Missing My Day Off

If you have been reading my blog, you know by now that I have been taking at least one day off a week since my wife went back to work to watch our son at home.  It used to be two days a week for a while, but now with my wife's mother back in town, she will be helping watch our son and I will be cutting my days off to one.  This week, however, is an anomaly in that my wife has a vacation week off from work and is staying home with our son every day.  It isn't to say that I don't want to take a day off this week, its just that work has been a little crazy and with my wife home, I haven't taken a day off.  On top of that, I have been working a little bit later and have only gotten to see him in the mornings for an hour or so.  Needless to say, I kind of miss my day off.  Instead of witnessing first hand what our son is doing during the day, I must hear it second hand from my wife.  Not quite as exciting as watching it myself, but it is much better than not hearing it at all.  And from the reports I have been getting, he has been quite the active little man this week.  He is moving farther and farther on his own and he is starting to eat more solid foods although I have seen pictures and he still makes a little scrunchy face as if he doesn't quite know what to make of the solid foods yet. 

But lets start with the moving and the shaking.  It is seriously time to start baby proofing the house, especially are living room where our son spends most of his time on the floor.  Every day it seems we find something that needs to be moved to a higher shelf, cords that need to be bunched together and zip tied, and dust that needs to be vacuumed from previously hidden corners.  Our son is pretty much making it around the entire living room on his own now, on the verge of crawling, but not quite there yet.  Currently, he employs a solid mixture of rolling and creeping to make his way around the room and find the fascinating objects that were previously unattainable.  What strikes me most about the stories I hear is his fascination with everything but the toys he has.  Don't get me wrong, he will still spend a good deal of time sucking on his favorite stuffed toy, but put a plastic glass on the floor or a cardboard box and he is enthralled.  Lets not forget the bright led lights that pepper the electronics in our room or the gardening books that had to be moved because he wanted to pull them off the shelf.  His favorite gardening book was, you guessed it, wrapped in a green jacket and way to heavy for him to pick up and move.  If he did figure out a way of dragging that book off the shelf, though, it would have made quite the noise.  Seriously, what do babies need toys for when their interest seems to be drawn to everything else around the house and a cardboard tube from paper towel can entertain them as much as the five dollar toy from the store.  So it seems like it might actually take only a week for him to progress from creeping to crawling.  On top of that, he was on the floor rolling and creeping for an hour straight yesterday before going to bed.  For starters, he has never made it an hour on the floor before without getting frustrated and with the little bit of solid foods he is eating, his energy level seems to be up. 

So on to the foods.  He did fairly well with the bananas for three days before we switched him over to green beans.  He progressively ate more and more (still minuscule by our standards) and learns very quickly.  At one point my wife went to feed him a baby spoon of banana and he didn't open his mouth.  So to teach him, she mimicked the action herself, flying the spoon to her mouth and opening her mouth wide as it approached.  That was the only lesson he needed.  Right after her demonstration, he followed suit and opened his mouth as the spoon came flying in.  But back to the beans.  He actually seems to be enjoying the beans, as long as they are room temperature.  My wife tried them cold in the morning and it didn't go over as well as it did in the afternoon when they were room temperature.  It was hilarious to see his face covered in beans with a disturbed look on his face saying, "what is this stuff and why is it all over me?"  Priceless.  So our little man is growing up, expanding his non-verbal vocabulary (if that makes any sense), and is on the move and ready to go.  We also started baby sign language with him this week which is supposed to help babies in general communicate before they start talking.  Its all fairly simple stuff, but anything to help him communicate any frustrations he might have, dirty diapers, hunger, etc will go a long way with us.  So till next week, my second hand reports that I have been getting will have to suffice.  Ah well, what is a working man to do?