thane – Page 2 – My Truant Pen

Thane at 11 months

So we come to the last of the monthly updates. Next month will be the 1 year update, and after that I think quarterly will be sufficient to keep you apprised in the latest Thaneisms.

I'm ignoring you! (But look at those curls!)

Thane has been much, much slower to walk than I expected. It’s funny when you discover what is and is not controlled by personality with babies. The walking is totally a personality thing. Grey was desperate to walk! He SO wanted to be a big boy. Thane is much happier being Thane, and being who he is. Walking is a bit riskier than crawling, crawling is perfectly adequate for what he wants. So he crawls instead of walks — when he remembers to. He will take even 5 or 6 steps when he forgets that he isn’t walking. Of course, climbing is a whole different story. He shows no fear climbing over obstacles, with inevitable head-bonking as a consequence.

11 months is a harder stage. Thane has started interfering with Grey’s toys. It is inevitable for a small child to desire the toy a larger child is playing with (and, in fairness, vice versa). Thane is indomitable when he decides he wants something, and no amount of distraction, removal, substitution, etc. will prevent him from pursuing his goal. These goals have a tendency to be: opening the cupboard under the kitchen sink (verboten) and playing with Grey’s toys (problematic).

This is also the nadir for feeding the child. Thane has begun asserting his desire to control the spoon. Ah! Fateful day! This would be more welcome if he didn’t use the spoon to comb his curly locks, and if any bowl or dish placed in front of him did not become a projectile weapon. I remember this stage with dread. This is the “plan on mopping the kitchen twice a day” stage. And Thane eats a wide range of foods, but he’s PICKY about which one he wants. You can think he’s hungry, give him a piece of bread (for example) only to have it thrown repeatedly. You might think, “Ah, not hungry.” But no! He wants cheese! Or pears! No no no! Not yucky raspberries. PEARS WOMAN.

While I’m elucidating the downsides, Thane is also Extremely Squirmy. He writhes in your arms. He has the strength of a leviathan in the body of an otter attempting to recreate a Pollock in yogurt on the kitchen walls. He does this unlovely thing, especially in the evenings and especially with me, where he’ll cry to be picked up and when picked up he’ll squirm unhappily (pulling hair and poking faces the while) and when you put him down he’ll weep bitter tears at your betrayal of him. I still can’t figure out what he does want when he does this, other than bedtime.

Thus for the downs. Now the ups.

I have never met a baby who liked books better than Thane does. Reading to him will pull him out of a full-boil tantrum. He will happily engage himself for like 20 minutes flipping through the rapidly proliferating bookpiles. He turns the books rightside up and pages the correct way through the books — page by page. He’ll sometimes turn back to recheck a page, before moving on to the next book. I have an entire bin of books for him in the living room. He LOVES them. Books are his joy and his delight. They are also one of his first three words. I don’t get a clear, comprehensible “mama”, but “book” is coming out loud and proud. He actually did a chin up, supporting his entire weight in his arms, in an attempt to crawl to the top of a shelf where his book were stored.

Thane has developed these heartbreaking golden curls. He never, ever looks NEAT, but I don’t think I can bear to part with those golden locks for some significant time yet.

Squirm aside, Thane is much more of a snuggler. When he is tired, he’ll curl up on my chest, suck his thumb and lay his head against me. I cannot describe for you how wondrous it is to have your child happily ensconced on your chest — even if it’s just for 30 seconds before he’s ready to go again.

I think I better make peace with my chin

When he is unhappy, it’s a near 100% solution to put Thane in the stroller and go on an adventure. His patience for being carted around in a stroller or baby backpack is stunning. He likes, I think, variety and change.

We have this Weebalot castle (we’ve had a ton of fun bringing out Grey’s old toys from this age) in Thane’s room. He ADORES it. To my surprise, he’s figured out how to play with it to make the Weebles fall down the curving slide. He’ll send them down over and over again. Grey always liked to make the music play, but Thane likes the slide best. I also got out the Busy Ball Popper ATTENTION PEOPLE WONDERING WHAT TO GET A BABY FOR ITS FIRST BIRTHDAY. This is the bestest toy EVER. Both boys are having a (ahem) ball chasing down the balls and playing the songs and figuring out what else they can stick down the popper. I only wish that you could buy spare balls, half of ours inevitably having gone walkabout in the last three years.

