Second (calendar-accurate) Thanksgiving + Adam's december

big catch-up Adam post that was overdue - though this was technically supposed to be a December post i felt the need to throw in some pictures from our second Thanksgiving, the one with our local Sobczak family on the actual Thanksgiving weekend.

The month of December saw Adam learning to sit up on his own, increasing his core powerhouse strength. Somewhere along the way he also picked up the curious habit of turning his head left and right, as if vigorously denying accusations of having placed mashed sweet potato in his hair. Further work on his fine motor skills continued unabated with him finally (though somewhat on accident) eating his first finger food - puff cereal - on his own. Most of the time the puff cereal would just be clasped tightly in clenched fist, to be eventually discarded on the floor to the circling dogs' delight.

Another big milestone - first tooth! One little guy poking through on the middle bottom, enough to keep him in a constant state of drooling and biting on things but not so much as to dampen his baby joie de vivre.

During December our good friends Dave and Mel visited with their almost 2 year old (and cute as a button) daughter Olivia. In between marathon sessions of Pro Evolution Soccer, Dave and I managed to take the families down to Galveston's Moody Gardens pavilion to wheel the kids through their Festival of Lights on a chilly Houston evening. Despite the audio / light diorama Nativity scene that greeted us with an oddly-written recollection about "how badly King Herod wanted the baby Jesus killed", a good time was had by all.

but enough talk - please enjoy the pictures and videos!

The Houston Thanksgiving

Traditional Thanksgiving meal: mushed up cereal and vegetables
Cousin April and Adam hanging out
White Grandpa and White Aunt # 2 enjoy a laugh at Adam's Zoolander impression
The Gathered Family (White Aunt #1 Karyn and cousin Emily not pictured)



December: Hangin' Around With The McGuires

Relentlessly on the attack

The baby who stands is rewarded with the ultimate prize: tapping on the toy box lid to make sounds.

Dad, please suspend me in mid-air upside down, I think it's hilarious.
Certainly son, up you go.
It's been official from day one: bath time is fun time.

Pbbbtt - I can make smacking noises and other such sounds.

The Official Sobczak Holiday Greeting Card Pose (or more likely one of the many potential choices)
Hitchin' a ride on Patrick the Giant Stuffed Toy Dog
A blissful round of Airplane.
Adam and Olivia, kickin it' footy-pajama style.
Mel and Olivia show Adam some love.
Olivia and Adam hanging out at the ol' toy box.

Adam points out the coolest parts of the jungle gym - Olivia remains skeptical.

Moody Gardens - Festival of Lights

The McGuires hanging out, stylishly i might add, in the winter cold.
Nothing says Christmas like a neon zebra.

What'choo talkin 'bout Dad?

Adam wears a wool monkey cap better than anyone.

Elves - they're everywhere.
Christmas Time is Here

This report just in - I want some food, now!

Sleepy-Time Eats

My First Accounting Desk.
On second thought, forget accounting - Adam just wants to bang on the drum all day.
Groovy drumwork man

Wrapping paper - eighty years (more or less, i dunno) of still being the best gift for little kids.
Mommy showing the Christmas love.
Cousin (and budding daredevil) Audrey delights in angled shifts in verticality.
All great kung-fu masters begin their journey by punching bubbles.
Adam begins his controlled descent.

Aquarium Time - the birthday party of one of his local friends Austin.

Mom and son pose in front of the calm blue.
A school of fish crowd their way into the shot.
Hey how ya doing?
Lights and sounds and standing and stuff.

Your orderly method of DVD shelf organization is stifling me - I crave chaos.
Happy New Year everybody

'Scuse me, while I kiss this guy / I'm a poool hall aaaace

so my friend Steven of www.stevengharms.com recently posted a quick, trenchant insight about the way in which most grown-ups (i.e. people with really very limited "free" time) experience music - in short, that adults don't have the luxury to focus solely on the music, that 'lie back on the bed in the early morning listening to 'Slow Ride' on your big headphones as you recall the awesome freshman '70s party adventure you just had', that Dazed and Confused style experience.

personally speaking, one of my key early high school memories was buying Metallica Master of Puppets and Megadeth Countdown to Extinction at the local Best Buy and hanging out in my room just listening to this strange, incredibly skillful new thing called heavy metal. not playing a video game, not doing homework, just listening.

