Boys will be B-B-B-Boys.
As in Bumps, Bruises, and Black Eyes.
Mobility can be a rough road.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
The 8 Month Check-In
Little Man's 8-month statistics:
--He weighs in at a whopping 25.4 pounds and 27.6 inches. He has tripled his birth weight and added nearly a foot to his length. He wears size 24 month clothes.
--He is, as you've previously read, crawling and pulling up on everything he can get his little hands on. He hasn't mastered sitting down yet, which is especially fun at 4 AM when he stands up in his crib and then freaks out because he's stuck.
--He loves to eat, chowing down on nearly everything we give him. A new favorite? His Dad's mango and pineapple smoothies. Yum.
--Despite his love for most things in mush form, he's not into finger feeding yet.
--He plays peek-a-boo with us, rocks to music and has started giving us high fives. He "gives us hands" when he wants to be picked up and will kick, kick, kick his football and cheer for himself when it rolls away.
--He's a confident, outgoing little boy, but he doesn't rush into things. He prefers to observe new situations from a distance for a bit before joining in.
A lot can happen in 8 months!
--He weighs in at a whopping 25.4 pounds and 27.6 inches. He has tripled his birth weight and added nearly a foot to his length. He wears size 24 month clothes.
--He is, as you've previously read, crawling and pulling up on everything he can get his little hands on. He hasn't mastered sitting down yet, which is especially fun at 4 AM when he stands up in his crib and then freaks out because he's stuck.
--He loves to eat, chowing down on nearly everything we give him. A new favorite? His Dad's mango and pineapple smoothies. Yum.
--Despite his love for most things in mush form, he's not into finger feeding yet.
--He plays peek-a-boo with us, rocks to music and has started giving us high fives. He "gives us hands" when he wants to be picked up and will kick, kick, kick his football and cheer for himself when it rolls away.
--He's a confident, outgoing little boy, but he doesn't rush into things. He prefers to observe new situations from a distance for a bit before joining in.
A lot can happen in 8 months!
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
A Room of One's Own
During the first few months of his life, Little Man's room was really just a placeholder where we occasionally changed his diaper. It was all set up when we brought him home: crib made up with cute Pooh Bear sheets, basket full of soft stuffed animals, books lined up neatly on the bookshelf that my Dad made for me when I was little. As he grew, we began to spend more and more time in his room, and the pretty little nursery I put together while he was still on the inside was becoming less and less practical for our growing boy.
Now that he is crawling at full speed and pulling up on everything that will hold still long enough, his room needed to be re-vamped in a bad way. Does he want to sit quietly and read books or cuddle the stuffed animals? Nope. He wants to pull all the books off the shelf then zoom towards the bulletin board full of pictures of his family, previously safe sitting propped up against a wall. When I redirect him away from the tiny thumbtacks of doom, he goes directly for the windowsill where he attempts to climb up the wall using only the pull string for the blinds, then darts on his chubby hands and knees to the double bed, where he slides himself underneath to pull out the who-knows-what I've been shoving there to get out of the way.
And so the baby-proofing begins. Since we spend most of our time in the living room and his bedroom, I have been focusing on those rooms first. When it comes to his bedroom, I really wanted it to be the safest and most baby-friendly room in the house. I wanted him to have a place that he could be free to explore without me having to follow him around saying no and re-directed him to something else.
A very good idea in theory, yes. Practically speaking, there is no way I can make the room 100% safe for Little Man. He is a master at finding the one thing in the area that he shouldn't be playing with, then zoning in on it with a focus that an 8-month-old should not be allowed to have. But since it will be awhile until he's allowed to roam free in any room, I rolled up my sleeves to make his room as baby-proof as possible.
First things first: the bulletin board and those tantalizing thumbtacks went up on the wall. All the lamps and his monitor got rearranged so the cords would be hidden behind furniture. The window that he loves stand up against and gaze out of got surrounded by some of those stuffed animals so that when the inevitable tumble occurs he has something soft to land on. Baby books found a place on the bottom shelf of his bookshelf (the only shelf he can reach...at the moment) for him to pull out to his heart's content. Diaper supplies that had a home on the bottom level of his changing table got replaced with toys. Now, for the most part, he is able to climb and pull and explore all he wants in his very own room.
The only thing that has me stumped is the door to his room. It won't stay open by itself, and Little Man's current favorite thing is to remove the doorstop and play with the door. We haven't had any smushed fingers yet, but if anyone has a suggestion of how to keep the door open and secure, I'd love to hear it.
Next up for baby-proofing: the living room.
