As I usually do on Thursdays, which happens to be the day after I stay home to watch our son, I will be writing about him again. Yesterday was our son's first introduction to excessive heat and humidity, the part of summer that does not particularly appeal to me. All in all, I think he handled the heat and humidity really well. Then again, we spent most of the day inside except for a brief foray into our backyard in the morning. The only way we got outside was by walking. Our son is not walking solo yet, but he is getting closer and closer and it seems to be the only way he really wants to get around. Don't get me wrong, he still crawls really fast at times, but in general, if he wants to get somewhere, he will crawl over to an adult and reach out his hands to grab an adult hand for support. Once he has a finger clenched in each of his little hands, he pulls himself up to standing and starts walking away. Yesterday, after climbing a few stairs, he turned around and reached for my hands to pull himself up with. From the stairs we both walked through the living room, through the kitchen, out the back door, and half way across the back yard before taking a break. After taking that break to pull at some grass and little clover flowers, he got back up and walked back towards the house till we reached the sidewalk at which point he let go, sat down, and proceeded to play with rocks. Our son absolutely loves the outdoors and wants to explore every nook and cranny of our back yard, inch by little inch.
When we had gotten back to the sidewalk yesterday morning, he played with rocks for quite some time. If it was up to him, I am sure he would probably go for the little tiny rocks which are harder for me to see in his hand and consequently, harder for me to see him try and taste them. Instead, I grabbed some rocks that were a little larger, yet still capable of being picked up by his little hands. With five rocks in front of him, he went to town. At first he would try and stack the rocks with no success. They just weren't flat enough for stacking. Yet that didn't stop him from persistently trying to stack them and pile them up. Periodically throughout the stacking and piling, he would grab one of said rocks and bring it swiftly to his mouth, trying to taste and chew it. I was successful for the most part at keeping the rocks out of his mouth although a few did get a good lick by him. After the rocks it was on to the mulch and flowers. With the mulch he is quite funny. He will crawl over to the edge of the garden and return to his sitting position at which point he will grab a small handful of mulch, move it over the sidewalk, and begin a little pile. After two or three handfuls have been moved, he likes to drag his fingers through the pile, spreading it out, and then start making a pile again. It is positively the cutest thing to watch. He also loves the variety of flowers we have for him to play with. We are trying to get him to be gentle with the flowers, yet it hasn't quite sunk in yet. He will tenderly touch a flower and as he runs his hand over it, will grab it and pull, usually ending up with a handful of bright petals in his hand which, as you guessed, gets dropped in a pile on the ground. Luckily he is much more fascinated in mulch than he is in the flowers. That pretty much concluded our time spent outdoors.
The only sign I got that our son did not fully appreciate the heat and humidity was when I put him down for a nap in his crib. It wasn't overly hot in his room, but the temperature was at about 84 degrees. Every time he went down for a nap he decided to stay awake for an hour, rolling around, talking, and occasionally moaning before he finally fell asleep. He didn't scream his head off or otherwise complain, but he simply stayed awake for a long time before napping. Perhaps it was because of the warmth in his room or the fact that he just needed to rest by himself before napping, I don't really know. The bottom line is that he did take his naps. Going to bed took the longest by far. It took him over two hours of laying in his crib before he finally fell asleep. We didn't even know he was awake until we went up there about an hour after he went down for the night to put our air conditioner in our bedroom window. As we were about to walk by his room, he looked right over and started talking. Needless to say, we quickly made our retreat down stairs. We went to check on him another time and saw him crawl across his crib, grab the headboard, and stand up. He didn't talk much the whole time he was up there, he just moved around, kicked his feet, and stared at the ceiling I guess. Oh well, he fell asleep eventually and made it through the night. I wonder how he will survive today with the heat and humidity. If he got through yesterday, I am sure that he can make it through today somehow. That remains to be seen and at this point of writing, 5:04 AM, I am starting to sweat and not looking forward to being outside all day in the sun myself. Guess I will be flooding my body with water today.
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