in your maturity, music is more of a nice accompaniment that floats around your subconscious while you're driving / working / etc.

that brought to mind a different thought about the the subject of music that i've been kicking around for a while

over the years i've found and enjoyed bands from a lot of different styles of music -some of it's heavy, some light, some uptempo, some relaxed, some melodic, some distorted.

across all those bands the clarity of the vocals runs the gamut - some songs i can listen to and know exactly what the songwriter was trying to express. the saga of Eddie in Tom Petty's "Into the Great Wide Open" is pretty easy to follow from start to finish. he waited until he finished high school, got a tattoo.... the future was wide open - FIN

other bands, whether due to singer accent, sub-par fidelity in the recording, studio mix or whatever, have lyrics that are for the most part unintelligible. in this new era of ipods and mp3 download album purchases, printed lyrics aren't as prevalent unless you take the time to search on the net for lyrics sites that probably plant viruses on your pc so in my experience the message of most of my favorite songs go by unlearned.

what i wonder now is - if i could know the actual words that i instead hear as a muffled or music-obscured "whirrs plebe bee ah mote peepo", would i enjoy the music substantially more?

or is the greatest amount of contribution of vocals simply being a musical instrument of a different sound, the key piece of an intertwined melody also comprising piano, drums, guitar, bass?

Adam's busy November: On the Move!

the pictures representing Adam's November below are really just some holdovers from our trip to Chicago featured just recently, since the earlier part of November our camera was away on warranty service related to weak battery life.

at the start of the month Adam was just getting into his first bit of active north-south movement, doing the breakdancing-style inchworm stomach flop. it wasn't long though before he launched into high gear, getting his arms into the mix and perfecting the full-on baby crawl - now we play the parenting game of trying to keep up with him as he gets increasingly more mobile.

other big feats of strength included mastering the ability to sit up on his own and being able to pull himself up to a standing position while grabbing onto something (that something typically being his rugged toy box which he loves turning into his own personal drum - the kid can't get enough of patting hard, flat surfaces)

Clapping also entered the mix - proudly his first attempt occurred attending his very first hockey game. That was in the second period when he was awake - i'll never know how he wakes up from a nap at home with one dog bark or garbage truck on the street and yet he falls dead asleep on my lap in the third period in the middle of a cheering crowd of fans being encouraged by the announcer to "MAKE SOME NOISE".

In the realm of cuisine, Adam continued his foray into solid foods: sweet potatoes, pears, bananas, carrots are favorite while squash (rightly) is not welcomed. He also started work with cereal puffs, fine-tuning his pincer grasp work.

Breakfast taco statistics

based on a totally scientific set of observations of weekly breaksfast taco consumption at my place of business, i can say that when these three breakfast taco staples are set out for consumption:

Bacon Egg & Cheese
Potato Egg & Cheese
Sausage Egg & Cheese


Potato Egg & Cheese will always be the last to go, and by a wide margin at that.

Thanksgiving the First: Early Turkey Day with the Chicago Sobczaks

...Well i suppose they technically aren't the Chicago Sobczaks anymore - they belong to the outlying small towns of the Chicago area.

But still! Grace and I had a thought a month or two ago to take Adam on his very first plane ride to visit our Sobczak relatives up north in Illinois where he could meet, among others, his great-grandfather and great-grandmother.

As our schedule happened to work out, the week before Thanksgiving was our best option - happily, due to my Uncle Jim and cousin Mary C. having to work during the actual Thanksgiving weekend, they were planning to have their Thanksgiving meal during the weekend of our visit. Double helpings of cranberry sauce this year!

Our little piece of the Sobczak clan had a great time; Adam was terrific on the plane both in departure and return - spent most of his time either snacking, napping, or playing and garnering a few compliments about his temperament in the process from (relieved, i'm sure) nearby passengers.

It brought smiles to our faces to see everyone: Uncle Jim, Aunt Mary, cousin Mary C. (not too far from having her own little Sobczak soon!), her husband Jack, cousin Joe and his wife Ania, cousin Jim and his children Andrew and Rebecca (wife Renee regrettably absent due to a seasonal cold) and, of course, Grandpa Al and Grandma Lu.

I've posted pictures and video below of our quick weekend trip: enjoy!