Sunday in church, as we were singing the final hymn, my husband started grinning. Given that he and I act like a pair of teenagers half the time we’re in church, I figured he just thought of something funny and gave him the quizzical eyebrow-raise. During the ending anthem-thingy he explained. “I just suddenly thought of Thane’s smile, and the very memory of it makes me smile”*
It’s true. My son’s smile is so exuberant and infectious that the very memory of greeting him in the morning can make you grin. All milestones aside, this is what is important about Thane.
But milestones there are! This was the month my son discovered mobility. He started crawling at Grandma’s house over Memorial Day weekend. By now, he’s lightening fast. He likes to do loops around the center island of our home. He’s eel-like — strong, squirmy and often slimy — when it comes to nursing or changing diapers. It is nearly impossible to put clothes on the child be cause he is GO GO MOVE MOVE! He seems to have a special affinity for books and shoes. He loves to play with them and put them in his mouth and generally check them out. He’s persistent. If he’s removed from an inappropriate object, he will try repeatedly to return to it.
His legs are incredibly strong. He’s pulling up to standing often, although usually on low objects. It’s more like pushing up to standing, since he rarely pulls UP, but rather pushes down to get on his feet. Yesterday, he stood for about a minute while only holding on to the collar of my shirt. It will be interesting to see if he’s satisfied with crawling, or if he decides to add walking to his repertoire by the 9 month update.
His baby babble has gotten delightful. Always a Daddy’s Boy, he spent the entire morning saying “Dadadadad”. He makes a vast array of sounds, from a delighted squeaky laugh to an insistent bird-like squawk to a truly delightful content-sound that beggars description. He is really clapping these days, which is lots of fun. Knocking down a tower of blocks is a never-ending joy and delight.
His deep affection for overhead fans remains undimmed.
One of the real issues we’ve had with him since we started solid foods half his lifetime ago has been constipation. He’ll try and try and become very unhappy because it’s not working. I cut down his solids so he was eating almost entirely fruit. He’s still breast-fed. But it didn’t work. Finally I called his doctor (shoulda done that earlier) to explain that the all-prunes, all-the-time diet wasn’t working, and was told to give him prune juice. I’ve never given my infants juice because, well, they didn’t need it and it just represented empty calories (I thought). But my! What a difference 2 oz a night of prune juice has made! He has stealth poops now, that we only discover to our chagrin later! This is infinitely preferable. So there’s my advice to you all, in case you ever find yourself in similar straits.
This is the incredibly messy state with food. He desires mastery over the babyfood spoon. He looooooooves Cheerios, but his method of eating them resembles artillery as much as fine dining. He can thwart the craftiest parent with a well-aimed swipe at a spoon, and if that fails, he’s not above blowing green-bean-bubbles. I had blocked this stage from my memory with Grey. It’s MESSY, but the only way to teach him to eat real food is to give him real food to eat and suffer the consequences.
Thane is becoming a pickier sleeper. He used to just go down very easily. But at Grandma’s at the beginning of the month, he really didn’t like to go to sleep in his Pack and Play. And we discovered at camping, to our chagrin, our Pack and Play was just as despised as hers. Lately he’s been fussing more about going to sleep, even when visibly tired. I suppose it is some compensation that he will sometimes now sleep between 10:30 (pre-my-bedtime feeding) and about 6 am. He’ll usually go back to sleep after the 6 am feeding.
Grey and Thane make awesome brothers. There was this wonderful, fantastic moment while we were camping when we were all hanging out in our tent before bedtime. Grey had a very interesting glowstick that Thane wanted to check out (see also: eat). Grey would run to one side of the tent and Thane would chase after him. Round and round they went, laughing and giggling, while their father and I watched with joy. Grey’s started to get a little annoyed with some things Thane does — like playing with a toy Grey wants or making loud noises in the car. But normal, happy siblings get annoyed with each other. Grey also pays a lot of attention to his brother. He’ll often try to cheer him up when he’s sad. He’ll ask where Thane is when he’s not currently visible. He’ll give him toys (after checking first!) if Thane seems fussy. Grey has a very strong intuition for knowing what’s bugging his brother.
Thane’s personality has started to strongly express itself. This can be difficult because it is hard to consider another person’s opinions and preferences — especially when those preferences are strongly pro-eating-shoelaces. But it’s also one of the great delights of parenthood, to watch your children become the people they are. I love every minute of being Thane’s mother.
*All husband-quotes approximate. He hates it when I misquote him, but I can never remember EXACTLY what he said.
My Truant Pen 