Sunday, August 21, 2011

Not a Baby Anymore!?!?!

People are always coming up to Graham and commenting on his eye lashes and what a happy, smiley baby he is; and last month a fellow patron of Sprouts asked how old he was. When I told her he was 10 months she responded, "Oh, he is almost one." Uh, no....my baby is not almost one. Well, now he is! And he won't be a baby anymore! The beginning of this month he started pulling himself up, and then reaching up. We can no longer take for granted simple things, setting a glass of water on the coffee table. We have to religiously make sure that if we run into the garage to transfer laundry we lock the baby gate behind us, because Graham will stop whatever he is doing and beeline it for the steps. And the bathroom door must always be shut, or he will 'investigate' the toilet, explore the toddler potty (only once has this resulted in splashing in big sister's pee), and unroll the toilet paper and rip it to shreds. While not as disgusting as the bathroom, Graham is also obsessed with the refrigerator. Gwen has not shut his fingers in the door yet, but did try and close the door on him. He is eating pretty much anything except for dairy, meat, eggs, and anything with sugar added. And he will feed himself, thank you very much. I have a freezer full of organic homemade purees, but he is not terribly interested in being spoon fed right now. I have started to make him a 'smoothie' in the morning (purred fruit with a little cereal, liquid vitamins, and no more than 2 oz of water or unsweetened rice milk) so he can get a little breakfast in. He loves them! Because of his issue with constipation we have lately been pretty generous with his consumption of fruit (sans bananas) and water and this really seems to help. Friday when we were at the SF Zoo Graham started pointing. So cute. He will point and talk (copying Gwen and as we looked at the different animals). He also waves bye bye. This has gotten me very excited about teaching him sign language, since he now seems ready. And he officially has a first word, uh-oh. Though it often sounds a little more like uh-uh, but he uses it in context. He also knows how to drum (thank you Music Together, I think). At playdates now he gets right in there with the other kids (if he isn't napping in the Ergo). He isn't nearly as passive a participant in life as he used to be now that he can move and interact more with his world. He is such an amazing little guy, and I can't believe my baby is almost one!