Happy first Thanksgiving! Today you had your first plane ride as you, Mommy and Daddy flew two hours from Houston Hobby to Tampa to meet your aunt Danielle, uncle Craig and cousins, Emma and Elaine. The plane ride was okay for you as you worked on your pacifier, slept in Mommy’s arms, or ate a bottle. The ride was much more painful for Mommy and Daddy who both are still under the weather with colds–stuffiness + pressure changes = unhappy.

Grandma Carol met us at the airport and took us to Emma and Ellie’s other grandparents’, Keith and Lorre’s, house for Thanksgiving dinner. Mommy and Daddy got to try their first turducken: a chicken, a duck and a turkey all deboned, seasoned and baked together as one big, tasty, hybrid bird. You got to try your first sweet potatoes, which you liked very much. Your cousins, who are 7 1/2 and 6 1/2, thought you were very cute and funny…but they did not agree with us that the noises you make constitute “talking” since they could not understand your words.

Daddy took you to the doctor’s today to check how you’re growing. At five months, you are now 13 lbs, 12 oz–still on the lightweight side (10th percentile) but growing well. You are also between clothing sizes; most of the 3 month stuff still fits around you while the 6 month stuff is long enough. We’ll check again at your 6 month appointment in January.

In the meantime, you are quite happy with apples and, surprisingly, gobbled down your zucchini with great gusto…and a lot of mess since Mommy made it a little too watery.

Today is your second day of your first cold. What started Monday night as sniffles is now continuing with stuffy nose and general discomfort. Daddy is keeping you all nice and buddled with the hope that you will sleep most of the day again today and fight off whatever bug is making you sick.

Last week, you started a new adventure: solid food. First, it was mashed up avocado. Then came Mommy’s first try with the baby food blender and your first spoonfuls of banana. You really like banana. Two days ago, it was peas. The first date with peas did not go as well. You ate them, but not with nearly as much gusto as the bananas. Yesterday, the second date went better though we have yet to capture any bright green mustache and beard pictures. On Wednesday, we’ll see how you feel about apples. After that: zucchini.

Last week, Mommy and Daddy also started a new adventure: solid food diapers…it’s a brave new world.

Tonight, Mommy and Daddy did something they have never done before: left you with a sitter and went out for dinner and a movie. One of the stay-at-home-dads from the play group, his wife, and two of our friends visiting from Ames, went with us for Brazilian BBQ and opening night of the new James Bond movie, SkyFall. (For those who haven’t seen it, it’s good.) We didn’t get back home until midnight and didn’t get to bed until 1 am…instead of our usual 9:30 or 10 pm. We cannot impress on you enough how thankful we were that you decided to sleep in until 7:30 the next morning.

Today was a hard day for Mommy. You know that she loves to talk (you and her “talk” all the time); what you might not know is that she also loves to sing. You don’t know this because sometime around 4 months before you were born, she got a viral infection that damaged the nerves around her vocal chords; the nerves regrew, but not the way they should have. That is why Mommy sounds like most people do when they have a cold and why she doesn’t sing to you.

The doctor today did a special test on Mommy’s vocal chords to see which nerves are not right and told Mommy that there is nothing they can really do. This means that Mommy will start going to a speech therapist so that someday, with a lot of work, she will be able to lecture and talk at a normal pitch, and maybe…just maybe…really sing again.

Today you had your 4 month checkup. The doctor said you are doing well though everything about you is long and skinny as you are now 25 inches long (52nd percentile), 12 pounds 14 ounces (11th percentile) with a head circumference of 15 3/4 inches (5th percentile). This surprised Mommy and Daddy who could have sworn you have gotten heavier than that and since you have been eating so well. We have to go in for a weight check in a month…so, think chubby thoughts everybody.

The books all say that one sign that you might be ready to start solid foods is that you are very interested in what adults are eating. We have certainly reached that stage. Every time Mommy and Daddy have breakfast or lunch or dinner or snack, you stare at what we are eating…and drool. Okay, the drooling is a continuous thing, but the staring is definitely new. We’ll give it a little longer till you are sitting up better and have talked to your pediatrician, then it’s time to see how you feel about spoons.

You are one long baby. This last weekend, Mommy and Daddy had to put away your sleepers since you could no longer completely straighten your legs and your toes had to curl when you had them on. This was sad because one of the sleepers had adorable monkey feet and a little monkey-face patch on the backside. Daddy would hold you and say “Guess what Mommy!”, then when Mommy looked, turn you around and stick your posterior out and shout “Monkey butt!” You found this very amusing.

Now you have three 6 month sleepers: dinosaurs, elephants and fleecy monsters, that are all baggy on the sides but long enough. We still have to figure out a way to add some pudge to you.

There are times when Mommy seems to be places for momentous occasions without intending to: the one year she was in Poland was the year Pope John Paul II died, the one day she was in Atlanta was the day they celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Olympic Games, and now, the one year she is at Rice University is the year the university celebrates its centennial. Mommy got to attend the chemical engineering department’s 100 year dinner. She met chemical engineers who grew with the petroleum industry and faculty members who were there when chemical engineering really became different from chemistry and other kinds of engineering. This made her think about what her department with be like in 40 years and how they might describe now–just another reminder that we need to act on our ideas for change when we have the opportunities.