Holy Baptism!

Truman had a busy weekend that began on Friday morning when his New Jersey aunts landed in Austin. They were so eager to meet him that they started snapping photos at baggage claim. I don't think he knew what to make of it all, but by Monday when they'd left, he was a sad boy after all that attention. (His mom was sad, too.)


Family continued to arrive on Saturday, and on Sunday we all assembled for Truman's baptism at St. Austin's, where Alison and Paul were married. Here are the proud parents with the baptismal candidate right before the ceremony.


He wasn't too happy about the starchy outfit, but he looked pretty snazzy.


Here we are with godparents Elizabeth and Harvey. Thanks for coming in, guys!


One set of proud grandparents....


An action shot! Truman looked a little uncertain but didn't cry when the water hit his forehead.


An uncooperative baby with Uncle Harvey and Aunt Linda.


Yum! This cake was identical to the one that Grandmommy supplied for Alison's shower. As with that one, it was all gone within 36 hours.


I think Truman was asking Paul for a piece of cake.


Thanks, everyone, for making the trip, coming to the after-party and sending all of the good wishes and generous gifts. Truman's one lucky baby.

A Militant Baby

We're a little worried about this latest development. It's a little too Hitler Youth for our tastes.

Playdate

(Warning: This is a long video.)

Truman had his second playdate yesterday. A group of us who had taken a prenatal yoga class together all had our babies within weeks of one another, and we finally were able to coordinate schedules for a get-together. Truman is the youngest at 16 weeks. Here he is with Callum (a week older) and Ilena, who was the only girl in the group of six! Callum was very sweet with Ilena, who let him massage her face and ears. Truman doesn't seem especially interested in all that's going on right next to him, but you do get a glimpse of his "marching" routine. He's either exercising or about to take flight.

The stimulation must have been too much for him. Later he fell asleep on my shoulder, then napped in the car seat for 30 minutes. I'm hoping all of this bodes well for naps at daycare, where he'll be around seven other babies....

Bad Day at Black Rock

The title of this Spencer Tracy movie started going through my head on Friday when we learned that the roofers assigned to our house had gone to another job by mistake. That meant that the hotel room we had splurged on as a "safe house" where Truman could nap was sitting empty for an entire day. The roofing contractor arranged to have a larger crew come on Saturday, promising to have everything finished in a day (a doable feat, we learned from others who'd been through the process).

So when the roofers arrived at 7:30 on Saturday morning, Truman and I made our way up north to the hotel. I figured the packing was good practice for our early October trip to South Padre. Here's what we took for just four hours at the hotel: two diaper bags, the Boppy, a bouncy seat, the Baby Bjorn, a tote bag and the car seat.


Truman's hangout, a combo sleeping area and changing table. I'm sure this violated some health code.


As for Truman's nap, I finally managed to get 30 minutes of him sleeping in the sling before we had to check out of the hotel.


The roofers almost finished the job but have to come back for another couple of hours on Monday. Truman slept for a total of 70 minutes all day. And the piece of furniture we'd been eagerly expecting from Crate and Barrel arrived—damaged.

Bad Day at Black Rock. You can say that again.

Swimmingly

It's summertime and that means it's time to dip our toes in the water. We got an inflatable pool and filled it up so Truman could cool off on a hot summer day. He likes it about as much as he likes baths, but we'll keep trying because he just looks so cool in those swim trunks. Check out the cameo from Luther who's wondering if all those little toys in the water are for him and throws in a few sympathy howls for T.

It's Official!

Today Truman received his engraved silver cup from Grand Judy and Pop George, which is sort of like saying he's now officially a Macor grandchild. In our family (as in others, I'm sure) it's a tradition for all of the babies to have their own silver cups. I still have mine; it's badly tarnished and sitting on my dresser filled with necklaces, safety pins and other odds and ends.

Truman's is a beauty! (I tried to photograph it in closeup to show off its engraving but couldn't get a decent picture. I'm sure my photog brother-in-law, Jason, would know how to do this properly.) The cup is engraved with Truman's first and middle names and his birthdate. Here he is inspecting the lovely wrapping from Braunschweiger's, the jeweler of choice in Warren, NJ!


And here he is toasting to himself. Who can blame him?

Life at Three Months

There's not a whole lot going on around here lately, but things are about to get busier in the next few days and weeks. Thanks to the hail storm, we're about to get a new roof later this week, which should make things pretty noisy for a couple of days. We're not looking forward to that, but we ARE excited about Truman's baptism on August 3rd. Aunts Ellen and Elizabeth arrive next week, and Aunt Linda, Uncle Harvey and Grandmommy and Granddaddy will be here, too. We're sad that Grand Judy and Pop George won't be able to come, but it looks as if we'll be heading up to NJ to see them in October. Yeah!

The week after the baptism, Truman starts part-time daycare at St. Luke's. It'll be an exciting experience. We hope.

Here's Truman on his activity mat, which he visits daily. Although things look calm, Truman's about to take on his nemesis, the cardinal, lurking in the background. He gets a pummeling from Truman on a regular basis.


Recently Truman discovered his feet.


A smile before he declared that he wasn't a trained monkey and there would be no more photographs today.