Week 34: The Sound of One Hand Clapping
Will has finally learned to actively play his favorite games, pat-a-cake. He can clap his hands together happily, yet still with very little control, often forgetting that the other hand is lodged in his mouth, and ends up smacking himself in the face. But he is very proud of himself, as he should be.
Another milestone, surely to make Behind the Music if he ever becomes a famous musician, Will can play Emily’s little wooden recorder. I’m sure in twenty years, we’ll be sitting on that couch being interviewed, shrugging smugly, saying, “Well, we could tell from an early age that he had a talent for music”. But he likes having the power to create such a fun response, as we fall over ourselves applauding and praising him.
Will also started to attempt dancing. A little dog he got for Christmas sings when you press its hand, and Will hangs on to the coffee table, squatting down and standing up. It’s about as rhythmic as Steve Martin in The Jerk, but it’s a start.
On other normal baby milestones… he seems to have forgotten to do. Say, things like, teething. Will is eight months old, and no tooth in sight. But I have to admit, hanging on to that sweet little toothless baby grin a little longer is just fine with me. Besides, he does just fine eating all kinds of real people food. His favorites seem to be bread, toast, rice, cheese, squash, and scrambled egg yoke. He’s also quite proud of himself for eating, and as Will was eating breakfast, he waved his toast around at Ian, as if to say, “Hey look at this! No more nasty gruel for me, thank you very much”.
Hands down, my favorite thing about this age is how amazed Will is with everything. He sits in the bath tub, splashes the water up in his face, experiencing the wetness, yelling to hear his own voice echo, and gazing up at the shower head, which must seem so, so high up there to him. When I take him to the store, he sits quietly in the cart and stares up at the lights, amazed at the brightness and color. I see a lot of babies crying in the store, but I love how interested and alert Will always is. Sure, he’s not the friendliest baby to strangers, usually when people smile and fuss over him, he just stares blankly back. Secretly, I like this, he saves all his best smiles for his favorite people.
But now that he’s singled out his favorite people, he’s had the onset of Seperation Anxiety. If I merely step over the baby gate blocking our bedroom doorway, to, god forbid, use the bathroom, he crawls over, pulls himself up on the gate and wails morosely. Mostly, if he’s not exploring, he wants to be held, which is nothing new. I just need to invest in a larger sling for the poor guy, and poor me. The one we had was great, but it now doesn’t support his weight well, and digs into my shoulder and his legs.
But, I do have to admit that while all these milestones are exciting, there is one thing Will does that I could definitely do without. Have you ever seen that episode of The Simpsons with the screaming caterpillar? If you haven’t, well this is probably totally lost on you, but it’s all I can think of when Will starts this high pitched scream, which can mean any number of things from “put me to sleep this second” to “I want what you’re eating”.
As for the rest of us, we’re pretty overwhelmed about the move. Excited, but overwhelmed. Emily keeps forgetting that she’ll have a new school with new friends in just a few short weeks, and the poor kid starts to miss the friends she has, of course. I’m completely not looking forward to packing, and running out of time for procrastinating. Ian finally got to quit his job, so he’s very happy. And luckily he’ll be home the week before we move to help with packing. I just can’t believe the amount of stuff we’ve accumulated over the last four and a half years. Just cross your fingers for the rain to stop so we can get some non-soggy boxes for packing.
So as a P.S. to this blog entry, I’m doing my best to keep up the blog, I’ve had these last two posts half written in Word documents the last two weeks. So, I’ll try to keep them coming, and check back soon I should have more written for week 35 shortly. Thanks for reading!
Another milestone, surely to make Behind the Music if he ever becomes a famous musician, Will can play Emily’s little wooden recorder. I’m sure in twenty years, we’ll be sitting on that couch being interviewed, shrugging smugly, saying, “Well, we could tell from an early age that he had a talent for music”. But he likes having the power to create such a fun response, as we fall over ourselves applauding and praising him.
Will also started to attempt dancing. A little dog he got for Christmas sings when you press its hand, and Will hangs on to the coffee table, squatting down and standing up. It’s about as rhythmic as Steve Martin in The Jerk, but it’s a start.
On other normal baby milestones… he seems to have forgotten to do. Say, things like, teething. Will is eight months old, and no tooth in sight. But I have to admit, hanging on to that sweet little toothless baby grin a little longer is just fine with me. Besides, he does just fine eating all kinds of real people food. His favorites seem to be bread, toast, rice, cheese, squash, and scrambled egg yoke. He’s also quite proud of himself for eating, and as Will was eating breakfast, he waved his toast around at Ian, as if to say, “Hey look at this! No more nasty gruel for me, thank you very much”.
Hands down, my favorite thing about this age is how amazed Will is with everything. He sits in the bath tub, splashes the water up in his face, experiencing the wetness, yelling to hear his own voice echo, and gazing up at the shower head, which must seem so, so high up there to him. When I take him to the store, he sits quietly in the cart and stares up at the lights, amazed at the brightness and color. I see a lot of babies crying in the store, but I love how interested and alert Will always is. Sure, he’s not the friendliest baby to strangers, usually when people smile and fuss over him, he just stares blankly back. Secretly, I like this, he saves all his best smiles for his favorite people.
But now that he’s singled out his favorite people, he’s had the onset of Seperation Anxiety. If I merely step over the baby gate blocking our bedroom doorway, to, god forbid, use the bathroom, he crawls over, pulls himself up on the gate and wails morosely. Mostly, if he’s not exploring, he wants to be held, which is nothing new. I just need to invest in a larger sling for the poor guy, and poor me. The one we had was great, but it now doesn’t support his weight well, and digs into my shoulder and his legs.
But, I do have to admit that while all these milestones are exciting, there is one thing Will does that I could definitely do without. Have you ever seen that episode of The Simpsons with the screaming caterpillar? If you haven’t, well this is probably totally lost on you, but it’s all I can think of when Will starts this high pitched scream, which can mean any number of things from “put me to sleep this second” to “I want what you’re eating”.
As for the rest of us, we’re pretty overwhelmed about the move. Excited, but overwhelmed. Emily keeps forgetting that she’ll have a new school with new friends in just a few short weeks, and the poor kid starts to miss the friends she has, of course. I’m completely not looking forward to packing, and running out of time for procrastinating. Ian finally got to quit his job, so he’s very happy. And luckily he’ll be home the week before we move to help with packing. I just can’t believe the amount of stuff we’ve accumulated over the last four and a half years. Just cross your fingers for the rain to stop so we can get some non-soggy boxes for packing.
So as a P.S. to this blog entry, I’m doing my best to keep up the blog, I’ve had these last two posts half written in Word documents the last two weeks. So, I’ll try to keep them coming, and check back soon I should have more written for week 35 shortly. Thanks for reading!
posted by Kate @ 5:12 PM
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