Caleb 10 Months

Well our darling boy is now 10 months old so I figured you could use another update:

Caleb is working his way up the simian family tree. He has now achieved Monkey by fullfilling "monkey see monkey do" by imitating Mommy doing the "indian noise" (can't think of a PC name for it - ya know where you make your mouth a round and then pat your hand in front of it to break up the sound). Its really dang cute. And slightly embarrassing when he decides to give us a performance in the middle of church...

Caleb has also achieved Chimpanzee by discovering tool usage - he will stack things so that he can stand on top of them to try to get to stuff he's not supposed to have.

And just the last week or so Caleb has achieved Gorilla! aka Sign Language! So far he's got one sign down and the other is mostly there. He recently started nibbling little bits of table foods and has discovered that he is a BIG fan of anything that Mommy is eating (which means I no longer get to eat in peace). Add that to the fact we've started him on stage 3 baby foods that have soft little chunks for him to learn to chew, so meal times lately have had a lot of "Chew! Chew Caleb!" and Mom and Dad modeling chewing motions, which Caleb finds absolutely hilarious.

We've also been modeling signs for bottle, food, more, kitty, hi and bye. Well, Caleb hasn't caught on to our sign for food but he's modified the Chew sign for his own purposes. Now whenever he wants food, he'll look at us pointedly and start smacking his lips imitating the chew chew demonstrations. If we ignore him, he cries, if we say "You want some food?" he perks right up and smiles and repeats the chewing/smacking face. Its really dang cute. He's done it both in the presence of food and when it got to be lunch time and he crawled over to me, stood up, looked at me pointedly and started smacking away.

Of course the down side is now anytime I have food, he comes over and starts looking at me, looking at the food and smacking away. If I ignore him he starts punctuating it with grunts. "UGH! Ugh!" Smack, smack, smack. Look at food, look at mom, pat moms arm, when she looks, smack, smack, smack. "Ugh! Ugh!" Yeah I get the picture and start searching for a part of my meal thats safe to give him. Its sad, I've started selecting foods I know have something I can pinch off and feed him just so I don't have to listen to him whine.

Sign two that he's mostly got down is waving Hi and Bye. I can get him to do it just him and me or with the mirror, but so far its a no go with other people present.

I'm teaching Caleb baby signs in the hope that we can avoid some of the tantrums and frustrations of the terrible twos. Theres a significant body of research that supports the idea that a lot of the frustration is caused b/c the kids have gotten to the point where they know what they want, but they've not yet developed speech to the point they can actually say what it is. So they're left to point, and scream louder. Babys have proven more than capable of using simplified sign language to express what it is that they want and theres a BIG body of research that shows that encouraging this significantly reduces tantrums and improves parent/child relationships.

And while there were initially some concerns that signing would retard speech development, its been shown to actually speed language acquisition. If you think about it realizing that a chihuahua and a Great Dane are both dogs is a BIG concept. Most kids have to wait until they're capable of saying "Doggie" to really start putting all this together through their interactions with adults. Well, teaching them the sign for doggie helps them start building their mental schemas sooner so as soon as they can produce the word they've already got a dozen things they know are dogs.

Baby signs also shows lasting increases in IQ and blah blah blah its a really cool thing and nerd that I am we're gonna try for it.

Caleb is also chattering more. Its still mostly the same noises - Mama, Dada, Baba. But he's using alot more variety in pitch and tone and making noises/tones that are more appropriate to the settings. Its really cool and amazingly cute.

He's also discovered that there's a whole rest of the house outside the living room and he wants to go discover it. We've been letting him do this to some extent but I'll admit to wincing when he discovered the cat food (and apparently thought it was tasty) and installing baby gates when I get tired of chasing after him.

So far he's not showing big signs of stranger anxiety, but he does seem to watch new people for a while now. Instead of immediately smiling and being charming he has to watch them for a while and decide what he thinks and then he'll warm up and be adorable. I consider this "so far so good" because a lot of kids at this stage get stranger anxiety bad and grab mom and SCREAM if anybody new comes near. Caleb just sort of gives them this blank look that can either be described as "You, I don't know what I think of you yet." or "I need a nap." I've been hopeful that with my dragging him around places fairly regularly and him getting passed around church and loved on every Sunday that we would avoid the worst of this and *knock on wood* so far so good.

He also recognizes people he sees fairly regularly faster - ie he only stares at them funny for a couple seconds before making a happy noise and a beeline for his friend. Its extremely endearing. lol.

The one toofen has made its appearance (bottom center left) and the one next to it is stubbornly refusing to break through. Its right there, you can even see lighter/white spots through the gum, you can feel it etc but its just NOT coming through. I think it must hurt him sometimes b/c once in a while he gets CRANKY and I try everything and nothing fixes it so I dose him with Tylenol and suddenly he's back to being charming.

Caleb is completely in love with the kitty cats. He gets SOOOO excited anytime he sees them or gets anywhere near them. The problem is that this leads him to SHRIEK and laugh loudly with excitement, which FREAKS the cats out so they run away. And he crawls after them laughing. lol. More than one panicked cat has been rudely awoken from a nap by a VERY excited Mr. Caleb.

I'll post more pictures soon. Just been busy.