Noah! (and walking, so as to tick a topic off my list!)

I just have to talk about my kid. I apologize in advance and ward off the evil eye about the brag.

So first: walking. Noah still mostly doesn’t. He will a few steps here and there, and occasionally will take as many as 8, especially if he’s holding onto something in both hands.  Occasionally he’ll deign to walk around holding onto my hand or finger, but he tends to get frustrated and want to crawl. So if, say, I’m trying to run him around a restaurant lobby, it turns into a “stay standing! — no way mum!” tug of war.

I’m starting to wonder a little bit if there is an actual physical reason he doesn’t like walking. He seems to have the balance down okay but his muscles get kind of tired out (he stands plenty though). One of his hips turns in a little which might affect things. I’m going to ask my doctor at his 15 month shots appointment, but meanwhile I’m kind of in that space like “well… he’s a little late but not really into problem area yet, so I’m feeling a bit of pressure but I don’t really think I have to worry yet.” He has been late with a lot of gross motor stuff and mastered it fine regardless, too, so there is that.

So what has Noah been doing while NOT learning to walk? Well my god, here is where my day has gotten complicated. He’s grown quite a bit so he can reach things like the edge of the kitchen counter, etc. And he has made it his mission to make sure he can get to any spot he wants to go to or explore.

I may have mentioned before that he figured out the safety latches on the cupboard doors a while ago – the ones where you have to press down on them, on the inside, to get the door to pop open. He just slips his baby hand in and pulls down and voila, the keys to the kingdom. I installed a hook and eye on one door and he used a spatula to push it up and open. He can operate all the lever-door-handles in our home and is working on the doorknobs (I know covers are available). Our french doors latch at the bottom with a little sliding bolt. He can operate that too.

He also knows how to lock the indoor doors that have locks. So if you see a putty knife lying around, that is why – it’s faster than anything else for getting them open. Not that he has yet managed to do it with me on the other side, yet, but one day I am sure it will happen.

Worse, he’s learned how to unscrew things. Plastic water bottles? He can unscrew them, if they’re not too tightly screwed in the first place. Today I had to call poison control because he found a sample-sized bottle of shampoo (my bad; it had fallen behind a dresser) and unscrewed it and swallowed a mouthful. He also takes the knobs off the dressers on a regular basis.

He has very little use for toys, now. Why would you play with those when you can be unscrewing shampoo you have retrieved by first taking a drawer out of the dresser? Or perhaps opening the safety latch on the lower cupboard that operates like a pantry and nearly unscrew the olive oil? (Now stored over the fridge; that stuff is baaaaad if aspirated, not to mention messy.) 

You would think I am never around. But I am! He’s just fast. And the olive oil was one of those dumb/lazy moments. You know, the “if it’s back here behind the plastic applesauce containers…”  

We’ve had to install a toilet lock, a dishwasher lock (he can unlock the dishwaster’s commercial lock), and an oven lock. The fridge he cannot yet manage. Once he learns how to undo those locks, we’re in trouble. And he is working on it, trust me!

My favourite trick so far though is the one where he decides to toss a dish towel up over the edge of the gas stove while mummy is making oatmeal.  No, he didn’t quite manage to catch it on fire ’cause I only use the back burners. But I am considering cold food for the next 6 months.

Today I really felt like I was just following him around ensuring he didn’t kill himself.  Until I fell on a long bath as a partial solution to the need to explore (I do need that sand and water table).  We’re starting beginner crafts too - finger painting, drawing, and playing in ‘safe’ dough, all under high-supervision - because that seems to help, as does going outside, although the weather is becoming pretty iffy. But that’s pretty much all I can do, it seems – redirect that energy towards safer stuff.

I ran into some mums at the mall who had been there for 4 hours. Noah will sit still in his stroller without huge protest for about half an hour; having him up in the Ergo adds another half hour to an hour, and if he can play in a shopping cart by reaching out and grabbing the clothes of someone going past, you can get another half hour in there.  Although talking to him about everything adds on some time too. If you do a meal in the middle you might be able to restart it; stopping at a park works sometimes too. Still.

(I thought with a baby and being at home, I would get amazing Xmas shopping done. And maybe some handmade stuff too. Ahahahaha. Amazon.ca is my friend.)

He’s also a little bookworm. I got him a picture dictionary and he flips through it on his own and does all the signs he knows, and then he sits with it and points to recognizable things (point to picture of high chair, point to high chair. At this point I must say “high chair.” If I don’t, all hell breaks loose.).  Then he puzzles over other things, like – walruses. Or dresses.

He also loves the Dick Bruna books, particularly “I can read” and “I can read more.” He flips to the grandmother and grandfather page if my mother is on the speaker phone, with glee.

As far as fiction goes, he has little use for it. He’s all about the non-fiction. Rhyming games are okay, though. He’s got patty-cake down, and clapping at the end of songs, and a few other things.

There are a few misconceptions going. When I ask him to point to his nose he inevitably touches his ear. He can, however, find my nose just fine. I’m not sure what that all means, but I’m sure he’ll work it out before grade 12 exams. He also is categorizing broadly and oddly sometimes. A horse is a dog (sign for dog), but a zebra is not. Lions are dogs, but tigers are cats. Etc.

The signing is a huge plus, although it leads to arguments. Like at the grocery store:

Me: here’s a cracker
Noah: signs ‘cookie’
Me: I only have crackers sweetie, sorry. Cracker. No cookie. (the last three signed too)
Noah: signs ‘more’ ‘cookie’
Me: only cracker
Noah: wails

Or, see above, but substitute “apple” for crackers and “grapes” for cookies.

He ‘talks’ constantly. His sounds are pretty consistent in some situations. I think he knows what he’s saying, but most of it is not coherent out here yet. (He does have some interesting words down like “doyun” (down) ”uh oh!” and yiiiiiite (light) down just fine.) Carl says he takes after me in this. The talking a lot I mean. Gee this post is a demonstration.

He has a lot of new fears. He’s scared of the vaccuum which is not helpful for keeping the floors clean, but it’s perfectly understandable. He’s scared of any wind-up musical toys, which I find a little odd, especially as he gets into a state with them where if they’re there, he cries, and if you take them away, he screams. I have just hidden them all.

He has a little bit of imagination starting, I think, or at least imitation. He takes sticks and ‘stirs’ in anything resembling a pot. He cuddles his dolls and he plays patty cake with the two with plastic hands and heads (the soft doll, he does not, but he does talk to the soft doll and not to the plastic ones).  He babbles on his cell phone and makes car noises for anything with wheels.

He is kind to the cats often and brings them crackers to feed to them. Of course then sometimes he tackles them.

He pets me and brushes my teeth and hair and tries to put my socks on.

He has little jokes and laughs a lot. He tries to charm strangers most of the time, but sometimes he gets in that state where if any stranger approaches within two feet he flips out. He dances to some music, even if he doesn’t walk.  

It’s still really fun. More tiring than I thought, to be on his time/mood all day. But good.