Ok it's been awhile :-P
Teddy's almost 6 months now (just 8 more days!). He's sitting up fairly well on his own--you just have to watch to make sure he doesn't reach too far to the side because then he falls over. We took him to Dragon*Con and dressed him up as the Hulk, Baby Stig from Top Gear, and Nibbler from Futurama. He also wore Batman and Firefly themed clothes. He's been eating solid foods for about a month and a half now. We've given him rice cereal, peas, bananas, squash, pears, and carrots. They say to wait 3 days before trying a new food, but it's usually more like a week before we get around to getting/making something new to try. Some of our foods are homemade (squash, pears, and bananas), and some were given to us by one of Lars's coworkers since his baby didn't want them anymore. We started day care a few weeks ago when the semester started. He goes MWF and Catie watches him T Th since she only has one class in the morning those days. (Did I mention she's living with us?) The day care gets baby food and formula from the government and I provide breastmilk in labeled bottles so they give him that and baby food. He has been able to get about 5 oz of milk total from the bottle for the 8 or so hours that I'm gone. It's less than he would drink if I were there, but he somehow makes it through the day (I think the solid food helps). Lately, though, he's been refusing the bottle, and only getting about 1/2 oz. total. Not good. We're having to snap his diapers tighter than before, so I think he's getting thinner, but he's also getting longer so he may still be gaining weight. We'll see on his half-birthday when we go to the doctor. His newest thing is sticking out his tongue and making a clicking noise with his mouth. He makes a lot of consonant sounds when he's chewing on something, but the rest of the time is mostly vowels (though we think it's by choice since we've heard him say consonant sounds when his mouth was empty too). Still no dadadada or mamamama. Oh, and while we were at Dragon*Con he got his first tooth. Bottom front left. He wasn't fussy at all that day; he actually was more fussy the next day, even though the tooth had already broken through. Could be unrelated, I suppose. He's got some sort of cold now; it made him really fussy the night before last--he woke up something like 4 times in the night.
As for non-baby news, our house got struck by lightning while we were at Dragon*Con. The siding/gutters got scorched in places, a pipe burst (spraying water everywhere, so they had to turn the water off at the street), our cable/internet stopped working, and our DVRs and two TVs got fried. Our homeowner's insurance will cover it minus a $1000 deductible. We were so confused when we got home. Our power was out (they had turned it off to keep the house from catching fire), but we looked out the window and saw our neighbors' lights were on. Then I tried to flush the toilet and there was no water. Also our attic door was down (we had it screwed up into the ceiling because one of the springs is broken; the firemen unscrewed it so they could check in the attic to make sure nothing would spark up there). It finally made sense once our neighbors knocked on the door to tell us what had happened.
Back at work, I'm trying to prepare for a conference. I requested to give a short talk and they accepted me, so I have to prepare my 15 minute presentation about my research to give to a couple hundred of the smartest people in the world (the conference is the Gibbs conference on biothermodynamics). Once that's over, I have to finish up a few more things in the lab and write a paper, and then I have one last smaller project to work on. I should graduate some time next year (May, August or December 2013). I'm doubting it will be May, but I'll aim for it anyways. If it's December, that could also be when Catie is graduating from NC State with her BS and Danny is graduating from Campbell with his MDiv.
As for non-baby news, our house got struck by lightning while we were at Dragon*Con. The siding/gutters got scorched in places, a pipe burst (spraying water everywhere, so they had to turn the water off at the street), our cable/internet stopped working, and our DVRs and two TVs got fried. Our homeowner's insurance will cover it minus a $1000 deductible. We were so confused when we got home. Our power was out (they had turned it off to keep the house from catching fire), but we looked out the window and saw our neighbors' lights were on. Then I tried to flush the toilet and there was no water. Also our attic door was down (we had it screwed up into the ceiling because one of the springs is broken; the firemen unscrewed it so they could check in the attic to make sure nothing would spark up there). It finally made sense once our neighbors knocked on the door to tell us what had happened.
Back at work, I'm trying to prepare for a conference. I requested to give a short talk and they accepted me, so I have to prepare my 15 minute presentation about my research to give to a couple hundred of the smartest people in the world (the conference is the Gibbs conference on biothermodynamics). Once that's over, I have to finish up a few more things in the lab and write a paper, and then I have one last smaller project to work on. I should graduate some time next year (May, August or December 2013). I'm doubting it will be May, but I'll aim for it anyways. If it's December, that could also be when Catie is graduating from NC State with her BS and Danny is graduating from Campbell with his MDiv.