the horsey tree

Sometime in the last week, my baby turned into a little boy….an all-boy little boy.  His vocalizations have reached a new decibel level.  He bangs things together. He scoots around on the floor.  He pulls my hair.  He really wants whatever it is that he really wants. And, in other inexpressible ways, he simply acts like a boy–not so much like a baby.

It is strange going through these new stages with him.  I am not only watching him grow and change but I am realizing that these stages are mine too.  I have been the mother of a newborn.  I am now the mother of an infant.  Soon I will be the mother of a toddler. Etc.

I watch the children of my friends and love to see them running and jumping and using language.  I look forward to baby C living out the carefree, joyful, exploratory days of his childhood, doing all the things a little boy will delight to do. Yet, it is a daunting task to think of guiding his little life as he interacts more and more with the world around him.   It is terribly sobering to think that my life, the one with which he interacts the most right now, is his primary model for what it is like to be a person in this world.  God help my little boy…..  He will.  I am grateful.

When I was growing up, turning ten was a big deal….it was, according to my Father, when I became a "real person."  It was a joke my Dad and I had (that I wasn’t a "real person" until I reached double-digits) and maybe a way that he tried to keep his youngest of five children young…a little girl….not a real person who would grow up and become a woman and a wife and a mother. 

We have entered the realm of finger foods.  Well, we are at least tossing a few things out there on the baby’s tray to see what he will do with them.  And he is definitely doing something….not a whole lot of eating because, you see, it is much harder than we remember to learn how to pick up a small thing like a cheerio and place it in one’s mouth. Baby C is quite adept at manuevering a small item of food all around his tray with his forefinger.  He can use the forefinger of both hands and pin the pea or cheerio between them.  Lifting the item, however, is a challenge. Sometimes, after he has slobbered enough, he can touch the cheerio with a gooey hand and it actually sticks to the finger.  This is a surprising stroke of luck to him: "Look mama, this one’s magnetic!" He usually ends up grabbing the cheerio by pinching it between his thumb and the side of his fist but then the difficulty comes in delivering the food into the mouth.  This pretty much requires the mouth to make room for the entire fist, lest the cheerio be released before entry and dropped down under the tray to be rendered unreachable.  A few make it in and come back out.  A very few end up digested and in their proper resting place inside of baby C.  Many end up on the floor and, after a whistle and a scurry of doggy paws, inside of Rolen.  Rolen is rooting for a slow learning curve.

I have gotten it into my head that the name "Cheerio" should be spoken in a British accent: "Cheery-O!"  Is this something British people say or did I make this up? I said "gee whiz" the other day and laughed at myself…I was remembering that scene from Notting Hill where Hugh Grant’s character is attempting to climb a fence and says "oopsie-daisy" which Julia Robert’s character thinks is hilarious. He denies he says it and then stumbles again and oopsie-daisy’s again. funny scene.
 

Baby C has been in his bed for one hour now….not sleeping, not crying necessarily.  He’s talking (sometimes happy talking and sometimes frustrated talking).  And, he’s doing baby gymnastics.

My little boy is nine months now. He’s not yet crawling.  He rolls just fine when he feels like it.  And he can lean, fall forward, turn over, reach and grab ahold of that favorite toy. But as for full-blown hands-and-knees-crawling, he doesn’t seem to have much interest in that.  He is a great sitter and loves to sit on a blanket and play with all the toys I lay out for him. Now, there are many children in my neighborhood….many of whom are only a few weeks older or younger than my boy.  So there are many little babes for us young moms to compare our own little babes to. More than anything, it is just interesting to see how very differently little ones develop. But, I must admit that when I have gone outside to see a nine and a half-month-old WALKING, I wonder when my nine-month-old  is going to crawl. But baby C remains content as a Sitter (albeit a very accomplished Sitter…And, mind you, I am incredibly proud of my Sitter for his sitting and for all his other varied accomplishments).

The reason that C has not wanted to sleep tonight is that he is currently practicing all sorts of amazing moves in his crib.  I have known that C moves around in his crib quite a bit and, on occasion, I have caught glimpses of his stunts. But tonight, I have become convinced of my child’s gymnastic skills. I peeked in on him a bit ago to find him head down, rear end up, and just one little push away from throwing himself into a full-blown head-stand.  I did witness a sideways near-sommersault and three times tonight in these bedtime exercises, C ended up sitting in his crib seeming stuck and very frustrated.  Three times I layed him down and tried to help him calm down to go to sleep. He finally has settled now.  But not before letting me in on his little secret…..

Your little one can crawl? walk even? Well, my nine-month does gymnastics.  And, to top it off, he has the decency and humility not to flaunt his talents for the whole neighborhood to see.  He is a Sitter in public but a Gymnast behind closed doors.