Seth 34 Weeks

Dear Seth,

You are now 34 weeks old and getting to be quite the handful. I mean, you always have been I guess, but these days you are really keeping me on my toes. Your lurching crawl has turned into a full blown coordinated CRAWL and you speed across the room lickity split when you want something, e.g. Max, a newspaper, my shoe, etc.

Now that you've sort of mastered the art of moving around, you've turned your attention to other skills. You clap now, all the time. You don't quite make a sound yet because usually your left fist is pretty much closed, but I know exactly what you're doing. You clap with GLEE when you're happy, and smile and laugh at the same time. You still also love watching other people clap. Yay, clapping is so fun! You are babbling a LOT more now too and have added a bunch of sounds to your vocabulary, mostly "da", "ya", and "la". There have been a few more but they all blur together so it's hard to pinpoint the individual syllables.

Last week while we were on vacation you bit me, twice, in the you-know-what. I was NOT happy about that and I let you know it. It hasn't actually happened since, so either you got the message or you've decided your other annoying habit is much more fun. Lately during the day, you start to eat and then you pull off and squish my boob with all your might with both hands. Milk squirts everywhere, and the first few times it was so funny I couldn't help but laugh. Which I'm sure is why you do it constantly now. It's not funny anymore, it hurts and it's wasteful, so I need you to stop it.

Eating solid foods is going pretty swimmingly. I'm pretty willy nilly about feeding you different foods and haven't kept a real detailed list of what you have had and haven't had or your likes and dislikes. As far as I can tell, you just aren't that into it. There are definitely things that you open your mouth more willingly for than others, and a couple of things you flat out refuse. But so far I haven't noticed you get really excited about anything in particular. If I HAD to name your top three favorites I would probably say Zucchini, Pears, and the Gerber Sweet Potato rice puffs. When you like something you hold your arms out and rock back and forth watching and waiting for the next bite. If it's not something you like but you're just tolerating then you're twisting and turning in the high chair trying to keep tabs on what the cats are up to. If you really don't like it then you fuss and arch your back like you're trying to escape, and eventually you stop opening your mouth. I have found that although initially you didn't seem to like peas at all, if I mix them with enough rice cereal you will eat them without making any faces.

Sleep still has its ups and downs. Naps are ok for the most part, still totally inconsistent in terms of length, but I'm learning not to stress too much about it. Night sleep on the other hand - I'm getting motivated to work on. You're still getting fed right before you go down at night around 7ish, then one other time, and then again when I get up in the morning around 5ish (but you go back to bed). So my preference obviously would be to eliminate that middle feeding because I'm sure it would feel glorious to get 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep every night or at least most nights. You sometimes will go 5 or 6 hours during the day without getting a really good meal so I know this is possible. I just have to be strong. And daddy has to be on board, and maybe he needs to take a couple of days off work since he'll most likely be the one dealing with you at least part of the time. My guess is that it will only take a few nights and you'll get the idea. We'll see. It's hard to really know what you're capable of since you've gotten so mobile. Even if you aren't waking up just to eat, you still wake up and immediately sit or stand up and I'm pretty sure you don't know how to get down yet without falling.

Anyway... I do have a monkey picture that I took yesterday, on time.... but it's on my computer downstairs and I don't feel like going down there to get it posted. So you'll just have to check it out tomorrow!

Love,
Mama