8.5 months: state of the Alex.
Dec. 27th, 2005 02:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaIf I had written this two weeks ago, when Alex turned eight months, it would have been a completely different entry. She's developing at light speed these days.
I had begun to worry seriously about Alex's eating skills. Every time I tried to introduce anything that was even slightly textured - mashed banana, green peas ground in the food mill, even some of the thicker varieties of baby food - she gagged, spit, even threw up. I started putting two and two together to get six: she had trouble nursing, and now she's not doing well with solids. Maybe she has an oral-motor deficit!
I'm not worried about that anymore. The big breakthrough came just before Christmas, when she ate a couple of Cheerios out of my bowl. On Christmas Eve, I gave her a lump of mashed potatoes just to play with, to keep her occupied while we ate dinner. She wound up feeding herself about a quarter of a cup. Since then she's had mashed sweet potatoes with garlic, many more Cheerios, part of a teething biscuit, mashed carrots, and some of Michael's white bean soup at an Italian restaurant. She's also greedily drinking water from an open cup held for her. (She can't seem to figure out that she's supposed to suck on the spout of the sippy cup, rather than chew on it.) She's also wolfing down baby food in much larger quantities than before. Bottle feeding is going less well - unless she's sleepy, she'd rather wiggle and look around the room than lie in my arms quietly taking a bottle. She's growing up! My baby is growing up!
My mom proudly came home from the supermarket today with wheat-free, dairy-free teething biscuits and organic baby food for Alex; in contrast, my sister tried to convince me that some Italian bread we were served at the restuarant last night didn't have wheat in it. I'm a lot more relaxed about new foods now that Alex has tried a dozen or so with no ill effects; hence, the white bean soup, which included more than one novel ingredient. But I'm still holding off on highly allergenic foods, no matter how fun it would be for the family to give Alex bread or whatever.
Here's the miraculous thing about the amount of food she's been eating in the evening: it looks like she's going to completely eliminate her midnight bottle. I've thought for a while that she's been eating way more than she strictly needs to at night, and have been thinking about weaning her off night bottles by slowly reducing the amount I offer. But starting with the mashed potato night, she's weaned off them herself. Last night she went to bed at 8pm, woke up very, very briefly at midnight, ate at 3am, then slept through until six. (Of course, she's been co-sleeping with us every night, which might be contributing to the improved sleep.)
Her talking has leapt forward as well. The whole family agrees that she is definitely saying a recognizable word on purpose: "Hi." In contrast to her other vocalizations, which are usually strung together, she usually says "hi" on its own. It's also sometimes combined with a "Heil Mama" sort of stiff-armed salute. She's been saying it for a while, though, so I have no idea when to say that she learned her first word. Mostly she babbles long strings of syllables. She particularly delights in using her newest sounds, like "th" and "fw." "Thah thah thah! Fwah! Fwoh! Ah-fwah!" She's imitated my sounds a few times now - for example, I was saying "flip flop!" a lot while we were playing, and Alex came out with a very clear "fop!"
She has a perfect cross-pattern crawling motion down, tummy high off the ground, hands brought way up and then slapped down with verve. She's been following my parents' dog around and around the house. In sharp contrast to our last visit, when 3-month-old Alex didn't seem to notice Cleo at all, now the dog entertains her endlessly. She smiles at her, talks to her, reaches for her, pats her, and of course, crawls after her. Fortunately, Cleo is very patient. (Alex is also being surprisingly gentle.) Man, do we ever need a dog.
Alex also cruises with great sophistication, transferring from the coffee table to the armchair to Mama's sweater, rarely falling down. She pulls or pushes up on absolutely everything, including toys that are relatively low to the ground. She stands up holding a toy in one hand and clutching my clothes in the other hand. She's going to be walking before she's ten months old, and I am seriously going to be in trouble.
She plays hard. She takes her shape blocks out of the shape sorter, turns them over in her hands, shakes them, explores their textured ends with her index finger, bangs two of them together. She pages through her books, turns them over and over in her hands, looks at the pictures, sings to them, chews on the corners. She rings her jingle bell, bangs it against the carpeted floor to hear the difference in sound, bangs it against another toy to hear yet a different sound. She explores every nook and cranny of her activity cube from several different angles and directions. She shows her toys to grown-ups, but doesn't quite hand them over yet.
My family adores her, and vice versa. She gets carried around and played with a lot, and is responding with her very sweetest of dispositions. Poor thing, she must get very bored being home alone with Mama or Papa all day. The constant stream of people and activity here makes her so happy.
I am way behind in uploading pictures, but eventually they will follow.
I had begun to worry seriously about Alex's eating skills. Every time I tried to introduce anything that was even slightly textured - mashed banana, green peas ground in the food mill, even some of the thicker varieties of baby food - she gagged, spit, even threw up. I started putting two and two together to get six: she had trouble nursing, and now she's not doing well with solids. Maybe she has an oral-motor deficit!
