Gametes In Love

One of the awesome things about S2 is how his hair is coming in. He has male pattern baldness… in reverse. I suppose if you’re gonna live with that hair “loss” pattern though, I think his is the best way to go — where hair is coming in vs. out 🙂

I also love his dimples. When he does his big baby smile, he’s got dimples. Those come from daddy.

S2 is an excellent eater. He will routinely finish 2-3 size2 jars a day in addition to his bottles. I don’t think he’s met a food yet that he hasn’t liked, except that he’s not thrilled with the extra thick stuff. He had some thicker, oatmeal blend a few weeks back and he just gagged, so we backed off.

This boy loves to play with his shadow. At his changing table, he loves to turn over to play with the shadow moving with him. It’s kind of funny to watch. Simple marvels, right?

S2 discovered the joy of being on his knees this month. I was trying to put him down belly down, but he had tucked his legs under him and ended up in a table-top stance. And he LOVED it. I do my best to put him in that position as often as I can. He’s not quite strong enough, upper body wise to stay that way for awhile, but it’s his favorite these days and he tries OH so hard when he’s on his belly to get that way on his own. As it stands crawling is a ways away, and honestly I’m quite OK with this. All I wanted him to do for awhile is sit. We got sitting down. The rest can wait. S and I are scratching out heads for sure how to child-proof access to certain areas of our home from him, while letting G roam free. But that’s a whole other story.

Weight: 17lb 15oz

Height: 26.77″

Favorite activity: putting things in his mouth, without prejudice

Favorite toy: the caterpillar at daycare

Number of teeth: 0 (although by the fussiness meter I swear we should have 4 by now)

Sweetest moment: laughing at G when he does something (questionably) funny

Naughtiest moment: First place (by a lot!)waking up umpteen-times a night, and not napping. Second place: bath-time splashing. Still.

Important milestones: S2 sits on his own!

PS. Why is it that throughout the month I think of cool things to mention in this monthly summary, and then when it actually comes time to write it, I got nothing? I mean, I can’t remember what I wanted to say. Sure, call it mommy brain, but it’s sad.

Oy! S2’s been having some not-so-great nights of late. Now, I know some families have it much worse off than we, but 4-5 wake-ups a night is no fun, and when someone at work tells you (more or less) that you look like cr@p, you tend to wanna draw the line somewhere.

G spoiled us so much. He was a good sleeper, early on, and went through phases of wakeups only when he was sick or in a bad teething spell. S2 on the other hand? I’ve got no clue.

To boot, his naps for the past month have been terrible as well. He used to take one great nap daily that was at least 90 min long. The rest were short, but he always had one good one to round it all out. Now? We’re lucky to see 30 min out of that child, and he’s even teasing us of late with 1 (that’s right. ONE) minute long naps.

Worse still is bed-time. He wiggles himself onto his tummy. He’s mastered this skill now. Unfortunately, he doesn’t know how to get himself out of this predicament on demand, so he’ll roll over, and freak out. Bed-time is now a good almost hour-long process of just sitting by him, ready to flip him back over. And do this over and over, until he’s asleep for good.

Yes, this is a phase. Yes, this too shall pass. Just not soon enough.

I’m so hungry, I can eat a dinosaur!

(aka, Hmn… tastes like chicken)

Will THIS fit in my mouth?

I kick it!

Give me some old time Rock N’ Roll!

Safety first! Dinos get buckled in too

Does this scream trouble to you?

Move along, nothing to see. I’m eating, here!

ZZZZZZZZ!

Do you think I have enough spoons for my oatmeal? 5 good?

Ok, who’se gonna clean up this mess?

Nap? What nap? I’m not tired!

My toes are the best toy. Ever!

Nom, nom, nom, nom.

Our little teeter-tot has been at it for a few weeks now, but I think end of last week he really got his sitting-groove down.

I still don’t trust him quite enough to NOT get overly excited and thrash himself backward, so I keep a pillow behind him to buffer any potential fall. And it will be awhile before I sit him down on hard tile. But… HE SITS!!!

This has been the milestone I’ve been waiting on forever. Forget the crawling/walking bit – I’m not eager on those in the least (this time around), but sitting, ah, what a relief. Let’s see – I can put a baby down so I can go to the bathroom, screw on a sippy cup top, you know… USE both of my hands?

He’s also enjoying this new perspective on the world too. He can look around more, reach out for toys. All in all good, clean fun. And good photo opportunity too: something at least different from “Here’s S2 lying on his mat, and here’s S2 lying in his swing, and here’s S2 lying on his activity mat… again”. So, once I dust off the swanky camera and re-point it toward my brood, there will be some nice pics to come. Until then, woe at the “will have to do” of the iPhone cam 🙂

The amount of hair gray-ing and/or falling out increases exponentially with each child.

When your child makes a gagging sound, you will inexplicably find yourself holding out a hand in a worth-LESS attempt to capture the.. ugmn… “stuff”… and avoid clean up & laundry.

Invariably when you are caring for your child(ren) alone, because your partner is away, they will be on their worst behavior and/or get sick.

There is no such place in your home as a ‘child free’ zone that is either occupied by you or unfortified.

When putting a child down for naptime/bedtime you will be tired & sleepy before them.

When I was growing up, TV programming wasn’t exactly plentiful. There was morning programing until about 11am, P.M. programing from 4 to midnight (I’m assuming midnight since I never stayed up long enough to know) and a bit fat dead-zone in the between. And there was only one channel. Ok, two, but the second was only live on Tuesday evenings. And then there was Channel 4, which was the fuzzy channel that picked up reception from Russia.

To top it off, children’s programming was even scarcer: a hour’s worth in the morning (which no-one could watch ‘cuz we were all in school/kinder/daycare), and another hour in the afternoon.

Aah, life in a communist country. So simple 🙂

The one thing that was consistent though, was that every week-night from 8pm-8:10pm, there would be a kid’s good night show. The story would change every evening, but the opening and closing credits were always the same: Suncho (which kind of loosely translates to the sleep faerie). Well, I’ve been humming the song to the boys for quite some time now, until I got the bright idea to check out YouTube for it. And guess what? It was there!

So now, my nightly routine with G is to read him 2 books, sing the song with him, then let him watch the credits cartoon on my phone. I won’t deprive you of this experience (the cartoon part I mean), so here goes:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YLmLx53ZvM]

Much to my surprise, there was not 1 but 12 of these videos, that the station would rotate seasonally. I remember almost all of them, now that I watch them, but I just never realized it before.

Enjoy!