7 Quick Takes (volume 11)

The "What is Gus up to These Days" edition!  Because I have been meaning to chronicle some of his 8-month-old goings-on for some time now, and today seems as good a day as any. (This one's for you, Mom!)

-1-

Talking

Okay, not real talking. But he is constantly trying out different syllables. His current favourite is da, and he says it all the time in this questioning manner: da? Then the answer: da. We have whole conversations just filled with da. 

playing with the tractor

We also like to joke that he can say all of our names: Mama, Pa, and Ga (for Gus, obvs). Of course, he doesn't say anything with a real meaning attached, yet; I think that is still a few months away. But sometimes he'll crawl over to me, saying mamamamamama, and I think "see! he knows!" Then he crawls away to his tractor, still saying mamamamamama, thereby crushing my dreams ;)  

-2-

Signing

Gus and I did a 12-week baby sign course, which we finished last week. They say that most babies will start signing 3-4 months after the parents start using the signs, provided the baby can clap and/or wave (i.e. they have the coordination to make the signs). I use signs with him every day (some days moreso than others!), and I think he can now recognize some of them. The two I am really trying to get him to use are milk and more. When he wants to nurse and I do the sign for milk, his eyes light up, showing that is definitely what he wants. And a few times when I did the sign, he looked as if he was thinking about trying it; his fingers were poised, ready to make the sign! And he may have done the more sign today at lunch, although he might have also just been clapping with his fists full of blueberries. He gets a certificate from the teacher when he makes his first sign, though, so I am on the lookout for it!

-3-

Crawling

Pa bringing Gus back
down the stairs

Or should I say climbing? He can crawl quick as lightning now, but he really loves to climb. Mostly he climbs over Jon and me. He is also getting very good at climbing the stairs, much to my chagrin. Well, I am fine with the fact that he can basically make it all the way up the stairs with no help. Not so keen on the fact that he thinks he can just launch himself head-first down the stairs if he feels like it. Trying to teach him how to crawl backwards / down the stairs. There is a new baby / toddler gym open in town where I am sure there are lots of cool apparati where he could learn (and they even have qualified instructors!), but it costs £40. A month. So we won't be signing up to that anytime soon! Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!

-4-

Walking

what a cutie!

No, he's not walking quite yet. But he can stand up by himself (no need to pull himself up) and can stay up for ages. He also cruises around the furniture. (And reaches up onto things like the kitchen table, trying to find fun things to play with!) I've tried to get him to take a step toward me a few times, and he thinks about it, but then decides that getting down and crawling would be quicker :)  That's okay, I am in no hurry for him to walk yet--I am still getting used to this crawling thing!

-5-

Playing

vacuum: friend or nemesis?

He loves it, that's for sure :)  His current favourite toys are the stacking cups, a toy tractor that makes noises, and the vacuum cleaner. He is a bit obsessed with the last one, actually. The other day, he was trying to do something with the vacuum, although I have no idea what, and when he couldn't get it to do what he wanted, he started crying. It was a full-blown, screaming, tears-running-down-his-face cry. Since I didn't know what he wanted it to do, I couldn't help, so I had to distract him with other toys and  hide the thing so it wouldn't continue to taunt him. 

Gus also loves to crawl around while holding some sort of toy in his hand. On Tuesday, he found a piece of junk mail on the floor and crawled back and forth across the house with it in his hand for half an hour. That was the whole game--crawling one way with the paper in his hand, then turning around and crawling back to where he came from. Sometimes he switched hands. But he looked happy as a clam, so obviously I just don't understand what true fun is :)

-6-

Eating

At the moment, Gus mainly loves to eat fruit. Basically, any kind of fruit we put on his tray will be the first thing to go. Plums, nectarines, and blueberries are current favourites. That being said, he does eat a good amount of other foods as well. And non-food items, such as paper and any crumbs/clumps of dirt found on the floor are always good options, too. Several times now, he has thrown food onto the floor from his highchair, not interested in eating it, but then when he finds it a few hours later, it seems like the best possible snack! {Yes, some might say I should look more carefully for food thrown onto the floor when cleaning up, but that is not what we are discussing at the moment ;)} 

-7-

Being generally sweet and wonderful

Oh, wait, that is how he always is. No change there :)

and he's off!

