Milestone Minutiae

Putting Luke to sleep is fun. After nursing in the bed for a while, he'll usually lie flat on his back and squirm for a bit. Then he'll sit up (I usually help him, otherwise he just gets mad). Then he'll suck his thumb and lie back down on my arm. If he starts to fuss, I'll sing. Tonight, every time I'd start singing "I gave my love a cherry" he'd roll towards me and start sucking his thumb. Seriously - almost every time! After a few (or more) times through this pattern, he'll be so sleepy that even when he sits up he doesn't open his eyes. His head bobs around and he slumps against my body, putting his head down and sucking his thumb. Then I'll slide him back down into my arms. Tonight, after he was clearly asleep, I saw him reach out like he was trying to get up. I decided not to help and he just flopped back down, completely asleep.

Emmett will be too old for Music Together soon (sniff sniff). But for now, he's enjoying the classes just for 3 and 4 year olds. The teacher gives the kids a chance to do rhythm and tonal patterns on their own, and during the "Goodbye" song, they can sing their own names. The first time Emmett took this class (almost a year ago), he would say his name when it was his turn. Then finally he started singing it. And last week, he sang his name in tune!

Over the past few weeks, Emmett has been speaking more Spanish at home. It's fun, because I can understand quite a bit of what he says (so far!). "Tengo una sorpresa para tu!" Then he pulls some toy or play-doh thing out from behind his back. "Es una giraffa!" At the events surrounding James' and Christina's wedding, he got to practice Spanish with lots of Christina's relatives. He also practiced with Grandma Jo and Lena. Grandma Jo taught him to say "I went to a beautiful wedding" ("Fui a una boda bonita"). He impressed his Spanish teachers by leading with that this morning on his first day back in Spanish school.

Much to his mother's disappointment, Emmett seems to prefer Legoland to Disneyland. At first, I tried to chalk it up to the fact that he hasn't been to Disneyland for a long time. But he really seems to enjoy the water-play features at Legoland that Disneyland just doesn't have.

At the wedding, another mother of a young baby asked me when Luke's bedtime is. I just looked at her, confused, and shrugged.

Shortly after we arrived in California, Luke was demonstrating his expert rolling skills when he sat up! At first I thought it was an accident, but he did it four or five times in the next day or so. Now, he's a pro. He can sit up anytime he wants.

Sometimes, Luke stares at his hand. He'll look at a hand and then slowly turn it over, back and forth, wiggling his fingers. He seems very purposeful while doing this, though I have no idea what that purpose might be.

David helped Emmett pack his backpack to carry on the plane tomorrow. They put in a few books - some for me to read to Emmett, others for Emmett to read to me. While deciding which toys to bring, David suggested a couple of puppets. He pointed out that they're big, soft, and not likely to get lost if they're dropped. Emmett said, "And they don't explode !"

Luke wakes up a lot when we put him down to sleep at night. After about 45 minutes, he'll wake up and yell a bit. Usually, though, when I get in to calm him down he'll just roll towards me on the bed and get his thumb in his mouth. Often all I have to do is snuggle with him a little and he goes right back to sleep.

Emmett has been asking about how words are spelled, and now he's started using his magnet letters to write words. Today, he wrote mild, mile, and slice. When I asked him why, he said, "Because my friend wrote a pretend word."

Luke's babbling is starting to sound more like speech. He's mixing consonants and vowel sounds, and groups the "words" into phrases. At night when I'm trying to sing him to sleep, he'll often sing right along, pausing at the end of a line and picking right up again with the next one.

The scene: Luke is rolling around on the floor. Emmett is crawling back and forth in front of him. Emmett says, "Look, Luke, look! This is how you crawl! Look! This is how you crawl!" Then Emmett turns to me and says, "I'm teaching Luke how to crawl."

Emmett just finished his first set of swimming lessons. This was the "splashing around and moving your arms and legs while the teacher holds you in the water" class. As a special treat during the last class, they all went down a huge yellow water slide. Emmett doesn't meet the height requirement, but the classes are allowed to use it regardless. He loved it. He went down all by himself, and had a great time.

Now that Luke is rolling well both back to front and front to back, he's much happier to play on the floor with toys. He gets around a bit by rolling too - I've seen him go as far as around 5 feet. I guess I should start paying attention to baby-proofing again. It's nice to see him play with Emmett on the floor, and it's nice to have a new place to keep him happy some of the time when I'm not holding him. In other news, Luke isn't too fond of eating. After several weeks of offering food at dinner time, he's never eaten more than about an ounce. For the past week has been mostly refusing to let any solids pass his lips. Today at lunch, I convinced him to eat some banana, first off my finger and then off of a spoon. I guess I'll just keep trying with the things he's liked before. Peas and now the banana seem to go pretty well. Sweet potatoes and applesauce seemed ok for a bit, but he's refused both of them this past week.