August 2004

08/29/04

I couldn't resist these...

I know.  It's a horrible picture.  But it makes me laugh.

Slinky!

08/28/04

Tommy will be 7 months old tomorrow!  Here are some thoughts on the occasion.

He can stand at a table or chair without us holding him.  He'll certainly be walking before one year.  I know there's still a lot of learning left to do before he gets there, but I'm sure it will happen before we're ready.

He still just has the four teeth.  I know that's actually a lot for this age, but I've been using "teething" as an excuse for every grumpy day or night this month.  I should probably just assume it's NOT teething for a while.  That way the next tooth will surprise us.

Most of the cool things he's been doing lately, I've already mentioned -- pointing, turning pages in books, crawling all over the place, making funny noises, sticking his tongue out.  I guess this monthly overview will be pretty short.

Here's a list of the foods he's been introduced to...applesauce, pears, peaches, green beans, acorn squash, sweet potatoes, carrots, rice cereal.  Lots of those foods are orange (ew, technicolor diapers!).  I'm thinking I'll give him one more month of pureed food before starting on lumpy stuff and finger foods.  David's pretty excited about finger foods though, so we'll see how long we really wait.

08/25/04...very late

He started pushing his tongue in and out of his mouth on the lower right side late this afternoon.  Maybe he'll have a new tooth in the morning.

08/25/04

He can crawl through the bottom of the Exersaucer now.

Oooog

How does this gravity thing work again? (note the pointing!)

08/22/04

We moved the small couch so that he can sit on the arm (with supervision) and look out the window.  He loves it.  Yesterday, he spent 20 minutes watching the rain with both hand and forehead pressed against the glass.  Then he turned his head so his cheek was against the glass, stuck out his tongue and licked it.  It looked funnier than it sounds.  

He started pointing this week.  He curves in all his fingers except his index finger and pokes at things that are interesting to him...pictures in books (J), my nose, crumbs on the floor, blinking lights on electronics, loose fibers in the carpet, etc.  He doesn't point at things at a distance yet, but I'm sure that will come.

He's finally figured out blowing raspberries.  Most babies do this much earlier.  As a normal mom, I of course blame myself.  I can't blow raspberries so when he tried at 4 months I couldn't do it back to him and he stopped trying.  (I also can't ride a bike so I'm worried he won't learn that either.)  He figured it out on his own this week and has been spitting all over the place.  That's great because it's an important pre-language development.

He's also decided that the coolest sound in the world is the grinding that occurs when he grinds one of his bottom teeth on one of his top teeth.  It sounds horrible.  Plus, the teeth are not at all lined up with each other so his jaw is jutted out to one side while he does this.  Let's hope his center top teeth come in soon so he can at least do his tooth grinding in allignment.

I hope David didn't want this woodworking catalog.

We randomly gave him some cheerios (6 weeks early according to my plan for food introductions -- oops).  After MUCH concentration he managed to pick one up.  Letting go of it inside his mouth was tougher.  When he finally did get one in his mouth he didn't know what to do with it so he swished it around a bit and spit it out.  We'll try again at the appointed time.

His new Thomas the Tank Engine hat from Grandma Sylvia.

This was taken mid-crawl.  I don't think he could see very well.  Eventually he just stopped crawling and swung his head from side to side trying to see where he was.  We took off the hat before he got too mad.

08/20/04

The requisite baby-in-laundry-basket photo.

08/18/04

Cindy and Claudia Sinars came over today.  Cindy watched Tommy for 15 minutes so I could take a shower.  With David out of town, it's hard to get a chance for that sort of thing.  Here are some pictures of the two kiddos.

08/17/04 -- later

Here's his black eye.  It's amazing how something that looks so bad in person looks pretty innocuous in a photo.  Trust me.  He looks pitiful.  The bruising around the eye socket just doesn't show up.  We're needing extra snuggles today.

08/17/04

I was just about to post this for Tuesday AM (it's now Monday night) when Tommy screamed.  He'd lunged for something in the bath, too fast for David to stop him, and whacked his face right below his eye.  Poor Tommy.  I can honestly say this is the first time he's been both hurt and frightened at the same time.  Those cries would have ripped your heart out.  He's sleeping now, but I expect he'll wake up frequently in the night if he rolls onto that side or rubs his face in his sleep.  It did break the skin but it stopped bleeding almost immediately and didn't seem to be swelling too much.  I decided Tylenol, nursing and sleep were more important than ice. Hopefully he won't have a black eye in the morning.    

Captain Pajamas says goodbye to Daddy and his badge.

I was bored so I let him finger paint with the sweet potatoes.  Whee!  Oh, wait, what I meant to say is that I felt like giving him a tactile experience to enhance his self-feeding motivation.  Yeah, that's the ticket.

08/16/04

What do you mean I'm supposed to lie back and kick the toys?  By the way, DAVID took this picture.  He can be taught!

Babies' Night Out... (Thanks to the Urbinas for inviting us!)

Mommies from Left to Right: Debbie, Ruth, Phyllis, Me; Babies from Left to Right: Faith, Claudia, Ashley, Tommy

Daddies from Left to Right: Brian, Angel, Chris, David

08/15/04

No ants this morning!  Yippee!  It seems the answer is Diatomaceous Earth.  It's a fine powder that's not poisonous but really irritates ants.  Hopefully it will keep working.  David will be out of town Tues-Thurs this week and I really don't want to have to deal with ants while he's gone.

