Milestones

Andrew's developmental milestones are coming fast and furious.

I remember very distinctly when Elizabeth first played a game with us. We were driving back from a friend's wedding in RI, and had stopped for a feeding and change and gas. I was in the backseat with her playing peekaboo with her blanket, covering her head and pulling the blanket down, when she suddenly grabbed at the blanket herself, covering her face and then revealing herself. She was just over 10 months old.

On Sunday, the day before the 9 month mark, I had Andrew on my lap and was playing "how big is Andrew? Sooooooo big!", raising his arms and shaking them above his head. I said just the words, and he raised my hands up in the air and laughed. I thought maybe I imagined it, and was helping him out and he wasn't really raising my hands, so I let his go and asked, how big is Andrew? And he visually searched at his sides for each of my hands, grabbed them, and lifted them above his head. Later that day he did the same with Rich. This week he's built to raising his hands on his own, without holding someone's hands, but he's still a little hesitant and will sometimes resort to his old standbye, enthusiastic but polite clapping.

We're kinda working on the sign language, too. After eating we do our version of done, which was developed by Elizabeth. We shake our hands horizontally in front of ourselves (it always cracked Rich up how Elizabeth would shake just her hands, curling up her arms like a T. rex). Prior to this week, he's found our hand movements hilarious, and giggles each time we chant done and shake our hands. It's just been this week that he's started sort of doing it himself. Though after signing done the other day he proceeded to eat half a cup of blueberries! I've also noticed while eating he will clench and unclench his fist, which is the sign for milk. He's not using it as a sign, but I expect to see it any day.

Sadly, he's also perfectly hit another milestone - the 9 month sleep regression. I'll be honest, with Elizabeth, I wasn't a huge believer in this sleep regression milestone mark. I'd commiserate when my friends talked about their babies hitting it, but Elizabeth was always such a good sleeper - there were times she'd be up, but we could almost always tie it to teeth breaking through or something and the next night she'd do her usual 12 hours, so I didn't put much credence in the theory. This week he's been up at last three times in the night. Every.Single.Night. Not fun, my little man, not fun at all. And according to the theory, it just is what it is, and he'll be out of it soon. I hope. After all, he is still pushing those top two teeth, his crawling improves every day, I've just written how he's processing thoughts and learning how to respond, and he's still figuring out standing, too, and what might come next after standing. (Ack!) So no real surprise.

However, this is all occurring at the same time that we've got to transition him into a different bed. He's been in the co-sleeper, a small little bed, like a bassinet, but that attaches directly to the side of our bed. We love it, and used it with Elizabeth until she was nealry 11 months old, with her toes and top of head nearly touching the ends of the co-sleeper. We moved her into a crib because she just flat out outgrew the co-sleeper. Otherwise we loved it and would have kept her in there longer. We have the co-sleeper on Rich's side, and he loved waking and watching her sleeping next to him. But, Elizabeth was also a baby who didn't move around much. She barely even flipped over during the night, and at 10 months was still months away from crawling. But, an active boy who is already crawling, pulling himself up, and generally moving all around? Guess what, the co-sleeper is no longer an option!


Because one of these nights he is going to topple headfirst out of the co-sleeper onto the floor, and won't that be an interrupted night of sleep, then!

Last night Rich handled Andrew's first waking, at 10 pm. Typically, this first waking is him screaming his head off, and when you go into him he quickly settles down with a pacifier and falls asleep. Usually we don't have to even pick him up, just pat him a bit and he nods quickly back off, almost as if he'd had a bad dream. All bets were off last night, as Rich went into the bedroom and found Andrew on all fours, yelling his head off, in the middle of our bed!