Cyprus was one month old on July 30th, and I can hardly believe it.  I just happened to have a midwife appointment for the day, so we went off to do that.

I stare at him all day every day, so I don’t see many of the subtle changes in him.  I was sure that he looks exactly the same as when he was born, and was prediciting that he hadn’t even cleared 9 pounds yet.  Boy was I wrong.  The second I walked in to the office Jennifer exclaimed about how much weight he had gained and how much chub he had put on.  It turns out that he was 10 pounds 1 ounce.  Truthfully, he doesn’t nurse a lot, and he is still pretty sleepy.  I appreciate that about him, but I was wondering if it was making him not gain as fast, I guess I was totally wrong.

We get smiles out of him almost everyday now.  He spends time awake, and when you direct communication directly to him he really gets excited and smiles.

He likes to be upright so that he can be at your level when you talk to him.  To allow this, he has been practicing using his legs to stand on, so if you hold him upright, he pushes down on you to “stand.”  He does a really good job actually,  I am very impressed at how strong his legs are.  Daphne liked to do this too, but she walked at 8 months, and I’m just not sure I want to repeat that.

Cyprus also is now starting to make some baby coos, bubbles and squeaks.  It thrills him to no end when he manages to get something out of his mouth, and I must admit that it thrills me as well.

The time is flying, but I can definitely say that I am really enjoying the time we have had together so far.

I took Daphne down to the river yesterday.  Along the walk to the spot that we were going to there were some blackberry bushes that were just starting to have some ripe fruit on them.

I picked one for Daphne and told her to eat it and then asked it what it was.  First she told me it was tasty and then looked at me in surprise while she informed me, “That’s Food!”

She spent the rest of the walk looking for food along the path.

Jared put on a pair of jean shorts that he hadn’t worn in some time.  Daphne looked at him and informed him that his pants were broken and that he needed to fix them.  Very creative!

Had enough photos of the sleeping baby yet?

I have been spending a lot of time with my friend Rebecca lately.  She had a baby back in April that I have been able to oogle over during the last trimester of my pregnancy.

We managed to get Cyprus and Oliver together to take a photo of them.  It turns out there is nothing cuter than babies posing with other babies.

Cyprus looks like he is plotting something.

Daphne had to get in on the photo action.

Daphne was never the kind of baby that was happy being put down.  Any time I put her down she would scream to the heavens, and I would eventually end up carrying her again.

Cyprus is much different.  He actually fusses sometimes when I am holding him indicating that he prefers to be put down.  Don’t get me wrong, he loves to be snuggled and hugged also, but he will stay asleep if I put him down and stay sleeping happily.

The thing is that Daphne REALLY likes babies.  She has baby radar.  She asks all the time if she can hold Cyprus and whenever I put him down, she is on him like a hawk.  I actually changed his diaper the other day and when I left the room to get a new diaper, I caught her walking down the hall carrying him.  Since then, she has had many other attempts to pick him up.  I actually have to either close the door to where he is so she can’t get in or I have to bring her with me.

So when I put him down when he is sleeping, he looks happy and peaceful.

But you soon realize that he must just be incredibly happy sleeping because chaos is going on around him.  Daphne can jump on the bed next to where he is sleeping and he does not notice at all.

I think that she really likes being a big sister.  He actually is very fond of him.  He was crying when I was putting Daphne to bed, and I handed him to her to “hold” in bed.  He actually stopped crying and spent some time looking at her and admiring her.

She does such a good job.  I couldn’t be a happier mama.

He is yawning comfortably here. Check out that cool cloth diaper made by mama.

Doesn’t she look SO proud?

I joined a knitting group during the winter with a few friends.  We all get together every other Thursday to knit and talk.  All but one of the girls in the group is either pregnant or has a newborn baby, so we have all been working to knit some nice soakers for our babies.

I used the Curly Purly soaker pattern. The first one I knitted was the blue soaker. I actually knitted it with white yarn and then used food coloring to dye it after the fact. The dyeing went really well, and I am very happy with the color.

The second one I knitted was the red one with white legs. I decided to alter the pattern a little bit. As you can see, the ribbing is a bit thicker at the top. Rather than use K1P1 for the first bit, I used K2P2 and then altered the pattern after that by stopping every other row of ribbing every inch (that is why there are lines down the soaker that are staggered in length).  I also did the ribbing around the legs as K2P2 for the second soaker ( it is K1P1 on the blue soaker)

Anyway, I love how they came out, and they are already getting good use.

After picking 27 pounds of strawberries, I decided I would try to make some fruit leathers with a few of the berries.  It turns out that they were a huge hit.  Daphne could not get enough of them at all.  I plan to make some more soon with some applesauce that I have left over from last September.

Daphne has been helping a lot more in the kitchen lately.  I got a plastic knife that is used for chopping lettuce and gave it to her as her knife.  She has become really interested since then in helping me do food prep.  Just tonight she spent an hour chopping turnips, carrots and lettuce for dinner.  It thrilled her to no end.

Of course, she REALLY likes to help when I bake because that means that she gets to do some spoon licking, and that is the best activity of all!

Of course, clean up is not always so easy.

Cyprus really, really likes being snuggled up really nice against me in the pouch slings that I made.  Can you tell?

Doesn’t he just look amazingly happy?