It’s amazing how fast or slow time goes by depending on how you look at it. On one hand if I think about the past 13 months of my life, they have gone by in a flash. I think the boys keep us so busy that when we look at life day-to-day it seems to flash by. But when I go back and read all of the postings on my website about the boys’ development, time seems to move a bit more slowly. When you pick out the major milestones – rolling, sitting up, jibber jabbering, holding their bottle, eating baby food, crawling, recognizing things, talking, walking, running – things lay out a bit more steadily. There are a few weeks between each milestone and it doesn’t look so bad. Looking back on my past postings recently I realized that I haven’t summed up what the boys have been doing lately. So here it is.
Walking
Adam started walking a little bit before the boys’ first birthday and really got it soon after. Now he waddles all over the house like a penguin, stopping to pick up an item and bring it around with him. We’ve found that he is more fixated on certain items with cords and other things that he can happily drag around as he walks. He is much better with his balance and can walk on many different surfaces without slipping and even does well on the uneven terrain outside. He is starting to run now, cracking an ear-to-ear smile as he goes. His latest is to walk around with his arms behind his back as if he has something hidden that he’d like to show you, though he rarely does.
Our biggest story in walking land is Zachary. As many know, he took his official first steps at Austin Airport on the way to visit my father in mid-April. He has been pretty conservative since, preferring to crawl around as he is better at it, but began seriously trying the walking thing again this weekend. I think he’s reached the tipping point where he will walk more and more each day as he builds his skills in balance. At the moment he can walk a short distance of a few feet or a diagonal from one wall of a room to another. He walks stiff-legged with his knees locked and his legs angled, almost in a split position. His legs make very obvious movements from side to side that make him kind of look like a zombie. At the moment he points his feet out and to the sides. This obviously isn’t how we want him to walk but I’m hoping that the better he gets at it the closer his legs will become and the straighter his feet will be. It may be kind of odd looking, but it’s darn cute. He’ll be chasing his brother around soon enough.
Silent Pointing
This is a Zach-only phenomenon. Right around the time we went to Texas Zach started pointing at objects. He frequently tosses his arm out with his index finger extended and then turns to look at you. He makes no noise whatsoever but gives you an expression that says “what is that”. We’ve taken it as an opportunity to try to explain different things to him. We’ll say things like “TV” and then repeat them a few times until he points at something else. It is really silly when he does it because he goes completely silent when he’d otherwise be jabbering away.
Vocal Expression
Adam doesn’t point but he does make sounds. He makes a modulated “wow” noise where he makes a “wooooowwwowowowowwwwoooooowwwwww” sound while modulating his voice up and down. He says it when he sees something he likes or finds a fun object to tote around with him. It’s hillarious when he does it. He’s also getting very good at annunciating the word “uh-oh”. If he drops something he will often follow it with a very slow and precise “uh” followed by “oh”. Zach is working on his words as well and seems to focus less on pronunciation and more on vocabulary. I swear he says “brother” though it comes out like “buh-duh” and “thank you” which comes out as “ja-ju”, “frwa fru”, or something similar.
Playfulness
The boys are certainly playful. They run around day care and play with almost everything they can find. At home they play in the living room and get very excited when they can play in special rooms that are usually off limits like the dining room or even upstairs. They love climbing up the stairs to get to the second floor to run around. They love to laugh, love to giggle, and love to be tickled. They also love to play together. They love to come up to us and nuzzle in our laps and smile. Adam in particular is into sitting on people. He will walk up to you if you are on the floor and sit himself on your knee or thigh for a minute and then just run away.
Togetherness
There was a time when the boys completely ignored each other but they’ve finally reached the point where they are becoming friends and playmates. At home they like to chase each other, play peekaboo, and even wrestle. Zach particularly likes to give wet kisses to Adam’s hair and Adam likes to bear hug Zach to the floor. It’s so cool to see them together. They really do keep each other entertained and you can tell that they like to be together.
Bottles (are gone)
After months of slow transition, bottles are finally out of the house. We made the final move this weekend and it was tough at times but we did it. Zach is doing better than Adam in that he will still drink his milk out of a sippy cup. Adam has basically gone on strike and won’t drink anything but juice out of a sippy cup. We’re not sure if it is all the cup’s fault – he’s still partially on Alimentum formula and I don’t think he likes the taste. We might have to bribe him a bit with chocolate milk or something.
Milk Allergies (are gone?)
We finally took the boys to an allergist to diagnose some seasonal allergies and to check in on Adam’s milk/soy allergy. To our surprise he tested negative for both. With that discovery we’ve decided to start transitioning him back onto milk again. He has become increasingly less interested in his formula, only taking it in the morning and evening until we banned bottles. Now he won’t take it at all. As the calcium and protein are important we need to get him to drink it again. Maybe milk will do it.
So there you have it, an update. There is plenty more going on, but I’m running out of energy so I’m going to stop now. You’ll catch it in the 14 month update 🙂
Relatively Ambitious 