Grumps

I'm very grumpy with Mr. Bean for not napping well today, and I don't feel very charitable, but I'll try to still tell you how cute he is. He's got yummy borscht all over his face in the picture above. Earlier in the week I was bemoaning the fact that he wouldn't put actual food in his mouth, but he had eagerly chewed on the following: stuffing and upholstery from a cat-shredded chair, hair, hay, lint, and a piece of a dried up cactus leaf. Finally at the end of this week he has been chewing on his teething biscuits, crackers, cheerios, and a few peas.

Zane has gotten very good at getting into cabinets and drawers, especially the ones with deadly chemicals or sharp objects in them. This weekend I managed to close off the three worst cupboards in the kitchen and make him his own cupboard of harmless stuff to play with. Big safe magnets are now at the bottom of the 'frige. The kitchen garbage has been lidded, and the finger-pinchy fireplace doors have been locked. Zane has learned to whine when he is thwarted, and this is now happening when he tries to open these very enticing cupboards. Hopefully his new wire maze toy will occupy his mind.

For months I have been looking forward to going to Folklife with Zane. He enjoys music and dancing at home, and the two times I have taken him to a live event he really loved it. I even bought him special noise-canceling headphones to protect his tender little ears. Huh. So much for what *I* want. I'm a Mom now and don't get to do what *I* want. Do you sense bitterness? It is there.

Yesterday Zane started off a little grumpy and snuffly, and did not nap well. After a super-abbreviated afternoon nap, I decided just to go to Folkife with him and hopefully we could have a fun brief visit and come home for a nap. I put him in his snazzy Hawaiian shirt for his first Zydeco dance. Zane perked right up when we went out and his first bus ride was a hit. He let out an exclamation when we passed over the Ballard bridge and looked at all the fishing boats down below. We'll have to go have a closer look at those. We got to Folklife, walked through the crowds, and found Laurie who wanted to dance with him. The Zydeco band hadn't started yet so we went to get an elephant ear. This whole time Zane was looking and absorbing. All of a sudden he burst into tears! He was just so tired, and it was all too much. He cried when Laurie tried to hold him, so I just stood outside where the music wasn't too loud (I forgot the headphones), and danced with Zane. He was quiet and blank faced and tired. I watched the music for an hour, and he eventually fell asleep. I took the bus home and figured we would try again tomorrow.

Today he woke up tired and clingy, and I think he might be fighting a cold. He had a really good 90 minute nap this morning so I felt encouraged, but that was it. Whine and cling and yawn all morning and afternoon. From 1:30-3:00 I worked on putting him to sleep, and he would fall asleep and wake up immediately over and over again. But he really needed to sleep and couldn't function as an awake baby. It exhausted and depressed me. Finally I gave up and lay on the floor of the bedroom and had a good bawl. And Zane laughed at me! Diabolical! Actually, he thought I was laughing, too, so I'm glad he didn't know I was bummed.

Michael came home and took Zane, and I have been hiding downstairs ever since. Apparently Zane has been sleeping for about 45 minutes now. I feel some catharsis, so I think it is safe for me to go upstairs and have tea.

And you know what? He is still really cute.

Little Scientist

It occurred to me this week that being a baby is like being a scientist. Zane is constantly probing and testing and experimenting with his world. It's a good thing he can't handle chemicals yet. Now that it is springtime in Seattle he's been having fun exploring sunbeams and shadows.



Food is mostly experimented with and used as a textural art project and not eaten; here Zane explores the yamness of his yam through all senses but taste. He is also exploring the boundaries of the house, and he discovered the pet door to our front porch. He was pretty proud of himself. I've locked the door for now, but once I can clean off the porch I think I'll let him back out when he wants to. It's is a very small porch with high solid walls, so it should be a nice safe place for him to play while I'm getting ready for work or whatever.

