Rainy Day

Well, we apparently missed our shot at getting a video of the cute new face because all the responses he was getting from everyone for it have led him to exaggerate it, making it more weird than cute. But I did get a video tonight of him playing basketball and making the new version of this face. You may have to click on the HQ option at the top to make it clear enough to actually see the expression. I'm wondering if he'll ever go back to the cuter version or if this is here to stay.

And here he is proudly showing me his basketball. Between standing holding the ball, the mouth full of teeth, and the new haircut, he looks like such a big boy.

From 2010 June

He is acting more and more like a big boy all the time as well. Well, except for the fact that he can't talk and so when he wants something he just whines really insistently or tries to forcibly pull you towards the desired object.

Today when he insisted that we had to go outside, I decided to humor him even though it was raining. I figured we'd take one step outside and he'd want to go back in. So shoes on, light coat on, and downstairs we went. And he was a little taken aback at first, but didn't turn back. So we stood for a few minutes just a few feet outside the door with him watching the rain intently and occasionally turning his head up only to flinch and look back down. We ended up staying outside for 15-20 minutes exploring the world in the rain. This included a delightful time at the little stream that forms at the edge of the parking lot whenever it rains. He though the boats I made out of leaves were fascinating. Not because they were like boats since he doesn't really know what those are yet, but because he could watch them move with the water.

It was great to watch him. Most of the time he was studying things intently, but every couple minutes he would look at me with this huge grin and sparkling eyes like I was his accomplice or something. It was a "Mommy, we're having an awesome adventure!" look and I hope I can keep it imprinted on my brain because it absolutely made my heart melt.

He really is our little scientist, always looking for new things to figure out and testing things very methodically. Today at Storyville he carefully took all the plastic eggs out of their carton and then in putting them back in their spaces would test them in each space to make sure they were all the same. He isn't quite up to the shape sorters yet because anything beyond circles and squares are too hard to get properly oriented, but once he has the motor skills for that I think he will love those toys. Luckily we can adapt some of the blocks he already has to this purpose simply by putting the lid on their box.

We have to start being careful what we say around him because he knows a lot more words than I realize and he is picking them up quickly right now! Today we were talking to the people in the management office at our complex and one of them mentioned he had seen us playing in the rain and Nicholas promptly turned towards the glass door to look out at the rain. A few minutes later the woman asked him what the bird was, referring to the Oriole on his hat, and he started pulling me towards the door. And sure enough, there was a bird outside the door that he could see through the glass. I didn't know he knew what a bird was or what rain was. There are multiple incidents like this every day right now. It feels like high pressure with him picking up on so much we say.

Soooo Close

Nicholas is getting so close to talking. He is saying bunches of things that I swear sound like words, but he has done this before and they just turned out to be his syllable of the week and were quickly forgotten.

But today when he was playing peekaboo by hiding behind the wall, he would say "a-boo" when he peeked out. That and laugh like crazy, of course. And when he heard the lightrail (which we just call "a train") this evening while we were out on a walk, he lifted his arm (which is what he does in greeting or when he sees something he is excited by) and said "a-tray."

Now, these are likely just coincidences, but between those and the suddenly frequent use of "ma" syllables around me, I think he is getting really close. However, it is Nicholas so what will likely happen is that he will now stagnate at this point for months. It is just what he does. He gets 90% of the way to a new skill and then just stays there for months on end before connecting the last dot. It is what he is currently doing with walking, it is what he did with sitting. (Remember when he had to have a pillow behind him for months because he could sit up fine most of the time but would randomly throw himself backwards sometimes?)

But today at daycare he was repeating "agua" to the teacher, so at least he talks in Spanish if not in English. (And I think she was right that it was intentional rather than random because she said that after he did it each time he did his cute raised shoulders, hunched back shy-looking smile that he has started doing when he knows he did something good. I know that description doesn't sound cute, but I can't find the words to describe it. Until I capture it on the camera you will just have to trust me that it is adorable. In fact, I think it is the most adorable thing I've ever seen. He is so aware of himself now!)

Discipline

And so it begins.

