Mr. Greedy Hands

I am fortunate enough to be writing this at 7:10am, as Josiah woke up before 5:30am, nursed, was in the playplen promptly at 6:00am, and pooped himself out--literally, unforuntately--by 6:45. We changed the diaper, added more pajamas to the hamper, and now we're off for the day! Nothing like seeing the first hours of a Saturday.

Josiah has inherited a new nickname as of late. I call him Mr. Greedy Hands. If I am holding him and walking, I have to make sure that I walk a safe distance from anything he might grab. As we walk through his doorway, he has become really good at reaching out quickly and snatching the fan remote that is mounted to the door frame. I can't help but laugh, because it takes pretty precise timing and skill to nap it that quickly. If we are in the store and I have him in the sling or on my hip, I have to be careful as to what he browses with his hands while I browse with mine on the other side of the aisle. I can't really get upset with him when he grabs every third dress on the aisle, because he is imitating exactly what I am doing--and I seem to be having a pretty good time.

Josiah is very proficient at opening drawers, and he knows what he will find in each one. Luckily, his "can't life without" favorite find is my hairbrush, which is benign enough for his play. It's a much better choice than the hairdryer and flat iron that can be found in the same drawer. He doesn't show interest in those. The hairbrush far surpasses them in glory.

He is really enjoying climbing up on things, and he hikes his leg up into oblivion occasionally, thinking that he will get it up high enough to mount whatever item he has pulled up on at the moment. If we don't watch carefully, we will find him surfing the floor on a guitar case that Jonathan has left out. That's actually one of his favorite items to explore (and scale).

His top gum is parting like the Red Sea for a tooth that is about to break through. We can't see the tooth, only the slit in the gum that preceeds it. The same is happening on another lower tooth. Just in time for us to go on vacation. Those teeth better come through in the next couple of days, or else I will be armed with copious amounts of Baby Tylenol on vacation.

Josiah has been protesting any vegetables in his solid food diet. I made sweet baby peas thinking that he would accept them, but two bites yesterday, and he was turning his head. We will be trying again today. He didn't protest the fresh watermelon we gave him in his baby safe feeder (a mesh contraption that lets babies chew on food without getting big pieces). Imagine that. It's about time he moved to three meals a day with the baby food, so things could get interesting. He will not be eating just fruit (like I'm sure his mama insisted on doing). Famous last words, right?

Yesterday was Day 1 of retraining our naptime routine. Mr. Greedy Hands has gotten into the habit of wanting Mommy to nurse him to sleep--and to be available at his beck and call with a breast to suckle on throughout the nap. Obviously, that isn't working out so well for Mommy, who acknowledges that bad habits can only be formed with a parent's permission at this age. SO---the retraining has begun. Yesterday, Josiah wailed for 40 minutes before giving in and falling asleep. We checked on him every ten minutes---didn't make eye contact, laid him back down, and just reassured him that he wasn't banned from life forever. Hopefully we can establish a standard so that nap time is as easy as bedtime. I've been told that it takes 3 days to reshape habits, so we'll see what happens come Sunday.