Linnaeus 15.0

This past week has been pretty crazy. All in all, our first emergency room visit was great. It was definitely an advantage to be able to go to a hospital just for children--the bedside manner of the doctor & nurses was perfect for a toddler. The stethoscope & the pulse oximeter freaked Linnaeus out, plus being overtired & having a hard time breathing didn't help. Thankfully the whole ordeal was mercifully short: we weren't in the hospital much more than a half hour. The medication started to kick in soon & Sprout was breathing better & asleep an hour after arriving home.

Another first this week has been an extended time away from Papa. Oliver has gone on a business trip & will be away for ten days. I don't think Sprouty had ever been separated from his papa for even 24 hours before this.

Sprout has finally started to get a bit picky about food. Several times this week he's decided he doesn't want to eat the breakfast I've made him, despite the fact that he loved it another day. I'm never entirely sure how much banana he'll want, if any. Cereal seems a bit hit & miss. Toast is the default plan. I've never seen this kid turn down toast.

Sprout's favourite playthings this week have been things he can push around: his fire truck, the kitchen chairs, the SPUD bin, the footstool. He's spending more time cruising & at least once a day he'll experiment with standing unassisted.

I suspect eyetooth #2 is working its way out, judging by all the drool & occasional rosy cheeks. Oddly, though his top molars erupted first, they are taking their time getting through the gums; the bottom molars seem to be completely in.

Sprout's vocabulary is growing, in terms of what he understands. The latest words: spider & monkey. We have a small monkey with magnetic feet that lives on the back door in the kitchen. There is also a big spider living in our living room, who we tolerate because she takes care of the odd fly or moth. Sprout often waves hi to her at meals because he can see her from his highchair. As for actually talking, the only recognizable things we get out of him most days are uh-oh, dah/dat (meaning I want that, usually). This is not to say that he's quiet--quite the opposite, actually--when awake he babbles all the time. He's also started to copy sounds that we make. When people are laughing, he'll join in. If you make a growling sound, he'll copy you. Sprout & Grampa had a hilarious back-&-forth growling session at lunch Wednesday that I wish I'd filmed.