First day of daycare

Yesterday was Drew's first day at daycare and it went very well. We were worried that he might be fussy, but he stayed calm and happy the entire day. He took two un-bundled naps at daycare without a problem and the only time he got at all upset was when another baby got fed before him (Drew is still learning patience, but it's hard when you're hungry!). Most importantly, Jana got a day under her belt with Drew at daycare, and Jana's day without Drew went well. Daycare is a bigger adjustment for Jana than it is for Drew!

Our daycare provider gives the babies a wide variety of fruits and vegetables for their solid food and yesterday she was feeding the children green beans. We warned her Drew doesn't really like certain foods (e.g. green beans, you've seen the video!), and I don't think she believed us because she said "Oh, I just gave my kids everything, and they liked it all." Well, Drew got his first bite of green beans and immediately scrunched up his face and started doing his sneezing and sputtering routine. It was such a strong reaction to not liking the green beans that the daycare provider called her assistant over so she could see Drew's reaction too. I guess we've still got a little work to do in getting Drew to like the green beans :)

rollling, rolling, rolling

Last week I went to a Detroit Tigers game with my dad and Todd. Grandpa Bill and Uncle Todd made sure to come in for a little while before and after going to the game for some time with Drew. We used the occasion to get a picture of the three generations of Aupperlee men!

Drew has been rolling all over the place lately, and I've been working on capturing it on video. In this video I placed a Coke bottle in front of me (Drew had knocked it over and shaken it up) and I wanted Drew to roll toward me. He wanted to roll toward me too because he really wanted the Coke bottle, but as you can see he doesn't always go in the right direction! Unfortunately, random rolling doesn't always get you closer to your goal!

This time Drew rolled where he wanted to go, which was over to the cord for Jana's breast pump. We need to keep an eye on Drew because he loves electrical cords (not the best thing for babies to play with!).

At Drew's last doctor's visit they recommended letting him try a cup for drinking, so we went right home and found his cup! This is his first attempt with it and he mainly just likes to play with the cup at this point.


We've been working on getting Drew to sleep without his bundle. He's been doing really well without it for his naps, and he's starting to get the hang of sleeping without the bundle at night. We love to open the door while he's sleeping to see what position he's managed for his sleep.

After seeing Drew in this pose, we immediately lowered his crib because we had no idea he might be on the road to pulling himself up.

Drew continues to get bigger and heavier. Jana's getting a workout from lugging him around! Last weekend at church we were standing around talking and I got the privilege of holding him most of the time because he gets heavy after a while.


Today is a big day for Drew because it is his first day of daycare! Jana starts her school year today with a bunch of meetings, so Drew went to daycare for the first time. I'll try to post tomorrow to let everyone know how it went. We are excited about Drew getting the chance to play with other kids in a great environment. We think he's in a very nice daycare with a wonderful person taking care of him.

Drew's tongue

Drew's palate has diversified and he has now ventured into the realm of fruit! These pictures are of Drew eating applesauce for the first time. Unlike our limited success with the vegetables, Drew absolutely loves fruit. That's not too much of a surprise because the fruit is much sweeter than the vegetables.

Drew also ate peaches for the first time the other day. While I don't have pictures, I do have a short video of his first experience with peaches. As you can see, they are much more successful than those green beans!

We've been working on loosening Drew's bundle so that he becomes less dependent on it. This means that he frequently "escapes" from it during his night or naps. Jana found Drew like this one day upon coming in to check on him. He doesn't seem to mind losing the bundle!
Drew is getting closer and closer to consistently making consonants. We've been having fun getting him to imitate facial expressions and his latest is getting enough control of his tongue to stick it out in response to us. Drew and I are demonstrating below!


We've also captured Drew sticking out his tongue on video. He not only does this in response to us, but also to initiate smiles from strangers!

Drew loves playing on the floor and rolling all over the place. Next week I'll post some video of his impressive rolling. We really need to keep an eye on him!

Doctor Jana Aupperlee!

