Thane at ten months

At some point the rate of change slows and you go from weekly updates to monthly to quarterly to, eventually, annually. We are still firmly in the “monthly changes” zone with Thane.

My last monthly update with Thane, I believe I confidently promised he’d be walking by the time I went to update once again. I was wrong. Thane isn’t walking yet. This might be because he’s so darn busy growing up in other ways. It’s harder this time, though, because the changes are extremely clear and important, but hard to write about. So I’ll start with the easy ones.

Food: We’ve mostly weaned. We haven’t entirely weaned. At night, before I go to bed, I take a 99% asleep baby out of his crib and kiss his curly head and nurse him – every night wondering if I’ll do it again tomorrow night. I am not sure if he gets a lot of milk that way, although I hear swallowing. I do know it’s desperately sweet to hold him in the dark quiet before bed and it appears to be working. So we’ll be keeping up this night nursing until we don’t. Other than that, Thane is quite an eater. He loves loves loves dairy. His two favorite foods in the world are whole yogurt mixed with fruit (usually applesauce) and chunks of cheese. He also adores beans – kidney beans, black beans, etc. He does a great job of feeding himself carb-type foods: small bagels to gnaw on, pieces of bread or crusts of pizza (he likes pizza), graham crackers, Cheerios, etc. He’s less enthused about carbs that are fed to him, like oatmeal or baby cereal. After a torrid love affair with blueberries, he now disdains them like a snooty suitor who found a richer wife, but will still eat other fruits such as strawberries, peaches, bits of apple, etc. He really likes yellow squash and zucchini, which is good because so does Farmer Dave. It’s hard to tell when Thane is hungry, because even when he’s OMGSTARVING he’ll vehemently refuse a food which isn’t the food he desires. You have to try a few kinds of food before concluding he’s not hungry. I’ve learned this one the hard way. Thane’s an adventurous eater and will try some of pretty much anything – including raw lemon. (Mean ol’ daddy….) In fact, there’s many a dinner when Thane has eaten more of the main meal than Mr. Grey.

Teeth: This week has heralded the appearance of two new teeth, poking not-quite-evenly from the top gum line. One is right before eruption, one is right past. Chomp! Imagine what he’ll be able to eat with double his current number of teeth!

Movement: Here we start getting into the ambiguous and hard to describe. The idea of walking just completely turned on for Thane last week, as he and I walked out of White Lake in the intermittent summer sun. Since then, he’s been very, very interested in standing and much more stable. He’s cruising from surface to surface instead of crawling between them. He stands by himself. He can almost stand up by himself, without holding on to anything. It’s amazing how many steps there are between crawling and truly walking, and how each small improvement looks so large and yet isn’t actually all the way to walking yet.

And now for the hard ones. Let’s see.

Thane loves loves loves books. He’ll sit for more books than I have patience for. The other day when he was sick, I read him 8 consecutive books. He turned the pages correctly, at the correct time. The last book we read was a book of opposites. On the last page it says “Hello. Goodbye!” When I read “Goodbye!” he waved to the book. (I, of course, melted into a puddle of goo.) He’ll be quiet for a book when he’s really fussy, even when he’s fussy with good reason. He steals his brother’s books out of the toy bin in the back seat. He looks at them intently and with great patience.

Thane’s at the throwing stage. There’s this fantastic stage of childhood when kids throw everything, including things they want. Dinner in the high chair? Toss. A bowl within reach? Down it goes. Toys in the car? How far can I throw them? And then the kids get very upset because they don’t have any fooooooood and there are no tooooys for them to play with. WAAAAAH! This is how you learn cause and effect. It’s also incredibly annoying.

Grey and Thane are having a great time being brothers – most of the time. It’s actually going way better than I expected. Although Grey can get a bit snippy when Thane wants to play with his toys or when Thane is whining in the car (see also: throwing all your toys out of the carseat), most of the time it’s easier having the two of them. Grey hates being alone, for example. But with Thane counts as not-alone. They’ll play together in a room with Thane providing the part of observer. (Which parent hasn’t gotten tired of the “Mom! Mom! Look at this!”?) Yesterday in the car driving home was a delightful example. Grey was putting a book on his head and having it fall off. Thane thought this was quite possibly the funniest thing EVER. For 10 minutes all I heard was Grey hamming it up with the book and Thane laughing as though his sides were about to split — this great laugh halfway between baby and person. It was awesome.

Thane is also beginning to show appropriate (if sometimes frustrating) personality. If you take a toy away from him, he will weep. Bitter, bitter tears. Sadly, he considers my coffee a desirable toy. If you take my coffee away from me, I weep bitter, bitter tears. This is something of an impasse. Most of the time, though, he bounces right back from disappointment. He generally has a sunny and joyful nature.

There are the beginnings of language with Thane. He says “da da” in a convincing way. I swear that I heard him say “Gwey” — I have witnesses. He doesn’t usually say “ma ma” unless I prompt him to. He certainly knows his own name, but that will be a tough one to pronounce. Grey still calls him “Dane”. He clearly understands plenty of words (see also: waving “bye bye” to a book)

Thane hates hats and bibs with a blinding passion. He sucks his thumb when he’s upset and sleeps with his butt in the air. He loves playing with spoons. He waves his arms when he’s excited. He has the sweetest curls.

He is a joy.