Here’s the short update: Toby is awesome.
He is growing and eating, moving faster all the time. He laughs and smiles a lot, turning his eyes
into little half-moons and melting our hearts.
The long update follows.
The Toblerone got his first haircut shortly after the last post. He was working on a serious mullet and I just
couldn’t take it any more, so I trimmed maybe an inch off the back, plus a tiny
bit from the middle of his cowlick. No
one else really noticed – including Toby; I gave him my cell phone to play with
and he had no idea anything else was going on.
(This is also how we cut his fingernails, he’s a VERY focused
technophile.)
At the end of last month Toby and I drove down to Richmond to visit with
my side of the family. The weekend was
packed with visits, but the little fellow handled it wonderfully. He ate everything off my plate at Nana’s –
notably getting his first taste of her famous fried chicken – and even helped
Uncle Dan and Uncle Kenny polish Nana’s kitchen table.
There was also a fun visit with Aunt Jean, a tour of Aunt Cathy’s
livestock (Seymour Boar! Noisy
Rooster!), quality time with Grammie and Grandpa Royer, and photo ops with the
cousins. We felt quite spoiled.
Toby’s latest language development is the glottal stop. I had previously appreciated this as
something common in other languages, like Hawaiian (or Cheyenne!). When I looked up more
about it, I discovered that’s how we do our mid-word “t” in English. Anyway, Toby got it down on our trip south. For about a week he would say “hah!” when he
was considering crying and not sure whether to commit, but we also used it as a
fun play phrase to toss back and forth.
It was obvious he recognized the coolness of this little trick the rest
of us have learned to take for granted.
Now it’s old hat and he’s returned to mostly saying “mamama” and trying
to walk. Oh, but he does use his fist to
make cute “bababa” sounds.
He may not say a lot of words, but we notice that he’s understanding more
and more. We watch the birdfeeder
together a lot, and if he’s playing on the floor and I say “there’s a bird”
he’ll look up at the feeder to see what’s visiting. The first time it happened he looked back at
me with a big grin that clearly said, “Mama, we’re having a conversation!!” Here he is with the kitty, watching a bird
that is just out of the frame.
He will also clap on request, including when it comes up in Barnyard
Dance. In fact, clapping continues
to be one of his favorite things – he often claps first thing in the morning,
as soon as his eyes open.
Books are still a favorite thing too.
He’s getting better at turning pages, and can even handle the paper
pages of Green Eggs and Ham, which he insists on having read to him
daily. It’s clear now that he recognizes
things in the illustrations. Every time
we get to the kitty in I Love You Because You’re You he has to stop and
pet it (this makes sense), and he also gets really excited about the bowl full
of mush in Goodnight Moon (no idea what that’s about). Sometimes, though, enjoying books is just a
variation of enjoying paper. Here he is
opening his handmade penguin from our friend Raffica…
A few weeks ago Noni accompanied Toby and me on a lovely day trip to
Saugatuck Dunes State Park on Lake Michigan, one of my favorite places. Noni carried Toby up and down the dunes and
was rewarded with at least three hearty bites.
Stalled on eight teeth, the tot has been resolutely working on the
molars. Sometimes this makes him a
little chompy. I managed to teach him
(for the second or third time) not to bite ME, so the nursing relationship is
intact. When those teeth start to move,
he can’t seem to resist. He’s lucky to
have so many forgiving women in his life.
Noni and Toby also picked up their first ticks of the year (Toby’s first
ever, a dubious milestone).
Although he hasn’t taken any independent steps yet, our little dude is
definitely closer to walking. He can
stand unsupported for much longer periods. His knees and the
tops of his feet have gotten rough from all the crawling. One of our favorite games now is
“chase.” When he follows me, I go into
the next room and hide behind the furniture.
He comes thumping and giggling to find me. When I follow him, he crawls four steps, sits
up, and waits for me to catch up.
Zerberts and giggles follow, and then he crawls another four steps. I love it.
He also loves crawling to the bathroom to watch Daddy fill the tub or
brush his teeth. And he’s just gotten so
bouncy lately – I suppose baby girls are bouncy too, but the alliteration is
too fun. He bounces on the bed. He bounces in our arms. He rocks back and forth on hands and knees,
and pulls up on the furniture to bounce on two legs. It seems like he is never still.
It’s probably not surprising then that he’s become noticeably less
interested in being carried around. He still
asks to be picked up regularly, as if to be reassured that he can, but he wants
to be put down again soon. I took him to
a science fair I was judging thinking that he would love seeing all the bright
posters and interesting people, but he yelled the whole time I was visiting
displays. Once I finally put him down,
he cheered up immediately and scooted straight for the soapbox car (not the
nearest exhibit). He hung out with the
middle school boys without even a glance back at his mama. They were charmed. We should probably add “wheels” to the list
of things Toby really likes.
Something else new is his deeper experience of the possibilities the
kitchen has to offer. He advanced from opening and closing doors over and over again to checking out what is behind them. This is truly the
next frontier; just yesterday he opened the tupperware cabinet all by himself
and started taking things out for the first time. Watch out kitchen cabinets everywhere.
With the warming weather, going out to play
in the lawn is now one of his favorite pastimes. He particularly likes plucking and shredding dandelion flowers,
walking behind his fire truck, grubbing in the dirt, and climbing the stairs
(he first did that with Matt just this Friday).
He even got to pull garlic mustard on a workday with Matt (okay, I
pulled the mustard; he only ate some of it.)
The mosquitoes are horrible right now, but luckily they seem more
interested in us than in Toby. And every time
we go outside I’m thankful for the new research showing that exposure to germs
makes healthier kids, because I can’t imagine how I would keep him clean.
