Akiva has been busy

Our lad Akiva has been a busy boy the past few weeks. He flew on a plane to Toronto and then rode in a car for four hours to get to Detroit for Passover. He was a champion flyer - the noise of the plane's engines had him zonked out almost the entire trip. For the five minutes he was actually awake, he managed to charm the passengers around him with his enormous smile.

He's still no a big fan of car rides. He doesn't like not being able to see out the window and he hates being restricted by carseat straps. He cried the last half of the way to Detroit. This made for a tense border crossing, especially since the customs officer decided to yell at Mark for not declaring my and Akiva's citizenship as well. At least they let us into the country...

The trip was lovely. Akiva got to meet my friends in Oak Park and a few of the old Ann Arbor crew, including Marty and Pauline's new baby, Brianna - what a doll! He also got to meet my Aunt Susie and Uncle Jim. Akiva was a trooper for the car ride down to Cincinnati to see Grammy and Opa along with Aunt Suzanne and Uncle Mike, Ryan and Tiffany, Jillian and Derek, Taryn, and Chad, Aunt Cindy and Geoff. Akiva had his picture taken sleeping in the Ris grandchildren's cradle made by Opa. He even has his own nameplate across from mine.

Akiva seems to acuire a new talent every 3-4 days. Right before the trip, he started rolling from back to front and is now quite proficient at it. He has started to blow raspberries and is able to communicate his opinion on a variety of matters this way.
Me: "Akiva, do you want to go in your swing?
Akiva: "Phlllbbbbt"

He has also started teething. I don't think we'll see any teeth any time soon, but he is chewing on our knuckless, on his own finger, on his stuffed animals... He occasionally seems to have pain from this and some nights he wakes frequntly and wants to nurse all night...we've had to resort to our new drug of choice, baby Tylenol (mmm, sugary grape flavor!), a few times.

For quite some time now, Akiva has been watching us eat. While in Detroit, he got so excited watching us eat my friend Julie's potato soup that I gave him some on my finger. He loved it and ended up eating about a tablespoon. He hasn't really show any interest in solid food since then. I did let him gum a carrot the other day and today he tasted a piece of celery. I've heard that it's a good policy to wait until they reach for food - we're not there, yet, so I won't sweat the solids in the mean time.

Akiva loves checking himself out in the mirror. We've been experimenting with a philosophy called "Diaper Free". The basic idea is to try to keep Akiva aware of when he needs to go to the bathroom (an awareness babies are born with and lose around 6 months if diapered full time). Babies all over the world are diaper free (mostly in traditional, non-Western society). In any case, we have a small potty for him which he sits on in front of the mirror - he loves to check himself out. Soon I'll have to start taping newspapers and magazines to the mirror... ;)