(Xander is 12 months)
We started off the week by going to story time at a local library. This was Xander's first story time. It was a Book Babies Infant Lapsit and is aimed for ages birth to 12 months. Technically Xander was too old for it but I am glad we chose this one. He hasn't been around many other kids and the infant lapsit tends to have about 8 to 12 kids each week (this was the first of the season and there were only 3 kids), the next age range up has over 20 kids in it! I want Xander to feel a little more comfortable with the whole story time set up and being around other kids before we go into a large group of toddlers.
He was really cute and just looked totally clueless as the librarian sang songs and we clapped and sang along. But when she brought out toys he got really interested. First she brought out some "shaker" instruments for us to shake to a song. We have some at home and he really loves them so he got into that. After the story time they just leave out toys and the kids can play. It was only one other mom and her 10 month old there playing and it was so cute watching them play-- not exactly together but in the same spot. Xander was a wee bit greedy and kept taking the other boy's toys, a case of the grass is greener. It was quite funny to watch. They were very careful not to actually interact, it was like they were trying to ignore each other and yet play with the exact same toy.
On Tuesday we actually had sunshine! It was so lovely out, really felt like springtime. I moved our pack-n-play out onto the porch so Xander could enjoy the weather while I got some work done in the yard.
He really enjoyed watching me work and kept pointing at things and making little happy screeches.
Wednesday we again played with crayons. I was so clever, I taped the paper down so he couldn't throw it on the floor or eat it. I gave him pink and red crayons, hoping for some scribbles I could make into a Valentines card. Yeah, so clever, he peeled off the tape and tried eating that instead. Sigh. Even though he still doesn't actually do any scribbling at all he really does enjoy playing with the crayons, and then throwing them down at the dogs.
After crayon fun we played with Play-Doh. I made the dough into a long snake and he tore it into pieces and tried to put it back into the tub. He really likes putting things into containers so this occupied him for awhile.
After he got bored with putting the dough back into the tub, he then tried getting the lid back on the tub.
As you can see in the photo he couldn't get his fingers out of the way to put the lid on so this was very frustrating to him and finally led to a meltdown. After that we played with the cute knitted finger puppets you see in the basket (and for some reason I took NO photos of this!). He isn't interested in actually putting them on his fingers but he loved transferring them from one basket to another. Until the basket looked tasty and so he started chewing on it and they got taken away. Which of course meant another meltdown. I am really looking forward to him getting past this. Not that he tantrums for long, in fact he gets over things really fast. But he literally throws himself to the floor, kicking and pounding the ground, screaming and crying when told "No". He's one year old, what are the terrible two's going to be like?
On Thursday my Mom came over for lunch and we had lots of fun just playing. On Friday I started feeling symptoms of the icky head cold that I am still suffering from. Thankfully Xander and Ryan haven't caught it, but I really didn't do much the rest of the week.
Big accomplishments this week were:
a.) Learning to WAVE! We have seen babies that start doing this when they're really little but not Xander. Well, this week something just clicked and he's started waving hello and bye. To us, to my Mom, to the dogs, to the tv (sigh, yes my baby watches the tv). It is so cute!
b.) Changing direction while walking. He has gotten really good at walking in the last week or so. Last week he could take about 6 steps before sitting down, now he's way past that. But what was really impressive was one evening this week he started off walking one direction and turned, without falling down or grabbing onto a piece of furniture, and walked another way! He still can't stand up without holding onto something, so once he's down he crawls to something to stand next to before standing up and walking again.
c.) Pulling himself onto the top of the storage tubs that we were using to blockade the entrance to the kitchen. First he was pushing them out of the way, so we loaded them with heavier things. That really frustrated him for a little bit until he decided what he couldn't move out of his way he would climb over. And the little munchkin did just that!
Which of course made our barricade worthless and meant Ryan spent all day Sunday hanging cupboard doors, building another gate in our hallway, and adding baby locks to the cabinets and stove. Which expanded Xander's territory even more but that is really for next weeks post.
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