Video – Dunster Blackett: The Life of Carly, Matt & Fitzgerald

February 2015: It’s all about the hair at 17 months

An assortment of photos from Matt’s camera and our iPhones.

ABOVE & BELOW: Fitz has taken up a new spot in his bedroom: sitting on the desk or shelf to get a view out the back window. Mostly he thinks he sees cars and trucks. Oh, and that hair — look how big it is!?!

ABOVE & BELOW: Fitz went to visit his great-grandmother for the afternoon in Barrie.

ABOVE: Fitz walking on the sidewalk near our place.

ABOVE: An early morning winter breakfast before sunrise doesn’t damper Fitz’s spirit.

ABOVE: Fitz and Matt take the 504 King streetcar into daycare.

ABOVE: A kids tent, known as a Peapod, has been the best addition to Fitz’s room. He jumps in and out of it with reckless abandon.

ABOVE: Our typical morning: Fitz making a mess, but with a smile.

ABOVE: A selfie of Fitz and Matt. Fitz gets really excited when he sees himself on the iPhone screen.

51 Weeks: The hop crawl in action and an early Parkdale birthday

Fitz is moving with some speed and purpose these days. These two videos show off his unique crawling style, which is more of a hop-crawl.

Because we are going to be out of town on Fitz’s actual birthday we decided to throw a little party for his Toronto friends. We gathered in Albert Crosland Parkette so that the kids and babies could run around the splash pad / wading pool.

ABOVE: Fitz reads the card from Emmit and his mom Andria.

ABOVE & BELOW: As demonstrated in previous posts, Fitz has a desire to crawl on top of other babies no matter who they are. Throughout the party Fitz could be repeatedly found affectionately trying to wrestle Emmit to the ground.

ABOVE & BELOW: Meghan encourages Fitz’s curiosity in all kinds of ways, it seems.

ABOVE & BELOW: Fitz strikes his contemplative pose for the camera.

ABOVE: Todd Irvine is always up for some fun, Fitz is learning.

ABOVE: Max — the son of Carly’s friend Kath and her husband Jamie.

ABOVE & BELOW: Carly’s friend Emma recently had twins: Leah and Zoe. They are about a month old now.

ABOVE: Matt and Fitz poolside.

ABOVE & BELOW: Fitz seemed to understand that everyone was paying attention to him, but he was unsure why. Maybe this cupcake has something to do with it….

43 Weeks: Celebrating 10 months & Canada Day

As Fitzy hits 10 months, Canada reaches 147. We celebrated the long-weekend by playing on the porch and visiting the Legion Hall on the Lake Shore, not far from our place, for an authentic Canadian experience.

ABOVE: Our boy has become a very good waver, even with a mouthful of peaches.

ABOVE: Aunt Meghan joined us on the legion’s patio / BELOW: So did Aunt Heather.

26 Weeks: Fitz turns 6 months, starts to eat solids!

While away in Hilton Head, it became quite apparent that our little Fitzy wanted to start eating solid foods. He reached for bacon strips, chocolate ice cream, and whatever else we were putting in our mouths. So upon arrival home we began to feed him rice cereal, the medical community’s preferred first food. Carly was disappointed that we can’t add flavour to the food just yet but we all know Fitz’s exposure to food will not be limited.

BELOW: When Fitz is not eating he is trying to put any and everything into his mouth, including Mr. Sun who was Fitz’s sworn enemy less than 2 weeks ago.

25 Weeks: Mr. Fitz goes to South Carolina (26 photos & 2 videos)

For the last week of February, we spent time with the Ottawa grandparents down in Hilton Head, South Carolina. Our days consisted mostly of walking on the beach, watching the Winter Olympics, and looking out for dolphins or alligators. Lil’ Fitz had a great time taking in the warmth (as did his parents) and there wasn’t a minute of the day when he wasn’t being adored by someone.

