Sunday, January 27, 2013

It is hard to explain all the ways in which this baby is changing. For one thing, he definitely does some kind of tantrum thing when he doesn't like our suggestions as to what he should be doing. For example, he heads to go up the stairs, I pick him up and turn him in another direction, he goes straight to his knees, arches his back, throws his head back as far as it goes and falls over backward right onto the top of his head. Of course, this pretty much always happens when we are physically holding him and so he never actually smashes his head on the floor but he sure tries.

In the last day or two, his mimicking has come into full swing. He recognizes when you are saying something you want him to repeat and he tries to say it. He doesn't necessarily retain it at all, but he'll repeat words whenever prompted.

I'm not sure when we introduced this to him, but he's been really into tickling my belly button. He actually lifts my shirt a little bit and sticks his finger right into my belly button, which leads me to shriek of course and this is hilarious to him. He never ever gets tired of this game, he loves making me scream and just dies laughing every time!

When I picked Micah up from the babysitter last Wednesday, I commented that he usually wears his shoes all day long at home because he loves putting on and wearing his shoes and socks. Literally that night, we came home and he pulled both his socks off and walked around barefoot all night (keep in mind this is a night when it was probably seven degrees outside)! Every day since then, he has been loving pulling off his socks. He takes them off every time he's on the changing table and when he wakes up from naps, he takes them off when he's playing in the living room and carries them around in his mouth while he works with his toys, he occasionally wants help putting them back on but he is definitely experimenting with being a barefoot baby!

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

One day short of 16 months old and last night Micah didn't wake up a single time! That's not to say that he exactly slept through the night. We have this whole new plan that is getting up to the sleeping through the night point. When Micah wakes up crying, Michael goes in and puts him back to sleep. Crying never leads to getting fed. However, he really does eat a lot during his nursing session in the middle of the night, so I have an alarm on my phone set and I go in and wake him up to feed him at 5am. So last night the only time he was up was when I woke him at 5am! I am very happy with this. The theory is that I can prolong the length of time he goes without eating once he knows he has to rely on me to come in and feed him instead of waking up and demanding it.

On another note, we had very beautiful weather last weekend and got outside a couple times. On Saturday we went to the park and Micah had a good time on the playground, in the swings, and also in the mud! On Sunday, we took him up to the reservoir in the stroller and then let him walk around the reservoir himself. He made it almost the whole way around walking on his own, that's a full mile! We stopped to look at the geese which were very impressive, and we got turned around a few times because people were smiling at Micah and walking in the opposite direction so he just turned around and followed after them. :) It is a pleasure to be this baby's mama. He makes me so happy every day!

So Many Changes (January 6, 2013)

The last few days have had so many things happen, I just have to dump it all here!

Yesterday morning, Micah woke up at around 7:45 and sounded happy. I was awake so I figured I would go get him before he started crying and as I got to his room, I was curious as to what he was babbling about. I peeked in. He was standing at the other end of the crib (farther from the door than usual), and looking and babbling at the Winnie the Pooh lamp on his dresser. When I went in and picked him up, he pointed at the lamp, so I walked to it with him and he pointed to Tigger and said "Meow". It was adorable. After that, I showed him the print that is hanging on his wall "O is for Owl" and told him that the owl says "Who" and when I walked over to that print with him this morning after his nap, he pointed at it and said "Who" again. So smart! :)

Really, that story is an indication of a general shift he has made. He seems to be talking in fake full sentences all the time the last few days. He's just making tons and tons of babbling sounds, talking to himself, talking to his toys. I swear he did not do this more than a couple days ago.

Yesterday morning we had another first as well. We took him out to breakfast at our typical place and for some reason the waitress gave him a placemat, a set of silverware, and brought him a small plate when she brought our food out. So I put some of my food on the plate for him and handed him a fork and he did a pretty good job with it! First time ever having his own plate, although I've let him mess around with silverware on his highchair tray quite a bit. I was especially impressed that he didn't decide to drop the plate on the floor. Generally, that's the reason I opt out of handing a plate to him, whenever I've tried before, he just wants to grab the plate in both hands, so I just take it back and give him the food instead. Since breakfast yesterday, I've given him his own bowl of food a couple times and let him feed himself. He's been doing surprisingly well with it and very little food has ended up on the floor somehow!

On the subject of food, he seems to have hit some kind of growth spurt the last couple days. It is just impossible to give him enough food. For breakfast yesterday morning, he had a banana, a bowl of baby cereal, a bowl of cheerios, a slice of toast at the restaurant, and probably one whole egg at the restaurant as well as some of my home fries! I figure it might be a brain related growth spurt since he's doing all sort of new things, the babbling, a handful of new words, moving toys around to climb onto the furniture or access the buttons on our computer printer.

In addition to being extra hungry, I think he's also been extra tired and that his schedule is shifting around a bit. But we haven't quite figured out what the new schedule is yet. His usual bedtime is 8pm but last night I was sitting on the sofa with him at 6:30 and he looked at me and said "Nah Nah". At first I thought he said banana but then I realized it was "Night Night". He climbed off my lap "Nah Nah. Nah Nah." He walked to the first floor apartment door which Michael happened to be coming into. He walked right past Michael "Nah Nah." To the stairs and started climbing. He climbed up to the second floor and walked into the bathroom. So I gave him a bath and put him to bed at 7pm. And miraculously he pretty much slept through the night with the exception of nursing at 3:30am! He even slept until 8am! And he's still taken two solid naps today. Something is definitely going on. And it's pretty darn cute too!