I'm not worried about that anymore. The big breakthrough came just before Christmas, when she ate a couple of Cheerios out of my bowl. On Christmas Eve, I gave her a lump of mashed potatoes just to play with, to keep her occupied while we ate dinner. She wound up feeding herself about a quarter of a cup. Since then she's had mashed sweet potatoes with garlic, many more Cheerios, part of a teething biscuit, mashed carrots, and some of Michael's white bean soup at an Italian restaurant. She's also greedily drinking water from an open cup held for her. (She can't seem to figure out that she's supposed to suck on the spout of the sippy cup, rather than chew on it.) She's also wolfing down baby food in much larger quantities than before. Bottle feeding is going less well - unless she's sleepy, she'd rather wiggle and look around the room than lie in my arms quietly taking a bottle. She's growing up! My baby is growing up!
My mom proudly came home from the supermarket today with wheat-free, dairy-free teething biscuits and organic baby food for Alex; in contrast, my sister tried to convince me that some Italian bread we were served at the restuarant last night didn't have wheat in it. I'm a lot more relaxed about new foods now that Alex has tried a dozen or so with no ill effects; hence, the white bean soup, which included more than one novel ingredient. But I'm still holding off on highly allergenic foods, no matter how fun it would be for the family to give Alex bread or whatever.
Here's the miraculous thing about the amount of food she's been eating in the evening: it looks like she's going to completely eliminate her midnight bottle. I've thought for a while that she's been eating way more than she strictly needs to at night, and have been thinking about weaning her off night bottles by slowly reducing the amount I offer. But starting with the mashed potato night, she's weaned off them herself. Last night she went to bed at 8pm, woke up very, very briefly at midnight, ate at 3am, then slept through until six. (Of course, she's been co-sleeping with us every night, which might be contributing to the improved sleep.)
Her talking has leapt forward as well. The whole family agrees that she is definitely saying a recognizable word on purpose: "Hi." In contrast to her other vocalizations, which are usually strung together, she usually says "hi" on its own. It's also sometimes combined with a "Heil Mama" sort of stiff-armed salute. She's been saying it for a while, though, so I have no idea when to say that she learned her first word. Mostly she babbles long strings of syllables. She particularly delights in using her newest sounds, like "th" and "fw." "Thah thah thah! Fwah! Fwoh! Ah-fwah!" She's imitated my sounds a few times now - for example, I was saying "flip flop!" a lot while we were playing, and Alex came out with a very clear "fop!"
She has a perfect cross-pattern crawling motion down, tummy high off the ground, hands brought way up and then slapped down with verve. She's been following my parents' dog around and around the house. In sharp contrast to our last visit, when 3-month-old Alex didn't seem to notice Cleo at all, now the dog entertains her endlessly. She smiles at her, talks to her, reaches for her, pats her, and of course, crawls after her. Fortunately, Cleo is very patient. (Alex is also being surprisingly gentle.) Man, do we ever need a dog.
Alex also cruises with great sophistication, transferring from the coffee table to the armchair to Mama's sweater, rarely falling down. She pulls or pushes up on absolutely everything, including toys that are relatively low to the ground. She stands up holding a toy in one hand and clutching my clothes in the other hand. She's going to be walking before she's ten months old, and I am seriously going to be in trouble.
She plays hard. She takes her shape blocks out of the shape sorter, turns them over in her hands, shakes them, explores their textured ends with her index finger, bangs two of them together. She pages through her books, turns them over and over in her hands, looks at the pictures, sings to them, chews on the corners. She rings her jingle bell, bangs it against the carpeted floor to hear the difference in sound, bangs it against another toy to hear yet a different sound. She explores every nook and cranny of her activity cube from several different angles and directions. She shows her toys to grown-ups, but doesn't quite hand them over yet.
My family adores her, and vice versa. She gets carried around and played with a lot, and is responding with her very sweetest of dispositions. Poor thing, she must get very bored being home alone with Mama or Papa all day. The constant stream of people and activity here makes her so happy.
I am way behind in uploading pictures, but eventually they will follow.
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no subject
Date: 2005-12-27 07:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-27 10:12 pm (UTC)As for walking - somehow it doesn't seem so bad. I mean, she's pretty slow when walking (hey, it's been less than a week still!) - and so she's not really into that much more stuff or anything. Crawling was a bigger breakthrough as far as that goes.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-28 12:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-28 09:05 am (UTC)combined with a "Heil Mama" sort of stiff-armed salute
Hahaha!
no subject
Date: 2005-12-28 10:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-29 12:55 pm (UTC)Glad she's set your mind at rest about the food thing too.