Yesterday Jana successfully defended her dissertation and can now be called Dr. Aupperlee! Hooray! In the afternoon Jana met with her committee and gave them a presentation on her dissertation, which she handed in two weeks ago. The presentation went really well and her committee asked good questions afterward. Drew and I were out in the hall waiting for her to finish and when Jana was done with her presentation we all waited together for her committee to decide if she passed. Within minutes they were calling for her to come back in (with Drew, of course!) to tell her that she had passed with ease. There are a few minor (almost optional) revisions that Jana's committee suggested for her dissertation, but other than that Jana is done! Next week Jana will return to her internship site, so by the spring she'll have enough internship hours to graduate. Now everyone can enjoy ribbing me about our "Dr. and Mr. Aupperlee" status! :)

Drew feeding action

We've not only taken pictures of Drew eating, but we've also taken some video. I've tried to keep the video clips short for those with dial-up internet access.

This first video is of Drew eating green beans. I apologize for having the camera at the wrong angle to begin with, but I got it corrected for the rest! As you can see, the green beans were not much of a hit. We'll have to try again!




This video is of Drew eating his rice cereal. He does so well eating the rice cereal!




Drew has also tried yogurt (you've seen the pictures) and here is chowing down on yogurt on video. With each bite, he is surprised by the taste, but he continues eating (as I mentioned before, he's probably surprised by the tartness, which is normal).

Drew's second camping trip

This past weekend we went up to Wilderness State Park by the Mackinac Bridge in northern Michigan for a couple days of camping. The three of us had a wonderful time! We arrived early in the afternoon on Friday and headed straight for the beach. Here is Drew sitting in his car seat under the shade of his sun tent. It was beautiful and sunny every day we camped. Friday night we sat around the fire and made supper. We brought Drew's umbrella stroller along and he sat next to us and we made sandwiches over the fire. You can see our campsite in the background with the screen tent over the picnic table, our tent for sleeping, and Grandpa John and Grandma Lynn's station wagon that we borrowed. Our campsite was not the greatest ever, but it wasn't that bad either. We weren't picky; it was just nice to get away!Drew and Jana enjoyed sitting by the fire.
Drew did really well camping. He slept through the night and he was so quiet that one of our neighbors walked by on Saturday morning and was surprised to find a baby on our campsite. The neighbor thought it was just me and Jana camping.
After putting on sunscreen during the day and getting messy eating his supper, we gave Drew his first campground bath. We took this picture to make sure he'll know someday that when he was little he was naked in the campground :)
I love playing around with Photoshop and it was a lot of fun to post a naked picture a couple months ago with a convenient black box covering Drew's private area. This time I decided to try to go one better and I managed to make the area "fuzzy" like they do on TV for editing. Isn't Photoshop fun? :)
On Saturday afternoon we went to the beach again, and Drew napped for us in his sun shade. It was quite windy so we put the car seat in there too so he wouldn't blow away.
We strapped Drew's cell phone to his stroller belt so that it couldn't get away and fall into the dirty ground. We're going to use that trick in the future to keep him from dropping or throwing toys!

Each night we bundled Drew up and gave him the privilege of falling asleep in our arms. It was a special treat for both Drew and us to hold him until he fell asleep! We never do this at home because we want him to be able to fall asleep on his own.
It got pretty chilly at night, so we put Drew in his hat to keep his little head warm. In the morning it was still pretty cool, so Drew hung out in his hat in the pack and play while we made breakfast.
After breakfast Drew decided he needed a little nap, so he snoozed for a while.
Sunday morning we went for a nice hike in the state park. There are miles of trails and we only covered a small portion of them. Even though it was warming up a little, we kept Drew in his pajamas so that he wouldn't get too much sun and we added his hat.
If I'm holding Drew in the driver's seat, he loves to grab on to the steering wheel and "drive." I'm waiting for the day when he startles himself by hitting the horn.
Yesterday Drew had his six month checkup at the doctor's office. He is doing very well and he continues to grow nicely. He weighed in at 16 pounds, 6 ounces (very average, 25-50th percentile) and is 26.5 inches long (slightly above average, 50-75th percentile). Drew started in the 10th percentile for height and weight, so is doing very well with both measurements! He has also bumped up in percentiles for height with each visit, so pretty soon we expect him to hit the 75-99th percentile if he continues to grow at his current rate. Drew also got more shots :( Below you can see some of his band aids from the shots. The shots made him howl (and bleed!), but he calmed down very quickly.
Last night Drew was cracking us up because he learned how to scoot backwards. All of the sudden he was part-way under our couch! He reversed his bib into the "cape position" and started scooting back.
When we came over to ask him what he was doing he looked up at us with a look that said, "What? I'm not doing anything. It's perfectly normal to go under the couch. I do this all the time. Trust me."
We moved him away from the couch, and then he backed up into the love seat! Then he managed to roll over and proceeded to inspect the couch. We're going to have to make sure we do a good job of cleaning under our couches! Drew got sick of us watching with amused expressions on our faces, so he decided to hide under the couch.
After all that work scooting around on the floor, Drew was so tired and docile that he was willing to sit in my lap (usually he wiggles away) and we read for a little while. We love how he sits and folds his hands!

