Cognosco

Here’s a snapshot from a few days ago…

when you woke up this morning (at 5:15), the first thing I did (after swearing) was change your diaper. While I was changing it, you repeatedly signed "diaper". Then you signed "milk" and so I nursed you. We came out to the kitchen, and as I was getting your cereal ready, you signed "eat". Once I was done mixing up some fruity slop, I said, "okay, let’s go get you into your high chair" and so you walked towards your high chair and waited for me to lift you up. When you looked sleepy this afternoon, I asked if you wanted to go to your crib and take a nap. You started walking towards the bedroom and when I put you into your crib with your Tiggy and binky, you went to sleep with no problems (which is certainly not always the case). When you woke up, you looked up at the shelves in the bedroom and signed "book" to let me know that you wanted to look at your favorite book.

You are communicating and it’s wonderful. To be fair, you have always communicated, but I just didn’t know how to translate a lot of your language. Now, I don’t know how we would survive around here without sign language. In the last month, you have had a signing explosion, and now you sign words unprompted rather than only producing a sign when I say the word first. You’ll come up to me in a tizzy and I’ll ask what you want, and if you are able, you tell me.

That’s the good stuff.

The bad stuff is that you are once again waking at 5:30 in the morning. Regardless of when you go to bed. Regardless of how sleep deprived you may be, you will not agree to staying in your crib past 6 a.m. at the latest. I am soooooo getting revenge when you are a teenager. You had a few bad nights of repeated wakings a few weeks ago, after which you started signing about 10 new words. And then you started sleeping through again. You’ve gone back to mostly napping twice a day, except for the days that I have made plans around that schedule. On those days, you’ll lay down in the morning and really, you try to sleep, but after about a half an hour you demand to be let out of your bed cage.

Other random stuff…

Your favorite toys are your stacking cups, your blocks, and a small broom. Your favorite activity is putting things into containers and taking things out of containers. That keeps you busy most of the day. You also love pushing buttons–VCR, remote control, air purifier, etc. You also have a couple of books that have little squeaky animals in them, and when you couldn’t figure out how to make it squeak with your hand, you improvised–you put the books on the ground and step on them. I thought that was pretty brilliant.

Your favorite food was pears, until one day you started throwing them on the floor after only one bite. You like bananas most of the time and your breakfast is usually a mashed banana with rice cereal (either made with goat milk or goat milk yogurt). You like beans and peas and pasta and grapes and raisins–most of the time. In fact, you pretty much like everything on some days and I can always find something you are excited to eat. You’ll be crazy about something for a few days, and then won’t touch it. I can’t blame you. I’m the same way.

We finally turned your car seat around so that it’s forward facing and you were so amazed at the new view. I would have left you rear-facing longer (it’s safer) but your feet had to bend at the knees for you to fit in the seat.

I dropped your dream feed when you started nursing a little more in the day. I had agonized about "phasing it out" but just stopped one day and you never noticed. You will now usually get a 5 to 10 minute feed in once a day, either first thing in the morning or after one of your naps, with maybe a few little nursings throughout the day.  

I have been doing Dance Dance Revolution as a cardio workout, and you just love to "dance" like mama. We have an extra pad, so sometimes we’ll put "your" pad next to mine and you will just go to town. More and more you’ll dance to pretty much anything and I so love that about you.

I’m so glad we get to spend a lot of time together. It is so fascinating to watch you morph back and forth between monkey and baby human. You love to climb things, and it’s not like this is a behavior that has been modeled to you. Your dad and I don’t go around climbing things all day. But you just have this drive to do it. Apparently, so do most kids–go look at the toys on a playground. They’re built for monkeys.

I would like to write more to you, but honestly little dude, I’m tired, and if I keep putting off posting this, we’re going to miss a monthly update and I am too obsessive to let that happen.

I love you and am so glad that you are my little boy. You bring me so much joy every day.

Love,

Mama