Ren in her Jumper

Ren absolutely loves the jumper. If she didn't get exhausted, I think we could leave her in it for hours and she'd never get tired. She plays with every bit of it. It can really be a life saver when we want to eat and she wants to play.

In this video, as usual, she's reacting to the camera by refusing to cooperate. This is the least excited I've ever seen her in the jumper. Usually she's flailing about so much you'd swear she's going to shake the plaster off the walls, or fall through to the basement.

Another thing she likes to do is get a hold of the parrot above her head and hold on for dear life.

Ren Shots

Just some general shots of ren from the backlog. (Hey, look at me, I finally figured out how to interleave photos with text. Also, you can click on these to take you direct to the original.)

Here's one of Ren on the CTA for the first time. Not a great shot, but I wanted to commemorate the adventure. On Sundays Hiroko works and needs the car for the commute, so I'm stuck with mass transit for getting around. I didn't know setting out that the bus won't take open strollers, and that the Blue line wasn't working properly that day, so a 45 minute trip turned into a 2-hour ordeal. I also learned I was going to need an umbrella stroller, because the Baby SUV here was too much.

Ren with her favorite beverage. No wait...that's my favorite beverage. Hmm, can I get in trouble with child services for this one? You can't leave this kid alone for two seconds. I keep telling her, "No, no, not until you're eight."

Two shots of Ren's favorite activity, sucking on things. When your parents forget to give you a toy to cover with slobber, what are you going to do? Fortunately, nature has a solution: toes.

Hiroko had a dream one night that Ren's toes were unscrewable, and fell off, and she had to go around the house finding them and screwing them back in. The second shot is particularly cute, no?

And finally, just a shot I like of Ren in her jumper. Are we excited? YES! We are excited!!

(Self) Feeding Time

I posted this picture a while back in a set, but wanted to call attention to it.

Besides being cute, it highlights Ren's sense of independence. She wants to play on her own, she wants to go to sleep on her own (usually), and she even wants to feed herself. Given the chance, she'll wrest the bottle away from us and hold on.

When this older picture was taken, we were really surprised, but now it's the norm for Ren to take over. In fact, in the middle of the night I've fallen asleep while she's fed herself.

More Laughter

Yesterday's video does have a brief laugh, but then she cries at the end...ah, life is bittersweet, is it not? Here's a much better video taken a few days later, where we get better laughing on.

Ren's laugh has really changed since then and sounds a lot more like adult laughter and less like a squeal now. I play a game with her where I lay her on the floor facing me on the sofa, and throw a blanket on her, which she then has to get off. She loves this and goes absolutely crazy. Lately she's even able to anticipate when the game is beginning as soon as I put her on the floor. I'll have to get Hiroko to film us doing it sometime.



Full disclosure: Pepsi paid me $500 for the product placement. Score!!

Ren's Very First Laugh

Hi all. It's really been many months since I posted anything. We were moving, then I left the camera somewhere for a while. It's really unfair because I know there are people out there who don't get to see Ren in person and want footage of what Hiroko and I witness every day.

Well, I've finally got around to uploading everything I've got. Now I'll be sharing pictures and video every day for at least a week. So tune in!

This first is really a treat. Months ago Ren started to laugh. It was almost impossible to catch on film, but eventually after several tries, we finally got it. This video is so old she's much smaller, and we're even still at the condo. Share and enjoy!



More tomorrow.