He's slid out of the chair before - in the early days just because he didn't want to be in it. Recently he slides down halfway (if the arch is up) so that the kick toys can become hand toys. He slides until he can reach the toys with his hands, since he's finally getting good with his hands, leaving half of his body dangling out of the seat.
So when we leave the room, we strap him in. Yesterday was the first day that he tried anything while I was sitting in the same room. He didn't fuss and silent slipped out of the chair onto the floor - fait accompli #1.
Then he rolled over from his back to his belly! First time! He HATES being on his belly, so he's only ever rolled off his belly to his back. Then he grabbed the kick toys on the floor and was just having a good old time quietly playing with the toys and kicking his feet out on his belly (can't crawl yet)!
And so it begins..
I started looking for table bumpers for our glass table and we're going to have to childproof the floor in 30 days or sooner. He still can't get anywhere. Yesterday in his crib on his belly he was kicking like a sea turtle, but hasn't figured out that he's got to dig in with elbows and knees and not just flail.
THEN IT GETS FUNNIER TODAY...
It's morning - he's awakened early. I put him in his crib and go into the living room to lie down. I hear him changing the music on the mobile with his feet. Sometimes he figures it out, sometimes he doesn't. I'm impressed with his acumen. Then Mark walks past, not 15 minutes later and says, "did you take his diaper off?" And I'm confused like, why would I ever NOT put a diaper on him and walk away. He announces that Myles is diaper-free. Not just diaper-open, but diaper missing.
I come in and sure enough Myles has removed his poopy diaper (that he's just pooped -we've only been up 15 minutes maximum) and put it behind him and is not bare-bottomed, having a ball hanging in his crib! I'd left the feet out of his footy pj's since they were getting a little short (brand new 6 month pj's I bought 2 months ago - not knowing my 6 month old would be in 9mo or year old sized clothing) and so he had access to the diaper. So no more third world naked baby with a diaper. He's got to be pantsed-up at all times so that he can't reach the diaper. He had before pulled a tab open on the changing table, but never would we have guessed that he could remove both tabs and then move himself away from the diaper!
The baby's becoming a big boy - we've got to watch out! The fun begins.
We're preparing in bits and pieces. I'm meeting moms at meetups and he's starting to have regular playmates. One lady and I are going to do babysitting trades so that we can go on date-night with our husbands. I'm building infrastructure. We don't have family close by and the few friends who have kids have much older kids. So no free babysitting. I'd love to continue classes this fall, but I don't have a free-sitter and it's just not worth paying for daycare at this point for a couple days a week for a community college class - the sitter will outprice the class in a month. But I'm building a support team and a social life for him bit by bit.
We went to a meetup last weekend that finally had some people of color. Having grown up as the sole minority in an all-white neighborhood ('til jr. high), I know how important it is for him to see minorities. Around here, Latinos aren't minorities - they are near majority, so that doesn't really help much. I mainly want him to meet some black girls so that he realizes that little girls come in the mocha variety as well. So far, all his female friends are blonde, much less African-American! So this weekend he met a brunette Indian baby as well a black 2 yr old girl. Also at the meetup were a little mixed boy with a natural faux-hawk head full of hair, some Mexican-African-American twins and two white-blatino boys. Rainbow tribe indeed. He had a great time. The Indian girl and the mixed boy were VERY close in age to him, so it was a different level of interaction than usual. And when the older black-white-latino boy came over and spun the toys fast in front of Myles (in the exersaucer he was standing in) Myles caught on instantly and started furiously spinning the wheel too! He learns quicker from other children than he does me. I'm already 'irrelevant mom'! Somehow they know the difference between kids and adults, even when the kids are a year or two older and they emulate stuff, so this is really good for his development.
I'd originally started going to meetups to meet other moms and secondly find him friends, but when I noticed that he liked tummy time better when there is a live show of kids running around, I kept it up. At the rate of tummy time we WERE doing at home, he was never going to crawl. Now he'll watch other kids for about 30 minutes before uttering a peep of discontentment. And the fact that he gets knocked out from the excitement and the car is only a plus!
Baby machismo already:
"You let go." "No, you first." "No, YOU let go!"
No comments:
Post a Comment