During his seventh month on planet Earth, Kostya:

• Ate some banana, avocado, yogurt, and sweet potato.



• Stole his Daddy’s bagel and slurped the cream cheese off of it, and he eyed us intently when we ate.



• Started making fart sounds and smacky sounds.
• Enjoyed hanging out in his high chair to play the “throw things on the floor and watch Mommy pick them up” game.
• Sat without falling over! Anya likes to tell this story. We were outside, and I was in the garden, and Kostya was under a tree on his blanket, and Anya was with him, and Kostya was sitting there, and he sat and sat and sat for 20 minutes and then Anya got bored and pushed him over.



• Hosted a tick on his head for a brief time.
• Went to his first community yard sale.
• Said, “bububububub,” which, according to Anya, means “Bubba.”

Anya finished first grade,

and had her first sleepover with a friend. (It wasn’t planned, and I hadn’t had time to prepare myself, and I was all with the freaking out, “Mah baybee!” After I got over the freaking, Andy and I took Hardee’s food home and watched violent television we can’t watch around Anya.) Anya also created her own tree house. There were separate rooms and a doorbell and she sat in it and read a book.

Carol bought a gallon-sized bag of buttons for $5, planted tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and flowers, and got a weed eater for her 16th anniversary.

Andy gave his wife a weed eater for their 16th anniversary and survived to tell the tale, and he planted a LOT of grape vines.

Kostya’s sixth month was a busy one for us.
We went to the National Science Festival in DC, all the grandparents visited, Anya turned 7, Carol got her first tick bite, and Andy went to Florida on business. Meanwhile, Kostya….

• Learned how to turn pages in board books.
• Listened intently when read to.
• Celebrated Easter for the first time. The Easter Bunny brought him socks with sea creatures on them because what says Easter better than an octopus?



• Produced a giant poo of doom. (Since this time, there have been many giant and doomy poos, so I can’t really say if the one from month six was really note worthy. However, since I didn’t measure and have nothing to compare it with, I will have to give this poo the benefit of the doubt.)
• Took his first trip to DC, where he road his first escalator, took his first shower, saw his first dinosaur, and went to his first concert.



• Met Grandma Diane.
• Started working on sitting up on his own.
• Went swimming for the first time. He loved it.



• Began making zerberty farty noises.
• Pooed 4 times in one day. (I can state with total confidence that this has not happened since and is therefor deserving mention.)
• Gardened with Mama by hanging out on a blanket and eating grass and leaves.

Anya tore a hundred or so pages out of coloring books, rolled them into cylinders, and tied or taped them – Easter Presents. She preformed in the local old time radio show with some classmates,
celebrated her birthday at the pool, finally (FINALLY!) got to watch dvds in the minivan, drove an underwater robot at the National Science Festival, earned her white ribbon in gymnastics, and gave her brother a bath (notice the strategically placed Barbie doll).

Carol reminisced while listening to They Might Be Giants, stood about ten feet away from Bill Nye, and turned a dozen people into zombies – all at the National Science Festival.

And some mice moved into Andy’s car and munched on all the fun stuff left behind from Carol’s and Anya’s and Kostya’s road trip a few months before. And then the mice pooped in Andy’s car. (Thankfully not giant poops of doom.) Andy needs to clean his car.

In honor of K’s 11 month birthday, I bring you his 5th month update!

In his fifth month, Kostya…

• Rolled over. I’m not sure what he rolled over or where he rolled over or if there were any circumstances of note beyond the actual movement. Rolling. Over.
• Experienced his first ice storm. (Not impressed.)
• Sat in his bumbo chair. Like three times. Anya LOVED her bumbo, so Santa gave K one for Christmas. (In fact, Anya was so excited about the chair that she would pull it out every few days to see if K was ready for it yet.) Santa even got the little table that goes with it. Santa did not give K the teeny thighs that the designers apparently think all babies have.
• Directed the planting of some fruit trees. (“The apple tree goes over there… No, to the right! The right!”)



• Decided he wanted to sleep in the big bed and to wake up every two hours. (I’m not sure “big” is the right word for the bed anymore.)
• Started out-peeing two diaper inserts at night. We call this a PeePlosion.
• Demanded bigger bottles. (Perhaps related to the prior statement?)
• Weighed in at 14 lbs and was 25 inches tall.
• Dreamed of bananas.



• Bewitched all who met him.
• Asked Mama, “What is this hard, sharp, white bump that appeared in my mouth?”



• Had bestowed upon him his first super hero name: Super Snotty Baby with the power of drooling and flying! (Mama is Super Tree Girl, and Anya is Super Fairy Girl with the power to do ANYTHING!)
• Realized he loves to be read to. Luckily he has a big sister who loves to read to him.
• Ate Anya’s laundry.



• Pulled All The Things off the table. Every table. Neither water glass nor hamburger nor pretty flower arrangement is safe from Super Snotty Baby!.

Meanwhile, Anya changed a diaper (good thing I wrote this down because I have no memory of it and have a hard time believing it), planted some fruit trees, found she loves cursive writing, started learning about fractions, and did math with bunny gummies.

Carol jumped for joy when the school FINALLY got its 501(c)3 status approved, growled when How I Met Your Mother ended, and hid in fear from the Washing Machine Monster.

And Andy started juicing. I do not recommend the celery, cucumber, kale concoction.

So ends the tale of when Kostya was 5 months old. Or at least that’s what my notes say. I remember very little of it. (There was an ice storm!?) It is possible someone cracked my super-secure password and rewrote those notes. Or I could have gotten the months transposed. Or maybe I’m lying and I just copied stuff from Anya’s fifth month post. If I can’t tell, I’m figuring you can’t, either.