Attract Mode

Last night, we dug out some foam alphabet blocks that had been stashed somewhere last time we cleaned Robin’s room. And we learned a new facet of his personality.

We would stack the blocks up.

Robin would knock them down.

We’d make a neat pyramid.

He’d scatter it.

We’d stuff all the blocks in a container and he’d stomp over (and somehow it was stomping despite being on all fours) and pull them all out.

From across the room, he’d charge a four-block tower like it was an affront to God, or at least him, and whack it over, and then pick up the individual blocks and toss them aside.

He didn’t laugh. He stuck out his little jaw in an expression of grim determination.

Later, he was on his back on the floor drinking his bedtime bottle. I stacked all the blocks into a mega-tower. He looked at it, and waved his feet toward it, as if he could kick it over from the other side of the room. When that didn’t work, he took his bottle out of his mouth, and stared meaningfully at the tower. Then he popped the bottle back in again, as if to say, “I’ll be coming for you later.”

And he did. He scattered those blocks far and wide. Then he threw them, for good measure.

In the last 24 hours, Robin has started pulling himself up in his playpen regularly and easily. As has become usual for him, he first hit this milestone three weeks ago or so, did it a few times and then stopped. But in the last day he’s started doing it again at the drop of a hat.

He’s also figured out how to navigate the single step between each room of our house, up and down. He crawled over to the staircase and peered up and down it thoughtfully before backing away.

He also got to pet a live vacuum cleaner as it roared next to him! He was nervous but petting it was the only way forward.

And he got to try some edamame, since previous exposures to soy haven’t caused any problems.

Currently his favorite meal is a slice of bread, torn up, and a chunk of cheddar, cut into little pieces. I try to mix it up some with apples and grapes and blueberries and broccoli but it is only bread and cheese that gets reliably devoured.

So, I’m doing Rock Band singing and I gave him the Logitech microphone. for the PS2.  While I was setting up with the controller he was trying to grab it from me. As soon as I picked up my microphone he went over and grabbed his. And then he spent the whole song looking between me and the tv and his microphone. Heh heh heh.

Robin is exploring the basics of pulling up, by trying to climb onto the lovesac. He doesn’t succeed but he’s realized that he could theoretically get to things out of his reach, and putting his ‘feet’ on the floor would help.

He still doesn’t do standard-crawl but he can army crawl forward with the best of them.

He’s a happy kid today, even when he bumps his head.

Robin continues to be enthralled by my mouth. At least once a day I get a comprehensive dental inspection, his fingers prodding my lips, teeth, gums and tongue, while he stares in fascinated horror. That’s usually the only time he also submits to me prodding his mouth. Turnabout is fair play, I guess.

Neat developmental anecdote:

Robin likes to use one finger to touch things. It’s very cute.  He can pick things up between two fingers, too, although he prefers the more general purpose ‘rake’, which seems inspired by what adults do with keyboards.

As of recently, Robin can point to the same shape across multiple pages of a book. For example, in Goodnight, Moon, he touches the red balloon on every page it appears. He’ll also touch little yellow flowers in Secret Seahorse. Kevin’s theory is that they look like buttons as on his toys, which is quite possible– he just poked the red-lit Playstation power button the same way. And of course he loves clicking a mouse.

Also, yesterday, (and I tried to get this on video but I was too late) he was playing with this toy truck, and everytime he pressed on it one of the power tool buttons would go ‘Whhrrrrrr’, and he would respond with ‘Rrrrrrrr!’

He also fake coughs. And pays intent attention when I try to teach him how to clap his hands.

He still doesn’t crawl, although he’s awfully mobile despite this. He’s a master of pushing up into a sitting position, rotating, flopping, pushing himself backward farther from his goal and wailing in frustration before getting distracted by something closer to him. He can adopt the crawling position on hands and knees, and even lift one hand up to grab at something but the closest he’s come to proper crawling has involved his head pressed against the floor.

I wonder if I may be manifesting a mild form of SAD due to the overcast year.