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

6 month update—becoming mama

I realised while I was writing all about what Gus has been up to lately that there is another person in this relationship that has been doing a lot of learning and growing in recent months—me! Sometime in these past 3 months in particular, I’ve really settled into this role of mother. I certainly don’t have it all figured out yet, but I’ve started to feel like I know what I am doing. I am no longer a new, inexperienced mother who feels thrown in at the deep end with no idea what is going on. I am a cool, confident mama who has a bag of tricks and a growing stock of experience to call upon when things are tough. (Okay, I don’t necessarily feel cool or confident when I am trying to figure out why Gus has been screeching and screaming for 20 minutes, but at this moment, while he is lying next to me, peacefully sleeping, I feel very cool and confident.)

When did this all happen?  I read or hear stories about mothers’ difficult early days with their babies, and I know, intellectually, that this happened to me, but it is so far from my life now. Not that it was all hard then—we are blessed with a very easy-going baby—but I remember spending an unusual (for me, but probably not for the average new mom!) amount of time crying and can’t remember why. Gus is only 6 months old; you’d think I would be able to remember back that far. And it also makes me a little sad that I am already forgetting those little details—if I can’t remember now, what hope is there of remembering in the future? I know it’s cliché, but this all goes so fast!  I think I do a passable job of living in the moment, I just wish some of these moments moved at a slightly slower pace.

Another thing I have become aware of recently is that this is who I am. Amy: mother. Many women worry about losing themselves and their identity once they have children. For me, motherhood has gradually subsumed me over the past six months, in a lovely and exciting way. I feel like I can, if I try, trace the path backward to my old self, and it makes sense, but I can no longer imagine who I would be without Gus. The flip side is that I get confused when I think about the future and realise that someday I will no longer be a mother to a baby. I obviously will never stop being a mother, and hopefully we will have more babies in due course, but there will be a day when *this* is not my life. To someone who is just getting used to this new identity, it is strange to think that it will not last forever. It will ease away just as seamlessly as it came, till one day I wake up and realise I have changed yet again, without knowing when or how.

I don’t think I have ever been as reflective about my life as I am now. I don’t know if it is because I am at home all day so I have time (ha!) to think about these things. Or maybe it is beause I have this blog—don’t they say something about how recording an event can alter that event? Or is it merely the nature of parenthood? This life-changing event happens so quickly (I know pregnancy lasts 9 months, but how much can you really prepare for everything that a baby will bring?), you need to take time for your brain to catch up.

So this is me, as a mama. I don’t think I have mentioned yet in this post how much I love it. I guess, for me, that is just a given. I am so blessed to have such a lovely baby and an amazing husband to parent with. I, thankfully, am pretty much back to my laid-back self after worrying about every little thing for weeks and weeks after Gus was born. But one thing that hasn’t changed in these intervening months is how my heart feels like it could burst when I think about how much I love this kid.

St Monica, pray for us, that we may mother our children in a way that brings them wholeness, happiness, and life in our Lord.

6 month update--let's play!

If it is true that play is a child’s work, then let me tell you, Gus has a great work ethic! Jon and I just love to watch the little man play. It is fascinating to set a few toys out in front of him and see how he explores and learns about them. He seems like a genuinely curious boy, and I wonder how much of that is just the way babies are and how much is a unique part of his personality.  We have some wooden blocks that he can play with for ages, even just one block—staring at it, chewing on it, banging it against the floor or another block, or dropping it and picking it up again. I certainly get bored way before he does.

