Things my Son Can Do

When last I reported to you, I mentioned that Tyler was really getting into squealing. Well he's moved past that and onto the 'raspberry' or 'zerbert', if you're a Preecs. The funny thing now is that he's doing it very deliberately now. He'll be sitting there and you'll see him get his concentrating face on, take in a deep breath, and then zerbert for a good 5 or 10 seconds, a whole sentence made out of rapidly vibrating lips. It's very impressive, and he seems to really get a kick out of it. It's definitely less haphazard than previous audio attempts. Vocals level up!

He might be teething? It's hard to say until we see a first tooth and can, therefore, attribute whatever fussiness happened over the past few days to that. He's certainly not too fussy and hasn't been losing any sleep, though he does drool a lot and likes munching on inanimate objects, especially the cloth diapers we have reserved for burp cloths. We might be seeing the early signs of something coming through the lower jaw, but as much as we are learning about Tyler, we still don't know what teething gums look like yet, and he's squirmy enough that he doesn't often let us really get a good look at his mouth. He's usually too busy trying to get it clamped around something. Oh, and yesterday when he was fussing before being put down for bed, I walked up and put my finger in his mouth for him to munch on. It fills up his mouth, so he just makes a 'mmm-mmm' sound while he's doing it, but I've discovered that if I open up his mouth with my finger a bit, he goes from 'mmm' to 'aaah'. So I've given Jessie a preview of what it's going to sound like when Tyler starts saying 'Mama.' She was quite enchanted.

In sports news, He's definitely gotten stronger. He gets a lot of tummy time and can push his head up and his chest clear off the ground. Tiny baby pushups! So cute. He's clearly trying to figure out how this whole 'crawling' thing is supposed to work, but at the moment, all he can do is push himself up, and then lift his arms and head and legs off the ground and balance on his tummy. It looks like hard work even to me! He doesn't get too far, but it lets him turn a little bit, and it's gotta be fantastic exercise. It's much more deliberate, too. It's not the random flailing of a newborn anymore, he's trying things out and attempting to get things done. Movement level up!

I know proper crawling doesn't happen for a while yet (month 9, reportedly), but any excuse to get things done. This past weekend we had a massive to-do list that Jess and I tackled as a team. We went to Ikea to get some doors for the entertainment center to keep inquisitive hands off the flashing lights, then went to Costco and got a bunch of food and the baby store and got some baby-proofing gear. So far I've just put baby locks on the area below the sink and the liquor cabinet (mostly due to glass, not alcoholism). We also put some foam on the stone trim of the fireplace (low, hard, and jaggy, a rough combination) and also on the coffee table by his play place. I also fixed a broken cabinet drawer (that was a pain), did the laundry and the dishes, vacuumed, mopped, moved the changing station downstairs, and any number of other odds and ends. Jess cooked several frozen dinners, cooked up cookies, refilled the hummingbird feeder, and took care of Tyler. We destroyed that to-do list, let me tell you.

And even with all of that, we managed to go out to a party on Saturday, and we even brought Tyler along. Some of Jessie's hockey team was meeting up for food and fun times. We brought Tyler along to show him off. He was a perfect gentleman the whole time, being cute and quiet and letting strangers hold him and even flashing several of his winning smiles for the ladies. We let him stay up past his bedtime, which meant it was a little harder getting him to sleep that night, but on the plus side, his morning nap was three hours long the next morning, so he caught up.

We see Tyler in the morning before we leave, getting him ready for the morning wake-up he'll have to do when he goes off to day care, and it lets Jessie see him in the morning which puts her in a much better mood for the day. Grandma has been doing a fine job taking care of him, and she's even been writing down his schedule so we can better train the Preecs Family Day Care Squad when they come to visit. I'm planning to take off Mondays when new people are in town just to help people get used to Tyler and help Tyler get used to people. We know all the tricks, but that's mostly because we where there when the tricks got invented.

We read to Tyler a lot, and we have A-B-C flash cards we show to him, even though it's way to early for him to worry about learning most of that stuff. I kind of like the idea that we teach him stuff too early. It gives us more to do with him and who knows, maybe he'll be the earliest-reading baby of all time. It can't hurt to try.

-N