While I was typing about our Baby Mamas group, I should have included this cute picture of Isaac and his buddy, Henry.  Henry is about 2 weeks older than Isaac.  He’s in the 95th percentile, however, so he’s much bigger than Isaac is.

The boys are laying on Isaac’s favorite play mat.  It’s a Snoopy-themed quilt that Todd’s mom, Judy, made for Isaac.  It is just the right size for us when we get together with all of the boys.

My friend and fellow Baby Mama, Stephanie, told us several months ago that mail to the White House always gets a response.  She sent a birth announcement for her son Cash and got a nifty little card back.   I thought this was too good to be true, so I sent mailed Isaac’s birth announcement to President Obama back in August.  Today, we got a note back!  Regardless of your opinion of the president, (Dad), this is a great little memento for our son’s baby book.   The note has stamps of Barack and Michelle’s signatures, but the envelope was hand-addressed.

Stephanie said Michelle wrote hers, but mine looks like it was written by someone younger. I think Malia addressed Isaac’s envelope.

Isaac and I joined Todd at work on Friday for happy hour.  Our friends, Christian and Elke, are German and just moved to Austin from Munich a couple of years ago.  As you may know, there’s a little celebration in Bavaria right now; Oktoberfest.  Christian told us the happy hour was to celebrate the beginning of the Oktoberfest.  In reality, it was also an excuse to get a group together to let them know that he and his wife are expecting!  We had a really nice time and I even got to drink a bit of authentic German beer (but not much as Isaac is still nursing).  Isaac, as it turns out, is also a fan of German beer.  Or at least the bottles:

Dave and Judy, we’ll have him singing polka music and chicken dancing before you arrive!

Wednesdays are my favorite.  I get to hang out with a bunch of other mommies and swap notes on what Isaac and the other babies are doing, how we’re all feeling, how much sleep we are/are not getting, etc.  It’s a lot of fun to watch all of the baby boys and see how they are all growing every week.  It’s also a really nice break from sitting at home and nursing alone.  Isaac and I also usually learn something new.  Yesterday, we learned that plastic water bottles are tasty!

Todd took a shift with Isaac last night.  Right after his 5-month birthday, we got 3 glorious nights of sleep.  I was hoping we were all set for a real chance to catch up on my own rest, but Isaac has other plans, apparently.  Anyway, last night I finally had gotten him settled into bed at 10:45, but he was fussing 5 minutes later.  I settled him down again.  He woke right back up.  Todd offered to take a shift, so I let him.  I went to the guest room and slept until about 1:15 when either I heard Isaac through my earplugs or mothering instinct woke me up.  I nursed him.  He slept until 4:15 (which is 3 hours between feedings and a good step in the right direction).  I nursed him again and he slept until 6:15.  We finally got up for the day at 8:45.

Our night owl:

All of this waking might lead you to ask, as I did, why is the little stinker waking up?  A little background:  we put Isaac to sleep on his tummy, parallel to the bed (in his bassinet).  Two nights in the last week, I’ve awakened to find him perpendicular to the bed, with his feet where his head once was, on his back, holding his little toes, and smiling at me.  “Look what I did, Mommy!”  I can’t get mad at that little face, so I chalked it up to learning to roll over more successfully.  Well…

This afternoon, Isaac fell asleep on my shoulder, so I set him on his tummy in his crib.  He immediately woke up (as usual-I wonder what the heck is in the crib mattress?).  I left him in the crib for a few minutes while I folded diapers.  I figured he could get in a little tummy time and I could get one thing off my to-do list.  While I folded, I kept an eye on Isaac.  And I figured out why he’s not sleeping.  He’s trying to learn to crawl.  Never mind that he can’t yet sit on his own…  He had his legs going a mile a minute and even got his belly off the mattress.  He just can’t support the weight of his head and his belly at the same time.  Once he lets his belly down, his head launches right back up off the mattress.  Anyway, he sways his li’l butt in the air when he’s moving his legs around, which is what caused him to roll over in his bassinet those two nights.  At least that’s my current suspicion…