Busy week!

It's been a busy week and a half since our last post. We've been looking at new apartments, having fun at baby story time, decluttering stuff, getting new teeth and walking. Baby story time takes place at the library in town and is quite interesting for anyone who likes to watch babies. JJ is the biggest little boy there. There is one little girl who is a bit older than JJ who is bigger than him. He loves hugging the other kids and even tackled one or two (all out of love). He's working on walking and has taken about 6 or 7 steps all on his own without holding on to anything! Once he realizes he's not holding on to something, he reaches out and grabs for whatever he can find which causes him to lose balance. Not quite confident enough, I guess. He has a new top tooth (finally!) but I don't think he's through with this round of teething yet.

And of course, he's always getting into things! We have the pack n' play set up in front of the tv stand so that he doesn't mess with the dvd player, etc. He found a way to squeeze in! I guess I didn't have it as close to the tv as I thought!

Out of and into the mouths of babes!

Toddlers are wonderful! And my baby is turning into a toddler! He has joined the age group of kids that are discovering independence and assigning the meaning to the things they observe around them. The other day, a friend heard her daughter commenting on the sounds things make. "What does a cow say? A cow says 'moooo'. What does ice cream say? 'Mmmmm, yummy." Yep, I think that's about right! Toddler logic at it's finest. Now, my son's communication is limited to baby signs, but they are growing by the day. Today, I asked him about the bird we were looking at, doing the sign for bird at the same time. I asked, "Is that a birdie?" and he responded by doing the sign. Yea! Another word to the repetoire.

He's also working on the independence and lately has been quite stubborn and willful. After a particularly difficult diaper change (he was NOT interested in getting his diaper changed AT ALL though it needed to happen because he was beginning to leak), he was trying to eat/chew on a clean diaper (I had pulled a bunch out of a new pack and had yet to put them away). Now, the fact that it was a diaper was enought for me to say, "Ewww, don't eat that!" and take it away. Thinking it was over, I turned to finish putting away the diapers. My son, however, not to be outdone decided this was the perfect opportunity to try again. I turned back around to find him with a mouthful of dirty, wet diaper! It was no longer in the neat little rolled up package I made in effort to have it ready for the diaper pail. It was unrolled and hanging from my stubborn little boy's drooly little mouth! Talk about 'ewwww, gross'! I guess next time I may let him have a little chew on the clean diaper, lest he find a less suitable substitute!

Baby Signing Time!

Before I became pregnant, I was clued in to the fact that sign language can be very helpful in allowing babies to communicate their needs. After becoming pregnant, I checked out a couple of books about it and determined that this would be a great thing for our baby. They say it cuts down on temper tantrums, etc because a baby can communicate without verbal words (and it actually helps them develop their vocabulary). We started with the sign for milk. What a great sign! We could really tell when JJ started connecting the sign with getting milk (at about 4 or 5 months). He'd start making noises like he was hungry and we would sign milk. Instead of continuing to escalate to crying as he would before, he started to calm down. Don't get me wrong, he still wanted his need met IMMEDIATELY but at least he knew it was coming. Now, if he wants milk, he tells us by signing it. The tittle of this post is the same name as a video that has been wonderful. JJ may like to sit and watch Curious George, but nothing has held his attention like Baby Signing Time! He loves watching the video with the babies and the songs! He even signs along with the other babies! He got mad a tme the other day when he realized the movie I had put in for his dad and I to watch was not Baby Signing Time! Anyway, he has learned "milk", "more" (very helpful!), "eat", and he does a personalized version of "water"/"drink" (they are different, but his version looks exactly the same) and of "cereal". He also does the sign for "baby" when he watches the video. He understands signs for "cat", "dog" (and does it with a little bit of a reminder on how to do it) and "fish". I was inspired to write this because yesterday was the first day that he did the sign for "cereal". He watched me wiggle my finger across my chin and held out his hand in front of him, pointed sideways and wiggled his finger. That'll work! I'm sure more will come as his motor skills improve. A friend told me it seems that babies are either movers or talkers. JJ is definately a mover! So, this has worked out quite well for us!