Thanksgiving this week?!

I can hardly believe that it's nearly Thanksgiving. Where has the time gone? Today is officially 5 months since Christopher was born. It's strange how you start to measure time based on the age of your children.

I am working tomorrow and Wednesday, but then I have the next 5 days off. We aren't sure what we are going to do for Thanksgiving. It would be nice to take a little road trip and venture out of Los Angeles, but as of now we aren't sure where to go. Originally we wanted to drive out to the Grand Canyon, but it's a 500 mile drive and what options do we have with a baby? It would be better if we had more time and could make a vacation out of it.

Christopher is very cute. The other day he said "ba ba". Since then, I haven't heard him say it, but it was sweet when he said it the first time. I love seeing him wake up in the morning. When he finally notices me looking at him, he will smile and coo at me. He makes a lot of random noises, ranging from grunting like a little dinosaur to squealing like a piglet. It's all very cute.

Baby #2 is keeping me on my toes with the intermittent nausea, thirst for water, and fatigue. It's not quite as bad as when I was pregnant with Christopher, but just enough to be slightly uncomfortable. We went to a going away party last week for one of Alfonso's coworkers. We announced our pregnancy during the dinner, and received quite a response from the 20+ people that were sitting at our table. It's all very exciting. :)

Big news

We are officially pregnant! I found out a couple of weeks ago through a home pregnancy test, and on Thursday we went to our first OB appointment. She did a ultrasound and estimated that we are 7 weeks pregnant. The heartbeat was apparent, beating at 171/bpm.

It's a little shocking, but we are both very excited. Christopher and the new baby will be a year and a few weeks apart! At least we have most of the baby items with a few items to buy (additional crib, car seats). If it's a girl we will need some clothes, but if it's a boy, we are pretty much set.

Chunky-Chunk (aka Christopher)

Last month, Christopher was going through a big time spit up phase. We would feed him his bottle, and then within the next 30 minutes he would spit up (for what seemed most of his bottle). When we went to his four month check-up, I mentioned to the pediatrician that Christopher seemed to be having quite a bit of spit up after eating. He wasn't crying while spitting up, indicating that he would have reflux, but he would stick his fingers into his mouth and practically gag himself. Alfonso and I used to joke to each other that Christopher was self-inducing bulimic, and that was why he would spit up so much.

Thankfully that period has passed (it was about a month of this) and it seems that Christopher is making up for lost time. He is now eating about every 2-3 hours of 6 ounces of formula. Before he would sleep through the entire night and wake at 6 or 7 to eat. Now he his waking up at 4 am for his bottle. I am happy that his appetite is back (and he is starting to fill out more and is heavier to pick up) but the early morning feedings are taking it's toll on the household.

We have our 6 month appointment on December 19th, so we will see how much he has gained. Just for kicks, I looked at my old height/weight records that my mom recorded on my immunization cards during my first year. Christopher is now 24.5" in length, and weighs at least 15 lbs. When I was 4 months, I weighed 11 lbs, 7oz and I was 23.5" in length. Granted this was 28 years ago, and nowadays babies are bigger. Also, there are height/weight differences between boys and girls. I was just curious to see how Christopher compared to me. I wonder if Christopher will take after us (we are 5'4 and 5'5) or be tall like his uncles (6'2 and 6'4).

Griffith Observatory

On Tuesday, we went to the newly renovated Griffith Observatory in Griffith Park. If you have ever seen the movie "Rebel Without a Cause" with James Dean, there is a famous scene with the observatory in the background. So famous that there is a James Dean statue on display at the observatory.

We had a good time, and Christopher behaved himself quite well. We had a lot of fun taking photos on the upper level. Unfortunately the air was quite smoggy/foggy/dirty, so the background isn't too sharp. Here are a few photos though:

I love his little elvis lip:



In front of the Hollywood sign:


A very smoggy photo of downtown LA (the winds recently kicked up and blew ash and dirt around).