Now that he is crawling at full speed and pulling up on everything that will hold still long enough, his room needed to be re-vamped in a bad way. Does he want to sit quietly and read books or cuddle the stuffed animals? Nope. He wants to pull all the books off the shelf then zoom towards the bulletin board full of pictures of his family, previously safe sitting propped up against a wall. When I redirect him away from the tiny thumbtacks of doom, he goes directly for the windowsill where he attempts to climb up the wall using only the pull string for the blinds, then darts on his chubby hands and knees to the double bed, where he slides himself underneath to pull out the who-knows-what I've been shoving there to get out of the way.
And so the baby-proofing begins. Since we spend most of our time in the living room and his bedroom, I have been focusing on those rooms first. When it comes to his bedroom, I really wanted it to be the safest and most baby-friendly room in the house. I wanted him to have a place that he could be free to explore without me having to follow him around saying no and re-directed him to something else.
A very good idea in theory, yes. Practically speaking, there is no way I can make the room 100% safe for Little Man. He is a master at finding the one thing in the area that he shouldn't be playing with, then zoning in on it with a focus that an 8-month-old should not be allowed to have. But since it will be awhile until he's allowed to roam free in any room, I rolled up my sleeves to make his room as baby-proof as possible.
First things first: the bulletin board and those tantalizing thumbtacks went up on the wall. All the lamps and his monitor got rearranged so the cords would be hidden behind furniture. The window that he loves stand up against and gaze out of got surrounded by some of those stuffed animals so that when the inevitable tumble occurs he has something soft to land on. Baby books found a place on the bottom shelf of his bookshelf (the only shelf he can reach...at the moment) for him to pull out to his heart's content. Diaper supplies that had a home on the bottom level of his changing table got replaced with toys. Now, for the most part, he is able to climb and pull and explore all he wants in his very own room.
The only thing that has me stumped is the door to his room. It won't stay open by itself, and Little Man's current favorite thing is to remove the doorstop and play with the door. We haven't had any smushed fingers yet, but if anyone has a suggestion of how to keep the door open and secure, I'd love to hear it.
Next up for baby-proofing: the living room.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
From Zero to Sixty
It didn't take long for Little Man's first tentative crawls to turn into full-throttle motion--especially if there is something in his sight that he wants. Usually, the things that make him go zoom zoom zoom are items he is not allowed to have. When he spots these things unattended on the floor, he can get from point A to point B more quickly than I thought possible. These items include:
--Remotes and game controllers
--Any electronic, including but not limited to phones, cameras and iPods
--Bags and purses
--Cords and plugs
--Grown up food and drinks
Crawling means freedom to follow Mommy and Daddy from spot to spot as well as being able to get to his toy basket and pick out his OWN toys. Crawling means the ability to get to things in which he can work on his pulling-up skills, which are developing at a rapid pace. Crawling means, until the baby-proofing is complete (and is that even possible?), that I spend the majority of my days jumping up to "re-set" the Little Man back to a neutral space so he has to start over in his endeavor to get to the blinds, the printer, or the entertainment center with it's sharp and pointy edges. And even though it's exhausting, it's amazing to watch Little Man develop all these new skills.
--Remotes and game controllers
--Any electronic, including but not limited to phones, cameras and iPods
--Bags and purses
--Cords and plugs
--Grown up food and drinks
Crawling means freedom to follow Mommy and Daddy from spot to spot as well as being able to get to his toy basket and pick out his OWN toys. Crawling means the ability to get to things in which he can work on his pulling-up skills, which are developing at a rapid pace. Crawling means, until the baby-proofing is complete (and is that even possible?), that I spend the majority of my days jumping up to "re-set" the Little Man back to a neutral space so he has to start over in his endeavor to get to the blinds, the printer, or the entertainment center with it's sharp and pointy edges. And even though it's exhausting, it's amazing to watch Little Man develop all these new skills.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
We Have Lift Off
Little Man has been sooo close to crawling these past few weeks that we knew it would happen any moment. We had tempted him with everything we could think of to get him to inch forward on his hands and knees: favorite toys, remotes, Mommy's milkshake...
But none of these compare to the thing that finally got him mobile: his Godmummy, who had flown in from The Big Apple just to see him. Apparently having her a few feet away was just not acceptable, and it didn't take him long to close the gap.
While his movements are still a little jerky, mobility has definitely arrived for our baby boy. And watching him scootch around the room and gaze adoringly up at his Godmummy, I think crawling is not the only first we're experiencing this weekend--I'm pretty sure Little Man has his very first crush, too.
But none of these compare to the thing that finally got him mobile: his Godmummy, who had flown in from The Big Apple just to see him. Apparently having her a few feet away was just not acceptable, and it didn't take him long to close the gap.
While his movements are still a little jerky, mobility has definitely arrived for our baby boy. And watching him scootch around the room and gaze adoringly up at his Godmummy, I think crawling is not the only first we're experiencing this weekend--I'm pretty sure Little Man has his very first crush, too.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)