(not) Talking, Letters, Shapes, Sleep

Seven weeks! I have obviously been slacking, because even though I keep thinking I need to post on here, it has taken me seven weeks to actually do it.

Jonah has turned into such a little toddler lately. All the traces of the baby he used to be are disappearing. It's great that he's growing up and maturing like he's supposed to, but it is certainly bittersweet.

Not only is Jonah walking confidently, he has started trying to run. It's really funny when he's holding Peter's and my hands and he puts his head down, out in front of his body and starts walking quickly - like his big head will help pull him along. He is still not speaking many real words. His intelligible words consist of mama, dada, up, ice, what's this (still sounds like washish), and bob. At his 18-month checkup the doctor said that Jonah does have a "slight language delay." He should theoretically be saying a lot more words, but we're not worried about it. He understands a lot, and certainly communicates. He's even started picking up several baby signs, without us really trying. The words will come.

Jonah has started recognizing some letters. I think this is mostly because he asks "what's this?" about a lot of letters in books. Right now he definitely knows S, G, and O. There are a couple of others he may know as well. He loves books, so I suspect it won't be long before he's recognizing a lot more.

One of Jonah's favorite activities right now is shape-sorting. He is becoming quite the pro at figuring out where all of the shapes go in his various shape-sorting toys. He seems to have a couple of the toys memorized, and turns it straight to the shape he needs.

Thankfully, Jonah has continued to sleep well. We have noticed that whenever we go somewhere different, he doesn't sleep well the first night, but then gets better the next nights. Luckily, he goes right back to his normal routine when we get back home. He has actually slept in the past three mornings since we've been home from the beach. He's still sleeping around 11 hours at night and usually about 1.5 hours at nap time, although sometimes more. I am very grateful for this consistent sleep!

Bracelets, Snuggling, Moon, Words, Happy

Jonah is a boy who loves his bracelets. A couple of months ago, we found him in his carseat wearing "links" as bracelets. He started putting them on in the carseat and taking them off when he got out. Then he would keep them on and wear them around wherever we were. Then he started wearing them around the house. He napped in them a couple of times, but I nixed that because they were leaving deep indentations on his wrists. He wore them every day to Vacation Bible School, he wears them to the grocery store, the pool, everywhere. I believe that his record is wearing 16 at once (and I think 11 of them were on one arm). He actually seems to be getting away from this a little bit in the last couple of days, but it has certainly been an amusing fixation.

He still likes to build towers with his blocks. When he cannot make them any taller on his own, he "asks" us to pick him up so that he can continue building. He also enjoys soft things. He has several stuffed animals and soft puppets. He loves to wear the puppets on his hand. It's very cute when Jonah snuggles with his soft animals. He smushes them up against his chest or face and gets a happy look on his face. Sometimes, if one of them is on the floor, he will just plop down and lay his face on it.

Jonah is a little bit obsessed with the moon right now. He likes to read books that have pictures of the moon in them and gets very exited when we get to those pages. He also likes the real moon, but doesn't see it as often because he is usually asleep by the time the moon is visible. Although we saw it during the day yesterday and he recognized it. It amazes me that he knows it's the moon whether it is full or just a crescent.

I feel like Jonah is on the cusp of speaking a lot more words. He has been making a few more animal noises and some different sounds. I think he has been taking everything in for so long and is about ready to start spitting that knowledge back out.

Jonah has continued to sleep reasonably well since we Ferberized him. He typically screams at some point in the middle of the night, but we don't go into his room and it usually only lasts a minute or two. Most days he will go down easily for a nap around 1:00 and sleep for an hour and a half. I think that this better sleep is probably contributing to the fairly good mood he has been in for the past few weeks. He still has his moments of whining and clingy and being difficult. But overall, he's a pretty happy toddler.

Walking (for real), Mama, Climbing, Towers

Only posting every three weeks seems to be my new normal. I feel like Jonah has grown up tremendously in the past few weeks, and is becoming more independent. I think it is unrelated to the fact that he went on his first big trip, involving four airplanes and three hotels, but that was certainly memorable as well.

Just this week walking independently finally clicked for real. Jonah used to walk all over while holding our finger, but on Monday he just walked off on his own. He has probably done it a hundred times since then. He seems very proud of himself and I doubt that I can express my pride eloquently. Yesterday I just watched him walking back and forth in his room thinking how perfect that moment was. I know this skill means that he can escape from me much more quickly (and already experienced this at that pool), but it brings me joy because he has been trying to master this skill for so many months. I am proud that he has achieved this goal. (Also, just tonight, he figured out how to stand up on his own without holding onto anything.)

Jonah also seems to be developing a slightly wider vocabulary. This has been a slow process, but he is saying a few more words and making some new sounds. He is slightly fixated on "mama" right now, saying it often, even when he is alone. I obviously like hearing it, but it's also really funny.

We seem to have a climber on our hands quite suddenly. He hadn't been trying to climb onto a whole lot, but had recently figured out that he could climb into Peter's chair. While we were in Indianapolis, he figured out how to use an ottoman to climb onto a bed, which seems to have emboldened him. He has been climbing much more since then and is able to get up onto our couch.

Jonah has developed a new skill with his blocks, starting to build towers with them. He builds them as tall as he can, making them slightly taller than himself, and is happy to see them fall over. He finally seems willing to play on his own for short periods, like he used to be. I appreciate this when I am trying to get ready in the mornings.

I'm looking forward to what developments the next few weeks hold!

