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.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Thursday, February 17, 2011
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.
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.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
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/
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.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
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.
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.
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