Zack's Blog

The Life & Times of Zack · 2012-2015 · 191 posts

Development-a-palooza: 10 days of extreme contact development

From March 11 through March 21, our fearless hero was on turbo development mode:

– March 11: we found his first tooth

– March 13: started crawling on all 4s

– March 14: played peekaboo with a blanket, he initiated and repeated after you say “peekaboo!”

– March 18: pushed to seated position from all 4s

– March 20: pulled self to standing while in his crib trying to take a nap.  He immediately figured out how to get himself down from upright position too and didn’t fall (but he’s not consistent about it yet :-().

And of course, like clockwork, the naps are all disrupted.  Why nap when you can pull yourself up in your crib?  How can you nap when your mouth hurts like heck due to teeth explosion?

Oh, and he got pink eye during this timeframe too!??!  Yuck.  But even though it was *bad*, he was only sort of cranky (and his naps were off).  

Happy Spring!  It’s off to a great start for Z!

← Earlier<p class="p1">What a fun month!  ZBL is making his move towards being an independent toddler and we saw a lot of the precursor steps this month (note to self: need more photos of John and Z.  We didn&rsquo;t have as many this month :-()</p> <p class="p1">Wanting to pull up &ndash; he&rsquo;s started to grap things that are just a bit taller than he is and hold on and then use  his mouth as a 3rd hand.  </p> <p class="p1">Tilts head to side as a game &ndash; se the picture in the collage above.  He&rsquo;ll tilt his head and then if you mimic him, he&rsquo;ll giggle and then switch sides.</p> <p class="p1">&ldquo;Yao Yao toe&rdquo; &ndash; This is one of the first phrases he understands and responds to and it&rsquo;s in Mandarin :-).  It means shake your head and he loves it!  Plus it gets endless laughs from his mom and big bro so that is an incentive too.</p> <p class="p1">Exploding fist bump &ndash; John thought of this one.  He lowers his arm with a fist at the end and says in a dramatic way &ldquo;exploding fist bump!&rdquo; and Z reaches out his hand to touch his dad&rsquo;s hand, it suddenly &ldquo;explodes&rdquo; and John makes a cool sound.  SPL has added his own twist and drama to it (as big bros love to do).  He says &ldquo;splodin&rsquo; fist bump!!!&rdquo; and adds a big hop as he throws down his arm with a fist out stretched to Z. Z loves it and laughs!</p> <p class="p1">First cold &ndash; not fun.  gunky eyes, stuffy nose.  Disrupted sleep: early wake times, waking at 12:30 am and then 4:30 am :-0 (yawn!).  It&rsquo;s a tribute to SPL&rsquo;s self-control that ZBL didn&rsquo;t get sick earlier.  :-)</p> <p class="p1">Pulls off hat - this doesn&rsquo;t bode well for summer and our desire to spend more time poolside.  </p> <p class="p1">Bends over backward &ndash; if you are holding Z in your arms, he will lean over your arms to do a backbend.  He cracks himself up with this.  Loves to do it right before naptime.</p> <p class="p1">Gives kisses to Sam &amp; dad too sometimes &ndash; He more reliably gives me kisses (see photo above taken by SPL) and now has branched out to kissing S and John :-).</p> <p class="p1">Loves the iPad &amp; the baby in the iPad &ndash; he loves seeing himself in the mirror or iPad and will reach out to touch the face he sees.  He also does this when we are doing Facetime video chats with grandparents and great-grandparents :-)</p> <p class="p1">Trying to push up from all 4s to seated &ndash; he hasn&rsquo;t quite mastered this key skill but it&rsquo;s coming fast. He&rsquo;s a determined little guy for sure.  </p> <p class="p1">The other key is trying to go from seated to all 4s w/o clocking himself as he often flops down and bumps his head &ndash; d'oh!</p> <p class="p1">Wants to control the spoon when you are feeding him &ndash; we usually let him feed himself but foods like yoghurt still require a spoon.  Z is not deterred.  He grabs the spoon out of your hand and puts it into his mouth.  If you are feeding him yoghurt, bring 3 spoons: 2 for him and 1 for you :-)</p> <p class="p1">Less gagging &ndash;  this is a big relief for me, not so much for Z, as I am the one who is most &ldquo;nervous Nelly&rdquo; when Z eats.  John and SPL are the Zen brothers.  Yin to my yang.</p> <p class="p1">New foods: cheerios, scrambled and hard boiled eggs </p> <p class="p1">More independent &ndash; you can see this from all the description above &ndash; he is his own dude and it&rsquo;s definitely showing itself in many interesting ways :-)</p> <p class="p1">Bring it 10 months &ndash; we are ready!</p> Later →<div class="post_title">10 months old: Teeth and Movement!</div> <div class="post_title"></div> <div class="post_title">{Since Sunday is his 11th month anniversary, I figured I needed to write 10 &ndash; :-}</div> <p>In the span of 1 short month, ZBL has exploded with movement and teeth!  At the month’s end, he now has 4 teeth: the 1st one came in mid-March.  The 2nd one was actually above the 1st one on his upper jaw (I realized this while we were playing.  I heard this strange noise that sounded like teeth grinding.  And then I realized it was coming from Z and that meant he had not 1, but 2 teeth!).  Then 3 and 4 quickly followed.  He still wants to put other people’s fingers in his mouth now though so be careful!  Those teeth are sharp!</p> <p>Movement: he went from sitting up and scooting to crawling slowing on all 4s to moving with purpose and intentionality.  It’s been fun to watch!  With this added mobility and opening up of the world, we added gates to our house so Z now is contained in the TV room and kitchen.  We also have a play yard in that space that keeps him contained when need-be.  Mostly though he’s out exploring: crawling to the couch and pulling up, noticing that someone forgot to put away the TV remote and cruising over to check it out;  pretending he’s Spiderman and pulling himself up on glass windows or walls (no handles).  At first he took awhile to cruise around the play yard but by the month’s end, he was proficient and could make it around half of the kitchen! </p> <p>He definitely enjoys his freedom but with that comes big changes for me and his dad.  During the week, there is less time to “get things done” as Z requires a lot more attention and me being at his side as he discovers and explores his new abilities.  But I know this too soon shall pass and all the “to dos” can wait (or at least most of them :-).  It’s amazing to watch as literally each day we can see the changes: the confidence increase, the motor coordination improve, the stability increase.  Awe. Some.</p>