Sleep (finally), (not) Walking, (not) Talking, Baths

I seem to have let three weeks go by again. It's crazy how fast time seems to be moving. The most exciting change that seems like it might be safe to call "normal" is that Jonah is sleeping through the night. I talked to the doctor about Jonah's sleeping at his 15-month checkup and the doctor basically told us to "Ferberize" Jonah. I hadn't wanted to do this because it seems mean, but we gave it a try and voila, he sleeps! It was a little rough at first and included him throwing up from being so upset, but he has finally gotten the hang of it. He goes to sleep easily again and is consistently sleeping from around 8:00 pm until almost 7:00 am. He is also napping about an hour and a half most afternoons. I like it. I don't know if they're related, but he has become incredibly clingy in the past couple of weeks, so he could be compensating for not falling asleep in our arms any more. We also dropped the final breastfeeding meal around the time we started Ferberizing him, so that could also be contributing to the clinginess. I'm sure it is a phase though, and will pass like phases always do, and maybe I will start to miss it (maybe).

Jonah walked reasonably well on his own for a couple of weeks, although he still required encouragement to do so. And in the past few days, he seems to have stopped. He will rarely walk on his own now, even with lots of encouragement. He loves to walk while holding someone's finger though, so maybe he just likes the company.

He's still not talking much. "What's this?" continues to be his main vocalization. He can also say mama, dada, mmm (moo), sheesh (cheese), and ice (yes). I know that soon enough all of the information he's been soaking up from asking "what's this?" will coming pouring back out at us. Until then, I will try not to get frustrated by his whining because he can't communicate his wants and needs (he's been whining a lot lately).

A cute thing that seems to have become normal happens at the end of Jonah's bath. It used to be that he loved the bath, but didn't seem too upset by having to get out. For the past week or so, he has actually stood up and indicated that he is ready to get out and is actually kind of excited about getting out. I'm pretty sure this is because he knows that he gets to brush his teeth after the bath and he absolutely loves that.

Such a boy, Pretending, Confidence, Sleeping, Mother's Day

I can't believe that three weeks got away from me since I last posted. I have felt very busy lately, although there is not one particular reason for this. I will not attempt to "catch up" on what has gone on with Jonah for the past three weeks, but simply look at what is "normal" this week.

In the past week or so, he started making "motor noises" whenever he plays with something that has wheels. He has a number of trucks and cars that he makes the noise for, but he also does it with his highchair, because I would make that noise when pushing him from room to room in the chair. I never really thought about it, but clearly, Jonah has learned that is what you do when you move the highchair. So now when I start pushing it, he will start making the noise. He's such a boy!

Another cute activity that Jonah picked up from me rather quickly is one of his first encounters with the world of pretending. We've been keeping a sippy cup of water in his room so that we can offer it to him in the middle of the night when he is screaming, in case he might be thirsty. One night, when he was refusing to take the cup, I offered it to one of his stuffed animals instead and made a sucking noise, as if the animal were drinking. The next night, he took the cup and held it up to an animal's mouth. Soon after that, he started making the sucking noise himself. Now he likes to give water to all sorts of things, including tables and his highchair tray, always while making the noise. He learns so quickly!

Just this past week, something clicked in Jonah's brain about how to walk. He had been walking some, but not very confidently, and only with much encouragement. On Tuesday, I walked into his room and he was walking across the floor by himself. He seemed very proud. Later that day, he continued to become more bold, letting go of my mom's finger to walk across my parents' living room. Since then, he seems much more stable when walking. It has been almost two months since his first cautious step, but I think he's finally got it. (He also climbed up onto our futon for the first time this week, so I think his confidence is spilling over into other areas.)

Jonah is still not sleeping that well. I would have said that he is almost consistently napping for about an hour and a half every afternoon, but this past Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, he pretty much didn't nap. He's doing slightly better at night since I stopped breastfeeding him in the middle of the night when he would wake up. It still regularly takes half an hour to get him back to sleep when he wakes up, but it's typically only once a night. Hopefully it will get even better soon!

Today is Mother's Day, so it seems like I should at least mention that. This is my second Mother's Day, and it still feels weird when someone tells me "Happy Mother's Day." I'm guessing this is typical and it will eventually feel "normal." I spent 26 years saying "Happy Mother's Day" to other people, and to be on the receiving end of that for the past two years just takes some getting used to.

Knowledge, Sleep, Easter eggs, Pushin' a truck, (not) Walking

If I could only share one aspect of what is normal for Jonah right now, it would be how much I feel like his knowledge is exploding. He still asks "washish?" about many things. The obvious connections he is making astound me. Again, I know this is normal, almost all babies do it, and if he were an adult learning the same information, no one would be impressed. I've said it before, but it is the fact that I am watching the learning happen that amazes me. One day he might not know what a closet is called, and the next day he will point to his closet when I say the word. There are so many objects that he has learned recently. Maybe he's known them for a while and is only now able to express his knowledge through pointing. I love that he is soaking up his world!

In regards to his crazy (not) sleeping that has been going on for 4 weeks, it's still happening. He has been going to sleep for naps more easily the past few days. But he's still not sleeping well at night, waking up 2-3 times and taking an hour-ish to get back to sleep, with lots of help. We're almost done weaning, and I'm hoping (perhaps for no good reason) that it will get better when we're done in a week or two. He has been really cute lately snuggling his bear when we're trying to put him to sleep. I don't know if it helps him sleep, but it's adorable. He's still clingy with me during the day, though maybe not quite as bad. It's difficult to get ready in the morning when he won't let me out of his sight or sometimes out of his reach.