This week more teeth are coming in! The two top incisors are cutting through, and they are causing Zane a lot of discomfort. Last night we were up for about an hour and a half in the middle of the night with a sad Zane. I took him into bed to try to console him. He took the opportunity to launch a 3am attack on Daddy's beard. In a week or two I should be able to get cute pictures of a new smile.

Speaking of mouths ... I've been trying to make most of Zane's baby food, and there are some really delicious vegetable combinations out there I never would have thought of, but I highly recommend to people of all ages. Try them, try them, you will see!
Sweet potatoes with orange juice
Butternut squash with pears
Lentil and vegetable soup with sweet potoes, apples, and garam masala.
With delicious food like this (plus the World Baby Foods jars), I don't mind when Zane won't finish his food, because I gladly finish it off.

Monday Zane and I went in for his 9 month checkup. Everything looked wonderful, except Zane has dropped again in his weight percentile. He is now at 3.14% (Pi!). It's not so much that he's skinny compared to other babies, it's that he is getting skinnier and skinnier. At least on paper. He's not roly-poly, but he does have fat creases on his wrists (e.g.). He doesn't have ribs showing, he's full of beans, and he's hitting all of his developmental milestones (we also went to another free child development assessment). So, he's probably perfectly fine and just takes after his mom string-bean-wise, but the doc is still keeping an eye on him. We go back in six weeks, and if he hasn't fattened up we will have blood and poop tests done. I don't know what they would be looking for, and I didn't ask because I don't want to start doing research and get all paranoid.

Zane's still loooooves the bath and water so much that he goes crawl-trotting to the bathroom whenever he hears the water turn on. Now that he can stand he can peek in at Michael having a shower. Zane gets his head wet, but he doesn't care!

Monday I took Zane to his first parade. Ballard is a big Scandanavian neighborhood, and every year there is a big parade on the seventeenth of May in celebration of the Norwegian Constitution. I stuffed Zane into our backpack and trucked on down to the starting line just a few blocks from our house. We only stayed for about 30 minutes, but he seemed to like it. Lots to see and many people to watch! It was a good backpack test run for doing the same thing at Folklife next weekend.

Tuesday's excitement was that he slept all night. Ahh. Unfortunately the long days of sunlight are interfering with Zane's sleep, even though we have the windows blacked out in the bedroom. He's only sleeping about 8 hours at night and then having long naps in the day. Babies are supposed to sleep much longer at night.

Wednesday we took a backpack walk to a new park and had another picnic and fun on the playground. I'm sorry I forgot again that I can't turn the camera. Please tilt your head to the left and click play. Have a fun week!

Hatshepsut!

Monday afternoon Zane sneezed and I said "Hatshepsut!" Zane thought it was so funny, he laughed and laughed at it all day.

The next morning I said it again while he was still asleep and he laughed in his sleep. Über cute.

Wednesday we went for another free developmental test. Zane is right on target. They're really a lot of fun, and I learn a lot about games I can play with Zane to help him hit his upcoming milestones. We were invited back, and I think I'll keep going even though we don't have any concerns.

Saturday was a perfect day (other than getting up at 6am). Zane turned nine months old! Zane had a 2 hour nap in the morning. Then we went for a walk to a nearby park and explored a jungle gym. Zane seemed to like the slide, and he tried to climb part of the structure. We had a picnic in the grass. I was eating an apple, and Zane wanted to try it. He managed to bite off a little bit with his two tiny teeth, but mostly he sucked off some juice. We went home examining plants all the way, and then visited with the rabbits in the yard. Zane had a 1.5 hour nap wherein I got tons of stuff done. Zane and Daddy went for a walk in the stroller and felt rocks and pinecones and rosemary and many other things while I went to the store. I came back with a bunch of boxes and made the coffee table safe for little fingers:Now we can keep our remotes, game controllers, PC bits, candy, and books away from Zane, but still have them handy. The beautiful bubble wrap keeps Zane's head somewhat protected.