We try to give him toys of lots of different sizes, shapes, and materials. He loves non-toy things like fuzzy scarves, crinkly paper, real plates and spoons, and especially the wicker basket that all the toys are stored in. And of course, Pa’s glasses and Mama’s hair!  He’s got a Lamaze moose and a brand new Sophie the Giraffe that he loves to chew on—yum yum.  He loves rattles and often will try and shake any toy he picks up to see if it will make a noise!

making faces

Sometimes I worry that we don’t actually play with him enough; rather, we sit near him as he plays by himself. I do think that if you provide appropriate materials for play, it is important to let the child direct their own exploration of those.  But we need some fun interactions as well, which, for us, mostly means songs! His favourite song at the moment is I’ve been working on the Railroad, although other favourites include Horsey horsey, Jelly on a plate, and Pat-a-cake. Now that he is a bit bigger, we do more physical play together as well, like flipping him upside down and gentle roughhousing.  Or, if we want to make him giggle, raspberries on his tummy or an avalanche of kisses on his head or feet will usually do the trick. And of course, the great outdoors is filled with wonderful possibilities, including Gus’s favourite, simple and unassuming grass J

One toy that has really served us well is his jungle gym. What a great space that is for him! He started off at about 2 months just lying there, listening to the music and watching the lights and hanging butterflies. It has taken him through reaching and grabbing at things, rolling over to reach the toy too far away,  and now sitting up to play with the toys.  It’s even been useful for the dreaded tummy time—the mirror and crinkly leaf would hold his attention for a whole 2 minutes befoe he got sick of being on his front!

Of course, the most wonderful thing about Gusses is that Gusses are wonderful things.  I do think sometimes that this kid is made of rubber and springs, the amount he bounces! Luckily for Mama’s arms, we have a lovely little jumperoo in which Gus can bounce to his heart’s content. He and Jon love to bounce together, Gus in the jumperoo and Jon in the middle of living room.

bouncy bouncy bouncy

   

Seriously, he’s such a fun kid. Can’t wait to see what sort of games the next 6 months will hold!

Gus Update--6 Months!

My little baby is going to be six months old in a week’s time.  I cannot believe it—where has the time gone? To mark the occasion, and because I have not been doing the monthly updates like I had hoped, I am going to be doing a series of posts about what he has been up to in the past few weeks and months.  (This may only be interesting to my mom, but whatever.) We’ll start off today with movement.

If I had to choose one word to describe my little Gus, I think it would be squirmy. Man alive. This little guy wants to be on. the. move.  He rolled over, back to front, for the first time when he was 4 months and 1 day old (the day after my birthday!). Pretty much since then, he has not wanted to sit still. Lie him on his back, and he will be reaching for something out of his reach or rolling over to try and get it. And he still hasn’t really figured out how to roll from front to back yet, so then he is stuck.

not so happy on my tummy

Well, not completely stuck.  Gus has recently started scootching. He can only do it a little bit so far.  He goes round in a circle. He can go forward a little bit, but it takes a huge amount of effort.  The time that seems to be easiest for him is when we are lying in bed and he rolls away from me, then scootches back to get some more milk. Obviously a goal worth working for!

trying to get away

All this movement tires a mama (and Pa!) out, though, and we are not even in the thick of it yet.  But trying to hold an 18-pound baby while he bounces up and down, lunges forward, or tries to climb all over you is quite a workout.  Our typical playtime is me sitting on the floor, holding Gus up to stand. He lunges forward for a toy and sits down for a second, then twists round to me, and climbs up my lap to my shoulders until he is standing again. Unless he sees something interesting behind me, then he tries to climb over me to reach!

Everyone who has seen him recently is convinced that he will be crawling soon. He certainly looks like he wants to crawl, but I am fervently hoping that he doesn’t get to it too soon. Firstly because my house is not baby-proofed. But secondly, I do not fancy the idea of an 8+ hour flight with a newly crawling baby (we’re going to the US for a visit soon!). I keep telling myself that 6 months is much too early for a baby to start crawling anyway, so there is no worry. But do you think he will go another 2 months before he is off?

**I really wanted to come up with a catchy title for this series, something that combines the words Gus and update (as per the pregnancy Bumpdates at Navigating the Mothership). But the options just don't seem to have quite the right ring: Gupdate, Gusdate, Guspdate. I got nothin'. Just pretend that there is a really snazzy title up there. **

Reflections on Gus’s third month

I have been feeling a bit sad these past couple of days—I feel like Gus is just growing up too quickly!  And he is still just a baby. Imagine what I am going to be like as he passes even more milestones!