We pulled our Easter eggs out a week ago and Jonah was instantly intrigued by them. He has loved playing with them, and is able to find them when Peter hides them. He also "hides" them himself sometimes, putting them in random places. Speaking of hiding, the other night he hid some of his corn in his high chair. He likes corn, but I think he had had enough on that occasion, and I watched him stuff it down in his high chair. It was hilarious.

One of Jonah's current favorite activities is to push vehicles around. It started with his concrete truck. He crawls around on the floor, holding the truck with one hand, pushing it along so that it is facing him (so the truck is going backwards). He pushes it back and forth across the house. He has even figured out to "steer" it by redirecting it before it runs into something. He has branched out and started doing this with a recycling truck and a small truck known as "Mark's truck." I believe I have seen him do it with a school bus too. He is very focused when he does this, clearly on a mission. Maybe he is concentrating on not falling down, because I would think it would be difficult to crawl while holding onto something with wheels.

Lastly, Jonah still doesn't seem interested in walking on his own. He is a pro at walking while holding our hands/fingers, and has taken a couple more steps on his own this week, but mostly he seems content not to be more independent than that. He can get anywhere he needs to by crawling, so he just doesn't have much incentive to walk. I know it will come eventually though and I'm not worried about it. For now, I have fun trying to get him to walk to me because he laughs at me when I try.

New normal, Cows, Biting, Washish, Repetition

Unfortunately Jonah's "normal" of last week has stuck around. He got over his fever from last weekend, isn't quite as cranky, and is eating better. However, he's still very clingy making it difficult to get much done and he's not sleeping well. Oh, how I miss the days of reading to him, singing to him, and laying him down in his crib, letting him drift off to sleep on his own. He has not done that in two weeks. He is fighting sleep like a champ. He only falls asleep breastfeeding or in our arms. Even if he's been asleep in our arms for 10 minutes, when we try to put him in the crib, he knows. He arches his back, kicks his legs, and starts screaming. Then we have to start the process over. He has been waking up in the middle of the night around midnight and staying awake for 1-2 hours, while we try to put him back to sleep. This is not a good long-term situation. I keep thinking it has to get better soon, but it really has become his new normal. I know that he's still teething, and may be mad about being weaned, and probably has a cold, but I don't think that warrants being awake for that long in the middle of the night. Luckily, he mostly sleeps pretty well after that, going 5-6 hours without waking up. When I write about this, it feels like I should be writing about a newborn, not an almost-14-month-old. He should be able to sleep through the night. I'm not exactly sure what went wrong and I don't know how to fix it. But I do know that it will stop at some point. He's not going to be 15 years old and still waking up for an hour in the middle of the night, insisting that we help him get back to sleep.

Jonah likes cows. I don't know if it's because cows are one of the first animals he learned, but he really does seem to be interested in them. I don't think he's seen a live cow since he has learned to say "mmm," but he moos at the cows in the Baby Einstein DVD, and when he sees them in his book. I think it's funny.

A habit that I wish were not normal is biting. Jonah has begun to bite (hard) both when he is mad and when he is excited. He has left teeth marks on our arms, legs, necks, whatever he can get to. And it hurts! This must be innate, because he's never seen or felt anyone bite. We consistently tell him "no biting," so hopefully it won't be normal for too long.

My favorite new "trick" is when Jonah says "What's this?" It sounds more like "washish?" but I'm 97% sure that he is asking what objects are called. He started a few days ago and has gotten into a routine while I change his diaper. He goes from object to object, pointing and saying "washish" to the monkey on his wall, the leaves on his changing table, the cow on his dresser, the bush on the side of his dresser, and (recently added) the smoke detector on his wall. He varies it and points to them in a different order each time, sometimes pointing to the same one over and over. He's very emphatic with his pointing, and really seems to enjoy this game. He also does it in the middle of the night with the things closer to the glider chair where we sit with him.

Jonah is definitely liking repetition. He does it with asking what things are called, as well as with books. He has me read the same book over and over and doesn't get bored. The other day, he handed me "The Foot Book" and sat while I read it. I gave it back to him and he handed it right back to me, making a noise that indicated he wanted me to read it again. We must have repeated this 10 or 15 times before he moved on to something else.

Freedom, Tags, Cranky-Butt, Hair, and Pacifier

I feel like there are too many things that I could write about this time (which is partially because it's been more than a week since I last posted). I had made some notes of topics to write about since the last post and now some of those are no longer true, so I will not write about them in detail. If I wanted to lie and pretend they were true, I would have said that Jonah doesn't fall asleep breastfeeding any more and that it might be becoming normal for him to only eat once during the night.

For the past couple of weeks, I have been letting Jonah play in his room while I get ready in the mornings, instead of putting him in his crib. I only get slightly nervous about leaving him "free" in there. There aren't too many things that he could get into in his room, although there are probably things we haven't thought of yet. I can usually leave him alone for 20 minutes before he crawls down the hallway looking for me. He typically just sits and looks through his books. Three times this week, when he decides he's done being alone, he has pushed his block-building table down the hallway and into Peter's and my room. The first time he did this it took about five minutes because he kept getting stuck, but he managed to do it all on his own. He has gotten better at it since then. I love that he comes to find me. When he's not pushing the table, he just crawls into our room and usually peeks his head around the closet doorway to see me standing in the bathroom. It's really cute.

