About the Kiddo: One post at a time: Seven Months Old

Tears.

My baby is closer to a year old than not now.

He's my world, of course. His little personality becomes more clear everyday - or his multiple personalities anyway ;)

I had a dream that the Lord was telling me Nolan would have a colorful personality and that the way we raised him could make or break his spirit. Cory doesn't put as much stock in dreams as I do, but it really spoke to me. It's so easy to see something a kids does as ill behaving, when really they're just learning or expanding. The easiest example I can think of is a child who appears to be a mess maker might just have a creative mind. If you constantly discipline and prevent them from doing that thing, they'll eventually stop doing it. Which, by some standard, could be construed as limiting/restricting/breaking a part of who they are.

Maybe it's a stretch, but I'm going to be attentive to it. I want to encourage all of Nolan's interests. Now, everyone who knows me knows that I don't mean I'm going to let him run around doing whatever he wants all the time. I like discipline. Children need leadership and rules and structure, and they need someone to consistently enforce all of those things.

Plus, my training in ABA helped me quickly adopt a zero tolerance policy for actual misbehavior anyway.

Speaking of... this:

is a product of my OCD/Child Development degree/ABA training.

Learning is all about repetition. I started doing some ABA-like sessions with him. You would be surprised at how well he's doing. I don't want to spoil it though, videos coming soon ;)

I love ABA (applied behavioral analysis - a common behavioral therapy used with children who have Autism). From the moment I was first exposed to it I'd said all children needed it.

I've made some cards and have my charts ready and session structures planned out for these simple goals. I'm helping Cory learn how to do them as well.

This is a big month for Nolan, because not only did he start that, but we also started sign language. I'm not sure if you're aware or not, but babies have the cognitive ability to understand language much quicker than they have the ability to speak it. If you give them a tool to utilize it's not at all far fetched for them to use it to communicate effectively.

We're starting simple with this too. Our vocabulary targets for now are: Mommy, Daddy, All Done, Eat, Sleep, Diaper.

He hasn't attempted anything himself yet, but he seems very attentive to it. I've been taking his little hands and doing the signs with him this week.

And, we started playing some Preschool Prep Co learning videos. We have like a set of 10 of them, but we've only been showing the colors and shapes one for now. Sometimes when they're playing the repetition of it makes me want to bang my head against the wall. But, they're fantastically designed for learning ;)

He's a sitting pro now. He's working on transitioning himself from the sitting position to, well, not sitting. It's usually a rather rough face planting ordeal, but he doesn't seem to hurt himself, so I just giggle and go with it.

We're not any closer to crawling, but he does get up on his hands and knees a few times a day, but just for a few seconds at a time. He's just not that into it. He's much more into standing. He loves to stand up. He can't pull up on anything, but if you stand him up next to it he will hold onto it easily for standing. He seems to like it when you hold his hands and help him walk. He does really well with this too.

He's not really started making any new sounds yet. He fluctuates tones in his little voice now though and I think it's adorable.

He has quite the inventory of food these days: apples, bananas, pears, mango, blueberries, peaches, sweet potato, peas, corn (hates it), squash (hates it), a very nice mixed vegetable mush that he likes a lot that has lima beans in it too. I love making his food. It's become like a weird hobby for me. Nolan's baggies of frozen food cubes take up half of our little fridge freezer. This month, I'm going to start adding in protein - beans and meat. I'm nervous about the meat for some reason. Something about pureed meat to me sounds gross. Also the whole seasoning part of cooking it and the suggestion of mixing it with gravy, etc. It'll probably be trial and error.

There are some combinations of food that he loves right now. Like sweet potato-mango with a little bit of cinnamon, banana-mango, apple blueberry, ... I think that covers the ones he eats as fast as you can feed it to him.

His favorite still seems to be anything banana and his least favorites are definitely corn and squash.

We started some finger foods which included very cooked and mushy sweet potato bites, those baby mum-mum snacks, and this past week I offered him some puffs (which really just made me a nervous wreck considering how many times this kid has choked). He just smeared the sweet potato around and maybe got a few bites in his mouth. He does great with the mum-mum snacks (they're long and easy to grab). He has gotten a few puffs into his own mouth. It's funny and a little sad to watch him try, because he grabs one and it ends up in the center of his fist, at which point he just tries to cram his whole fist in his mouth.

No changes in his schedule yet, one more month of our current schedule and then his morning nap shortens and we start trying to get away from the late evening catnap. We'll see how that goes. This baby loves his sleep.

He loves riding up on daddy's neck. As soon as he gets up there he's all smiles. Mommy can't manage this one due to the hair pulling out issue.

He has a love-hate relationship with most of his toys. Like, he seems to want to play with them, but when he's playing with them he just seems to get mad at them. His stuffed dog, Konig might be his favorite soft toy. This slobber covered friend now goes with us most places. He has a green frog rattle/teether ring that he extra loves (but got left at a friend's house last week).

A hilarious story of Nolan pooping on the potty: When Nolan's, well, pooping sometimes it's very obvious. Due to the lack of focus on anything else he's doing and the grunting. He'd started a bad habit for several days in a row of going almost as soon as we put him in his bath.

The third night of this, when he lost focus on his toy, I pulled him out and sit him on the toilet. Cory laughed at me thinking it'd never work. Sure enough, he went.

The next night, the exact same thing happened. So the third night of that, I just sat him on the potty before putting him in his bath and it was like he just knew what was up. And so a new addition to the schedule was born.

Comical, really.

Potty training in the making (lol). I guess it is a lot about repetition and consistency.

I've read some things on potty training as early as 6 months. The concept seemed to be timed intervals of exposure. There is very popular research that suggests starting as soon as your child is walking steadily. But, then, I also read some very updated research about not introducing it until at least two years of age, because children have so much going on in their heads that they won't think about using the potty. Instead, when they've learned to recognize the urge they'll hold it. Which can build up the bladder wall and crowd up the bowels. Of course, there isn't much negative side effects of that unless constipation or UTIs become an issue.

So much controversy in the research. Comes back down to different strokes for different folks.

I haven't decided which way to go with it. My first niece was fully potty trained at 18 months, and I have two different friends who'd potty trained their children by 20-ish months, so I know it's perfectly doable. Just not sure what we'll do yet. It will probably depend on Nolan's acceptance and interest in it.

Last night, when Cory and I went out we saw the first of what I'm guessing to be stranger anxiety.

We only use the babysitter about two or three times a month. Nolan has always welcomed her easily, and she's always been so comfortable with Nolan that I've never really felt bad for leaving him with her. I mean, I guess I always feel a little bit bad for leaving him, because in some way I'd rather just be with him. But, I know it's good and healthy to get out with the hubby from time to time ;)

Nolan is always pretty fussy about the last hour of his day. Last night, that happened to also be when we were leaving. He'd been fussing for a bit and when the sitter walked in he just stared at her with no emotion. I knew it was going to be bad.

I didn't know that handing him to her would entail his most pitiful pucker of all time, followed by crying with real tears.

Having worked in an area that required parents to leave their children, I understand the hazards for both parent and child when parents linger. So, I sucked it up, gave him a kiss and whispered, "I love you" and was out the door.

I was so sad. It was so hard to know he was upset like that and know that I could make it better if I just went back.

Gah! Parenting, eh?

Okay, this feels like a long post. Your endurance is rewarded with pictures, or maybe you just skipped all those words and jumped to the pictures, either way... enjoy :)