Family portrait

Our first family portrait! This was taken in Palm Springs over Thanksgiving.

Bradshaw is 2 months old at this point. He used to be able to lift is head up, but then it got too heavy for him! Now he's learning how again. The past few days he's learned to get his little fist up to his mouth and start sucking. Unfortunately, he doesn't know how to open his fist up and stick his thumb in. We're so amazed at how he's learning, and especially at how determined he is--he spends hours laying on his back pulling his fist up to his face only to punch himself in the face repeteadly. But he keeps trying, somehow knowing that his thumb will taste great when he finally finds it.

Val is becoming the amazing mother she was destined to be. She really is the quintessential mother. She's handling beautifully the serious stresses of feeding an infant (he's been growing at a healthy rate of a pound a week since birth) while moving into a new apartment in a new state where we don't have any family. Did I mention that she's the perfect mother? Recently she's learned to distinguish Bradshaw's many different cries.

More about Bradshaw's collosal-ness: At his two month appointment, he weighed in at over 16 pounds. That's the average weight of a 6 month old, I'm told. On the national percentile charts, he's off the charts. For height he's in the 99th percentile, as to be expected, but we never anticipated he would be so huge! At Thanksgiving we laid Bradshaw next to his 7 month old cousin, and they were the same size (Jack's a little longer, Bradshaw's a little heavier). It was actually pretty sad--because they're the same size, it seems like they're the same age. But then Jack is sitting upright and engaging socially with you and playing with toys while Bradshaw is laying like a sack of potatoes.

-Dustinn