Jonah has two "Taggies" books that are soft and have tags around the edges. He has been falling asleep with these for a long time, laying in his crib and feeling the tags. Recently he discovered that the tags are loops and he can put his fingers through them. It's like a new experience again! I often find him (awake or asleep) with one finger from each hand through a tag. Also cute.

This has been a rough week. I have probably said "cranky-butt" more times this week than ever before. Jonah is teething and has one more of his 12-month molars to come in. These molars have been awful, especially compared with the rest of his teeth, which didn't seem to bother him much at all. He has been cranky and clingy all week, to the point that it became normal (although hopefully not a permanent normal). He has not wanted to sleep and has not eaten well. Almost every nap/nighttime he screamed for an hour before finally falling asleep (either breastfeeding or with lots of rocking/singing). One day he only napped for 20 minutes in the car and refused to nap the rest of the day, and then went to bed an hour late (because of the screaming) and woke up two hours early at 5:30 the next morning. I have spent countless hours trying to get him to sleep this week. He actually did better today, but then got a fever tonight. It was 103, so I called the doctor and they had us come in. They don't know what's wrong though. At least we know that he doesn't have an ear infection, which I thought he might have because he has been smacking the right side of his head all week (that's also the side with the molar waiting to come in). Hopefully he will be back to his old normal soon.

A new normal that I anticipate will be a lot of fun is that Jonah is learning so much, namely body parts. He has recently started being able to touch different body parts when we say them. So far it had just been "feet" and "belly." Today I said something about the hair on a person in one of his books and he touched his hair purposefully. He did it again and again when I said "hair." This is exciting because being able to say "where's your [insert body part here]?" and have him point to it is a classic toddler game. The more exciting part is that I have never tried to teach him "hair" (or belly or feet). I have never pointed to anyone's hair and said "this is hair." He just figured it out! It seems so simple and yet I am so proud of him.

Lastly, it is becoming normal for him to sleep without his pacifier. He has never been overly attached to his pacifier. We mostly just gave it to him when it's time to sleep. Sometimes he would find it on the floor or somewhere within his reach and he would put it in his mouth, but he has never "needed" the pacifier. Lately he has been rejecting it when we give it to him, so I've mostly just stopped offering it. For a while he would hold the soft part of it and shake it around, instead of sucking on it, but he seems to have grown out of that too. I know that getting rid of a pacifier can be a big ordeal for some babies, so I am grateful that this appears to be an easy transition for Jonah and for us.

Food, Pride, and Poop

It is finally becoming more normal for me to feel comfortable giving Jonah food that we're eating. I think it started a couple of weeks ago when he and I were at IHOP having free pancakes with my mom. He really seemed to want some of mine, so I gave him some plain pancake. He touched it to his lips and threw it on the ground. He refused to try it. Since then I have offered him a pickle and grapefruit with the same result (both times because he seemed to want them). He tried an orange tonight and seemed to like it though. One night last week we were having lasagna for dinner and so did he. He didn't seem to like it very much (possibly because I gave it to him cold), but he tried some of it. This is still the area where I feel least competent, so I'm afraid he's probably behind what other kids his age are eating, but we're getting there. He does seem to be liking cow's milk though, which will allow us to start weaning him from breastfeeding any day now (more on that later).

I have been amazed at how proud I have become of Jonah in the past couple of weeks. There have been countless occasions when he does something and I am filled with pride that he is able to do it. It is truly a wonder to watch him make connections and learn about his world. I suppose that I am somewhat of a typical first-time mom in this regard, being proud of him for things that are probably not a big deal to any other adult. I do realize that these achievements do not make him a genius, they do not make him smarter than other babies, and they probably do not predict future greatness. They do however make him a normal one-year-old, and that makes me very happy. All along he seems to have done almost everything "on schedule." I could not ask for more. It reassures me to know that he is "normal." I get so proud of him because I have been with him every day of his life and watched him change so much over the past year. These surges of pride happen at moments when I can see him expressing what he has learned about his world. He has learned that cows say "moo" (or "mmmm" as he says), he has learned that when someone says "high five" it means they want you to hit your hand against theirs, he has learned that when people say "bye" you should wave your hand at them. When he hears the word "hippo" he will look around and point to his hippopotamus puppet and when I start to sing "I want to be your personal penguin" he will go find that book. He has learned that when there is music on, you sway back and forth. And tonight, when I was reading him Goodnight Moon (we have read this to him every night before bed since he was a couple of weeks old, and always replace "goodnight nobody" with "goodnight Jonah"), I said "goodnight Jonah" and he patted his belly and looked like he knew what he was doing. These are just some of the simple things Jonah has done recently that have brought me such pride. Simple things, with big implications. He is learning. We have not actively tried to teach him some of these concepts, but he has learned them anyway. Jonah has been soaking up this world for the past 13 months, and he is really starting to show us what he has learned. I hope this continues to be his normal, because I am so excited to watch him make more connections and more discoveries.

And now on to the poop. We use cloth diapers and I wash them every other day. Four times in a row, Jonah has pooped in the first diaper he wears after I start the load of laundry. I think he's doing it on purpose. (Not really.) We flush the actual poop, but the diaper still smells, and there is poop on the cloth wipes sitting in the pail for a full two days when he does this. It seems like it should be statistically impossible that this is just a coincidence, but I won't do the actual math. I told Peter about how many times Jonah had done this and he pointed out that it seems to have become normal, which is why that tidbit has made it here. On a different poop note, I wrote a couple of weeks ago about giving Jonah cow's milk and how we weren't sure if he was lactose intolerant. I stopped giving it to him for a week and let him get back to normal again. Then I gave it to him again, one cup a day for the past week. At first, his poop went right back to being weird, but now it seems to be back to normal, and I'm still giving him the milk. So I think we may be okay in the lactose department, and maybe the poop changes were related to his teething (this doesn't seem likely) or to the slight fever he kept running off and on during the past few weeks. Anyway, I am going to assume that it's not the milk upsetting him, and plan to officially begin the process of weaning him from breastfeeding him this week.