This has been a really good month. I think that we are really settling into a routine and figuring stuff out, more or less. We have had our hiccoughs, such as last week’s growth spurt that threw me for a bit of a loop. And I still worry way too much—is he sleeping too much; is he sleeping enough; Jon, do you think he has a temperature; ad nauseum. Do you think that ever goes away, or do the specific worries just change? 

He has grown out of almost all of his 0-3 month clothes.  It is funny, because I don’t realise how much he has grown, then I look back at photos from his first week, and I can’t believe how much he has changed!  My friend knitted Gus this great hat (thanks, Lilah!), and I put it to the side when he was first born, thinking it was impossibly big. I came across it yesterday, and he has almost outgrown it—doh!  We’ll have to squeeze a lot of wear into these next couple of weeks J

Gus continues to roll onto his side from his back (he really started that just as he turned 2 months old, I think), mainly to get a better angle to suck his hands. Which he is doing constantly at the moment. For a couple of weeks now, he has been chewing his hands all the time, gnawing on our fingers (he’s got a strong bite!) and drooling a lot. We tried to explain it away, but now we can’t really come up with any other explanation—we thinking he is teething. Or at least pre-teething. He generally doesn’t seem too bothered about it. Here’s hoping it continues that way!

One of his favourite things to do is stand. It is so funny, because he has loved to stand up, with us holding him up under the arms or holding onto his hands, since he was about two weeks old. Other moms are often really impressed, but I didn’t realise it was out of the ordinary! It means that he has developed really strong muscles in his neck, back and legs. Plus, he looks so cute while doing it! Apparently Jon never crawled as a baby and went right to walking. Now, I don’t expect Gus to start walking anytime soon, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he skips over crawling like his pa did, seeing how much he likes to be upright at the moment!

Just this week, he has developed / is in the process of developing, a new skill: he is starting to grab at things. This is very exciting! It started with my hands, where he would touch them and play with them and pull them to his mouth (I think I helped them get to his mouth, to be honest). Jon has been trying to get Gus to hit the rattles in his play gym, which he occasionally does, but we weren’t sure whether it was intentional or accidental. But in the past two days, he has definitely been grabbing toys and pulling them towards his mouth. He isn’t very proficient at it yet, and he doesn’t always even try to do it, but it is pretty neat to watch.

He also seems to be getting very independent, or at least as independent as a person who can’t move under their own steam or talk can be! He loves sucking his thumb. Which I feel I should be happy about, but sometimes it just breaks my heart a little bit, especially when he chooses to suck his thumb instead of nurse.  I believe that nursing should be for more than just nutrition, so I feed on demand, whether it is for hunger or comfort or to help him sleep. The first time he slept for 6 hours at night (which he has only done a couple of times), with his thumb going into his mouth as needed to help him stay / fall back to sleep, I felt so dejected:  he doesn’t need me anymore! And the other night, for the first time ever, he fell asleep on his own, lying next to Jon and I, but without any help (i.e. nursing, rocking, etc) from us, just sucking away on that thumb of his. Yay?

He is just so little. Obviously, he needs Jon and me for just about everything still, but sometimes it feels like he is already growing away from us. Granted, it is absolutely adorable when he lies in his baby gym, talking to the butterflies and birds that hang down from it. Part of me could just watch for hours, and part of me wants to run over there and scoop him up, hug him close and never let him go!

I feel like I am being melodramatic with all of this. He is only three months old. He is really not independent, and the little things that he is doing are good and necessary to help him grow into a mature and healthy person.  I can’t hold him back and keep him from growing up. But he is already passing through stages, growing out of things. I did not expect this to happen so soon and am just not ready for it. Luckily, in most ways he is still my little tiny baby. Maybe not a quite a newborn still, but my son, who needs me.  Maybe I need to work doubly hard to cherish all these amazing little moments!

Some posts from fellow bloggers that I really identify with at the moment:

On growing up, from Code Name: Mama

On thumb sucking, from It's all about the hat

Reflections on Gus’s 2nd (-ish) month

I thought since I wrote a reflection on Gus’s first month, it might be nice to continue that month by month, or at least on a semi-regular basis.  I just thought of it this week, though, one week after the two month mark. Oh, well, close enough for government work, as they say.

