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’s been picking things up (and putting them in his mouth) for a while now. But over the last couple of days he’s become a lot more aggressive about reaching out for stuff he wants. He does amazing gymnastics (for somebody who can’t roll over reliably yet) while his diaper is being changed to find something to grab, and when he’s sitting in his chair at the table, well, stuff on the table within reach is gonna get grabbed.

He’s more interested in the bottles I drink out of (my water bottle and lately, the ramune I got from Ranch 99) than his own, for grabbing purposes. He likes juggling his pacifiers. I’ve been trying to arrange some situations so that his newfound ambition to GRAB! is incentive for him to, say, practice sitting up and rolling over more.

I still haven’t found the charger for the camera. I’ll have some pictures to post soon… some of them are rather old. See Robin Grow!

Yes, today, Robin is 4 months old, or so they tell me.

I took this picture a week or two ago. He is still a serious baby. But he does have a burgeoning Harrison Ford grin. I tell him, “Babe, cultivate that. It will serve you well in the future.”

Robin was grouchy yesterday. Very grouchy. He spent part of the evening flopped over my shoulder, which he usually hates, but last night he was so miserable he just laid there. My theory is early teething, but it could be a growth spurt. Or both! Last night, after midnight, while Robin was grouching loudly (so, today, really), Kevin came stomping downstairs and swooped down upon the baby rice cereal and the baby spoons I’d picked up earlier. I’ve been meaning to get spoons for a while because a.) he likes to put things in his mouth– well, he likes us to put things in his mouth (he’s still working out how to use his own hands)– and I figured it’d be good to get him used to spoons and b.) he’s been giving me very meaningful looks as I eat lately (which is also why I got the rice cereal… for eventual use). Very meaningful looks– when Kevin gives me those looks, I know he’s about to steal my food, and when other people do, I usually end up offering them some. It’s spooky getting those looks from somebody with no teeth.

Anyhow, Kevin mixed up some cereal according to the package instructions for Baby’s First Feeding, which means it was formula thickened with just enough cereal to not slip off the spoon, and Kevin fed it to that one baby because, as he informed me, He’s Four Months Old Now (which is the minimum recommended age for rice-cereal-thickened-liquid to be administered).

Enjoy the pictorial.

Robin’s always been vocal beyond crying, whining and cooing. A few weeks ago, he started going ‘ooh’ and ‘ahhh’ at us in speech-patterns and grinning if we mimicked him. But then he got distracted by his hands and his mouth, and bringing the two into a more perfect union, and he mostly stopped that.

But a couple days ago, around the same time that he started incremental laughter, he returned to babbling. Oh wow, did he return! He doesn’t just babble, he gets irritable if he wants to babble and nobody is willing to babble with him. He wants to talk to people! And he grins and giggles and hides his face and squirms with joy when we talk back at him, real words or word sounds. He seems totally convinced that he’s talking just like we are, which is utterly fascinating (and adorable). I was talking to another mother at Costco today, and he decided he wanted to be part of the conversation. He treated us to a lecture on the meaning of ‘oooahhh’ and I melted all over the floor. Very messy.

I weighed him today via the time-honored method of weighing myself while holding him. I think he must weigh 15 lbs or so. I no longer get remarks on how small he is; instead people tell me he’s so big! when I tell them how old he is. And indeed, he only seemed a little smaller than the 14-month-old daughter of the lady I was talking to, though I didn’t see them side by side. Unsurprisingly, this kind of remark gets me right in the motherhood, and I get all proud and everything. He also gets compliments on his eyes, which I’m a bit more uncertain about, since probability says his eye-color is only temporary and aren’t most Caucasian baby eyes blue, anyhow?

Oh! He also played by himself with a toy for the first time ever yesterday. Well, I say ‘play’ but it was more ‘wrestling/staring in awe/trying to eat’. I think that counts! It was one of his many cuddly dragon toys (we kind of have a theme going).

I just spent 30 minutes trying to tune my violin, crappy piece of instrumentry that it is. Is instrumentry a word? Anyhow, Robin listened the entire time.

I did finally succeed.

I should go assign lots of tags using Wordpress’s new tagging system.