6 Months of Mateo Madness

It has actually been over 6 months, but we just saw the pediatrician for the 6 mo. check-up and so the milestone seems more official.

Mateo is quite a big little man, in the 90th percentile for height and the 75th for weight. Approximately 10 kilos of love. Much more importantly, however, he is 100% smiles, curiosity, energy, happy noise-maker and bringer-of-joy in our lives. We thank God every day for his enormous generosity with us.

News hour with Grandfather.


Grey sweatsuit love.


Talking with his dad.


Monopolizing lunchtime conversation. Again.

Life is good.

Really?

The boy who tries to put everything into his mouth.

Oh, that face!

This has been Mateo's favorite expression--used to communicate everything from happiness and excitement to confusion, playfulness and explosions of wonder-- for the past two weeks and we can already see him moving on to more varied, but certainly not more versatile, planes of facial expression. So, this post is merely for the sake of remembering this bitty bean's lovely stage of no-lipped smiling:

P.S. I see quite clearly that I have become that mom who can't quite suppress the urge to keep talking about all of the details and delights of her child's development. I am okay with this.

94 and Counting...

Happy 94th birthday to our dear (great-) Grandfather, Roberto. A baby who wasn't expected to even survive the train ride home from the hospital with his mother, Roberto has surpassed all expectations and carries almost a century worth of stories illustrating just how very fully he has lived since the 23rd of January, 1915, growing up as a mischievous son of a clock-maker in a small town in the mountains of northern Spain where his parents'-aunts'-and-uncles' homes occupied 6 consecutive blocks on the main street of town, becoming a member of a bicycle brigade during the Spanish Civil War, wearing a shirt and tie every single day of his adult life thereafter (as his father did before him), driving as a chauffeur in post-war Madrid, dining hot chocolate and churros every Thursday and Sunday for the past six decades, and much, much more, all culminating in his claim to fame as the person who most automatically and fulminantly draws wonder and laughter from his 6 month-old great-grandson. Abuelito, we salute you!

T.G.I.F.

Mateo working on his feet, a new favorite activity.


This little logger always has something to say.

A Happy Birthday, Indeed

Thank you for the beautiful flowers, Mom. 28 feels sweet as pie.

Milestones, Presidential and Otherwise

This is an image I will forever associate with watching Obama's Presidential Inauguration on television. With Mateo's 6-month birthday upon us, he is just about in full control of the monumental sitting position. He has quite obviously already mastered, however, the "comfortably slouched" position and use of the arm rest. Honestly, someone get this kid a beer.

Mateo was about as excited as I was moved by Aretha Franklin's rendition of "My Country, 'Tis of Thee."

With a new American president afar and Mateo's great-great-great-Grandfather looking over our shoulders.

Sweet moments

Amidst his constant bouncing and gurgling, chirping, smiling, wiggling, calling, grabbing, laughing and other fluctuations of limbs and voice, we do find ourselves marveling at the utter tenderness that surfaces in our quieter moments with the little one (admittedly often immediately preceding and following naptimes).


Real men wear pink, right? This was the day that Mateo came home from daycare wearing a pink onesie (Mom forgot to pack extra clothes that morning...) looking so cute that we questioned the rationality of gender-based color schemes and then day-dreamed about M's younger sisters to come.




We love that foot. Is it not entirely too difficult to suppress the urge to eat this child?!

Visual Overload

This picture makes me laugh. Could any more different colors and patterns possibly be included in this tableau? Unlikely. He is an explosion of visual cues.

Business as Usual

We spent the Epiphany traveling across the Altantic and safely arrived back to Spain in order to get this new year started with a return to our daily rhythms and patterns here. There is one big change, however, and that is my return to work at the medical school and Mateo's debut at morning daycare. While it is something that we have been dreading, M seems to enjoy going to daycare just about as much as he does everything else in life, which is to say: a lot. It is nice to come home to different reports of his activities and character, as communicated by the daycare workers at La Cometa ("The Kite"), ranging from "Mateo is a saint," to "He sure does like our noise-makers," to "I have never seen a baby so rigid and upright on his feet at this age," to "He must sleep much more for you at home than he does for us here...". He's a lively one, that is for sure.

Breaking in his new Spanish "stimulation chair," which--despite his daily attempts at jumping--simply will not bounce like his Virginian Jumperoo (nor was it made to).



Trying to get all of the activities covered simultaneously. A born multi-tasker.


Mateo becomes more and more of an active participant in the family, a phenomenon highlighted at meal times when he will do just about anything to get up to the table and make his voice heard.

And a Happy New Year!

We rang in this promising New Year with morning mass, a home-cooked brunch and a sweater vest. May the rest of the year be this bright!

Mateo and his abuelos.

A happy pair.