10 months -Clapping

Nathan just woke up so he's got the sleepy eyes.

10 months

Many milestones have happened that I want to share. I’m finding that the newborn phase is getting fuzzy. Every time Nathan would do something, I could never imagine not remembering every detail. But I’m starting to forget… and wish I had wrote some things down. So here goes.


I put Nathan in his boba carrier so that I could chop garlic.

My new boba carrier!

 I put the clove on the cutting board turned the knife on its side and gave two swift pounds with my fist. And suddenly I felt two tiny pats on my back. I pounded another clove, and another tap on my back. I chop furiously and feel multiple slaps on the back of my neck. Nathan now imitates. It started with waving last month, last week I could get him to say dada. And yesterday he clapped. Well, technically he smacked the back of his left hand. But the look on his face when he realized he could do it! And the way he looks at me as I go berserk with cheery praise. It slays me.

His new favorite book is Goodnight Moon.

 I’ve always hated this book when I was a children’s librarian. The illustrations are not my style. And boring! But damn it if it doesn’t make him grin. Lately he has been sitting through the book from start to finish and sometimes I read it twice. He likes to grab at the pictures. We cuddle up, and I lean him back against me. We read every day before nap time.

He is pulling up to stand. Getting him to eat on his own is a challenge. I have to warm him up a bit. Feed him a few bites from my hand. Once he gets into the groove it is fun to watch. We are still nursing four times a day with breakfast lunch and dinner and a morning snack. He usually takes one nap at 11 for a couple hours. Sometimes three!

He is constantly looking up at me for my reaction to things. Especially when he falls and gets hurt. I try very hard to make it seem like great fun to fall on your face. But it never works. I always pick him up and comfort him. I usually turn on the ceiling fan, his buddy. Yesterday he bumped his head, cried into my shoulder and then looked up at the ceiling fan expectantly. It’s funny to see a crying baby smile.

He gives kisses, but really he just leans in with his forehead. He’ll kiss anything.

He repeats my squeals and will say dada when prompted.

These are the big things off the top of my head.

Nathan babbles

My sugarbutt is babbling.  He started one night and BOOM explosion.  I love it!

Will my baby eat onions?

So everyone who knows me knows my high aversion to onions.  Yes I can technically eat them and not have a deathly reaction, but they do make me sick to my stomach.  Sigh, I really wish I could eat onions.  I am making small strides though, and I am very proud to announce that I can eat chives and the very very green part of a green onion.  As long as it is smaller than a fingernail clipping... and mixed with other food.

And strange enough I do admit that onions add good flavor.  Like a friend of mine made chili, and while eating around the onions, I realized it was the best chili I've ever tasted.  I have found that picking out the onions in Thai or Chinese dishes is taster than ordering the dish without onion. I do think food can taste good rubbing against the onion.  (Although this is completely void in the context of a raw onion.  Anything that touches a raw onion tastes like one. EW.)

BUT I JUST CAN'T EAT THEM. Although I hear all the time about how a particular dish does have onions, but you can't taste them.  YES I CAN!!.  The texture (sickening crunch), the look (the lines make it like a segmented slimy worm), the smell (I can always tell when a food has them), the TASTE. Holy nightmares.  Let's just say I've never chewed into an onion more than once.  If I taste one, everything in my mouth has to come out.

So do I want this for my son? NO WAY. I want him to like onions. I want him to order anything he wants off the menu without asking "does this have onions?"  Or "no onions please."  I want him to enjoy Italian food, Mexican food, casseroles, chillies, potlucks, dinner with friends, any variety of lean cuisine or frozen meal.  Or 90 percent of Uncle Ben's rice. I don't want him to scan every pasta sauce ingredient list on the shelf to find the one brand without onions (it's Prego Three Cheese).   I'd hate for him to pass out those delicious crab cakes because they have onions in them.

Let's face it. Onions come in everything.

Well today I saw a baby food of chicken and vegetable stew.  I looked into the list of ingredients (a reflex). And there were organic onions. So, I put it back on the shelf.  How can I watch my sweet baby boy eat an onion?  Let him get them from his father.

8.5 months old

My sweet boy is now 8.5 months old. He hit some sort of growth spurt because he can no longer fit his 6-9 month sleepers. Or his 6 month onesies. Or his sleep sack!

He took three crawling steps on Christmas day and started crawling 3 days later. It was so exciting, just one moment he had it, and off he went… after my cell phone. Now its like the whole time he wasn’t crawling he was planning where he wanted to cause havoc. Like the computer cords and the bookshelf. I let him pull the books off, he seems to enjoy it. Not too much babbling yet. Just the mmmmm’s and the GAH and the KA’s with the squeals. He does give kisses which are more like a head butt into the neck and only when he is in a good mood.

He loves to look up at us to see our reaction to things. Tonight josh was giving him lots of praise for flipping down his pop up toy. And Nathan thought all he had to do was touch it to get dad to cheer. And when josh didn’t cheer he burst into tears. He is still loving the songs I’ve sang to him for ages. Ladies Ride, and Humpty dumpty. Also he is putting his arms through his shirts, he seems to understand more and more what is next. Still a gentleman with eating, his arms out to his sides. He can’t stack anything but loves to knock them down. He laughs when I laugh. Which I LOVE!! He is ticklish on his chest but he always get the hiccups. And he sneezes in the sunlight.

The winter is brutal here. And it’s only just begun.  I would love to go for long walks with him and Charlie. I went out today for all of 10 minutes and had to turn back because the wind hurt my face.  Nathan was safely tucked away under his raincover.


He cut his first tooth on Sunday. I don’t see the tooth, just the cut in the gums. I’m not sure if that is keeping him up or because his head nearly exploded during baby extravaganza the past few days.



Nathan, Garrett and Gabriel  at 8 months old



Reading is fun!

Here Nathan is almost 8 months, and I feel like lately he is really surprising me with what he can do.  I read him a story before every nap.  His favorite is Eating the Alphabet by Lois Ehlert and I always read it in addition to a new book or two.  I feel like I know that thing by heart: "Apricot, Artichoke, Apple, Asparagus..." But the past couple of weeks when I open the book Nathan bursts into smiles like he is seeing an old friend.  We don't always make it through the book if he is very cranky, but I at least read the first couple of pages.

Then the most amazing thing happened.  We were reading a touch and feel board book. And normally I take his hand and clumsily force him to stroke the page.  But when I turned the page, I stroked it then he stroked it on his own. In the right spot! Now he reaches out to touch it wihtout any prompting.  I think he's got the hang of this thing.

The lady across the way

So I am getting out of the car from picking up Josh from the metra and I see the lady across the way.  I've seen that she also has a stroller and a bumpkin Nathan's age. And I know she's seen me.  But for some reason she was watching us out her window with her baby. It was bizarre.  Should I have waved?  Would that have meant I was looking in her window?  I mean it was night time and she had her lights on, she knew I saw her. And she was looking right at us!

 I know that she stays at home like I do.  Is she lonely and in need of a friend? Or is she a creepy people watcher.  Am I projecting here?  Haha!