Up to now our discipline has really just been limited to mealtimes and the issue of throwing food. But Nicholas has started showing signs of understanding and remembering a lot more and so we figure it is time to start working on breaking bad habits and stopping others from forming.

This revelation came because we decided to start gently working on his thumb sucking and he picked up on it much more quickly than we expected. In the past couple weeks the thumb sucking has increased, going from just when he was tired to basically whenever his right hand wasn't otherwise occupied. So we started just gently removing his thumb when it didn't seem to be serving a purpose and mentioning to him that he shouldn't suck his thumb all the time. Our hope was just to keep it from getting worse. But he picked up on it really quickly and much more thoroughly than we had anticipated. Not that he has stopped (in fact it is at least as frequent as it has been), but he will look at us before he puts his thumb in, showing that he already knows that he isn't supposed to. And a couple times today when we asked him to take his thumb out he cried fake tears. We're trying not to make it a big deal, just gentle and casual intervention to start planting the idea that he doesn't need to suck his thumb. I'm not sure whether that is the right tactic or not, but we'll see.

But based on this experience, we've started trying to actively intervene on other behaviors we had previously figured he was too young to understand. So we have started to clean up toys when he is done with them, asking him to help and talking about cleaning up. And today when he threw blocks (throwing is a skill he mastered just this weekend) I started trying to lay the groundwork on what are appropriate things to throw. Right now I'm not sure how much he is comprehending.

This is going to be a long road.

On a random other note, Nicholas' other two molars are coming in. He was being an absolute pain in the butt all day and I was losing patience and then it occurred to me that the only other times he is this awful is when he is teething or going through a growthspurt, so I put Orajel on the sections of gum where the molars have been visibly starting to break through. And since he went from completely awful to a little cranky, I'm assuming that was the problem. This week should be fun. Thank goodness for daycare.

On a more positive random note, Nicholas learned to stack blocks today. He was working really hard at it and by the end of the day he could reliably stack one on top of the other. When he tries to add a third it only stays about 1/4 of the time. He doesn't understand soft touches and so usually accidentally knocks the second one off because he bangs the third one on top with such force. But he is trying and working on hand-eye coordination, so I am happy to encourage him.

Busy Day . . . and Funny Videos

Nicholas had a busy (and apparently exhausting) day. On our Wegman's trip this morning he became a tad bit obsessed with the train and this giant stuffed cow on the cheese counter. So much so that he got really mad at me if I tried to walk away from them.

After a nap and a fun lunch date with Daddy (who was working at a nearby coffee shop for the day), we went up to Allison's house. Nicholas was even more interested in the dogs and cat this time around and started to get the hang of petting them.

From 2010 June

His favorite part of playing with the pets was definitely trying to chase them. Luckily the dogs have gotten pretty mellow in their old age and the cat was able to easily jump up on high surfaces to escape.

We then went to this really cool playground nearby. Nicholas really only wanted to swing in the same old baby swings, but I think this playground will be awesome for him next spring. You can only sort of tell in this picture, but there are huge wood castles and all sorts of fun tire structures.

From 2010 June

But the highlight of the day was our evening playtime (after a few meltdowns, occasioned I assume by a long day and a short nap in a hot car). There are some hilarious videos in the Gallery, but this picture is my favorite:

From 2010 June

Nicholas discovered that crashing his car into things was more fun that driving it around. Hopefully you can hear his giggles over my own laughter in the videos.

First Haircut

I'd been putting off getting Nicholas' hair cut because I love the baby curls, but it really had just gotten out of control (with the humidity the curls around his ears were looking more like wings), so this evening we took him to Joe's barber. And so I present the story of Nicholas' first haircut in pictures:

Here is Nicholas before the haircut began. And this is after this morning I took our scissors and trimmed his bangs because there was hair in his eyes bothering him.

From 2010 June

Nicholas was so captivated by the flaps in Where's Spot? that he didn't mind the woman messing with his hair. Well, until the end when she had to do the front and hair started getting in his face. Then he got antsy and annoyed.

From 2010 June

Such a good sport!

