baby

Learning at the speed of light

/ Shane / 2 Comments

It seems as if Oliver’s knowledge has just exploded in the past few weeks. After sticking with a few good words for so long, he is suddenly acquiring language so quickly, that it is hard to keep up. I’ve tried to compile a list of all the words he currently uses, but it seems like as soon as I put the list down on paper, he learns a few more.

So I tried to be very conservative in my list, and only include words that he uses often and obviously understands completely. He has a lot of words that he has said just a few times, or that he repeats after you, but has not used independently. So those I didn’t include. He also understands about 100 times more words than this, but I think that’s pretty normal.

So, the list as I currently know it:

  • bottle
  • watch
  • tractor
  • tent
  • night-night
  • uh oh
  • bye bye
  • tickle
  • hello
  • mama
  • dada
  • ball
  • (ba) nana
  • wow
  • yay
  • cheese
  • more
  • Nala
  • go go go
  • shoes
  • f (an)
  • bug
  • ow
  • door
  • up
  • elmo
  • woof woof woof woof woof (dog)
  • bike
  • f (ountain)
  • clock
  • bubbles
  • hot

I almost want to count “hot” twice, because he understands two separate uses of the word: when he ate something spicy, he pointed to his mouth and said, “Hot!”, and also said it when I took something out of the microwave.

In addition, he has 4 new teeth, 3 of which are molars. His other molar is looking like it won’t be far behind. Having a molar come through seems like it would be so painful, but he doesn’t really seem to be bothered much by it (other than potentially causing some sleep issues, but that’s another post altogether!). He doesn’t even seem to want to chew on things, other than food, which he has always chewed with abandon.

As a side note, he must be the only kid in the world who won’t eat cut up fruit, only whole fruit.

He’s sitting in the booster seat at the table now, instead of in the high chair, and took to eating with utensils pretty easily. Although he hasn’t exactly mastered it, it seemed to go much better with him than Evie. Maybe that’s just because he loves to eat so much, especially compared to her. They both were pretty good at using a regular cup.

He looks so grown up sitting there in the chair with a spoon in hand! He’s our little polite boy, wiping his face after a bite, and wiping any drips up from the table. On the other hand, he still inexplicably dumps his milk in his lap, just to see what will happen, and he loves to put his fork or his food in his milk cup. Still, overall, pretty good for a one year old!

Ollie Ollie Ollie get your adverbs here

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Oliver has been a busy boy lately!

When we last saw our hero, he was just starting to pull himself up to stand. Once he figured this out, he doesn’t want to do anything else. Stand, sit, stand, sit, all day long. He hasn’t completely mastered it yet, specifically the drop onto the padded diaper to avoid injury, so he has had a little up-tick in the number of minor bumps and bruises. He’s even starting to try and climb up on things now, specifically his favorite standing place, the dishwasher. He did figure out that he can get into more mischief after all, especially grabbing all the dirty dishes out and generally making a food mess.

The most exciting part is that Oliver might have his first word! He has learned to say, “Ba!” for ball. He says other things, like “ma ma” and “da da” but there’s no connections between those things and the object they represent. If you hold out a ball to him and say, “Oliver, what is this?” he (usually) says “ba!”.

As far as signs go, he hasn’t really caught on to those yet. He’ll give high 5’s, and sometimes will sort of lift his arms for “So big!”. He kind of pounds his hand for “more”, but he pounds his hands other times too. We’re trying hard for more, all done, bath, and bye-bye. He always seems to be on the verge of getting it, but not quite there.

His teeth on the top and bottom seem to be pretty close. His teeth on the bottom in particular seem like they’re going to be through any day now.

With all this great new stuff going on with him, and just how interactive he is (almost like a real person!) I think to myself, “This is a such a great age!” And then other times I don’t think that.

Oliver has more or less stopped sleeping at night. This is not at all unusual at this age; there’s just so much going on. He wants to be awake and exploring, not wasting his time sleeping. At least this time around I know it is limited. We just need to make it through this period until he goes back to normal. But that doesn’t make me less tired! Lucky for me (and unlucky for Sara) there’s mostly not a lot I can do. At this point, only mama will do. I’m usually good for getting him to sleep once per night, other than that I can pretty much just hold him while he sobs until Sara gives up and takes him back. He is not happy to see me at night, no siree. So sometimes Sara tells me to go sleep on the couch for a few hours so I don’t fall asleep and die on my way home from work.

