Normy: 11 months and growing

I’ll now interrupt my scheduled doula posting to blather on about how cool my baby is. You see, May has come and almost gone, and I’ve written hardly a word about the development of the Amazing Normanski. This is his baby book after all and there’s actually been a lot to tell. My little wonder is taking off…which is really no surprise considering this was his eleventh month of life.

The big news is that he finally has a tooth. One perfectly formed little pearl of a tooth started poking through the day we flew to Florida. (May 2nd, 2007) It wasn’t even Smoochy or I who first noticed that it was visible. It was the woman in front of us in the security line who first exclaimed, “My! What a cute little guy! And look, you have a tooth coming in don’t you?”

Can you see it?

My response: “HE DOES????” We had been hoping that there was something going on in that mouth of his. That at least would explain his erratic and restless sleep, his persistent crankiness, and runny nose. At last! A tooth! My mommy friends and I had often kidded about how every sleepless night, fussy moment, and runny diaper could be blamed on this mythical teething. But until there was real proof we could never be sure what the deal was. Our kids might actually just be grumpy!

Once we settled into my parent’s house the fun began. Unlike our home in California, this house has tons of cabinets…and each one is a veritable treasure trove of exploration for my increasingly independent Normy. Here he crawls about opening and slamming closed cabinet doors from one end of the house to the other. No cabinet door or drawer within his reach is safe. To accommodate, the kitchen cabinet home to cleaning products has been secured with a wooden spoon through the handles; the cabinet doors to the entertainment center have been tied shut with string; and all of the Tupperware has been put in one low level cabinet so that Normy can unload it all over the kitchen floor day after day. He undertakes this task with great abandon every morning, and then spends the rest of the day rolling the various pieces of Tupperware all over.

Yea! Tupperware!

When he’s not watching Sesame Street, that is. In fact, I am able to type this right now thanks to my parent’s cable TV. He is mesmerized by TV. It is AMAZING how still he’ll sit to watch. Amazing, and slightly frightening. I am absolutely taking advantage of this brief period of TV exposure. Soon we will return to life without cable, but in the mean time…this is so cool!

Don't worry, this doesn't last all day!

Least you think this is the only stimulation my child is receiving, let me assure you he is still read to daily, enjoys walks to the local park, and trips to the beach! Normy loves swimming in the Gulf of Mexico; he loves being pushed on the baby swing at the park; and LOVES stories about the Duck in the Truck. But he loves none of these things as much as he loves opening and closing cabinets.

See the newspaper? He read that next!

I’ve never been very good about exposing Normy to new foods and textures. Unlike my dear friends in California I don’t often make delicious and nutritious baby food. Plus, I have this insane fear of him choking…so it’s been pretty much a steady diet of jarred purees for Normy. My friends would tease that I would still be packing Gerber jars for Normy in his lunch box in high school! However, we’re both getting better. I made him some chunky baby food that he was doing okay with. Okay, except his system wasn’t processing it so well and we were finding bits of rice and peas undigested in his diaper. Yuck. However, he has been enjoying little bites of our table food here and there and I have bumped him up to the “stage three” baby food…so there is some texture! The big advancement has been with the Zwieback biscuits Granny Jannie bought for him. He loves those things, and they are a perfect way to entertain him while the rest of us are eating dinner!

Mmmm!

My little man is about to celebrate his first birthday. It’s hard for me to imagine his babyhood is drawing to a close. Luckily for me he is still very much a little guy. He is happy crawling and not so interested in upright mobility. One tooth still leaves him with a mostly gummy grin. And though he shouts and hollers with great conviction, he hasn’t added any new syllables to his vocabulary. (He does babble the occasional string of “da da dad ad daa doo”.) It is so fun though to see him try and “talk” with the rest of us. He really gets going at the dinner table; and I love to watch him interact with everyone. He is a very social guy and enjoys just sitting around with the group. Did I mention, I love him to pieces?