Books, Molars, Standing, and Cheese

Jonah has been showing an interest in books for months now, but lately he is very interested in them. He will pull all the books off of his shelf, and sit amongst them, flipping through the pages rather quickly (I think he's a speed reader). Sometimes he sits with one book for a while, other times he goes through a number of books in a matter of seconds. Occasionally it seems like he is looking for a particular book and is content once he finds it. He will sit like this for 15 or 20 minutes (although I haven't actually timed it) without moving much or making a lot of noise. There have been a couple of occasions where it seems like he would rather be left alone during this time. He just wants to read in peace. He "reads" like this at least once a day, sometimes more often.

We had two nights last week when Jonah screamed in the middle of the night (one night for almost 3 hours and the other night for 1 hour and 45 minutes). He was getting his first set of upper molars. Apparently these hurt a lot, because he has never screamed like this. We tried everything and nothing (even Tylenol) seemed to help. Those molars had poked through by the time I spotted them on Wednesday evening. I can see the bottom molars just below the surface of his gums though, so hopefully we're not in for another round of this.

Last week Jonah started standing on his own for a second or two. I would get him standing, let go, and wait to catch him. The falling was his favorite part. On Saturday, something clicked in his brain and he figured out what he was supposed to be doing. It was like I watched the light come on as he began to have a particular stance for this game, spreading his arms out and bending his knees. He was instantly much more stable and can stand for 10 or more seconds on his own now. The best part is how proud he seems each and every time. Once he is standing he gets a big grin on his face and kind of chuckles. This makes me happy. Eventually he will lose his balance or I think sometimes he falls over on purpose, because he enjoys this part of the game. So do I.

I think Jonah is a little bit in love with cheese. He has been eating cheese for a month or two, but he seems especially excited about it lately. I'm pretty sure he is saying a version of cheese when I say it or when he spots the cheese and wants it. It sounds similar to "shish," which is his word for most things, but his "cheese" sounds more like "sheesh," so I think he knows what he is saying.

Today's Normal 2/27/11

I find it hard to describe Jonah's current noises. He has started two new noises in the past week or two. One is almost a whiny noise, which he does often; especially, it seems, when he wants something. The other appears to be a noise of excitement, and Peter has called it a "titter." It's a quick, repetitive "heh," that is really funny. He seems to do it most often when he is eating, as we present him with foods that he likes. I'm sure these noises won't last, but I'm definitely enjoying the "titter" one for now (I could do without the whining). He's also making some more sounds like "nanana" and other incoherent ones that are new for him just the same.

He still wakes up twice in the middle of the night to eat. He has almost completely transitioned to one nap a day, with some exceptions. As a result of the one nap situation, he goes to bed a little earlier, typically sleeping from 7:30 - 7:30 (minus eating twice during that time). The one nap thing still has some kinks though. Some days he only naps for 40-45 minutes. Occasionally it is a longer, almost two-hour nap. A couple of times he has slept on the way to/from stores in the morning/midday and then not at all when we are home. On both Thursday last week and today, he took two naps, which he had not down in weeks. He was running a slight fever both days, so I'm pretty sure that's why he took an extra nap. He surprised me today, when I went to pick him up from the church nursery and he was asleep on the floor (with the nursery worker laying next to him). She said he just seemed so tired, so he went to sleep amongst the toys.

We started trying cow's milk one week ago. He has had a cup of it most days. He wasn't sure what to think of it at first, but will drink it now. However, I am questioning if he might have some sort of lactose intolerance because it seems to be affecting his poop. I am still breastfeeding him the same amount, and just adding the cow's milk in with an afternoon snack (usually Cheerios), so that he can get used to it. I will keep experimenting to see how it affects him, and then check with the pediatrician if necessary, before we doom him to the label of "lactose intolerant."

He has long been captivated by the screen saver on our laptop (just a standard-issue, Windows screen saver). He still is. He is also a little bit obsessed with balloons. When we go to Harris Teeter, they have free helium balloons for kids, so I get one and tie it to the shopping cart, and it keeps him entertained for a while. Now he starts pointing and saying "eh eh" every time he sees one. I think I've created a monster.

Jonah still doesn't seem to have much interest in walking by himself (and I'm still okay with this). While his "vocabulary" is expanding slowly (his favorite word is "shish"), Peter is anxious for him to start speaking for real. I know this will come soon enough.

Today's Normal 2/17/11

We had Jonah's first birthday party on Saturday and it went well. I wasn't sure how Jonah would do with so many people in a small space, but he did a good job. We made him take a nap that morning before the party, which I'm sure helped a lot. (This meant that he didn't take an afternoon nap and was awake for nine hours straight before bed.) He got a lot of presents and seemed to enjoy everyone's company.

I think we may be getting closer to the end of the transition to one nap a day. I decided to take more of an active approach to this transition, rather than just letting Jonah figure it out naturally. So I am not letting him nap in the morning, even if he seems sleepy. And then putting him down for a nap in the early afternoon. We have had a couple of successes with this so far, in which he took a long (almost two hour) nap in the afternoon. It would be so nice if this becomes normal and I could begin to count on that two hour block to get stuff done in the afternoons. I'm sure that as soon as it becomes a nice routine, something will change again.

