9-06-2009 Zachary Update

Zach is doing very well and although he's still not crawling he's finding creative ways to deal with it. He will often roll many feet to get to something he wants to "stick in his mouth" or otherwise explore. He's finally started going forward in his walker so he's zooming all over the place these days. He's able to sit up with some help he's just now starting to be able to correct more to sit w/out as much support. He still loves to whack on the keyboard and play WoW and gets very upset if you don't let him hit the keys when you're on hehe. He's still enjoying his jumper and jumping very high in it and gets really excited when you bounce with him hehe.

On Aug 31st, 2009 he said Mama several times. Now I don't quite think he has the understanding that Mama is me yet but at least he's saying it. He's started doing da da di daaa a lot to but not quite dada yet. He's laughing a lot more for random funny things people do not just when tickled etc. For the most part he's a pretty happy, fun loving kid. He's been cutting another tooth next to his bottom two and that's been causing some late night crying, wake ups and down right miserable evenings. It's to be expected I just wish he would like cold stuff in his mouth to help. I guess the Orajel and Tylenol will have to do for now.

Zach can eat all sorts of things now and he usually eats Stage 2-3 baby food plus anything we're eating we can squish up well for him. He loves to chew on things with the 2 teeth he has but we still have to be careful. Zach's getting very efficient at feeding himself cookies, cheese doodles etc. He loves his Dad's brisket purred with sweet potatoes and gets upset when it's all gone. He's definitely a good eater! He's getting to be a big boy and really filling out his size 9 mo clothing.

Actual age right now is 10 months adjusted is 7 months. His cognitive is closer to his actual age and motor skills around 6-7 months. I'm not too concerned with him not crawling 1. because preemies love extension and not flexing and you see that in everything he does which makes crawling difficult. 2. Alexis never crawled not a day in her life.. she would get up on her knees and rock back and forth and just stay in one spot. One day she just picked herself up and started walking. Alexis is perfectly fine and I didn't notice anything odd with that, one nice thing was she wasn't too hard to watch because she was fairly stationary. Zach though he finds ways to move around the whole room.

Another thing he's been doing lately is "escape aristing". Meaning ... he has this rocker/chair fairly large and it will accommodate up to a toddler, it has straps to keep them in etc. So one day he was being pretty quiet and mind you he sits not 1 foot from me so I didn't think much of it.. just thought he was playing with the hanging down toys and maybe falling asleep. Well 2 mins later I hear him playing on the floor with his other toys and I had to take a double take. How he got down from the chair which is 8 or so inches off the floor down to about 4 feet away to where his toys were. He was just staring up at me smiling and having a great time.

So. next time I made sure to strap him in better and he just screamed and carried on. He eventually quieted down then I watched him this time when he wasn't looking. He would turn his entire body sideways. Hold onto the bar that goes over top that has the toys dangling down.. Shimmy down a bit slowly, turn more, shimmy down.. readjust hands .. keep doing this for 1-2 mins till he gently sets himself down usually facing the chair (he learned how to not hit his head)... then he'd gently set himself down and then roll to his toys. I was pretty amazed when I saw him do that because that's a pretty complex action that he had to come up with on his own. So we call him an escape artist now because that was pretty impressive. He does it nearly every time he's in the chair now.

It's funny if you put him on the floor he doesn't want to be there on his mat with his toys.. So you put him in the chair.. after 3 mins he gets bored and shimmies down to play on the floor then he's happy. :P I guess he's just going to be one of those kids.. if he didn't come up with it forget it :)