Progress

Is happening faster than I can document. He ate grapes for the first time on Thursday, has settled into a vegetarian lunch of green beans and peas and maybe some chicken if he's looking for more. He ate sliced bananas for the first time (used to refuse any banana out of the skin) on Friday. Started using a fork on Saturday. Ate pizza crust (first substantial amount of bread) last night. Just grabbed it off my plate, dipped it in his turkey gravy and ate it that way, making his own bread and dip combination. By the second breast crust, he was gnawing it plain.

Fed himself a COMPLETE bowl of oatmeal today! Of course he's wearing about a 10th of the bowl, but he did it by himself and even grabbed the normal cup of rice milk that had a straw in it and got the straw in his mouth and drank it without spilling the cup! Not even a baby cup with a top, just a plain old cup. He started out with food slowly - he didn't like much, but he's making up for it quickly.

We've also entered the realm of parental influence. He used to do what we asked him to. Now he doesn't. BUT, he now does what we do. So he'll see us do stuff and mimick. So rather than ask him to eat something, it's better to just eat it yourself and let him see.

Still working on the potty. We announce what we're doing whenever we're on the potty. He gets that much. I'm not going to really try and train him until January. The weaning and simultaneous molars coming in and the sleeping in the bed all night is a lot at once. He slept til 6 am today. After a year and a half of nightwakings, you'd think we'd be grateful, but we're still trying to get him to sleep longer! Gotta get some sleep before the new baby comes.

I really like how long it took him to grow up. It goes fast and Myles really milked babyhood as long as possible. He didn't rush to food, or sleeping through the night or walking. He took his time and now looking back, it's almost over and he's not even 2 yet. We get one more shot at this and then that's it for babyhood. I always thought that babies grew up so much slower than dogs, but really, not so much. They get pottytrained much faster than babies, but other than that, they only have then beat by maybe a year in terms of cognitive understanding and language comprehension. Max was fairly clueless for the first year of his life.

We had an ultrasound yesterday and everything looks good. We go back in 5 weeks for another one and we'll probably see the gender by then.

Now off to bathe him. There's so much oatmeal stuccoed to him that I should just hose him down!

Mark and Myles at a playplace

What a big boy!

Myles circa September

Being pregnant has really sapped my energy and enthusiasm for blogging and posting to Facebook, so now I'm severely behind on updating pictures and stories of Myles. So be prepared for a bunch of disjointed posts trying to catch you up!

Here's Myles above with his Paddington Bear he got from his great-aunt Margaret in England. He's just now getting into stuffed animals, so Paddington's getting some use. He also has a bear from Kenya that he likes to kiss.

His food progress is great. If he'd been eating this way all along, weaning wouldn't have been a problem. He seems to be a sensual eater, so he's got to actually get the bite. He hated purees and skipped them completely. Everything needs to be chunky and whole and bitten into, so here's a great example with him and the corn on the cob. He eats bananas the same way (you can't cut them into pieces - he's got to bit it off the stalk in the skin) and grapes as well. He loves the sensation of biting things. He's also discovered peas. And initially, they needed to be fresh frozen peas, pan-sauteed. He wouldn't eat soggy peas from a can or heated in water. But yesterday I tried microwaved peas and he accepted them.

He's a juice fiend now too now that he can use a straw and a juice box. Which is good, because he's iron-deficient, so we hide his liquid iron supplement in apple juice. He's discovering the allure of sweet - finally at 18 months! Yesterday he said the word 'cookie' which surprised me because we don't eat those much around here, but apparently it made an impression.

Boy is making progress

Myles is making lots of big boy progress. We haven't nursed ONCE today! Yay! Not without struggle, however. I am currently wearing a turtleneck - he can't have any access to the boobs at all or he'll claw at my clothes. I was wearing my robe backwards for most of the day.

12 week belly picture

Okay, I've been informed by Mark that this picture makes my stomach look rounder than it actually is, so don't freak out yet.