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.