After I dropped Emmett off at daycare today, I spent most of the drive to work thinking about what I wanted him to wear on Wednesday of this week, which is picture day. I feel like the boy should definitely wear something on the nicer end of his clothing spectrum, but I don't feel the need to go too crazy about it. After all, the odds are good that the outfit will have spitup on it before any actual photography takes place. So, I'm driving along thinking of all of this, and suddenly there's a song on the kids' CD I'm listening to called "Picture Day."
The CD, by the way, was by Justin Roberts, one of my new favorite kids' performers. He's going to be doing a concert at the Arts Center in Carrboro in May and I'm very excited about it.
I've started listening to quite a bit of new-to-me children's music recently and it sometimes seems like every conceivable song topic has been covered in some way. For instance, Roger Day has a song about "Brain Freeze." Recess Monkey has a song about losing stuff in "A Black Hole In My Room." Lunch Money has a song about spinning around until you get dizzy. And Jeanie B. even has a song called "Mommy's In Menopause."
I find it a bit frustrating that there are all of these really excellent children's songwriters out there, and yet I could go into a baby store with 3 zillion varieties of pacifiers and not be able to find any music other than stuff like Disney and the Wiggles. What is the deal? The thing about kids' music is that the stuff that is bad is SO BAD that it could make you want to avoid the whole genre, but now I'm finding that there's much more good stuff out there than I ever realized.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Eight Months Old!
As of Sunday, March 27, Emmett is now eight months old. When I started this blog, I imagined that I would post something every time that he hit a big milestone, but the milestones themselves are keeping me busy and I haven't been doing nearly as much updating as I would like.
The funny thing about milestones is how quickly you can go from "Awesome! How adorable!" to "Oh, crap!" For example, the first time that Emmett pulled himself up into a sitting position in his crib (on March 12, for the record), I took tons of pictures, emailed them to family, etc. etc. However, this behavior seemed a lot less cute at 3 in the morning when I wanted him to JUST sleep.
Around two or three weeks ago, he started crawling. Life will never be boring ever again, I guess. Even before he crawled, he would manage to move himself around, through a combination of rolling and scooting, then through floor swimming (sort of a flattened crawl). He really enjoys crawling in the direction of computer charging cables. These are apparently delicious.
He's had about 800 viruses in these eight months, though luckily most of them have just been the daycare equivalent of kennel cough. Sometimes we get sick along with him, like now. Cough. Sniffle. I spend a lot of time consulting lists like this one about how to tell if your child is too sick to attend daycare. Even with these lists, it's still hard to make the decision some days. I'm just glad I still have some leave time left after maternity leave.
The big thing, though, is that the older Emmett gets, the more ways we all can have fun together. He's gotten compliments at daycare on his dance moves and music appreciation, and he laughs out loud at various things now.
The funny thing about milestones is how quickly you can go from "Awesome! How adorable!" to "Oh, crap!" For example, the first time that Emmett pulled himself up into a sitting position in his crib (on March 12, for the record), I took tons of pictures, emailed them to family, etc. etc. However, this behavior seemed a lot less cute at 3 in the morning when I wanted him to JUST sleep.
Around two or three weeks ago, he started crawling. Life will never be boring ever again, I guess. Even before he crawled, he would manage to move himself around, through a combination of rolling and scooting, then through floor swimming (sort of a flattened crawl). He really enjoys crawling in the direction of computer charging cables. These are apparently delicious.
He's had about 800 viruses in these eight months, though luckily most of them have just been the daycare equivalent of kennel cough. Sometimes we get sick along with him, like now. Cough. Sniffle. I spend a lot of time consulting lists like this one about how to tell if your child is too sick to attend daycare. Even with these lists, it's still hard to make the decision some days. I'm just glad I still have some leave time left after maternity leave.
The big thing, though, is that the older Emmett gets, the more ways we all can have fun together. He's gotten compliments at daycare on his dance moves and music appreciation, and he laughs out loud at various things now.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Sleep Superstitions
Note to self: even if you immediately knock on wood after saying it, on the same day that you tell someone something positive about sleep, a curse will descend upon your household. It's best just to avoid the topic altogether.
It happened again on Sunday night. My parents asked me how Emmett was sleeping these days, and I told them that he was still waking up in the night, but that "at least it's only once." As I was saying the words, I felt myself regretting it and I immediately called "Knock on Wood" and punched the nearest piece of wooden furniture, but forget it. While it could have been worse, that was the first night in a while that he'd woken up twice.
I try to make the most these sleep disruptions. I often catch up on some reading and/or do some bonding with the boy. Hey, at 4 a.m. on Monday morning, I noticed the beginnings of the emergence of Emmett's first tooth! Oh wait, that might explain a thing or two about the sleep...
It happened again on Sunday night. My parents asked me how Emmett was sleeping these days, and I told them that he was still waking up in the night, but that "at least it's only once." As I was saying the words, I felt myself regretting it and I immediately called "Knock on Wood" and punched the nearest piece of wooden furniture, but forget it. While it could have been worse, that was the first night in a while that he'd woken up twice.
I try to make the most these sleep disruptions. I often catch up on some reading and/or do some bonding with the boy. Hey, at 4 a.m. on Monday morning, I noticed the beginnings of the emergence of Emmett's first tooth! Oh wait, that might explain a thing or two about the sleep...
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Dada!
Emmett's been doing the repeated syllable babbling thing a lot lately, going "bababababa" or "dadadada" regularly. There have been a few times when we've gone, "Hey, wait, did he just call Adam 'Da-da,' or is he just expressing an interest in dadaism?"
However, yesterday it was pretty unmistakable. He was sitting in his high chair. I had just fed him some mushed-up peas, and Adam was about to feed him some rice cereal. As Adam sat in front of him, Emmett looked right at him and said "Da da!" with a big smile on his face.
"I think that counts!"
"Aw, that made my day."
Adam quickly started hinting to Emmett that he should start working on making mama-like sounds, which was sweet. I was warned by other moms that babies often say words like "dada" before "mama." This is apparently partly because the "m" sound is harder to make, but also because babies don't always think of mama as a separate entity at first. In addition, Emmett just has a special bond with his daddy, and I'm glad that he does.
However, yesterday it was pretty unmistakable. He was sitting in his high chair. I had just fed him some mushed-up peas, and Adam was about to feed him some rice cereal. As Adam sat in front of him, Emmett looked right at him and said "Da da!" with a big smile on his face.
"I think that counts!"
"Aw, that made my day."
Adam quickly started hinting to Emmett that he should start working on making mama-like sounds, which was sweet. I was warned by other moms that babies often say words like "dada" before "mama." This is apparently partly because the "m" sound is harder to make, but also because babies don't always think of mama as a separate entity at first. In addition, Emmett just has a special bond with his daddy, and I'm glad that he does.
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