For some reason, without being taught, I drink from my bottle with my pinky up. I don’t know why I do that. I sometimes hold other things the same way. Pinky up just seems to be more delicate and proper. It turns out it is not. I found out that I should not have my pinky up like that. It might be a hard habit to break considering that I don’t know how it started.
I love my chair because it is where I eat my food. I love the table on my chair because that is where my food is placed. And of course I love all the food that is placed on the table. But when the food is gone and I am still hungry, I have to find something else to eat. The closest thing to food that is left is the table that it was on. Even though it is wiped down it still has some flavor left.
You can imagine how surprised Daddy was when he saw his son desperately trying to eat the table. I think Mommy and Daddy are now considering increasing my portions.
I’m getting the hang of sitting now. I still topple over sometimes, but for the most part, if I’m placed in a sitting position, I can stay there for quite a while. When I start to lose balance I try to correct myself. Sometimes I find myself in limbo with my head still off the ground and my legs in the air like I’m doing some super challenging ab workout. Eventually, I lose out to gravity, but at least I’m trying to stay sitting up. I noticed that it is a lot easier to play with my toys when sitting and also see more of my surroundings. I still can’t get to a sitting position on my own, but I’m working on it.
For breakfast I tried a little eggplant. It was pretty good.
For dinner I had some cauliflower. Also pretty good.
Sleep training is going well. I still start off crying, but I am falling asleep within 50 minutes every night. I have even fallen asleep within half an hour. Because I put myself to sleep, I can do it again when I wake up in the middle of the night as long as I’m not hungry and my diaper is not too wet. So it looks like the sleep training is paying off. I just hope that it gets easier to initially fall asleep, ideally without crying.
I got to try more new food for dinner today. I had hakusai, or Chinese cabbage. I prefer other vegetables, but I ate it all up just the same.
I had natto for the first time today. It is famous for being one of those foods that non-Japanese have a hard time eating. It is really smelly and slimy. Mommy cooked it first to get rid of the sliminess and get rid of some of the smell, but that just filled the house with the smell. When I ate it, it was a little strange, but not too bad. I think I can learn to like this.
I also had some mandarin orange for dessert. It was a bit tart, but not as bad as the apple I had last week.
We’ve had this mobile since I was born. It was a hand-me-down and I’ve seen it from time to time. I was too young to enjoy it before, but now I think I like it. It is kind of cute and fun, except this mobile keeps moving. I guess I have to immobilize it.
Today’s new food: radish. Not bad. I think I like it. But I like all food so that’s not saying much. As long as it fills my belly!
I often cross my legs/feet. I don’t know why I do it. It just feels comfortable. But it looks like I can use it to hold on to stuff. Here I am practicing gripping my playmat post. I hope someday this skill will be useful when I play on jungle gyms or climb trees.
When babies start to crawl, they like to crawl through tunnels. I’m not crawling yet, but that doesn’t mean I won’t enjoy tunnels. So, we improvised and made the tunnel move over me instead of me crawling through it.
I was having my weekly chat with Grandma and Grandpa and wanted to show them how good an eater I am. So they watched me eat. They were very impressed with how well I ate.
Before they knew it, I had finished my entire meal. After that great meal I was in a great mood. So I turned on the charm for Grandma and Grandpa!
As you know, I love eating all the food that Mommy makes for me. I don’t want to waste any of it. In the process of eating, I discovered two things. One, all the food that doesn’t make it into my mouth is caught on my bib and I can eat it from there. Two, my bib is fun to chew on. These are two things that make it harder for Mommy and Daddy when they are trying to feed me. When I chew on my bib it sometimes transfers food to the back of the bib which then gets my clothes dirty, defeating the purpose of the bib. It does make meal time more interesting. I am such a good eater that I think Mommy and Daddy have it too easy.
The bigger I get, the more stuff I need. So we went shopping at Babies ‘R’ Us today. We didn’t end up buying much, but we checkout the different products and did some price comparisons. It was good to see the actual products before we buy them. Also, Christmas is right around the corner so we were doing some window shopping for that. One of the things we have been looking at a lot lately has been the different baby foods out there. I’m eating so well, but so far it has all been Mommy’s home cooking. We are looking at store bought baby food just to have more options.
Because of my nap, we had a late start and were still shopping when Mommy and Daddy had to eat lunch. So I got to experience a food court. I was really good and let Mommy and Daddy enjoy their meals, which they rushed through as not to press their luck with my mood. I was okay because I had a snack rice cracker. It was my first snack food and it was pretty good. Not as good as Mommy’s cooking, but it was nice to have something to chew on while Mommy and Daddy ate their meals. It is a very light wafer rice cracker and it dissolves quite easily. It was a new experience and I enjoyed it! I noticed that there were other flavors and other types of snacks out there. I can’t wait to try those.
Daddy turned an Amazon cardboard box into little car for me. He pulled and pushed me around a bit in it. Then it broke. I guess these boxes weren’t meant to bear the weight of Mason-sized kids. It was fun while it lasted.
I’m very interested in bedroom slippers. There is something interesting about the texture that captures my interest. I like touching them, grabbing them, and ultimately trying to chew on them. Mommy and Daddy are very careful to let me to the first two things, but not the last one. I wonder if we can pick up a new clean pair just for me to chew on. They look delicious! I hear that Daddy used to chew on Grandma’s bedroom slippers when he was a baby. It must run in the family.
I started sleep training last night. Let’s start with the good news: I was able to sleep! What was surprising was that I was asleep within an hour. I think that is pretty good for my first night of sleep training. The bad news is that I pretty much cried for 45 minutes straight until I fell asleep.
Mommy and Daddy started me off on my usual 3 Bs bedtime routine: bath, breastfeeding, and book. But instead of rocking me to sleep they put me to bed in my crib. I protested immediately, loudly, and steadily. Mommy and Daddy kept to a predetermined time schedule and checked in on me every few minutes to talk to me and let me know that I wasn’t alone. Each time they came into the room and tried to tell them that I wanted to be picked up, but they were very diligent and stuck to the plan. I didn’t like trying to sleep alone, but it must have been hard on Mommy and Daddy to listen to me cry for so long.
Just around 45 minutes in I started to quiet and instead of desperate cries, I only managed the occasional whimper. To be very honest, I was quite tired from the crying, but I was also sleepy because I knew it was my bedtime. To Mommy and Daddy’s surprise, when they checked in on me, I was asleep.
I woke up about half an hour later but we restarted the process again and I fell asleep again after about a half an hour. Then I sleep for more than two hours straight on my own. I had my bottle and then I was put back in bed. This time I fell asleep on my own a little easier.
Overall, it was a successful first day of training! The main thing is that I realized that I was capable of sleeping on my own. It was a trying process for all of us, but we did it! I think Mommy and Daddy were prepared for hours and hours of crying. They were very pleased and proud! Apparently we’re going to keep doing this. Sticking to the training seems to be the hardest thing, but the best way. Wish me luck.
Oh, by the way, even though it is winter and quite cold, I cried so much and so long that my hair was wet with sweat and tears. The result is this all natural funky explosive wavy hair style. I quite like it!
