The Small Family   

Well, we’re flummoxed...utterly flummoxed. As most of you know, we spent the better part of a year trying everything “The Books” say to get Theo to nap consistently...and he wouldn’t nap. He would fight sleep like nothing we’ve ever seen! But still, we persisted in trying to establish a nap routine for him. And all of a sudden, right around when he turned a year old, Mr. Theo decided that naps were okay, and he would regularly take at least one a day, often two. Sometimes they’re relatively short, but they’re still naps, so we’re happy. His mama gets lots of work done during those precious minutes, which means fewer late nights spent catching up!

And then there was the night-time sleep. He was going to bed around 9 most nights. Which was okay...but not great. We were trying to slowly inch his bedtime backward in the faint hope that we would eventually get him to a 7:30 bedtime. And, we were having some success with this, but not much. But the last four days, Theo has willingly gone to bed at 7:30. And what’s more, we can now put him down to bed, and he will fuss for a couple minutes and then go to sleep on his own. Some of you may scoff and say, “Well of course he does! If you just work with a baby, they’ll learn to do that.” Perhaps, but it sure was a pleasant surprise for us! Theo is usually so strong-willed that we can try something until we’re blue in the face, and he won’t comply. But now, of his own accord, he goes to bed on his own...with a minimum of fussing most nights! This wonderful turn of events even allowed us to watch a movie this week—Changeling, which we both thought was really very good. A little hard to watch because it was just so sad, but very good indeed.

What’s more, Theo is getting better about eating...sometimes. There are still some days where he wants nothing to do with solid food and will fight and squall, and nothing will calm him but a bottle...but more days than not, we have pretty good success getting him to eat some fruit, vegetable, grain, and even a bit of meat.

All this leads us to believe that Theo will do something when Theo darn well pleases. It’s like he says, “Yeah, yeah, all right, Mom and Dad. I’m ready to do this now, so I will. And it’s not because you told me too—I’ve just decided I’m ready to.” Whatever the reason, we are delighted!

If only the transition from formula to milk were going so smoothly...sigh. I think I may have mentioned that when we started Theo on soy milk, he was very fussy for about a week (I think we had him on it for 10 days or so). At the end of the incredibly fussy week, I finally thought, “Could it possibly be the soy milk?” Chris agreed that might be the case, so we took him off it...and the fussiness stopped pretty much instantly. So then we thought, “Hmm, maybe organic cow milk will be the answer.” After all, most dairy-sensitive babies are starting to outgrow it by Theo’s age. Alas, we tried small portions of cheese with him twice with lousy results (lots of fussiness and icky diapers), so unless it was just a coincidence, we’re thinking he’s not yet ready for dairy products. Our next idea is to try oat milk (not to be confused with goat milk) since he seems to be able to eat oatmeal without a problem now. But we may wait until after our upcoming trip to Texas to open that can of worms. Who wants to upset the apple cart right before a trip?!

In other news, our week was a busy one! I had photograph class on Monday (tomorrow is my last one!), so that always makes a busy day. If anyone is interested, our final project for that class is an online portfolio of our work over the semester. You can view mine at http://art.sierracollege.edu/photoweb/cathleensmall/index.html. You’ve probably seen some of the pictures in it, but not all.

Wednesday was my Grandma’s 94^th birthday, so I took Theo to the nursing home to bring her a present (a digital photo frame loaded with pix of her great-grandson!) and a piece of cake. Theo was a little antsy and not amused with being contained, so we didn’t get to stay long, but at least we had a nice visit, albeit a short one.

Thursday was a rather amusing day. Let me start by saying that I love Chris with all my heart...but I’m not dead. I still recognize a particularly attractive man if I see one, just as Chris still holds a torch for Shania Twain, Halle Berry, and Catherine Zeta-Jones. So I had to go to the dermatologist on Thursday to have a few “suspicious” moles removed. I nearly always go to female doctors, so it was a little disconcerting to have a young, male, movie-star-gorgeous doctor walk in to remove my moles. I mean, how embarrassing to have to say, “Excuse me—could you look at these gnarly moles on me?” I was mortified. Of all the times to get the movie-star doctor, eh?

Saturday we made our trek up to the Placerville book sale, which we try to hit every few months. What a goldmine! We found a lot of books that list for a decent amount ($2 to $10) on Amazon, so hopefully that’ll bring in a little extra cash. (At $4 per bag of books, it’s a real bargain if you find a few good ones!) Theo even had fun helping us list them on Amazon. We had all the “penny books” in a pile to donate to Goodwill (not worth selling penny books), and he had a wonderful time perusing them all.

