More After-Nap Photography

We seem to be getting back into the swing of nap-things now that Riley is (fingers crossed) on the tail end of his bad cold, although I think we're still teething. This photo was taken yesterday, pre-nap-swing-of-things, after about a 45-minute nap. This resulted in quite an impressive melt-down later in the day -- maybe one of the worst we've seen in a while. But at that moment, he was happy so it was of course relished.

Check out the two teeth!

Memories

A few months ago, Andy was trying to back up our hard drive and something happened and the hard drive imploded. We lost all our data - our photos, our videos and our music.

We've been working with various types of IT geeks/professionals to try and get it fixed, but it doesn't look good.

When Andy called me today to give me an update--the latest guys couldn't get it fixed--I was really upset. It sucks. It's photos from our honeymoon, it's photos from family gatherings in like, 2002, but most importantly, it's photos from Riley's early days. He was so impossibly small then. His skin was all flaky. He never had that mushed up newborn look: right away his eyes were huge and aware. He was a schmoop, that's what his Aunt Michelle called him. He fit in his swaddles, and I couldn't imagine the 3-6 month old pajamas ever fitting him. He lived in button one-piece outfits from the Gap. He wore his blue bathing suit while he were in vacation in Michigan and kicked away at his toys on his activity mat. The bottle seemed to eclipse his face, and his pacifier was ginormous.

One of the reasons why I love posting photos and videos to the blog is so I can try and capture how wonderful this is and how Riley has become the center of our universe and how he is our joy. It all goes so damn fast so catalouging it to me feels like I'm slowing it down a bit.

We'll be able to get photos from Snapfish, Facebook, friends, digital frames, etc. but I think I'm so upset because I so desperately want to hold on to everything and slow it down. I know it's only going to get better but it's pretty darn good now and I want to remember it.

Add to that the fact that he's growing out of all his clothes (and I don't even know what fits because Daga dresses him every day because I leave for work so damn early) and has a second tooth and is eating cheese like it's going out of style, and I hardly saw him this week because I live in Wisconsin and work in Chicago, and it's easy to get a bit panicked.

sitting up in the bath

it's much easier to get riley's tummy clean now that he's willing to sit up. it was very difficult when all he wanted to do was lounge in the warm water on his stomach on his comfy green frog (which he enjoyed chewing) and he refused to roll over.

Milestones

Riley has his first tooth. It made his appearance just before he turned 8 months old. And today, Jan. 10, 2010, he had his first bath with Daddy.

Post-Nap

When Riley wakes up from his nap (exactly 1.5 hours), he's in a great mood. His cheeks are ruddy from sleeping on his, well, cheeks, and he's always smiling and laughing. Andy and I race to his room in order to have the privilege of receiving that first post-nap smile. He loves to check out his mobile, his favorite thing is to be able to grab the stars and funny faces while we prop him up in his sleep sack. And of course if there's a cat in the room, then it's a giggle-fest.