much a fledgling,  is the ability to create an interpretation of a moment through the photograph itself and in the way it is edited.  I enjoy taking a photo and manipulating color, etc., to achieve something that I am much more satisfied with than the raw image.  I also like that fact that I can now make it look like I took a good picture to begin with while I am still learning how to use aperture, shutter speed, and iso together to create quality images.

Case in point, I was doing a "Hook Em" series for Jamie's godmother.  I had Jamie in the guest bedroom where we get the best light downstairs, but still struggled to get the picture that I wanted.  Hellllooooo, editing programs.  Here is the original image followed by my edited version.

Aside from my excellent cropping skills, I was able to punch up the color in the orange "H" and "O" so that all the oranges looked to be a similar shade.  I also used  a blur effect on the blanket Jamie was sitting on so that you don't see all the wrinkles etc., and there aren't as many distractions from the main event.

I'm looking forward to continuing to take pictures of my sweet boy and learning more about photography as we go along.  Here are a few of my favorite images so far:

Video Palooza

It occurred to me today that I can post videos in these little blog entries and that I have not yet shared any.  Most of my Jamie videos involve my iPhone since I can't ever remember to have anything better handy, so they are not the best quality, but I think that they give a better picture of this kid's personality than anything I say.  So I will try to integrate them into future updates, but in the interest of playing 'catch-up', here are a bunch all at once.

Here is the first time I heard his heartbeat when I was almost 10 weeks pregnant.  My OB told me not to look for it a day before 10 weeks but I couldn't stand it and tried at 9 weeks, 6 days.  Success!

I may have been slightly obsessive about this for a lot of my pregnancy.  I had ordered the doppler during a previous pregnancy which resulted in a miscarriage.  The doppler arrived the day after my surgery.  It was heartbreaking and I found using the doppler to listen to Jamie's heartbeat quite cathartic.  I was so nervous about having another miscarriage, that I listened to his heart daily until I was well into the second trimester.

Here is one of me trying to get Jamie to smile at 2 weeks.  Notice the smirk:

and again at 5 weeks:

We bought him a little play mat with a kick piano at one end.  He loves kicking his feet and was thrilled to hear a 'product' when he did.  Here he is at 5 weeks:

and on the same mat at 7 weeks:

One day while my Mom was watching Jamie, he spent the afternoon blowing bubbles at her (14 weeks old):

And finally, this is probably the best sound in the world.  I don't get it quite as easily as my husband - I think his beard has something to do with it (4 months old):

Hopefully in the future, I will remember to include videos in my posts.  Of course I also have to remember to post more often, but I'm convinced that having a baby does something to your brain chemistry that induces forgetfulness of all things not related to the immediate satisfaction of said baby.