Oops. A lot of time has passed since my last update. The thing is, it’s a lot easier to update when they’re LITTLE and there’s not as much to say. Then one day, you wake up and OH MY GOD, THAT’S A LOT OF MILESTONES. I didn’t realize it’d be like this already. By “like this” I mean, he seems so grown up. I have to stop calling him “baby” because he’s not. He’s a little boy.
He started full-on walking right after his 1 year birthday, as predicted (by me.)
In fact, this past week it seems he discovered that he can also walk backwards and he does it often, at completely random moments. It’s pretty funny to watch.
I think his vocabulary is about to explode – he’s had his repertoire of onomatopoeia words (like “Boom!”) and “Uh-oh” was his first word, months ago. Whenever I ask him where his froggy is, he runs towards it, saying “baahdee baahdee!” He’s recently started repeating “pee!” (and even peed when I said it, in the bathtub, a few nights in a row. I still can’t tell if that was coincidence or not?)  A couple days ago it sounded like he said “monkey” after me, but not again. This morning he was playing with one of his “noisy” toys and when he pushed the yellow key and the voice sang out, “yellow!”, he said, “Yoh.”
There’s so many I’m already forgetting them all. Regardless of any words that we understand, he talks a lot.
I took him to the KidsQuest something something Museum the other day, which *I* did not like, at all. No point in mincing words, there were a lot of brats there. One kid pushed him over & away and while *I* was pissed, Felix just got up and walked away, calmly, not a care. Anytime any other kid would get in his way or grab something he was going for, he’d just change course. He’s rarely interested in objects and toys when we’re out, anyway. He just walks and walks and walks and walks around and around and around and around. I took him out of the little kids area (for crawlers and new walkers) and into the other area, where all the big kids were running around. (Luckily, it wasn’t that crowded so I didn’t have to worry about big kids running by and slamming into him.) He seemed to enjoy the “big kids” stuff a lot more. More to see, more buttons to push. And the WATER, he loved splashing his hands around in that.
But KidsQuest is an indoor area, attached to a mall, of all things – I don’t really like that atmosphere. Yesterday it was sunny and blue, so I decided we needed to get outside and took him to the zoo. *I* thought he’d enjoy looking at all the animals, but nope – what he loved was all the open space, so he walked and walked and walked and walked and turned around and around and walked and walked. He just loves to look around and observe. The one animal he was interested in was the peacock. There was a peacock running around, loose, and Felix wanted to run right up and grab it. I had to hold him back a few feet and Felix fought me the entire time, eyes glued to the peacock. For the rest of this winter season, we’re sticking to outdoor stuff. Even when we’re at home, he walks and walks and walks and walks, stopping only occasionally to flip through a book or play with his workbench.
Oh! And yesterday, the babysitter told me that she was reading to him from a book about colors. When she got to the “pink” page, he pointed to her fingernails – which were bright, bright pink. He didn’t do that with any other page. Coincidence? I think not!
I also taught him the “monkey” gesture (one hand on head, one hand scratching armpit) and the monkey, “ooh! ooh! ooh!” Now when I either make the noise or say “monkey” he makes the gesture. We’re working on elephant, next.
He’s an excellent eater. (I realize this can change and he could turn picky, but the thing is, I don’t care. We’re not going to make an issue of it, he’ll eat or not – all I care about is that what he DOES eat will be healthy. He’s not going to be one of those kids who gets picky, so we start giving him junk and processed foods just to get him to eat. I do plan on including him in meal planning and decision making as he gets older, so I think that will help.) He still loves his raw milk, which I am happy to let him drink a few times a day because it’s good for him. He also loves water – whenever I fill his sippy cup, he dances around excitedly until I hand it to him. That’s pretty much all he drinks. In the Fall, I gave him some apple cider occasionally and in the summer, I’ll give him some fresh squeeze orange juice or some such, but he eats bananas and oranges and real fruit, so why bother with sugary juices? He loves the bananas and orange slices. Apples in his oatmeal, with raisins. Pears. Strawberries. Blueberries. I’ve started making baked oatmeal, so that we make it once and just heat it up every morning, he enjoys that with a little raw honey and yogurt.  He likes quiche (this morning he had some broccoli cheddar quiche with his oatmeal). Oh my god – he does not like cheese. This befuddles me. How can you not like cheese? *shrug*
People have said things to us like, “Oh, just wait until he’s such and such age and he’s got personality!” I want to ask them what’s wrong with their kid, but this one has had big personality from the get go.
