More of a Toddler Than a Baby

Yesterday when I got home from work, Luke was playing on the floor. He was in the crawling position on his hands with his stomach down, facing the other way. He heard me taking my coat off, so he turned his head and saw me. He then rotated 180 degrees on his spot almost immediately.

Luke's new mobility has been slowly progressive, but it's been more visible lately. It's not uncommon for us to turn our video monitor off with him facing one direction in the crib, then turning it in a couple minutes later to find him in a completely different position. We finally lowered his crib depth a bit to make sure he doesn't pull himself out.

While not crawling yet, he's certainly close. He usually gets frustrated and gives up, but once he figures it out we think he'll never stop moving. He's so close to moving around that I finally hit the "baby-proofing" stage of parenthood. I'm going to have to seriously lock all the cabinets, cover the outlets, get a new coffee table, etc.

Luke's favorite toy is his electronic musical instrument toy. This garage-sale bargain makes noise whenever he pushes keyboard keys or random buttons. Luke hasn't really figured out how to "push" a button; it's more like smashing. Regardless, the toy is making plenty of noise and lights, and he loves it.

Luke is eating enough food to fuel his ludicrous growth. His transition to solids is complete, and he's eating 3+ meals a day as solids. He still takes 6-8 ounces of milk with a meal as well.

Feeding a baby solids is hilarious. I thought Luke would show us which foods he likes and dislikes, because he made faces of confusion and disgust when we started feeding him solids. We figured he'd just didn't like the food we tried (rice). However, we soon learned that he makes that face with EVERY solid food. That first look is priceless, though. "What the heck are you feeding me?"

Surprisingly, Luke almost immediately took to spoon feeding. I expected it to be a painstaking and slow learning curve. However, it only took a couple feedings for him to have his mouth wide open and ready for the next spoonful of food.

It does get messy sometimes, but usually not. Granted, we're feeding him, and I'm sure things get a lot more interesting when he starts feeding himself. Still, it's nice that we can get through a meal with him in just ten minutes or so, without him being a total mess in the end.

He's a lot more talkative, but his vocabulary is still mostly incoherent. Dada and Mama are common, but he'll say it while looking at anything from me to the cat to his dirty diaper. We've started to try to teach him sign language, but I usually find he gets too distracted to pay attention to me.

Luke's greatest progress is at night. Due to the solid foods, we now have him sleeping a fantastic 10-12 hours straight. He stirs in the night only rarely, and usually we can let him settle down on his own. We used to have to feed him at 11:00 , but we've cut that out so his last feeding is at 6-7. It basically means we have our evenings free again!

Still no teeth. His hair is very blonde and very long; it looks like we've had his hair cut, but we haven't. He's six months old and we're transitioning him into 9-12 month clothing. I'm predicting 6'6".

Just a Teaspoon of Sweet Potatoes Makes Luke Grunt

Not quite as catchy as Mary Poppins. It's true, though, Luke grunted during his entire course of sweet potatoes. However, this is the first meal he's actually eaten anything significant that I fed him (of course he eats everything Melissa feeds him).

Spoon feeding has become easier in general. Usually he grasps for the spoon, and you have to decoy him with a second spoon to get anything in his mouth. Tonight's feeding, however, he just inhaled whenever I got the spoon within an inch of his mouth and the food vanished. He must have been hungry.

Daily he becomes more human-like. Or I guess I should say adult-like, as he technically is a human (he's only 1/8 alien). What I'm trying to say is his behavior is more humanlike.

He has games he likes now. For example, I blow on his face and he blinks and laughs. He likes it when Missy tickles him with her hair. He likes to dance (with our help of course).

He's much more interactive with all of his toys now. He's also very self-entertaining, which is not only convenient, but amazing to watch. He also has about 239048209348 toys thanks to the recent holidays. Thanks everyone... I think... Singing toys put me closer to the edge. The Leap Frog haunts my dreams. I'm taking a 10 minute break from typing. Fetal position.

He also tries to eat everything. This includes food, toys, blankets, carpet, his arm, my arm, the cat, etc. It's fun watching him discover new foods. There's a clear expression on his face that says something like, "What the heck did you just put in my mouth?" While he thinks everything non-food is something to eat, he believes food itself is something to wear instead.

Okay, I had to talk about it somewhere. Solid food poop is completely disgusting. I tried to think of a joke to talk about it more, but it really is disgusting.

He's decided on a new sleeping position. He likes sleeping on his stomach. This is an interesting development. You see, he likes to suckle his bed sheets. So this means that from our perspective (camera on top of the crib) our baby is face down on the sheets all the time. We try to adjust him occasionally so we know he's breathing, but we've started giving up. He also tries to turn his head with a pacifier in his mouth, which results in no pacifier and all three of us awake. We'd unswaddle him, but he still hasn't learned how to not try to gouge his own eyes out when not swaddled. One of these days we'll probably just have to bite the bullet.

His hair is growing, but according to my mom it's coming in even. He's still quite blonde and brown eyed. His eyes continue to generate massive amounts of gunk; we're not sure if that will ever end. Supposedly it can last for up to a year. Maybe it's a blessing, because if he was any cuter I'd probably squeeze him too hard when I hug him.

Luke also likes to eat brains and designed a death ray blaster. That must be the 1/8 alien in him. He prefers his brains scrambled, which is why I don't let him get too close to Melissa.

Aunt Sarah Comes to Visit

Luke had a chance to visit with his Aunt Sarah today. He thinks that she is fascinating to look at. He also decided that it would be best to communicate with her by sticking out his tongue and blowing spit bubbles as hard as he could.

New Year's Update

Luke is still growing like a weed. He has tried several solid foods now and to our surprise squash and peas have been favorites over pears, bananas, and cereal. He is becoming more interactive now and has a very high pitched squeal that he uses to communicate his likes/dislikes. Luke now shows when he wants something like his bottle by holding out both hands and breathing fast while squealing.

I took Luke to see a physical therapist today to work on his neck muscles. He has been holding his head slightly to the left so we're trying to stretch out his muscles to help him hold his head a little straighter.

With the way he tries to move, I'm guessing crawling is not too far off!