Guy Smiley

Right on schedule, Simon is learning how to smile.  He first started trying it out when Grandma Cindy and Grandpa Ken were visiting at the end of July, but it was rare and his smiles were still fairly small.  While I was watching him alone on August 5 so Emily could enjoy a well-deserved night out (interestingly enough, the same night these pictures were taken), he showed me his big new open-mouthed smile for the first time.  That was the last time we saw that look for a while though... the next week he was back to just the occasional little grin.  At one point that week Grandma Kiki was in the backseat of the car with him while he was in the car seat practicing his smile, and she managed to snap the first (I think?) picture of his new expression:

Hey, this is so much easier than frowning!

And suddenly last weekend he must have finally felt confident with it, because he has started smiling a LOT.  He seems to do it the most in the early mornings after he's fully woken up, but we're starting to see it at other times of the day now as well.  It's so rewarding to get a big smile when you're talking to him or playing with him.  Now we don't need to guess when we're making him happy because he can tell us in a way that we can understand.

Pictures and videos of our beaming little boy after the jump...

Napping on the Boppy?

The other day Simon was super cranky for some reason and Emily was trying whatever she could to calm him down.  Finally she figured out that he could lie on his belly draped over the Boppy... combined with his pacifier, this seemed to make him pretty happy.

Yelling all day is so tiring

Click through to check in with him to see how much he's enjoying it two minutes later ...

Waking up is hard to do

Simon is a noisy sleeper a lot of the time, but never more than when he's just about to wake up early in the morning.  He does all of these big stretches and weird faces, making squeaks, wheezes and little cries as he struggles out of sleep.  He's not upset in this video even though he looks and sounds like it sometimes, he's not even fully conscious. That's just how he acts first thing in the morning.

I probably shouldn't make fun of him, though... Emily says I act the same way when I have to wake up to go to work.

Picture of the Day: 8/18/11

Simon loves his new play mat.  He was happy on there for almost 45 min, batting at the little hanging toys

Grandpa Ken and Grandma Cindy One Day Visit – June 24th

Eager to see their new grandson for the first time, the Grandparents Basque flew out from Boston early on the morning of June 24th to spend the day with us before flying back home later that evening.  It was a short visit (I think they spent more time traveling than they were able to spend with the baby) but it was worth it for them to see Simon when he was still so tiny - only one week old and barely 6 pounds.  By the time they came back for a week-long visit in late July he was practically a different baby.

Basque family

 More pictures of happy grandparents and incredibly tiny babies after the jump...

Tears of a Clown

We've heard from a few people now that since all of the pictures and movies we post of Simon show him happy or peacefully sleeping, then he must be such a little angel all of the time.  But that's just the face he wants you to see: Simon as the happy bouncing baby.  People don't realize there is another side to Simon, the angry little SiMonster that he keeps hidden away from his adoring public.  Finally we have proof of the existence of the real Simon:

Click through to see more terrifying video and photographic evidence... 

First bath - 8/14/11

It wasn't his first bath *ever*, but since we didn't have a real baby bathtub we've been dipping him in a flimsy plastic bucket or just wiping him off with wet facecloths.  We finally bought him a bathtub last week, and Sunday night was his first-ever bath where he got to lounge comfortably in the water.  He didn't quite know what to make of it at first, but by the time we took him out (which we smartly did *before* he got tired of it) he seemed to really be enjoying himself.

Thanks for the strategically placed facecloth when you're posting mostly-naked pictures of me on the internet, dad!

More pics of bath and post-bath Simon after the jump...