Feeding fun

Drew has been eating solid foods for a couple of weeks now and he can eat enough at supper time that we don't need to give him a bottle. Here he is in his chair getting ready to eat. We have a portable high chair that attaches to any chair (we decided to forego the permanent high chair). Drew can't quite stay up the whole time on his own, so we put a towel on either side of him to keep him propped up straight. Drew opens his mouth for each bite and has gotten quite adept at eating from a spoon.

We'd like Drew to learn how to use a spoon himself, but we'd also like him to use it to eat, not as a play toy (he mainly likes to suck on the spoon and admire it in his hand like below). We've been working on teaching him that playing with the spoon or his food slows down the process. It helps that he's usually hungry and wants the next bite as soon as possible! Drew loves rice cereal! He smiles and grins while we feed him rice cereal (and he likes attention from both parents too :)
Jana is our most successful feeder of Drew. She has patiently worked with him so that he doesn't try to "help" too much like he's doing here. Drew's "help" ends up making the eating process extra messy! Drew tried carrots for the first time a little while ago. As a bite of carrots goes in, Drew doesn't look too upset about it, but merely curious. I got the privilege of feeding Drew his first bites of carrot! This action shot shows you a typical Drew reaction to the carrots. He did NOT like the carrots! We were so amused to see his reaction that we gave him several bites "just to make sure" he didn't like them. He definitely did not! We'll try carrots again pretty soon because sometimes babies don't take to foods the first time they're introduced.
There's no eating in this picture, but Drew is pretty happy to not be eating carrots!
Drew has also learned to eat plain unsweetened yogurt (definitely not one of my favorites!). Compared to most things we've tried, the yogurt has been almost a success. He sneezes every once in a while during feeding with yogurt, but he keeps opening his mouth for more. We read in one of our baby books that sometimes if foods are at all tart (possibly like the yogurt), a response like the one we get from Drew is normal and doesn't mean that he doesn't like it. Thus, we continue to feed him yogurt and he has been eating it with enthusiasm.
Just like most of Drew's eating, the yogurt tends to get a little messy (especially when it's me doing the feeding and not Jana).
I try my best, but Jana seems to have more of a knack for getting the majority of the food in Drew's mouth. With me, the food seems to end up all over Drew's face, on his hands, on the bib, on the high chair, on me. Feeding Drew requires some serious clean up when finished!
In addition to eating from a spoon, Drew has become obsessed with bottles. This partially filled water bottle kept him entertained for quite a while. Drew is jealous whenever Jana and I drink from a bottle and he reaches for it and has even started to cry if we don't let him have it. Drew is started to know what he wants and get upset when he doesn't get it! (That doesn't mean he always gets what he wants though :)
Drew has also ventured into the green vegetables by trying some green beans. They were not met with a very enthusiastic response, as you can see below.
Some of the beans got dribbled out after they were put in his mouth, and every bite produces a face like the one above followed by a look that said "What are you putting into my mouth?"
We don't have pictures, but Drew has also tried sweet potatoes with limited success. His next new food is going to be avocado. As you can probably tell, we are having a lot of fun feeding Drew!

a picture free post!

I am trying something new for this post: I'm going picture-less. Don't worry, I won't let this trend continue, but I've been too busy to put more pictures on Drew's blog. Most of our pictures lately have been of Drew eating anyway, so I'll throw them in when I post again next week.

Drew continues to make progress with eating solid foods. His first solid other than rice cereal was a tasty carrot gruel that we mixed for him with carrots. Drew didn't like it at all and gagged and sneezed upon his first bite! It was so cute! He's now successfully eaten yogurt and not so successfully tried sweet potatoes. Tonight we're going to see how he likes green beans. It has been so much fun feeding him new things and then watching his reactions. We're working on getting the reactions on camera, so look for a post next week on Drew's eating.