From 2010 June

And here is the final product:

From 2010 June

I must admit that I miss the curls, but as long as he keeps giving me this smile, the rest is window dressing:

From 2010 June

Blood Draw

Nicholas had to have blood drawn today, which was a traumatic experience all around. I don't know what the rules are in other places, but in Maryland kids who live in a certain subset of zipcodes have to be tested for lead when they turn 1. I assume it is based on the decades when the bulk of houses in that area were built or something, but for all I know it could reflect which state representatives were the most powerful the year the law was passed. Anyway, we unfortunately fall into one of the zipcodes that requires testing.

They had to bring in a second tech to hold his arm still because he was too strong and the one couldn't hold his arm and do what she needed to do. So I held Nicholas while one tech held his arm still and the other drew the blood. They actually did a really good job--only one poke and all done quickly. But that certainly didn't mean it didn't hurt. I had brought his favorite books, which were enough to distract him a little while the tech looked for a vein, but as soon as that needle went in, he threw his head back and screamed bloody murder the entire time. I have to admit that I cried a little too because he was so distraught. He had no understanding of what was going on, when it would stop, or really even what that kind of pain feels like.

He recovered pretty quickly, basically when they finished putting the tape on and he could have his thumb. No smiles for anyone, but at least the tears had stopped. When I went to get him out of the car when we got home, though, he looked at me warily, which broke my heart. Instead of his usual, "Yay, you're here--let's go!" smile, it was an "I don't know if I trust you anymore" look. Ouch.

But then we came upstairs and I gave him a bottle to ensure he got some food and liquid in his system and Elmo happened to be doing a cooking segment on the random talkshow that was on the TV when we turned it on. Nicholas was very excited to see Elmo on TV! He doesn't yet realize that Elmo actually belongs on the TV. After that and some of the walking game between me and the couch, I put him down for his nap and took a nap myself. The whole thing wore me out.

Random Thoughts

No, I still haven't gotten around to a Nicholas 1-year post, but maybe things will finally calm down next week and I will get to it. Hmm, yeah, doubtful. But here are a few random thoughts from today:

• Apparently the only time the baby swings at our local playground are in the shade is before 9:30am. This actually works out well because that is also the only time of day that it is cool enough to go for a walk. I have the feeling Nicholas and I will be taking lots of walks first thing in the morning. What we've been doing is taking a roundabout route to the playground so I can get a half hour walk in even though it is only 5 minutes away.
• It finally feels like summer to me. Now this could be the 90 degrees and humidity we've had, but we had some of that a few weeks ago. No, I think it is the sense of freedom. That and maybe the way the light is this time of year. I submitted the final copy of my dissertation yesterday. The defense was the last point when I could fail or be held up, but I needed to do some copyediting and formatting fixes on the dissertation and submit the final version. A formality but one I needed to take care of. Anyway, it is done and I have now been officially taken out of the department's system of graduate students, so I'm really and truly done. Ahhhh!!!
• Nicholas is still at the same stage with walking that he was 2 months ago. He has stood up on his own a few more times, but he doesn't do it regularly and it doesn't seem to have changed anything. He still things of walking as part of a game rather than a mode of locomotion. Oh well, I see no need to push him.
• Nicholas has never had lots of bottles, but cutting them out entirely has made food even more of an issue. He now eats 5 times a day and often goes through 4 or 5 different foods at a sitting because he gets bored of them pretty quickly. This means I spend most of his mealtimes running back and forth to the kitchen trying to prepare his next thing (and figure out what it should be). He is also eating lots of foods that are probably not great for him because I am at a loss for what to give him and they are so convenient. Case in point: when he wakes up from his nap he and I are probably going to have chicken nuggets and french fries for lunch for the third day in a row. I figure the frozen ones baked at home aren't nearly as bad as McDonald's, although at least the ones at McDonald's looked like real meat when I bit into them instead of grayish brown mush. I am never buying Tyson's nuggets again. Lesson learned.

I know there were other things I had been planning to post about, but I can't think of them right now, so I'm going to end this here and use the rest of his nap to get some work done. I am playing catchup in getting my courses set up for next year. For example, the book orders for fall classes was due months ago (i.e. months before I had the job), so I need to finish the syllabi so I can order books.