Thane is LOVING peek-a-boo. I take a blanket and place it over his head. I ponder, “Where’s Thane? Where did Thane go?” Thane pulls the blanket off his head. “There’s Thane! Hi Thane!” Thane will then lean his head down trying to pull it under the blanket. It’s terribly funny. He can, of course, keep this up for longer than the adult attention span, always delighted to be found at last!

My youngest’s sense of humor is developing. He and I were chatting this morning at breakfast. “Dada” he said. I pointed to myself, “I’m mama! Can you say ‘mama’?” He got, I swear, this mischievous look in his eye and a snaggle-toothed grin and deliberately said, “Dada”. Kid’s got timing — I ‘ll give him that!

Thane is a fantastic sleeper. He’s always gone to bed easily. And by easily I mean you read him three books, kiss his curly little head, put him in his crib, say a quick prayer, cover him over with his blanket and leave the room. Done. Not a whimper. He will only wake up if he’s constipated (we still are struggling to manage the perfect dose of apple juice to be regular but not over-regular) or if he’s hungry. He usually sleeps through the night now.

Thane and I are still clinging to one last feeding. Every night I wonder if it’s the last, but so far it continues. He wakes up or I wake him up right before I go to bed, and nine-tenths asleep he nurses and I hold him. I’m not sure how much milk he’s actually getting. Some, I know. Perhaps a little immune boost, but mostly a chance for me to hold and savor my baby as he quickly departs babyhood for the land of boyhood.

Abuela says we need to buy size four diapers — that he’s getting too big for size three. She’s right of course. But oh!

When Thane was a baby, I got a hundred fantastic pictures of him, and few of the blur-his-brother. Now, I cannot take a good picture of Thane. He moves fast. His nose is always snotty. He always has some food set aside for later behind his ear. He’s snaggle-toothed and drooling. He doesn’t smile on command. And anytime he sees me take out the camera, he comes at a baby-run to investigate and oversee the proceedings. So you’ll have to make do.

Walking to take custody of the camera - a blur as usual

Baby steps

Part of my wild weekend of hedonism and home makeovers was a BBQ in Watertown with some friends. The place was (quite literally) crawling with babies. Happily, it was a great spot for it. I plopped down on a lovely quilt with my son, snagged some delicious food and settled in to felicity.

Grey – the oldest child present – had a great time bouncing between groups. He’s getting to a point where we can take a step back in supervision. He usually makes pretty good decisions, doesn’t run off (although every once in a while he hides — happily I can almost always find him by following the giggling) and does a good job of following rules. This earns you a longer leash.

Thane, of course, still needs to be kept very close. As I mentioned, Thane has been increasingly interested in standing and walking. With a friend and my mother-in-law, we attempted to talk him into taking a few steps between waiting arms. He tried a number of amusing not-walking things. (Aside: what trust a child has to lean all the way back into your waiting hands. If had let him fall, it would’ve hurt. He did not think that I might let him fall.)

Thane loves loves loves clapping. BINGO is his favorite song. (He’ll clap along.) After he NEARLY took a step, I clapped in delight for him. Eager to get more clapping, he took two steps to me and was duly rewarded! Yay! 10 months old. His first, halting, head-long steps came just as he turned 10 months. More will follow, quickly.

It’s also been amazing to watch him start to talk. He likes to play with hands. So he has this trick he does where he’ll turn his wrist in a wave and say “buh-bye”. Of course, grownups can’t resist waving back. And then he can grab your hand and play with it. I think he may also say “ball”, “da da”, “hi” and (I swear) “Gwey”. He parroted a phrase I said this morning in the car. (It was like “I think so”. And he made similar sounds in the same cadence.)

Where has my baby gone? Who left this big boy in his place? This walking, talking, thinking, laughing human being with teeth? Amazing.

The walker shortly after his first steps

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.

Thane at 8 months

This is the face of a kid who skipped his nap and is being carted around on his moms back — This is the face of a kid who skipped his nap and is being carted around on his mom's back

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.