he's got skills.

of all of oliver's recent developmental achievements,
my favorite by far has been his budding hand-eye coordination,
and what the baby books refer to as his
"pincher skills"
because it is so stinking cute to watch!

such concentration and intensity!

happy father's day!

happy first father's day to tom!
you may get to pick and choose what baby-raising duties you participate in now
(due to my refusal to let oliver out of my sight or grip)
but don't worry,

i'm saving all the mouthy, sullen teenage stuff
for you.
(he's started already with the backwards hat!)

it's been a learning experience these first few months,
but you're doing great,
and olly loves when you make him laugh.
thank you for making us such a beautiful little baby!

(also, a shout out to my dad on his first father's day as a GRANDPA!
and a belated first (grand)mother's day to my mom!
olly has so many great people to love him!)

tummy time.

this is the chaos that is tummy time.

it usually entails tears, and screaming, and huge puddles of drool,
but he is getting better with practice.

frog baby.

we have always joked that russell is a frog-dog

because of his crazy back legs and his buggy eyes.

apparently, it runs in the family,
as olly has taken to making this face in most every photo:

into the woods.

we went to the metroparks the other day,
which for those of you not in cleveland,
is a huge park-forest with hiking trails.

olly had a tolerance of this for maybe twenty minutes
and then screamed until i took him home.
he liked looking up at the trees while he was in a good mood,
but after that, forget it.

work it.

olly has gotten so much more active in the past few weeks.
he loves playing with his play yard,
even though playing for him is just flailing his arms
at the toys that hang overhead,
or trying to get them into his mouth.

we're still working on tummy time though,
and he still hates it so much that we haven't documented it,
but we've gotten to the point where his lower half is so strong
that he could conceivably crawl, or at least scoot,
but he has a long way to go before he could hold his head up to get anywhere.

memorial day.

all of my immediate family has or is presently serving our country in the military.
based on that fact, and how cute he looks in this sailor suit,
he may have a career in the armed forces in his future.