Drew continues to roll all over the place (even when bundled). His new rolling trick is when he's getting ready to sleep he sometimes loses the pacifier from his mouth whiles he's lying on his back. He turns his head, finds where the pacifier is, and then rolls over so that his mouth hits the pacifier and he gets it back into his mouth. He then rolls over again and is on his back again. It's pretty cool to watch! I'm hoping he'll do it again so that I can capture it on video.

Drew continues to grow longer and fill out. I'll have more picture next week! I promise!

Vacation, part two

After leaving the Gezons in Whitehall, we drove up to the Aupperlees on Little Platte Lake near Honor. Below is the view from the cottage looking out over the lake. We spent several days at this cottage with my parents and were joined for a couple days by my grandparents.

As soon as Drew got up the morning after arriving, Grandma Sue swooped in and grabbed him right away. We spent a lot of time sitting on the deck in front of the cottage holding Drew.
When my grandparents arrived, Great-grandpa Vryhof also took a turn holding Drew too. Drew was in high demand!
Those of you who have seen me around water know that water sports aren't generally my thing. I'm irrationally afraid of boat propellors, deep water, and canoeing, so I don't get out on the water all too often. I surprised myself and conquered my fear of the water by kayaking all over Little Platte Lake, and here is the proof! I need to be able to take Drew out on the water someday.
Drew is getting ready go for a swim (as you can tell by his sunglasses). How can you go to the beach without your sunglasses at the ready? Drew tested the waters of Little Platte Lake. We slathered him with sunscreen and I brought him down to the dock for some swimming. Drew eyed the water very cautiously at first!
Drew didn't see to mind too much having his feet dipped in the water.
When I moved Drew to the shallower water, he really enjoyed standing with his feet in the sand. He also managed to reach into the water and grabbed some handfuls of watery sand. Just like when he's on land though, Drew prefers standing to sitting.
Playing around the cottage was hard work, so we made sure to give Drew a bath every once in a while to keep him from getting too sweaty.
After Drew's bath Grandma Sue wrapped him up in a towel and helped to dry him off.
Drew loved sitting with Great-grandpa Vryhof outside on the deck in the afternoon.
Great-grandpa and Great-grandma Vryhof enjoyed two days at the cottage with us, which gave them plenty of time to hold and see Drew.
One morning at the cottage Drew was showing off his upper body strenghth, so I had to get some pictures of him. Look at that smile!

On Thursday night we continued our journey north to see our friends Dan and Sandra for the evening. We used the opportunity to get another picture of the three of us before we left. Drew is pretty excited about something!
While we waited for a seat at the restaurant with Dan and Sandra, Drew kept an eye on our buzzer so we'd know when we could be seated.
Once we were seating Drew tried out another first . . . sitting in a restaurant high chair! He did a great job and held himself upright for a while. They even gave Drew his own menu!
One morning Drew was in a photogenic mood (if there is such a thing), so Grandpa Bill, Jana, and I decided to have some fun with Drew. Here he is standing in Grandpa's shoes.
Next, we put him on the chair with Grandpa's shoes and his hat.
Drew decided the forward facing hat wasn't cool enough, so we helped him turn it a more casual look.
On our last full day up north we headed back to the beach again. Jana managed to grab Drew for this picture, but between me and the grandparents Jana didn't get too much Drew time during our vacation.
Drew also ventured into Lake Michigan for the first time during this beach trip. We were on the beach where the Platte River empties into the lake, so the water was warm enough for him to take a quick dip. He didn't really love being the water, but he doesn't seem to mind it too much here.
This expression was more typical of Drew in the water. He usually looked down with an expression that said "Oh, this is cold! What is this??"
Here's another picture that captures Drew's reaction to the water. I think we'll have to try it again as he continues to get bigger.
Drew also did a little floating on his back in the water, but I don't think he enjoyed that all that much either. We'll need to teach him to love being in the water!
Jana loves pictures of my feet next to Drew's feet, so I'm including one of the pictures for her. Aren't Drew's little feet cute (and small)?
This picture gives you a perspective on the size difference between me and Drew. He's getting bigger, but he's still pretty small when standing next to me.
Grandpa Bill figured out that a clucking noise makes Drew smile almost every time. It's going to be amusing to see if Drew can make that noise in the near future.
Drew has been moving more and more and this picture demonstrates how far he can move. He can roll back-to-front and front-to-back and he has started to move himself forward with his arms (but not crawl). The other day Jana left Drew for five minutes and he moved farther than this in that time. Drew is on the move!