We had another family session with the buns in the back yard, and Zane had fun persecuting JoJo:


A late night nap followed with a fun bath and some silly playtime ended a really perfect day. Unfortunately, today Zane woke up too early again, and he and I have been cranky and out of sorts all day. Oh well. Zane is out with Daddy again while I blog. I also had to go get some cupboard locks since Zane has started to get into them.

Fingers

The spring weather of six weeks ago has finally returned. Today Zane and I went for a long walk to get groceries. On the way back we stopped at the Boys and Girls Club to watch a baseball game, and we played on our first jungle gym. Zane and I went down the twisty slide together, and I slid Zane down a small straight slide by himself. We definitely need to go back to another play set soon. Then we got to spend time in the back yard on the grass. Zane is still a little weirded out by the grass, but he warmed up to it considerably today.

This week Zane has begun to refine his pinching grip, and as a result is starting to be a bit of a better eater. He can pick up Cheerios and put them in his mouth, and he now uses his teeth to bite on crackers. The crackers and Cheerios usually come out after sitting in his mouth for a while, though. I put some almond butter on a boring rice cracker, and he liked it much better. I put some of my milk in a shot glass and he practiced washing the cracker down with some milk from a cup. He liked that a lot! I have a feeling that the more he can feed himself, the better he'll do with eating.

He can now wave, too. Marie at daycare said all the kids can do this, so I think they work on it there. It's very cute! He holds his right hand up, palm flat out like he's saying "stop", and then he folds his fingers up and down. So far he does it randomly, not yet in the right context.

This week he's been having nice two hour naps right in the middle of the day. Ahhhh. I can get stuff done! Amazing. He seems much happier, too.

I finally got all my plans worked out for a summer trip to Maine! Traveling with Zane for the first time will be a bit of an adventure, but we have to do it some time!

Love is Hard

JoJo and Sebastian came home last weekend, but their love had not blossomed. We had them for about 4 days, and in that time they never warmed up and in fact began fighting. We had to put up a dividing wall which probably made the problem worse, but we didn't want them hurting each other. They went back to bunny love camp (Rabbit Meadows) where we hoped Sandi would work her bunny bonding magic.

I'm not sure what Sandi did, but JoJo and Sebastian (or Bun and Mr. Bun) are back home and being very nice to each other. They're not lovey dovey, but they are cordial. JoJo even licked Sebastian's head for a bit. They are no longer divided. We hope they will become friends and then they will be allowed to reclaim the house as their own together.

Snot and Bumps

Zane did end up having another nasty cold, this time with extra thick yucky snot that he covered me with every day. On the first two days he woke up in the mornings with his nostrils sealed shut and the sheets all crusty with snot. I stayed home with him from work for an extra day and was able to give him four good days of TLC and rest. He still drains nasty stuff a few times a day, but he feels much better now. One day I held him for a very long nap (he rests better that way), and Michael captured some dream smiles. He woke up for a moment and then went right back to sleep when he saw me, and with a sigh settled back to dreaming.



He's still a bit snotty, but feeling much better. He's been doing lots of exploring now that he can stand and climb over things. He got part of a WiiMote and tried to plug it into himself. In general he's been falling less when crawling or standing, but now he's trying more adventurous climbing escapades. He's also standing holding on with one hand and will occasionally fall. Here he is testing the limits of his gym.



Don't worry, he was fine! He also likes to climb into his bouncy chair now and bounce away on it. This has lead to some bumps and tears, but he keeps at it!

Today we went to a baby group session for 6-9 month old babies. Next week we'll crash the 9-12 month old session, since Zane will be almost 9 months old, and the groups meet only once per month. It's fun being one of the oldest in the group as Zane looks very mature and capable compared to some others. All but one baby have more hair, though.

Sleep has been really quite wonderful lately. Today he slept all night, and I woke up after 7 hours unable to go back to sleep because I'm just not used to it! Someday I'll get my sleep back.