I still think the positives outweigh the negatives. This is, in fact, a really fun age and I’m trying to make sure I appreciate it!

Note, for the explanation of the title of this post, see this video:

Vampire?

/ Shane / 3 Comments

At this point, Oliver has pretty much just given up on sleeping. Maybe he has been turned into a vampire.

I guess we won’t know until he gets teeth.

Ollie Ollie Oxen Free

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Well, the big news is, Oliver is now crawling!

He started last Thursday or Friday. It was slow and difficult at first, but he’s been improving every day. He already could roll and pivot to get pretty much everything he wanted, so only the straight ahead part is new. It’s surprising how much more trouble he can get into, even though he’s hardly crawling at this point. However, I think the cause and effect relationship is reversed: I think he finally started crawling *because* he wanted to get into so much more mischief! It gave him the required motivation.

He’s doing pretty well eating solids. He certainly has his likes and dislikes. His likes are baby cereal, pumpkin, and anything he can hold in his hand. He really likes apple slices, cucumber slices, green beans, potato wedges, etc. I don’t know if he likes things like that so much more than Evie, or if we just never figured out that it was so much easier to occupy her with something like that. Certainly food seems to be going better with him than with her, although we have a much smaller sample size.

This has changed his…bathroom habits quite a bit. He goes a lot longer in between poopy diapers, but when he goes, watch out! (You can ask Sara and the bathroom wall about this one)(and the floor, and the bath mat…)

Also similar to Evie, he’s not keen on sleeping through the night. A couple of times a week he wakes up at 4:30 or so and just stays up for an hour, usually crying. He’s crying because we’re trying to put him back to sleep and he doesn’t want to go; I’m sure he would be perfectly happy if we just let him get up. However, this never seems like a good idea at the time, so I usually just end up tired and irritable. Sara has to remind me that we went through all of this with Evie and it didn’t last that long and we all survived.

Oliver is as rashy as ever, with no end in site. Some days are better and you think something you’ve done is working. Then the next day he will be as bad as he’s ever been. We’ve sort of gotten used to that at this point, and gotten a routine down. But I still feel really bad for him, because he still seems pretty itchy.

Evie and Oliver’s relationship continues to be a little strained. They are now getting into that area where Oliver wants to “share” her toys (read “eat” her toys). Naturally, Evie doesn’t like that too much. She is constantly yanking things out of his hands and telling him he can’t touch anything. However, I think she is starting to crack. Lately she has been designating things that he is allowed to touch, or giving him one thing so he doesn’t take something else. Also, she will occasionally “play” with him by building towers for him to knock over (which he finds *hilarious*). However, this usually ends in her deciding she would have even MORE fun if he wasn’t involved, and cutting him out of the action.

She still doesn’t quite get that she can’t force him to do whatever she wants him to. Something tells me he might be stuck with that for life.

Eczema follow-up

/ Shane / 6 Comments

So far, no good.

Oliver’s eczema is worse if anything. We’ve been going through all the clothes, washing them without detergent, Vaselining him morning and night, changing our sheets twice as frequently, trying not to touch him with clothes that may have touched detergent, etc. It certainly doesn’t seem to be helping. I even switched shampoos.

He has good days and bad days. Some days he looks better and I think, “Maybe what we’re doing is working!” and then the next day he looks worse than ever.

The worst part of all is that he has now discovered scratching. Before, I could always pretend that he wasn’t really bothered by the eczema, even though it looked terrible. Now, however, he tries to scratch his chest and face whenever you give him an opportunity. At this point it takes two people to change his clothes; one to hold his hands back, and the other to dress him. We have to put him in a double shirt and put socks on his hands to prevent him from scratching in the night.

It makes me so sad to see him desperately trying to scratch. It wasn’t so long ago that I myself had to deal with insane, full-body itching, and I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. I certainly wouldn’t wish it on my precious baby. And I certainly can’t pretend that he’s not bothered by it anymore.

I feel very helpless, and that’s not a great feeling when it comes to watching your kid be miserable.