chicken-head baby is growing up fast
Nov. 29th, 2011 09:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
familyvalues
He's asleep! I can write!
Well, usually it's "he's asleep! I can fold laundry!" (or stage/photograph the stuff we need to sell on craigslist, or unload the dishwasher, or shower, or nap.)
I realized, when I was noticing how close we are to Owen's 9-month well-baby checkup, that I hadn't really posted here when he rolled over to 8, and I like to do that. A friend is currently going through her fairly sparse childhood photos and her mom's written memories/notes/letters, and pointed out how valuable having records has been to her. I have a blank book that I'd intended as Owen's baby book and never got started on it. I'm not an album-keeping sort of person but I really should -- for him. Among my most valued mementos, not even of my own memories, are the notes my grandmother made of my mom's childhood, including even a snippet of my mom's hair. And this journal is part of that. (Maybe I'll do a monthly print-and-save for him, too.)
Anyway: So Owen's rolled over to 8 months old, and is currently in his ninth month. He's generally a convivial, happy, fun baby, but offer to change his diaper or get him dressed and omg, it's wrestling a bag of snakes. It's not that he wants to be in a messy diaper or a shirt that he's just poured water (probably my own glass of water, even) all over, but the changing thing? Let's just say he doesn't think change is necessarily good. And anything that might make him fall asleep is evil. He even fights nursing, when he's clearly hungry, if he's also sleepy. We need to catch him at just the right degree of tiredness, or else wait until he's almost desperately over-tired, before he'll fall asleep with any ease at all. I think that both having clothing changed and stopping to sleep seriously cramp his fun-having style and he has no time for them.
He's still cruising like crazy but has seemed to be less in danger of imminent walking since he got really good at crawling. When he couldn't crawl well he needed to be on the verge of walking, but now he's a speedy crawler and holding steady for a bit.
He has said a clear "daddy" a couple of times, in context, but hasn't used it regularly, and seems right on the edge of "DJ" and "Mama," and I think I've heard "hi!" And he waves. It's wonderful.
We really need to build his book library, but I don't want to go spend huge chunks on board books (we'll get him new picture books, I want to support the industry and authors, but board books are for eating ;) ) so if you want to help us out this year, we'd love it if you'd look at our registry (for powell's, use mary |at| geographile.com and "owen's wishlist") and see if you've got some of those books but are done with them, and can send them to us cheapo media-mail. I'm happy to send a shipping address of one sort or another to folks who need it.
Eating board books, by the way, is part of literacy development. Owen started out nomming his books, but that's evolved into loving to have stories read to him. I can read "Freight Train" (Donald Crews) or "Big Red Barn" (Margaret Wise Brown) over and over. If he's sleepy, he might start flipping the pages, nomming them, or even tossing the book before I'm feeling quite finished, but mostly he likes looking at pictures and hearing the story. When he's beyond danger of totally trashing the books by eating or ripping them, we'll move onto regular picture books.
Owen also adores dogs. He and DJ have a truly sweet, loving relationship. I knew she'd be good with him, but it's beyond my dreams. She's so patient and gentle. But all dogs make him happy, little "it's like a dog, but smaller!" tiny chihuahuas out with people at the store, the labs and bernese mountain dogs that hang out in front of Peet's, and we go to the dog park as much for him as for DJ. He loves watching dogs playing fetch. (DJ's fine with that, as long as it's other dogs. She doesn't understand the point of the game.)
Today is errands day, and I hope, dog park day. Maybe it'll be library day too. We don't schedule these things much. Tonight will be the first of many walk-around-the-neighborhood-and-look-at-lights nights. I'm so excited about this Christmas, as he's too young to care about gifts. It'll be all about crinkly paper, bright lights, and singing. It's helping me focus on the same things, which is awesome.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-29 08:19 pm (UTC)Precious boy you have.
Does he listen to music? Have you tried music for sleep?
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-29 08:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-29 11:05 pm (UTC)