We also stopped by the mall for Theo’s favorite activity: Half an hour at the indoor mall play area. He loves to climb on the things in there and play with this spinning circle on the wall. (Chris is trying to build something similar for his room, using a Lazy Susan, but we haven’t had much luck finding the parts yet.) Anyway, we have noticed in the last day or so that Theo will be standing up at something (like his favorite spinny toy at the mall) and will let go, stand unassisted, and clap. And then he will look pensive, as if considering whether to walk, and then slowly lower himself down and crawl away. So I suspect he is soon to walk much more, but he still doesn’t quite have the confidence to take more than a few steps at a time. I just hope it’s before Texas, as I’m secretly hoping he can walk around the airport and exhaust himself before we get on the plane. J

Sunday we took Theo to Whole Foods to get some more formula for him and to try out their impressive prepared foods “restaurant.” (They have all sorts of ethnic foods and salads in sort of a buffet, and then an eating area so you can sit and have lunch.) Chris and I both had Indian food (among other things) and managed to keep Theo busy with a piece of Indian bread—naan. At which point Chris decided that this week’s blog post needed a lovely paragraph of naan puns, which Grandma Kathy will surely appreciate, being a lover of wordplay. So here you go: We were worried about Theo fussing during lunch, as he is wont to do, but it turned out to be a naan-issue when we gave him a piece of naan to gnaan on! I wouldn’t say it was a wholly peaceful lunch, but it was relatively naan-stressful thanks to Theo’s amusement with his tasty treat. We were able to remain anaanymous among the other diners, rather than being “those people with the fussy baby.” Theo, of course, was very naanchalant about the whole thing, happily gumming his treat.

A word on a couple of pix in this week’s album. You’ll see a few of Theo standing up to his high chair, Luna by his side. Theo is a big fan of these organic Cheerios we bought him, only he “wears” as many as he eats, and thus the seat of his high chair is always full of Cheerios. Luna, too, is a big fan of Cheerios, and she eagerly awaits any dropped ones. But for the last couple days, when Theo has finished eating and gotten down from his high chair, he has decided to wander back over to the high chair and plunder the seat for Cheerios. He picks a Cheerio out of the seat, often talks to it for a moment, and then hands it to Luna to eat. We were nervous at first, since Luna loves food and can nearly nip your fingers off in her excitement to get it, but she is SO gentle with Theo. She very gently takes the Cheerios as Theo offers them to her, being ever-so-careful not to nip his fingers. What a wonderful dog she is—we are so lucky to have her!

In other news, Theo has a new word he uses incessantly: “Dat.” We’re almost sure it means “that,” as he generally points at things when he says it. I read that babies of Theo’s age start to want to learn words for things, even though they aren’t yet capable of forming the words themselves, so now every time he says “dat,” we tell him what “dat” is. I find myself walking through the store saying, “That? That’s a bag of flour! That? That’s a donut! That? That’s a book!” and so on. I figure by the time he can talk, he’ll have lots of words.

He is also increasingly using the word “baba,” and I’m pretty sure he attaches it to his bottle. Yesterday he exclaimed “baba!” and crawled over to a bottle that was on a low shelf and picked it up. And sometimes, he will crawl over to the sink, where his bottles are kept, stand up, and say, “Baba!”

At the moment, he has a sign. I have been lagging on using sign language with Theo, even though I really wanted to because several friends have used it with much success. But between work and caring for Theo, I just find myself too exhausted to do much. (It sounds silly, I know—I mean, it’s only a sign. But sometimes it’s hard enough just to get through the full day, without trying to work on sign language!) But, lately I have taught Theo the sign for “all done.” He can be so fussy and antsy about eating solids that it’s sometimes hard to know whether he’s finished or just being fussy. So now he “tells” us when he’s finished by making the “all done” sign...on a fairly consistent basis. It isn’t foolproof, of course, but maybe 7 times out of 10, he’ll make the “all done” sign when he doesn’t want any more food. Clever boy!

Last but not least, I apologize that many of this week’s pictures are blurry. I had the camera set on manual focus for a class assignment, and I forgot to turn auto-focus back on before shooting this week’s pix of Theo. So unfortunately, most of them aren’t too clear.