Happy Adjusted Birthday, Crew!

Tomorrow is Dex and Crew's theoretical first birthday. They were due February 2, 2009. I'm not feeling a lot of overwhelming emotions this week because this date doesn't mean quite as much as it once did to me. We have enough dates, milestones, and countdowns to worry about, celebrate, and mourn.

How is our tiny miracle faring of late?

Gross Motors
Our PT is coming on Thursday and I'm excited to show her Crew's new trick -- rolling to his belly from his back! I'll only be able to show her if he's in the mood and suitably motivated by a new and exciting object. I made my neighbor empty her pockets when she arrived this morning. Her son's chapstick proved to be the golden allure; he rolled twice unassisted in its pursuit! We generally find him on his tummy in the morning, having rolled there after waking. His crib mattress has a lot more "give" than the carpeted floor, so it's taking him longer to roll outside of his baby-cage.

He mostly chooses to lay on his back and yell until toys appear magically within his easy reach. He'll play on his tummy with a toy if he's put in that position. He still needs a great deal of encouragement and just the right incentive, but he can roll. And that's big news.

He sits marvelously, reaches/leans precariously with minimal tumbles, and he's an ambitious, kitty-cat curious Grabber. He is super wiggly in my lap and all about flailing these days. I get a Sabbath morning workout every week during Relief Society.

He can't stand to be forced onto his knees in pre-crawling exercises. He gets very angry and launches out to sissy plank position as soon as he finds the right leverage. I can see that learning to crawl is going to be an adventure.

Food
He is now eating solids twice per day. He eats veggies mixed with cereal in the morning and fruit with cereal at night. He drinks bottles during the day. We're tying to figure out what formula to use. He's over a year now, but he's not going to straight milk anytime soon. His diet isn't varied enough at the moment and he needs all the vitamins and minerals he can get from formula. The cheaper formulas make him poop too much. You laugh, but it's actually a weight concern. The expensive formulas seem to constipate him with the cereal now added to his diet so.... Yeah, we're working on it.

Speaking of bottles, Little Lazy Bones pats his bottle nicely with one hand when he's in the mood, but doesn't hold it. His life would be much happier if he could, especially when he's ravenous and I need to change his diaper before he eats. I keep telling him that he could feed himself while I wipe his butt and kill two birds with one stone, but he's not buying what I'm selling. I haven't been very aggressive lately with this issue, but I think I'm in the frame of mind to revisit this. For a while, I would pull the bottle out of his mouth if he didn't have both hands firmly planted on it, and we were making a little progress that way. Then the holidays, blah blah blah....

He is doing better with fruit puffs lately. I now only have to break them in half, instead of thirds. Every once in a while he can handle a whole one, if I position it just right in his mouth. He pinched one right out of my hand this afternoon and tried to feed himself!!! He couldn't get it all the way in there, but it was a great attempt!! He can, however, mangle a Nilla Wafer. He eats half and squashes half.

Social/Verbal
He's always been an extremely sociable little guy. Even at 2 pounds, he demanded that the nurses peel back his isolette covering and ogle awhile. Not much has changed in that department. He is quite offended when I turn my back on him and he has very little stranger anxiety. He went through a very very brief patch a few months ago when he was very mom-o-centric but seems to be back to his old flirtatious, Love-The-Whole-World self.

He babbles constantly, and I mean constantly. He's always bearing his testimony at full volume through the church block. I've had to take him out on a number of occasions because the stories he has to tell are just too distracting. I am almost convinced that he says "mama" purposefully and I love it.

Sometimes I forget how far behind the little critter is because he's just Crew. We're on his timetable and have long since abandoned the Hawaii Early Learning Profile. I'm reminded occasionally, like when someone says "Oh! He's almost 15 months! He'll be going into nursery soon!" Then I think, "wow, he can't even roll over or hold his own bottle." There are a lot of reasons that he won't ever attend nursery (contagions, eww) but the practicality of it is really quite beyond us for now.

So, onward we go in our journey to progress. He continues to move forward at his chosen pace and we love him immensely.