Ashton is now sitting without assistance. But he still gets excited or distracted by lights or shiny objects – and falls over rather ungracefully as he turns to look around. So, we surround him by pillows if he’s on the floor. Exact date for this milestone unknown – it was a gradual process.

Today Ashton had his first bites of rice cereal. After weeks of begging and lusting after our food, I decided to give it a try. I don’t think he really liked it much. Rice cereal has been tried twice more since, and he still seems uninterested. He does like bananas though. Problem is that he wants to feed himself. This is slightly resolved by giving him one spoon to play with while I try to feed with the other. Haven’t yet worked out the kinks in this plan.

Daniel, Ashton, and I attended the outdoor production of Comedy of Errors at Sanborn Park in Saratoga. Ashton was quite entranced by the singing Pirates at the beginning of the show and was very good at tracking the action on stage (his eyes darted back and forth across the wide stage to follow both movement and sound). Ashton also enjoyed looking at Ed and Heather’s 9-month old daughter (name escapes me) and she played with Ashton’s feet.

This event was also the trial run of my new Ergo baby-carrier, since Ashton is starting to get mad when he’s in the confines of the ring sling. Ashton enjoyed chewing on the straps and with a little bouncing, fell asleep in the carrier. I’d call it a success.

also just poking through the gums

from side to tummy. Happened 3x as I we were trying to get him to sleep after returning from rehearsal. I also found him on his stomach this morning although I had placed him to sleep on his back.

Well its not actually in yet, but the bottom right front incisor has poked through the gums. Not really surprising, as Ashton has been chewing on everything for about a month and drooling like crazy.

Today Ashton and I went walking at Henry Cowell with Tamara/Dylan, and Becca/Hailey. Turns out Hailey and Ashton share a birthday (although Hailey was born at Dominican, not Sutter). The three napped together, and then chatted with eachother on top of a picnic table. Ashton captivated Hailey with his flirtatious and loud bubble blowing.

was itching to get out of the house, so the 3 of us took a drive to Carmel. We walked around town with Ashton in the sling, because I figured the stores were too small to fit our gigantic stroller. Ashton loved the giant replica of a ferris wheel at the toy store and watched the train circle around the room. Afterwords we drove over to the Cannery and wandered around. We had to buy Ashton a new jacket because two major barfs rendered his sweatjacket unusable – hence a trip to a really tacky tourist shop where we managed to find a decent looking coat for cheap.

Two nights earlier, Ashton cried much of the night, which is highly atypical for him and also wouldn’t eat much. He also had a low-grade fever that responded to baby Tylenol. At the time we thought it was teething, but today I noticed a large quantity of goop coming from his left ear. I decided to take him to Urgent Care to have it checked out. The doc said it seemed like an ear infection that had passed. The goop continued draining for almost a week, but Ashton seemed to have no further discomfort and no meds were required.

From this point on, feet have become the play thing of choice.