A social baby

We joined two playgroups this week.  For the past 3 months I've been organizing playgroups for the KCWC, but we hadn't joined any of the groups yet since all of them are so far away.  Most of our friends (except Stacy and Kaia) live and both playgroups were held a 30 minute plus tube ride away.  I had hoped that I would feel more up to tackling that commute after Jack started sleeping through the night.  Guess we won't know that for a while.

At any rate, the babies seem nice enough, and I really like the other moms in both groups, which is the important part.  Until babies start having real interactive play (usually around 18 months) playgroups are for moms, not babies.  And I've been needing some adult interaction--the past three nights Ben has come home past 4 a.m.  One group is going to meet Tuesday afternoons and the other is Thursday mornings.  They have slightly different dynamics, as Tuesday's moms are slightly younger (though all still at least a few years older than me) and two moms in the Thursday group each have a toddler in addition to their baby.  But all of the women are amazingly worldwise and interesting.  One's from New Zealand, two are Brits married to Americans, one was born in Hong Kong, and the other two grew up within two hours' drive from me, bizarrely enough since we're 5,000 miles from home.

On a less sociable note, I promise you I didn't put him up to it, but today Jack met a baby whose parents are Republicans from Kansas, and Jack attacked him.  I mean multiple times, he started trying to crawl all over the poor little boy!  Well, not exactly little--the baby is two months older than Jack and probably near twice Jack's weight.  But still.  I've seen him like that a few times with Kaia, but never any other time.  So my query is whether this demonstrates Jack's a) loyalty to Mizzou, b) loyalty to the Democratic party, or c) pain from getting his top two teeth (finally!). 

It has me slightly concerned that Jack will attack the other boy at his birthday party in two weeks, thus following not-so-proudly in his mommy's footsteps.  Apparently I left Zach Knight with a few bite marks at his birthday party in preschool.  In my defense, he cornered Justin Glover and me and said he was a Hungry, Hungry Hippo and that he was going to eat us.  I ate first.

On Wednesday I took Jack to the NHS clinic to be weighed.  The news was not fabulous but not dire.  He's still only 16.5 pounds, which puts him in the bottom 1% of babies.  Everyone again kept assuring me that this isn't cause for alarm, but they want me to bring him back in two weeks to be weighed again.  He doesn't look really skinny, just small-boned, and he certainly has plenty of energy.  It's just really disheartening news in a week when I had been so excited because I felt like he was eating a ton.  The Health Visitor (like an RN) said if he keeps gaining weight this slowly, I might have to start adding mashed avocado (one of his favorites anyway) or cream to his food to try to bulk him up.  But that's still a ways away.  As it is, Jack has found several new foods he really likes.  I know I'll get groans and gags from the peanut gallery for this one, but Jack is particularly fond of pureed pears mixed with chopped green beans and tofu chunks.  Tonight in an early effort to add some weight to his frame, I gave Jack a few bites of pizza.  He was nonplussed but ate it.

Jack's weird new habit last week was making a lisping sputtering raspberry that sounds vaguely like Stan's retainer-wearing older sister on South Park.  Not the most glamorous of acts.  This week's weird new habit is sleeping sideways--his lays head to toe along the top of his crib rather than laying the long way.  It actually looks kind of cozy...