Gametes In Love

G is learning how to clap. I’ve been working on this with him for a very long time. Shockingly this isn’t quite the easiest thing to teach to a little dude. You’d think “Oh, just put their hands together, what’s the big deal?”, but it’s hard to clap two little fists, believe me. By the time you open one hand up, and then the other, and you go to clap, a fist magically appears!

But he’s been working things out. He now initiates clapping on his own — doesn’t do it forcefully enough to make a sound yet, but he’s getting the motion down.

This morning as I was changing a wet one, he started clapping for me. So nice for my son to recognize that didy changes are in fact a big deal for mommy and should be commended 🙂 So I guess that makes it more of a reclined ovation, not a standing ovation, huh?

Now if he only did the clapping thing on demand — it would make it so much easier to document…

In other news, I’ve been expanding the little dude’s eating repertoire. I’m getting more adventurous with Big People food. Given our eating/weight drama, I’m just experimenting with anything that works for him. I’m not stressing out over missing his jarred food when we go out, because I conservatively have him eat off of my plate. Last night he had bits of an English muffin and bacon. Today he tried tofu, peas (whole), pulled pork and grapes. So far, win on all accounts. He was an especially a big fan of the bacon and pulled pork. I guess he’ll be learning quickly enough that piggies go Oink Oink all the way to the tummy, in a very delicious way!

In other, other news, S is still childproofing our living room. I don’t think he was kidding when he said that G will be in college by the time we’re done. It’s now week 3. I feel bad for the guy: he’s given up 3 of his week-ends now trying to make our home safer for G. The last two week-ends were spent just on  our entertainment unit. I’ve learned that engineering solutions that will keep little hands away from electronics equipment, while still enabling the use of said equipment (in a non-tacky way) is tedious and involves a very colorful dictionary (if you know what I mean) 🙂

I gotta tell you — those baby jails are starting to look better and better every day!

Let me tell you about G’s day the other day. We were up in his room, where I let him roam around. It’s his room, filled with baby items (with few exceptions). In the span of 30 minutes my monkey:

1) pulled and ate on the power cord to the fan in his room. When that was taken away he protested and then moved on to pull (and eat) the power cord to his swing

2) dug up a bottle of  lactation support supplements that I’d forgotten about (they tasted horrible, and I put them on the bottom shelf of my glider table, where they were consequently forgotten). Said  bottle was discovered entering G’s mouth and then promptly taken away (post-haste esp. since it didn’t have a childproof cap)

3) found the batteries of the disconnected TiVo remote control and also decided to put them in his mouth.

Notice an eating trend here?

So yeah, electrical cords, meds and batteries: it’s as if someone had identified all the bad things in his room, given him a list and said “Go for it kid! Let’s give mommy a heart attack!”. No breaks in between for fluffy toys, or child-approved rattles. No. All the things that make me look like an awful parent.

So guess what S and I are going this week-end? Childproofing like mad, running behind a 2 foot-tall trouble-maker and using the word “No!” a lot.

Childproofing tips are welcome.