Thoughts for Barter: Fatherhood

Everyday I get to watch X sleeping is a day I feel a little extra blessed.

It’s a little thing but it truly puts a smile on my face.

He sleeps in some of the weirdest positions.

Current tooth count is up to 3.

This also means the current sleep hours at night have dipped again due to his teething.

On the bright side, since I have been awoken I can sometimes catch him rubbing his belly while he sleeps.

And finally a reference from one of my favorite poems.  (Yeats’ He wishes for the cloths of heaven)

“Everyday, everywhere, our children spread their dreams beneath our feet. And we should tread softly.”

- Sir Ken Robinson on the learning revolution at TED

That’s right X fans.
X is officially 9 months and 7 days old.
And since last week he discovered how to drink from a straw. Unfortunately, that also means he hasn’t shown his sippy cup much love. He was drinking from his sippy cup today though, so I guess he’s figured that we won’t be giving him his straw cup yet.
Thank goodness these Thermos Foogo sippy / straw cups have interchangeable lids. I can always put the straw lid on his smaller sippy cup if need be.

In more frightening news, X is actually sleep crawling. Without being fully awake he will climb over pillows. We had to rethink our sleeping arrangements again. It’s tough to get a good nights rest when your constantly worried your son will crawl, half-asleep, over a pillow and off the bed head first. Might have to take apart the bed and put the mattress on the floor.

And lastly, at 9 months X is showing more signs of coherent communication. He makes funny faces at people when he wants their attention. He’ll pretend to cry and then look up to see if mommy or grand aunty is paying attention. He tugs his diaper if he really needs a change. And, my personal favorite, he will hulk out if you ask him to!

Hulk, smash!

So, X started to show an allergic reaction to his milk again. I wish I could trust products sold in vn more. Unfortunately, I don’t know if his regular milk from the states was ok or not. Same brand, same type, but X was drinking the imported milk for a while now with very little signs of an allergic reaction. After about a week of the locally bought, yet presumably imported, stuff he showed a lot more reaction. Now, back to mixing in some hypoallergenic milk again. Damn my cow protein sensitive genes!

On brighter news, aunty Roe’s supply drop came in with a plethora of milk, baby cereal, baby food, toys, clothes, and containers. Namely, Thermos Foogo sippy cup, straw bottle and food container. X was enjoying his sippy cup today. He quite enjoys it.

And finally a shinny light at the very worrisome end of the future of X’s education. I don’t want to be like my parents and so many other parents forcing college down the throat of their children. But I grew up with the idea that “going to college is best” impregnated into my head. And really, for a new parent, what is the alternative? Until now, there was none. I always knew that college wasn’t for everyone. But I couldn’t encourage any other road to take. I still don’t know what a solid alternative to college is but I do know that in X’s lifetime things will be different. Now, we have MIT’s open courseware, Google’s education on air, and TED-ed. I’m happy to see that X’s alternative education future has a future.

X gave me the gift of 2 headbutts a little while ago. The first one woke me up so that I could look him in the eyes to receive the second. I love my morning wake up calls.

On another note, X almost crawled off the bed in the middle of the night. Need to rethink our sleeping situation.

He’s going over everything!  He needs to get his horn fixed though.  He’s got monster truck movements but whack import car horn.

Apparently, checking what the dog is barking at is all the time X needs to crawl and hide under the coffee table so he can watch his mom freak out when she turns back around.

X is getting more mobile. Crawling has enabled him to crawl over and reach for things he couldn’t before. He even tries to climb over his play pen using his hands and mouth to pull himself up. This little monkey is going mobile and it’s scary. Hm, I must say I’m scared a lot these days.

For every 1 Ba-ba, X says maybe a few dozen Ma-mas, maybe a dozen mum-mums, and a while lot of aaahhhs!