Leslie thinks Chibi wore Cade
out yesterday. He got up at what, noon or 1 yesterday (been getting earlier),
but went to bed at around 1:30 and only woke a little. He woke again around 8:30
this morning and I suspect he will be up for the day soon, albeit with some big
naps. But since he got to bed so early, I'm thinking she wore him out. She
played with him a lot more (and more attentively) than most of the rest of us.
Thanks, Chibi!
Cade is standing more. I
snapped a blurry picture of him on the old camera, dunno if I'll keep it. He
frequently lets go of stuff to stand, and can keep correcting himself. At this
point, he doesn't seem to fall over, he just gets bored and, not knowing how to
walk, he gets down and crawls.
He climbed up onto a support bar underneath his booster seat, which Leslie just
barely saw before he got down. Now the worry will be him climbing up and then
bringing chairs down. Yikes! He climbed up onto the beanbag and looked out over
the bear chair at the TV today, Leslie told me.
Whenever I use my laptop computer, he comes right for it and grabs the mouse.
This time, I took the laptop away and let him have the mouse and mouse pad. He
fiddled with them for awhile before getting disinterested. I hoped the
disinterest would last, but once I plugged back in and the mouse lit back up, he
was back. Maybe I need some kind of mouse that doesn't light up...I wonder if
there are optical mouse in that category.
10-08-2004: Cade climbs into bed
A few days ago, Cade could nearly
climb up onto our Ikea bed. Note that the bed is less than two feet tall, and it
has a convenient ledge which makes this task especially easy for a baby.
Nonetheless, some coordination is required to actually do it: Cade has to get a
foot onto that ledge (which for him is thigh level), grasp onto the bed's fitted
sheet, and pull up. Well, yesterday I saw him do it.
Now we really have to crack down on teaching him how to safely get
down. He still favors the head-first approach, which just makes me cringe.
Late last night (maybe early this morning),
Cade was in our bedroom, at the short bookshelf with the light and sound system.
He turned around towards me and the bed, and reached for it with one hand still
on the bookshelf, but it was too far. So then he let go and took a lunging
step for the bed...and he made it! Then he proceeded to climb up on the
bed, which was more difficult because the vellux blanket is harder to grasp, and
it was covering the ledge, making it slipperier. But he did it.
Later on, Leslie came in and he lunged again, though he couldn't get back up on
the bed again.
In other news, Cade has been (for at least a month or three) doing a wiggly
thing whenever he gets upset and is being held. He stretches his legs and
arches his back, which sometimes causes him to hit his head on things, including
Leslie's jaw, ear, or whatever. It's really upsetting, but I don't think
there's anything we can do. I hope it passes quickly, but expect it to go
on for some time.
10-12-2004: Cade takes two steps
Today Leslie called me at 12:34PM to
tell me that Cade had taken a couple of steps, before falling down. Apparently
he was watching the TV, turned around, took a step, then another (possibly with
the same foot), then tried for a third, but was up against the DDR mat, and went
down onto it.
It is now early evening and he hasn't yet repeated this feat--who knows whether
he will make steady progress, or if maybe we won't see this again for a few more
weeks or so. But--it's the beginning...
Our little climber has been, for a few days
at least, sometimes deciding to get off the bed by turning himself around and
sliding off, legs first, stomach down, the way we've been showing him. He has
done it for Leslie, but today he did it for me. I congratulated him and he was
very excited. Later on, though, I caught him trying twice to slide down
headfirst though, and pulled him back and turned him around to get him down at
last.
Sunday (the 17th) we made Cade's birthday cake, a carrot cake with cream cheese
icing. It took most of the day (there's a lot of work involved, much more than a
typical cake from scratch), and was very tiring to make, but we did it. I'll
have to get pictures up. The cake came out pretty good, though the icing has too
much zing (from apple juice concentrate and raisins along with cream cheese, I
guess) for my taste.
