Spent a lot of today making a photo book of Donovan's 365 pictures through Blurb.com. I've got the photos all in place, just gotta go through and tweak the captions but don't think I'll be getting to that tonight. I might try to make this a yearly birthday thing, making a small photo book as D's birthday gift, tho probably not as long or involved as this one (already I'm taking fewer photos of D since I don't "have to" take them every day).
D and I have been back to Gymboree this week, after missing it for 2-3 weeks thanks to the stomach bug and then plain ole business with the birthday and Daddy's visit and all. I swear when we arrived on Monday morning D's eyes lit up and he seemed so excited to be there.
It's astounding how much more interactive he is now. I remember months ago watching Monika's little girl Audrey, who's about 6 months older than D, watching how she truly seemed to understand what people said to her and would follow commands, etc, and looking at D, 7 or 8 months old at the time, and not quite believing that he'd be at that stage himself in a short time. Yet now he's playing little games with me, like feeding me some of his finger foods (and sometimes taking them away just as I'm about to bite), or taking sips from his sippy cup and then shoving it in my face for me to take a sip, too. We were playing with his basketball hoop and whereas before he'd get a ball through the hoop on occasion, yesterday he was really doing it. One of the gifts he got for his birthday was this cool tower with balls you push through the holes and then they go down a maze, and although he can't push the balls through himself yet he's already figured out how to just put them in through the open sides. Oh, and he's so obsessed with Zach's cell phone that now he even recognizes the RINGTONE and will get all excited if he hears it, even before seeing the actual phone. And forget actually trying to talk on the phone while he's in the room. I'm having a hard time taking videos of him these days as anytime he sees the camera he immediately wants to grab and play with it. He's such a boy, completely obsessed with electronics.
He's getting much better at spotting things he wants and proceeding to point and grunt to indicate that he wants them. The grunts quickly evolve into whines, and then he just starts crying, and can I tell you how much I'm not looking forward to the tantrums that I know are about to come? He's getting tall enough to be able to just spot things on tabletops, meaning they're not really safe anymore, or he'll look down and notice the cell phone/pens/apples on the table as I'm walking past the table while holding him in my arms. We may need to resort to closed boxes to store some of the stuff we don't want him seeing/getting it. Oh, and the area at the edges of tables which he can grasp at is growing each day it seems, so we have to be more careful about that, too. I have a notebook and notepad that I keep next to the laptop on the dining table, and he's pulled them down to the floor a few times already.
I grabbed a couple new books at the library the other day, I've started reading Bringing up Baby Bilingual (which is apparently out of print) which is motivating me to get back at it with speaking Spanish to D (have been seriously slacking the past several weeks), I've also got Bringing Up Boys but haven't started it yet. I didn't used to think a book about what makes boys different would be important, but being around D is making me think there's more to gender differences than just social pressure, so it's a topic I'm curious to look into.
D and I have been back to Gymboree this week, after missing it for 2-3 weeks thanks to the stomach bug and then plain ole business with the birthday and Daddy's visit and all. I swear when we arrived on Monday morning D's eyes lit up and he seemed so excited to be there.
It's astounding how much more interactive he is now. I remember months ago watching Monika's little girl Audrey, who's about 6 months older than D, watching how she truly seemed to understand what people said to her and would follow commands, etc, and looking at D, 7 or 8 months old at the time, and not quite believing that he'd be at that stage himself in a short time. Yet now he's playing little games with me, like feeding me some of his finger foods (and sometimes taking them away just as I'm about to bite), or taking sips from his sippy cup and then shoving it in my face for me to take a sip, too. We were playing with his basketball hoop and whereas before he'd get a ball through the hoop on occasion, yesterday he was really doing it. One of the gifts he got for his birthday was this cool tower with balls you push through the holes and then they go down a maze, and although he can't push the balls through himself yet he's already figured out how to just put them in through the open sides. Oh, and he's so obsessed with Zach's cell phone that now he even recognizes the RINGTONE and will get all excited if he hears it, even before seeing the actual phone. And forget actually trying to talk on the phone while he's in the room. I'm having a hard time taking videos of him these days as anytime he sees the camera he immediately wants to grab and play with it. He's such a boy, completely obsessed with electronics.
He's getting much better at spotting things he wants and proceeding to point and grunt to indicate that he wants them. The grunts quickly evolve into whines, and then he just starts crying, and can I tell you how much I'm not looking forward to the tantrums that I know are about to come? He's getting tall enough to be able to just spot things on tabletops, meaning they're not really safe anymore, or he'll look down and notice the cell phone/pens/apples on the table as I'm walking past the table while holding him in my arms. We may need to resort to closed boxes to store some of the stuff we don't want him seeing/getting it. Oh, and the area at the edges of tables which he can grasp at is growing each day it seems, so we have to be more careful about that, too. I have a notebook and notepad that I keep next to the laptop on the dining table, and he's pulled them down to the floor a few times already.
I grabbed a couple new books at the library the other day, I've started reading Bringing up Baby Bilingual (which is apparently out of print) which is motivating me to get back at it with speaking Spanish to D (have been seriously slacking the past several weeks), I've also got Bringing Up Boys but haven't started it yet. I didn't used to think a book about what makes boys different would be important, but being around D is making me think there's more to gender differences than just social pressure, so it's a topic I'm curious to look into.
First order of business: WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T "HAVE TO" TAKE PICTURES OF HIM EVERY DAY?????
ReplyDeleteNow let me go back and read the rest of the post...
Huh. Do I need to go over there and show him my old-woman hand? Let him see what happens to grabby hands that like to pull things off tables?
Also, you should get him his own baby iPod. I'd record podcasts for him, reading books in Spanish and stuff like that. Then he can listen to them and be all bilingual and stuff. And he'd have another electronic gadget to play with.
Another good book I've heard rave reviews is Boys Will Be Boys by Dr. Meg Meeker.
ReplyDeleteI love blurb, a couple of years ago I made a book of our entire blog from the first year. It took forever but we love having it to flip through every once in awhile. Once upon a time it was possible to "Slurp" your blog and have it semi automatically go into a book but that feature was not working with blogger last time I checked. Good luck with the book. I am sure it will turn out great...
ReplyDeleteprougu <= my word verification
Jason