I feel like the main theme for this month has been oscillating back and forth between feeling like I am really getting the hang of this whole parenting thing and feeling like I have no idea what I am doing. I think a big part of that is because the month was dominated first by Jon being home sick for a week, throwing off our routine (don’t you know you are not allowed to be at home, Jon! ), and going to the USA for two weeks at Christmas. On top of that, I think Gus was (is?) still at a stage where his schedule was a bit wobbly—it would seem like he was getting into a certain routine for a couple of days, and then it would abruptly change again.

The most exciting thing about the month was that he is really breaking out of his shell and interacting with people more.  There are days where he will be awake for quite a few hours and really engage with you. It is so neat to see him so curious about the world.  We got a set of black and white books as a gift, and he loves them!  You open up the book to a page that, frankly, looks pretty boring to me, but his eyes just light up.  He’ll start cooing and his arms and legs start going.  It is so funny to watch. 

Another thing Gus has picked up this month is the desire to be rocked all the time.  It seemed to start when we were in the USA. Luckily, there were lots of people around to take a turn at the stand-up-and-hold-Gus-for-hours-on-end duty. He would just stare over your shoulder, entranced by whatever happened to be back there.  And lick your shoulder.  Yum, sweater.  I don’t know why he started wanting this all of a sudden, but I find myself spending ages every day just rocking him. Sometimes during the day I’ll just put him in his wrap and do some chores or whatnot, and he is happy enough. But when he is awake at 11pm, I usually just spend an hour or so walking around the bedroom with him in my arms. My arms are getting really strong!

He can be so much fun to be with, although I do get tired before he does a lot of days. He’ll usually only be awake for about 90 minutes to 2 hours at a time.  This includes time spent changing diaper, feeding him, and trying to get him to fall back asleep once he starts to look really tired! I have found that I feel really guilty when I don’t engage with him for the rest of the time.  I figure, it is only a relatively short amount of time, I should be able to play with him for that long.  Plus, I worry about two things: that if I don’t engage with him all of the time while he is awake and alert, he won’t develop properly (!), and secondly, that if I leave him to play by himself for 5 minutes on Monday, I’ll just become a lazy parent, and by Friday he will be left to his own devices all of the time, because I can’t be bothered.  (I have similar fears about using a pacifier, that I will get to the point that I just shove it in his mouth whenever he fusses, rather than actually attending to his needs).  I don’t know where these fears come from, as I don’t think either (any) is likely to happen.  When we were in the USA, my dad pointed out to me that Gus actually sometimes likes to be by himself and doesn’t want to be held 24/7.  It is true: he is starting to play really well by himself (when I let him!), kicking his feet, and gnawing on his hands or sucking his thumb.  He is a real sweetheart.

The other thing that stuck out this month was that it is still really hard to let other people have him. When we were in the USA, there were so many people that wanted to give him kisses and cuddles, play with him and hold him.  And I loved it, that so many people love him.  In theory.  In practice, I had to really work hard to convince myself that he was okay when other people were holding him. After a day or two, he started to become more fussy than normal.  I had no idea why he was being like that or what he wanted.  I decided that he must miss his mommy, because he is so used to just being with me all day every day, it was hard work being with all these other people so much.  Or maybe that was just how I was feeling! We had a great time with all the family, but I made a more conscious effort after that to be sure to get my own cuddle time in with him!

One way that we can guarantee good cuddle time is at night.  Gus does have his own bed, and sleeps at least part of the night almost every night in it.  But I do love having him next to me to cuddle at night. Some of my friends with babies Gus’s age are trying to get the babies out of the parents’ bed. I really am not ready to do that!  Part of it is that he just seems so little, too little to expect him to be on his own all night every night. Especially if he needs us with him, I’m not prepared to deny him something that he needs. But I think I probably need him with me more than the other way around!  As a family, we are still all really happy with the arrangement we have, so I think we’ll keep going like this as long as it works for us, and not worry about anything that says he must be doing x because he is y months old.

I think that is month two in a nutshell.  A lot more calm than last month, and less emotional—I feel like I am usually in control of my feelings now.  The overwhelming love for this little guy still hits me strongly, but I hope that never goes away!