Linnaeus 18.3

Sprout got a Lorax stuffie at the movie
preview on Sunday

This past week hasn't been too eventful in Sprogland. We spent a lot of the last weekend in North Vancouver for a baby shower, a house party & a movie preview. Though we planned to alternate taking Sprout out of the theatre to have breaks during the movie, he sat through the entire thing. This kid's attention span never ceases to amaze me. Monday through Thursday Sprout spent most of each day with Papa while I was at school, going out to the park & the baby gym once in a while.

Mmm... Feesh!
We went out for Japanese food one night this week & Sprout tried some tuna nigiri as well as some chopped scallop with roe. It's the first time he's had raw fish & he seemed to like it. He also ate quite a few California rolls & yam tempura maki. I'm glad we can take him to pretty much any kind of restaurant & he'll eat whatever we're eating. This is exactly what I hoped the Baby Led Weaning would result in: a baby who's got a pretty adventurous palate.

Chatty Sprout gets a needle
Thursday we took the little guy to Ravensong Community Health Clinic for his 18-month immunizations. This time was the easiest yet. He got slightly upset at the weighing & measuring (he's a bit over 26 lbs, about 33" tall) but when he got his one needle, he didn't react at all. He was a tad wary in the office there & a little shy with the nurse, but no crying. When she went through the checklist of developmental milestones, like self-feeding, drinking from a cup, walking, etc, everything was normal. Then she asked if he had at least 10-15 words. I said I'd stopped counting a month before at over 100, estimating his current vocabulary to be around 150. She was amazed & she'd never heard of a child his age with such a vocabulary.

I'm very proud of his language skills, but I can't really claim much responsibility. Both Oliver & I are very language-oriented adults--interested in writing, avid readers, studied languages & literature at university--& according to our parents, we started talking fairly early, so I think maybe there's a genetic component there. Also, Sprout's temperament is such that he likes to sit & pay attention to things for a while, so reading is one of his favourite things to do, which has probably encouraged his vocabulary. I think the majority of his words are from his books.

Playtime favourite
This week Sprout hasn't had any obvious favourite toys other than books. He did spend quite a bit of time pushing his swiffer through the house, however. I took a section out of the handle to make it baby-sized, since we don't really use the thing. Sprout loves it, categorizing it--along with brooms, shovels, crochet hooks, ice scrapers, etc--as a stick, which he pronounces, dik. It still makes me giggle to see him toddling around the house repeating, dik! dik! dik! I wonder how long it's going to be before he starts pronouncing consonant clusters properly?

Sleep: you win some, you lose some
Our efforts to get Sprout napping in his crib without a fuss are paying off & he's going to sleep easier these days. His nap time still varies quite a bit from day to day, going down anywhere from 1pm to 4pm, sleeping for two or occasionally three hours. His bedtime is still  a bit later than I want--10ish--so I end up staying awake later that I should because I want a few hours to myself after he's asleep. Getting him to sleep at a regular time & keeping it from drifting later has been one of the most challenging things, I find. If he goes to bed a bit late one day, then he sleeps late, then naps later & then isn't tired until at least as late as the previous night. One late bedtime can have a ripple effect on the whole week, unfortunately.

There was one night of crying & thrashing at around 2am, so none of us got a proper sleep. Our usual solution with late-night wakings is to bring him to bed with us. I'll nurse him back to sleep while dozing a little. This time he couldn't be comforted by the 'magical' boob & seemed quite uncomfortable, so we resorted to Tylenol & he went back to sleep shortly. I'm guessing it was either bad gas or his two-year-old molars coming early. (A few days before we see any new teeth come through the gums, he usually has one or two rough nights. I think this might be the stage where they're breaking through the bone. ) It would be nice if he finished getting his full set of baby teeth soon. Then we'd get a few years' reprieve from teething issues.