Linnaeus 10.1

It's official: Sprout is crawling. Or rather, Spidermanning, as I call it. He sticks his little palms flat on the floor & pulls himself along on his belly, with some assistance from his toes. I think he's got a shoe fetish: his main motivation for crawling appears to be to get at footwear. The ones by the door, the slippers I kick off when on the couch, my cycling shoes, the ones stored in a clear box under the couch, his own little shoes whether he's wearing them or not. No matter where in the room a pair of shoes might be, he tries to get over to them so he can taste them. Ew.

We've stepped up the baby-proofing efforts a little. By no means finished, we've at least moved the choking hazards up out of his reach & rearranged the furniture to give him space to roam & better keep an eye on him. I haven't really figured out a solution for the laptop cables yet. Both of our laptops, which we use on & off all day, are in the living room. They're both a bit old & the batteries don't really hold a significant enough charge to take them anywhere, so they stay plugged in all the time. Next thing we need are some baby gates, I think.

My optometrist told me that children don't have clear, adult-like close-up vision until they're five or six. But they must still be able to see fine detail before then... I noticed Sprout watching a fly that was circling in the kitchen yesterday. He spends a lot of his time just observing the world. He's gotten a little quieter as of late, I think because he's spending more time watching what's going on around him. I notice it most when we're out, on the bus in particular. He still makes friends everywhere we go, catching people's eye & flashing his huge smile in response to theirs.

This week's favourite toy is a set of stacking cups. If I nest them all together, he'll take them apart & wave them around, or chew on the rims. They're another incentive to crawl--he'll see one on the floor a short distance away & go for it, poking it with his finger (this is always how he tries to pick things up: with one finger to pull it towards him). Usually, the cup is on its side & rolls somewhere else when he pokes it, requiring him to chase it down.

Sprout has tried a number of new foods lately: peaches, nectarines, white grapes, raspberries, chickpeas. He's eaten them all, though made faces at the tartness of the grapes & raspberries. I love the fact that he'll taste something & make a face, but then try it a few more times & usually eat at least some of it. He still doesn't really eat cucumber--I think he's probably consumed less than a teaspoon worth in all the times I've offered it. This morning at breakfast, he perfected his peeling technique with nectarines. He puts a wedge it in his mouth, bites on it, pulling it out through his teeth, removing the skin & chucking that on the floor beside the high chair.

One thing we've avoided for the last couple of weeks is spelt bread. I thought it might be causing the vicious diaper rash he was getting. The rash seems to have cleared up, which is awesome. Not just for his comfort but for my conscience: I always feel horrible when he has something like that. Because he's still so utterly dependent on me, whatever happens is my responsibility. If he has to have a food sensitivity of some sort, spelt is a great choice: it isn't exactly a common grain, so it's not going to be hard to avoid it.