Linnaeus 14.1

New things this past week:

Eating with dishes. We usually give Sprout food in bowls & on plates now & he'll actually eat out of them for a while before tossing them. He's also figured out how to drink the extra milk out of his cereal bowl by himself.

Standing unaided. Sprout has just started to stand by himself a little bit. Most of the time I think it's been accidental & he does it best when he's distracted by something else, like holding a straw up in both hands & drinking. So far, he's stood up alone for about 10 seconds at most.

Walking with help. Sprout has finally gotten interested in walking when holding my hands. A week ago he would just kind of hang there, occasionally flopping a leg out, his weight almost completely supported by me. But this week he's started to think it's fun & is putting some effort into bearing weight & taking regular steps. I hope he'll be walking with less help by the time we take him trick-or-treating this Hallowe'en. :)

Anticipating when Mama's going to leave. I drop Sprout off with my parents at Lougheed Mall while I have a single 50-minute class on Wednesdays & they take care of him for the two hours I'm gone. This week, the third time we've been through the Wednesday morning routine, when we got to the station & he saw them, he realized that I was going to leave & started to cry before I even went anywhere. He's rarely done this in the past, because most of the time I leave him at home with Papa or with Kirsten & Aiden at their place, which he knows really well.

& on the food front... The banana saga continues. From the first time he had a banana, it became a favourite food. Sprout could be counted on to scarf down a whole banana in mere minutes. However, Sprout started refusing bananas when they were sliced into small pieces a month or two ago. Once I realized that it was the size he didn't like,  I started giving him a banana in just three our four pieces. This week though, that hasn't been quite what he wanted either. So I tried giving him an entire banana with the peel started at the top. He was thrilled & eventually ate the whole thing, including some of the skin!

Favourite toys: Small travel-size box of Kleenex. Every time I turn my back, he's found where I've hidden it & is taking all the tissues out. Books continue to be a big hit. They're the only way we can convince him to stay still on the change table & work remarkably well. Most of the time, as we lay him down to change his bum, he starts to complain vociferously, but as soon as you open a book & put it in his hands, he instantly calms down & starts 'reading' it.