We (I?) waffle back and forth about having another one. One one hand, sure. On the other hand – Felix has kind of set an impossibly high standard. He is such an easy going, independent kid. He amuses himself all day (sometimes pushing me away if I try to play with him – just like he does if I try to help him over a small obstacle when walking, “I can do it myself!!”) and he sleeps from 8-9:30 in the morning!!!! If he didn’t nap much the previous day, he’ll sleep till around 9. But otherwise, he averages around 8:30. My worst nightmare, when thinking about having children, was of having to get up at 6 am every day. UGH. What are the odds of getting another one that sleeps until after 8am??? What are the odds of having another one that is so easy and independent as this one?
And CUTE? I know his cuteness is because of his genes, but c’mon – I think we used up every ounce of cute available on this one.
She took some blood and tested him for anemia & his vitamin D levels today. She does this with all babies, since so many people, including babies are vitamin D deficient these days and she likes to catch it early. I’m pretty sure he’s far from being vitamin D deficient – I make a point to get him outside & into the sunshine almost every day. On particularly hot & sunny days, if we get out between 10 and 2 and we’ll be out for awhile, I wait about 15-20 minutes to put sunscreen on him, so that he can get the most potent amount of vitamin D & sunshine possible. (Myself, as well.) Since we live in the Pacific Northwest now, getting enough sun is definitely something at the forefront of my mind. I also asked her about giving him some of our fermented cod liver oil in the winter (another thing that’s good for combatting vitamin D deficiency) and she was all for it. I’ll have to figure out how to get it to him, though, seeing as the capsules are too big and I doubt he’ll want to taste that in his milk. Blech.
His top two teeth! His bottom ones came in completely last month. (I think it was last month? I’m losing time already.) We took him to the Ricicli photo shoot (you know, cause HE’S A MODEL, NOW!) and it made me nervous, for a moment, to see a 7 month old who was already crawling & could get herself up to a sitting position. Only for a moment – I remember when I was worried that he didn’t roll over much before and then suddenly one day, BAM! he’s all over the place with the rolling. He sits, but doesn’t get into a sitting position by himself yet and he scoots around from one end of the room to the other, without crawling. Within the past couple weeks, he’s started to get up on his hands & knees and rock back and forth – which means in the next couple weeks, I’ll just wake up one morning and BAM! he’ll be crawling all over the place and driving me mad. I watched him with the other babies at the Ricicli photo shoot and he’s definitely an observer. While the other ones rolled around, smiling indiscriminately and grabbing at everything, he just sat there, watching watching watching and taking it all in. He did occasionally reach out and touch others, but only when their backs were turned. (Typical boy.) They say that easy going babies tend to take longer to do things like crawl, walk, etc – while he is incredibly easygoing, I think he’s also so busy thinking that he tends to forget to move. He gets that from me, for sure.
He is also quite the little piggy. I see how much other kids eat, then I see how much we give him. I asked the pediatrician, and she waved me off. “He’s growing beautifully.” In other words, don’t compare. He loves peaches, apples, pears, cherries, yams, peas, green beans, carrots (orange AND purple), avocado and… I’m sure I’m forgetting something. He’s very interested in food and seems to get a little angry when we’re eating stuff that he doesn’t get. This weekend, I think I’m going to add oatmeal (to go with his peaches or blueberries) and maybe a little spice like cinnamon. I had asked the pediatrician about food and she made a good point – there are so many different things done across so many different cultures. Who’s to say which is right? He’s hungry, he loves to eat… so we’ll just keep going.
This weekend, Felix & Chris begin their “Musical Expressions for Babies” class. I’d gotten a catalog of classes offered by our county community center and when I saw this, I knew it would be the perfect thing for him to do with Nugget. Get all that noise out of their system and all. (Huh. Wishful thinking, on my part, that they’ll “get it out of their system.” I know darn well that they’ll probably only be inspired to make even more noise.) :
There would be times when Nugget would look so big, and then moments later, he’d look little again. Usually while naked. But now, even naked (which he looooooooooves to be), he looks big. Little man is GROWIN’. He’s a full 16 pounds now. I suspect he had a small growth spurt because this past week, for 3 nights in a row he woke up at 3, 4 and 5:30 am. (YAWN.) And he was cranky & taking 3 hour naps during the afternoon. But then, just like that it stopped. Well… maybe. He woke up at 6:30 this morning, so I can’t really tell just yet. Really, Chris & I would be THRILLED at a 7 am schedule. 7am is nothing to sneeze at. And, funny, that’s what parenthood does to you. Once upone a time, we relished in sleeping till 11 am on weekends. Now I’m ready to do somersaults about sleeping until 7.
He’s got a million expressions & faces, as evidenced by the photos. A million and one. And, hey! He even flipped me the bird last week! Did you see that picture? He may look like his Daddy (it’s the eyebrows), but he’s got my personality (flipping the bird.) Or not. He’s awfully cheerful, and he definitely doesn’t get that from me.
We had a few more horrendously fussy, grumpy days and then, as usual, they cleared and he’s back to his usual chatty, smiley self. And BOY, is he ever chatty!