Jonah has started playing more and entertaining himself with his toys more. He seems to be showing more initiative in trying to do things that he couldn't do before (like climb onto his caterpillar and riding toy). He's growing up!

He's not too interested in trying to walk on his own yet, which is fine with me. He can cruise along holding onto furniture just fine, but if there is a small gap between furniture, he will get down and crawl to the next one. He does not seem to want to try to make it there on his feet (although he has occasionally leaned for the next thing if it's really close and doesn't involve moving his feet).

Jonah has another tooth coming in - his 8th one. It's been a while since he's had any new ones. His hair is getting a little crazy in the back, and it may soon be time for his first haircut (if you don't count the one he had in the hospital).

He has started "sympathy crying" when other babies are upset. It doesn't matter if Jonah was as happy as a clam, if another baby is nearby and starts crying/screaming, he gets upset and will start crying too. It's really kind of cute and funny, but hopefully this phase doesn't last too long, because it just results in him being upset for no reason.

Today's Normal 2/10/11

Yesterday was not normal. This little baby that I gave birth to a year ago, became a toddler. It was an emotional day for me, as I remembered everything we went through last year to get him here (http://unit34.blogspot.com/2010/02/jonah-clark-ohlms.html). This past year has gone by so fast. I understand the value of a year much more than I did before. Just over a year ago, Jonah did not have a life outside my womb. And now, here he is, a one-year-old, with a will of his own.

Besides the big deal that is Jonah's 1st birthday, here is a summary of our current "normal." He seems to have developed a fear of elevators. Since at least October, he has been a little unsure about them, but now he is definitely scared. He gets visibly upset when the doors start to close and can be crying by the time we get to the next floor. I'm not sure where this came from, as he has never had any bad experiences with elevators. He's not usually in a lot of closed spaces, so I don't know whether it's limited to elevators.

Jonah has started being able to entertain himself for a while. When left in his crib/play yard with toys, he will play for 10-20 minutes before being bothered by the fact that he is alone. He will also sit and looks at books for a similar length of time. This has been a very useful development, as it allows me to brush my teeth, etc. in the mornings without him being underfoot. He has started to enjoy rolling wheeled toys across the floor. Jonah seems to be more ticklish than before. I don't want to overdo it on the tickling, because some people don't enjoy being tickled, but they laugh anyway. So I don't want to risk torturing him, simply because I think it's cute when I tickle him. But, for now, he does seem to be enjoying it.

For a few weeks now, Jonah has started to let us know when he is unhappy or doesn't want to do something by throwing his head backwards. Depending on how we are holding him, this can result in him bonking us in the head (which hurts), or almost dropping him on the floor. He doesn't usually give a lot of notice. Hopefully soon he'll find another method to exert control over his situation.

My least favorite part of our current normal is the transition to one nap a day. He started this about a week ago, and it has made for a long week. For most of the past week, he has only taken one nap each day, sometimes in the morning and sometimes in the afternoon. I think that once he is done transitioning, I will be happy with the new schedule. Assuming he takes a long-ish afternoon nap, it will allow us to run errands, etc. in the morning, and then be home for him to nap in the afternoon, while I get stuff done here. However, this transition period has probably been one of the most exhausting parts of my parenting journey since those early days. Jonah acts sleepy in the mornings when he used to take a morning nap, so I try to put him down for a nap. Sometimes he will take a nap, but then he refuses to do so in the afternoon. Other days he will fight the morning nap, and we end up battling for an hour before I give up. If he doesn't nap in the morning, he will take an afternoon nap, but they have not been particularly long and he still sometimes fights them. One day, we went shopping and he slept in the car on the way to the stores and then in the car on the way home a couple of hours later. No nap at home. For a long time, he would go to sleep easily, and I appreciated it because we used to work hard to get him to sleep. Now we're back to putting forth much effort in order to get him to sleep and it's wearing on me a little bit, so I'm hoping that does not become his new normal.

I realize that he's transitioning to one nap a day, not just being difficult, so it's comforting to know that this will not last forever, but it's hard to know what to do in the meantime. One nap does not seem to be quite enough for him, since he's still acting really tired. But he's refusing to take two naps. I struggle with how to approach it: do I not let him nap in the morning, so that he'll take an afternoon nap, or do I still put him down in the morning and hope that maybe he'll also take an afternoon nap? I think I should probably keep him up in the morning, but it's difficult when he acts so sleepy.

For now, I will be grateful that the end result of our week in the hospital last year was a healthy boy. I have been blessed to be able to stay home with Jonah since he was born, and I wouldn't trade that time for anything. I have a lot of cherished memories from these past twelve months.

Today's Normal 2/2/11

Jonah will be one-year-old in a week. This seems like anything but normal! I don't want him to stop growing and changing, I just want it to slow down.

Jonah has started eating more finger foods at his meals than "baby food." This is a nice change because it means he can feed himself a little more at meals, and I can buy fewer jars of baby food (I had originally figured I would make a lot of his baby food, but that didn't happen). His current favorite food seems to be peas. They are just the right size for him to pick up and feed himself. He also really likes bread, ham, and cheese.

He is still napping twice a day (mostly), but hasn't taken a long nap for me in a while. He has been maxing out at 45 minutes. He is also still consistently eating twice in the middle of the night. I made a deal with him tonight before I put him to sleep that if he would sleep all night without eating, I would feed him first thing in the morning, even before I change his soaked diaper. I don't think he was listening.