ABOVE & BELOW: Our trip from Toronto to Hilton Head started at the ungodly hour of 4am. Fitz has an especially poor night of sleep which meant so did his mom and dad (check out Carly’s expression above). Despite this, Fitz did amazing on the two flights down south: he fell asleep before take-off and showed no signs of his ears popping. These images are at the gate of Toronto International Airport as we wait to board our 7:30am flight.

ABOVE & BELOW: Fitz out for a stroll in the warm weather.

ABOVE: This photo is awesome simply due to how Fitz is wearing his hat and the ‘tude he is giving off.

ABOVE: Fitz and Aunt Donna.

ABOVE: Fitz already trying to ignore his father.

ABOVE: No baby has been happier to go on a walk, or so you would think.

ABOVE & BELOW: Our second day in Hilton Head also coincided with the semi-final game of mens hockey at the Olympics. Canada dominated the US team, winning 1-0. We put the flag out of the porch after the win and we overheard passersby say, “Those Canadians are just trying to be annoying.” After the gold medal game we also wheeled Fitz around Harbortown wearing the CANADA Roots hoodie, much to the chagrin of a few sore losers.

ABOVE & BELOW: Fitz hangs out with Grandma Dunster; he has also become consistently excellent at sitting up and tummy time (he chose this trip to master the roll-over from stomach to back).

ABOVE: Fitz loves the peek-a-boo game.

ABOVE & BELOW: Carly and Fitz on the beach.

ABOVE & BELOW: Carly anf Fitz also spent time together in our jumbo-sized bed.

ABOVE: While we do brag about Fitz’s sitting-up abilities, he is still face-planting often.

BELOW: Fitz definitely prefers to be upright as much as possible these days.

ABOVE: We were placed at the back of the plane on two of our four flights. But on our last flight the two seats beside us were empty so we got to spread out.

22 Weeks: Sitting up for the Super Bowl

Lil’ Fitz has been working out hard, doing sit-ups, so that he’ll look good when he busts out his bathing suit at Hilton Head in late February. This has also been a week of firsts for him:

He said his first word: “miega.” It is Latvian for “sleep.” We have no idea where he learned it but he definitely said it.
He can now do a mouth “raspberry,” which is very cute to see (see video below). Unless it’s 4:30am.
He is able to now use his arm as a battering ram.
He recognizes the cats. Whenever one of them walks by, Fitz smiles at them and has reached out to even pet them.

ABOVE: This is what he does with 75% of his day: put his hands in his mouth.

BELOW: His new trick, the raspberry.

20 Weeks: 15 pounds of sitting, jumping, and naked time

Our 20 week-old wonder now weighs in at 15 pounds, 3 ounces and tops 25 inches in height.

ABOVE & BELOW: This week introduced the Bumbo chair which provides a lot of support to keep Fitz upright. In the video below you can see that he likes it.

ABOVE & BELOW: The requisite couch shots. Notice the new onesie, which is a 6-month size. Our boy is growing!

ABOVE & BELOW: This weekend Fitz tried out the Jolly Jumper. As you can see in the video below he kinda loves it.

ABOVE & BELOW: Like most babies, Fitz quite likes his naked time. In these situations we always worry about him letting his little fire hose go wild, so to speak. But we will never have to worry about him finding his feet at they are his new best friends.

18 weeks: Feats of Strength and a chatty video

We’ve been doing some fun exercises with Fitz (see the second video from the top in this post) which kinda prepares him for sitting up. Well, the little fella has recently added sitting up for 30 seconds (once balanced into place) to his list of Feats Of Strength. But as you can see in the video below of Fitz sitting up on the couch, he needs a little a little work on his dismount.

ABOVE & BELOW: Here are a set of photos shot in 5-week intervals. Below, Fitz is trying to tell us something and he’s excited about it.

Videos of Fitz playing, squealing & pre-crawling

While Carly’s parents were visiting, Fitz took to the playmat with much joy. It’s cute how he seems to be mugging for us — at the end of the clip he turns to the camera with a look that says, “I hope you got that on video.”