Hee!  David won't thank me for putting this one up.  We were "swing dancing" Tommy to Brian Setzer music.  Unfortunately all the action shots turned out fuzzy.

Of course I picked a good one of me to put up.  Hey, it's my website!

08/13/04

Captain Pajamas goes ant hunting.

We have an ant problem.  We're working hard to fix the problem WITHOUT poisoning the boy, but it's really frustrating.  In addition to attacking random mini-swarms throughout the day, I'm having to keep the kitchen scrupulously clean (all cereal in ziplock bags, all dishes done immediately, no crumbs on floor).  That's really hard to do with a 6-month-old new crawler.  The worst thing is that I have to sit right next to Tommy and follow him closely every minute so I can squish any random scout ant that comes near him.  Did you know that babies are excellent mimics?  Tommy's eagle eyes can spot an ant at 20 scoots (he doesn't pace after all) and since Mommy puts her finger on those little black things then that must be what he's supposed to do too.  Arg!  I guess it's good for his fine motor skill development, but it gives me the heebie-jeebies.

In other news, he's started vocalizing again. He used to be very vocal but then he started focusing on manual dexterity and crawling.  He's been almost silent for two months.  The day after he started commando crawling all over the place, he started making noise constantly.  It's a very funny sound.  It's a guttural oooooeeeeee with the occasional oy thrown in, both as low and raspy as possible.  He sounds like a cross between Yoda and a Kung-Fu movie. 

08/11/04

New skill of the week:  Turning the pages for me while we read board books.  He does it pretty consistently now.  I'm very proud.

What's in here that makes so much noise?

Big yawn.

Sideways in the crib.  Man, he's long!

08/10/04

Captain Pajamas helps Mommy do the bills

The cooler is blowing cold air onto his face.  I was hoping you could see how his hair was flying around, but you'll just have to settle for the lip-sucking pose instead.

The tile is no longer a barrier in his crawling expeditions.  I used to be able to put him on the carpet in our room when I used the bathroom and he'd stay just at the edge waiting for me.  Now I have to distract him with the mirror.  Sigh.  Nobody told me that privacy and motherhood weren't compatible.  (Sorry if that was way too much information!)  

08/07/04

Yippee!  The growth spurt is over.  I hadn't mentioned it much, but Tommy has been having a really tough time the last couple of weeks.  He's been grumpy, clingy and tired during the day and waking up 3-4 times a night.  As a good little Attachment Parenting devotee, I just got up and nursed him every time he woke up, but I was really getting worn out and grumpy about the whole thing.  He was back to his normal self yesterday and slept from 9 pm to 6:30 am last night.  Yay!  I knew there was supposed to be a 6-month growth spurt, but I didn't know it could last for two weeks.  I suppose it's possible he had a cold or something else was wrong like gurgling applesauce in his tummy.  Regardless, I'm glad he's finally back to normal.  

These two pictures don't do justice to the moment.  David was galloping around the house carrying Tommy, who was laughing hysterically.  They stopped long enough for me to take a picture.  Although Tommy was still laughing, his true level of mirth isn't quite visible.

  David caught this moment on film.  (No, I didn't manage to brush my hair at all today.)

08/05/04

I think we're going to have to officially say he's crawling.  It's still a belly-on-the-floor commando crawl, but that boy can move!  He's so happy that he can play on the floor and then crawl over to (and onto) me when he wants to be held.  He spent about 20 minutes under the coffee table this afternoon -- looking around, chewing on a lego, fingering the screws.  I take it as proof that he's his father's son.  He was probably contemplating how the thing was built.

He crawled over to this book this afternoon and was still looking at it after I took the time to go get the camera.  He has definite preferences on each page.  On the Baby Animal page he likes the kitten, and on the Pets page he likes the cat.  (Poor David.  He's allergic to cats.  He keeps trying to re-direct Tommy to the fish, but Tommy will have none of that.)  He doesn't like the farm animal page.  On the Bird page he likes the owl, and on the Zoo page he likes the snake.   

08/04/04

Spinning in the computer chair.

A little after-spin chew.

08/02/04

He definitely doesn't like bananas.  It probably wasn't the best fruit to start him on.  We switched to applesauce today, and we'll try that every day this week instead.  He's not to sure about the applesauce, but bananas just make him really mad.

In other news, Tommy "commando crawled" across the living room and under the coffee table to where I was sitting on the couch today.  David was on the floor with him and we were talking to each other and not really paying attention to him since he was absorbed with his legos.  The next thing I knew he was almost at my feet.  We probably got so excited about the event that he'll never do it again.

He's also decided that the best thing to do with his bath toys is to pick them up one at a time, chew on them for a while and then set them on the ledge.  Very cute.

08/01/04

In typical Sally fashion, I spent a couple of hours Friday making an elaborate chart of all the foods I could think of and plotted when we'd introduce them to Tommy.  Then, David said "let's see what happens if we give him a piece of banana to hold."  That sounded like fun, so the chart went out the window.  David's a good influence on me.  He keeps me from getting too uptight.  Anyway, we mashed up a little bit of banana to really feed him and let him play with a piece of whole banana (one too large for him to choke on).  He wasn't very sure about the texture of banana.  It's a bit slimy after all.  He made a very funny face and shuddered a bit when a small spoonful slid down his throat on its own.  He was very confused and surprised when the new "toy" we gave him had flavor and bits of it came off in his mouth.  We let him play around for a while and I'll keep offering mashed banana over the next few days to see if he takes to it.  I'm sure he will.  I don't know of any babies who don't like bananas.

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