Jonah still loves bath time. He crawls into the bathroom if we leave the door open and heads straight for the tub. He usually stops right before he gets there and looks back to make sure Mommy is chasing him. As soon as we put him in the bath, he starts splashing around. He's funny with his bath toys: he likes to put them behind himself. He'll reach for a toy, obviously wanting it, and immediately put it behind himself. When he's out of toys, he looks a little confused. We put them back in front of him, and he starts over. As much as he loves the bath, he doesn't seem to mind too much when we take him out at the end.

One thing that has only been going on for a couple of weeks is Jonah's fascination with the "booger snatcher" (the bulb syringe used to suck boogers out of a baby's nose). We haven't actually needed to use it that often, and when we first did, he hated it and fought it. And then a couple of weeks ago, something changed. We were using it on him, and then he became curious about it. Then he started seeming like he wanted us to use it on him. Now he almost seems to be fussing for it when he sees it in the bathroom. When I get it close to his nose, he often grabs it and tries to put it in his mouth (he has never succeeded in this). He usually lets me use it a couple of times, and then is still interested in it, but won't actually let me stick it up his nostrils any more.

Jonah can't talk yet, besides babbling and your typical "mamama" and "dadada." I have started "teaching" him animal sounds though and he tries to moo. It's really cute when we say "moo" and he immediately says "mmmm," and he smiles like he knows he's copying us. He likes the other animal sounds, but hasn't imitated any of them yet.

He likes books and will look through them for a while as long as Peter or I am sitting nearby. One book that he seems like (and I like) is "Snoozers" by Sandra Boynton (I like many of her books). This is a book of 7 short stories. He has obviously learned one of them enough to anticipate what is coming next, because he gets excited for when we will say "SNORE" loudly. He gets this smile on his face (even behind a pacifier) and them gets really excited the closer it gets to that part.

Speaking of books, since Jonah was a couple of weeks old, we have read "Goodnight Moon" to him every night before bed. This isn't something that either of us grew up with, and we didn't put a whole lot of thought into it (although we had read that it was good to have a consistent bedtime routine), we just started doing it. And now we have done it for almost a year. Both of us have had it memorized since pretty early on. I usually read him "Go to Bed, Fred" before his naps. He likes that one too.

Jonah is somewhat mobile, crawling all over the place, and "cruising" along while holding onto furniture. He can climb the stairs like a pro, and pulls himself up using whatever he can. He is not entirely stable though, and he hasn't figured out that some things are not good for supporting himself. This has led to something that I wish was not normal: bumps on the head. Luckily, he seems to have become a little more stable in the past week or two, so he hasn't fallen quite as often. I always try to catch him, but rarely succeed. Luckily, he gets over these things quickly. He has become a little more brave, starting to lean against furniture, instead of holding on, so that he still has use of his hands, or only holding on with one hand. Tonight, he was standing in his crib and he even let go for a second, and did not lose his balance.

Some of these "normal things" will remain the same until the next time I post, and some of them will not. I wish I knew which things were going to change so that I could better cherish them while they are still normal.

Napping

I couldn't tell you what was normal in the first few weeks/months of Jonah's life as far as naps go. I'm not sure there is such a thing as "normal" at that point. He slept a lot, he was awake sometimes. But eventually he started sleeping more at night and having distinct naps during the day, instead of simply falling in and out of sleep all day. For a long time, Jonah's typical nap was 45 minutes long. This wasn't very long, but it was enough time to be slightly productive, or take a quick nap of my own. The problem was getting him to sleep. He would fight it and we would often spend half an hour trying to get him to sleep. For a 45 minute nap. (We also had to fight him before "big sleep.") We would read and sing and rock until he finally fell asleep and then we'd put him in the crib asleep (and sometimes feed him to sleep). It was frustrating to work for 30 minutes only to have him sleep for 45 minutes. At some point his naps changed. To 30 minutes. We were then typically spending 30 minutes to put him down for a 30 minute nap. Not fun. For a long time he would take four 30 minute naps throughout the day. A lot can happen on a sitcom during 30 minutes, but not so much in the life of a new mom. I would finally get him to sleep and then have time to go to the bathroom, eat something, check my email, and start/switch a load of laundry. If I really needed it, I would lay down for a few minutes.

I remember thinking that something needed to change, and that maybe he was old enough to take two naps a day, and they could be longer. Jonah was nice enough to change it up and just take two naps, however he stuck to his 30 minutes (he would occasionally go 45 minutes). Very rarely (like once or twice a month) he would surprise me and take a longer nap (1-2 hours). These were nice, however they would have been more helpful if I had known ahead of time how long he would be sleeping. So on a normal day, he would wake up between 7:00 and 8:00 AM, be awake for around 3 hours, take a 30 minute nap, be awake 3 more hours, take another 30 minute nap, and then be awake 4-5 hours before going to bed around 8:00 PM. I started figuring out how to get more stuff down while he was awake, instead of trying to do it all in those short naps.

A couple of months ago, during his two 30 minute nap phase, we changed how we put him to sleep. We would read and sing to him and then put him down in the bed sleepy, but still awake, to let him fall asleep on his own. This is how the books say to do it, and indeed, it is much better! We spend a little bit of time reading and singing, and then Jonah does the rest of the work. He sleeps with his Taggies book, and sometimes he'll lay there awake for 5-10 minutes fondling it quietly (which is really cute, by the way). After this change, the 30 minute naps weren't quite as frustrating, because I didn't always have to fight with him to go to sleep. But 30 minutes is still not that much time.