It rained on Sunday too, but, being the first rain for several months (not
counting Saturday night directly preceding it) that didn't stop us from taking
advantage of the new experience as a way to celebrate Cade's birthday. We walked
his stroller all the way to Baker's Square, in the light rain. I got fairly wet
but not soaked except for the head, and Cade was fine. He ate food from our
plates and had a good time.
Gift-wise, I couldn't get Cade to open his toy telephone gift, even after
several tries and a break for breast feeding and a nap, but once opened, he
liked it. He also liked the He-Man pillow + sword, but I think Ben and Kathy's
gift of the Imaginarium takes first place. A wonderful gift that Leslie and I
wish we'd had as kids.
Tomorrow is Cade's actual birthday, and then I guess he'll get a gift of whole
milk and maybe a forward-facing ride in the car.
10-19-2004: A whole year old
I forgot to mention who was over on
Sunday: Rachelle (who gave Cade the pillow), and Ben and Kathy.
Today, PJ and Loren came over. They enjoyed seeing Cade again, and he was
very cooperative. We ate a meal from the crock pot, which Cade tried but
did not eat in great quantity. We also finished off the carrot cake,
although we basically took off the frosting (it was just too tangy, and Leslie
thinks the apple juice soured the cream cheese) and those interested re-frosted
with a store-bought cream cheese icing (with real sugar) which Leslie magically
produced. I didn't feel the need to try it myself, but Cade liked it.
And we gave him whole milk to drink for a bit with the cake! He liked it
so far, but didn't drink much.
PJ and Loren gave Cade the gift of Teletubbies. Much as I hate the
characters, Cade likes them and their show. The gift was a
stuffed,
talking Teletubby (is that the right singular form?) with a single episode of
the show on VHS tape. They had wanted to get a DVD but struck out.
Better luck for Christmas, I guess.
So now we can turn around Cade's car seat and/or try the other one. I
guess we'll see how that all goes...
10-20-2004: Cade's First Document
Cade got over to my computer, somehow
opened OpenOffice Writer, and typed the following:
Ttttttttttt gg
Randomness? He typed my first and last initials. Coincidence?
You be the judge. (We got a good laugh out of this.)
In other news, we took Cade out on errands and for dinner at Fresh Choice, and
in the parking lot afterwards I installed the toddler seat (which we brought in
addition, but were too pressed for time to install before leaving home), facing
forward. Cade enjoyed the ride that way, until he fell asleep. I
also got a
picture of him in the car.
Cade's also quite a destructive unit. He's now destroyed two of Leslie's
iBook keys, so she's now ordering a spare "a" to go with her spare "h".
Also, he's digging his milk, but not the pasta we got for him. He's much
better at eating Cheerios and Goldfish though; he picks them up off the table,
and when he doesn't do it well enough to get them into his mouth, he is learning
to coordinate his other hand to swap the food into the pincer grasp.
Cade apparently
walked seven or eight steps today, while I was at work. Also, he's getting
pretty good with the pincer grasp for picking up cheerios off his tray.
Well, a week or so better than the last time I said that, anyway.
On the down side, he's been biting more. Sometimes he gets excited and
digs into Leslie with a hug and bite. One time, when we forcefully pulled
him back and said "No!" he started bawling. Poor little guy. We
think he's doing the closest thing to kissing that he knows. Also, while
eating, he often gets frustrated and bangs his head backwards against the seat.
It seems as though sometimes we have to capitulate and give him food or drink,
but sometimes he can be calmed a bit first. I've been trying to do just
that to train him out of feeling the need to head-bang for food or drink.
He'll bang if the next bite isn't forthcoming, or if he wants a drink instead.
Fortunately, he's getting better at drinking sip cups, so I started putting the
cup on his tray sometimes for him to try to grab or play with. He tossed
it a dozen times or more, but occasionally he brought it towards his mouth.
He still doesn't raise the cup up enough for a half-full cup to deliver juice
through the sip holes, though, and sometimes when I help him he gets upset and
tosses the cup onto the floor. Oh well.