All of that brings us to now. Jonah still takes two naps a day (although he has occasionally skipped his morning nap). He is, however, finally taking some longer naps. His morning nap is sometimes still 30 minutes, but more often it is 45 minutes to an hour. His afternoon naps are usually at least an hour and sometimes longer. I hesitate to say that his longer afternoon nap is "normal," because I don't want to jinx it, but in the past week or two, he has taken more long afternoon naps than short ones. The longest he typically naps is 1 hour and 40 minutes. It must have to do with his sleep cycle, because when he does sleep longer than 1 hour, it is almost always 1 hour and 40 minutes.

I know that eventually (and maybe sooner than later) he will drop his morning nap altogether and just take an afternoon nap. I'm kind of looking forward to this, because it will be easier to go out in the mornings and run errands if I don't have to work around his morning nap. My hope is that with the elimination of that nap, his afternoon nap gets longer (a mom can dream, right?). Before Jonah was born, there were days when I didn't have to go to work and I would be home by myself all day. I definitely took those free hours for granted. I can probably be more productive during one of Jonah's long naps than I was on those entire days by myself.

Old Normal

People often ask me how things are going with Jonah and what he is up to. My answer typically involves telling them about his latest tricks, cute things he's doing, or whatever is normal for him at the moment. I recently realized how much that answer has changed over the past eleven months. A baby's "normal" changes so quickly and, as a stay-at-home-mom, I barely notice, because it is also my normal. Sure, I keep track of the big changes: new teeth, new foods, crawling, etc. But it would be so difficult to keep track of the big picture on a calendar, so I haven't. I can't look back and tell you what a typical day or week was like when he was three or seven months old. I wish I could. Those non-momentous occasions are just as important as the first time he tried mangos or started rolling over. So I will start now. (I will try not to regret starting this when Jonah is eleven months old, instead of when he was a newborn.) This will not be a daily record, or things would be too much the same every time. At most it will be weekly, and more likely monthly.

This first post will be an effort to capture some of his previous "normals," to catch up to where we are now, at eleven months old. There are a lot of details that I don't remember from those early weeks and months (Thank you, lack of sleep). I remember commenting during the first couple of months, that I was surprised at how well I could function (or think I was functioning) on 3-4 hours of sleep. Jonah had trouble breastfeeding in the beginning, so just feeding him literally took about 8 hours a day. He was a reasonably good sleeper in the beginning though, and slept through the night fairly early on. Then he started screaming in the middle of the night and we'd put the pacifier back in his mouth. He'd sleep a little more and then scream again. This would continue until the morning. So we thought, "maybe he's hungry. But not hungry enough to wake all the way up." So I tried feeding him. Sure enough, he slept the rest of the night without screaming and even slept later than usual. Since July, he has been waking up around 4:00 or 5:00 most mornings, wanting to eat. The pediatrician says this is normal for a breastfed infant. So I feed him. Jonah had a cold in October and was waking up in the middle of the night with that. Nothing would console him, except eating. So I fed him. Since then, he also wakes up around midnight most nights, wanting to eat. The pediatrician says that he shouldn't need to eat then, and that we should get him to stop. We tried. We failed. So I feed him.

While I do miss getting more than a few hours of uninterrupted sleep, I don't mind that much. The times we have tried not to feed him around midnight, he either screams until we give in, or Peter goes in to comfort him, which makes Jonah scream even louder. I know that eventually he will sleep through the night again. So for now, I try not to be too bothered by it, and cherish that time with him. After he eats, I hold him for a few minutes and let him digest. He usually falls asleep eating, and it's a really sweet time with him. My hope is that once we start weaning him from breastfeeding, he will sleep through the night. Hopefully.

Another thing that used to be normal was cooing. When Jonah was five weeks old, he started cooing. He would look at us and say "oooo" and "ah-goo." Sometimes his eyes would get watery and I would tell myself that it was because he was filled with love for us. I absolutely loved the cooing. It was definitely one of my favorite parts of being a mom. Then it stopped. I don't know exactly when it stopped. I just realized one day that he didn't coo any more. And I missed it. He had moved on to other exciting tricks, like laughing. But he didn't coo. I am sad that I didn't realize how quickly it would stop.

Other changes: Jonah used to love ceiling fans. We noticed this at about seven weeks. He certainly stills likes them, but they don't mesmerize him in quite the same way. He started laughing around ten weeks old. I have been surprised by how much his laugh has changed over these months. He sounds so much more grown up now. Jonah started babbling between six and seven months. He has gotten more and more vocal and has expanded his "vocabulary."

It used to be normal for him to just breastfeed. Now he eats solid food too. While it's exciting for him to eat all of these new foods, it was certainly easier when he was just breastfeeding. Feeding him solids has been the area of parenting in which I feel least competent. I try to follow the guidelines that are out there about spacing out new foods so that you can see if he has an allergic reaction. We have slowly introduced finger foods. He's doing a great job and likes a wide variety of foods. I think if he were the only baby around, I would feel more confident. But I hear about other babies eating things he hasn't or starting finger foods younger, and it makes me feel like I'm doing it wrong, even if I'm following what the "experts" say. I don't know why this one aspect stresses me out, but I know that Jonah is eating plenty and I don't think it will affect his development if he eats table food later than other babies.

That's probably enough of Jonah's "old normal" for now. I'm sure I will remember more about how things used to be as I start to write about how he is now.