Malstones

Every day, it seems like Mal "gets" something or does something new.

Yesterday, James was rolling a ball to him, which is something we've both done before... In the past, Mal would just look at the ball, if he noticed it, he'd just kind of watch. This time, he understood what the point of the game was. He tried to do something with the ball once it came to him, mostly rolling it the wrong way, but sometimes putting some backspin on it and getting it back to James. When James would roll it across the wooden floor and it would bounce up onto the mat where Mal was sitting, Mal would giggle. Then he'd reach for it and try to do something with it. This went on for about 10 minutes. It was so fun!

Mal's first non-mushed food: scrambeled egg! He loved it! (He also loved the cashew milk.)

Last night, though, something very weird happened. Mal fell asleep and, as usual, woke up a couple of times shortly after, so I put him back to sleep. After an hour or so, he woke up crying. I tried to soothe him, and he wouldn't have it. He wouldn't nurse. His crying intensified, and he was wanting me to hold him, but also pushing me away, looking around, and seemed very scared and confused. At some point, I called James in because Mal was still looking around and sobbing. When James came in, Mal went straight to him, snuggled up, but then started bawling again. He went back and forth between us a few times, and I started to get panicked. He seemed very, very scared and confused, and all I could think of was, "What if he woke up and he couldn't see? Or hear?" I snapped my finger behind his head, and he looked around to see what I was doing. Then I wiggled them noiselessly in front of his face to get his attention, and moved them around. He tracked those fine, too.

Finally, we took him into the living room where it was light. He kept looking around like he was trying to find something, and he kept just sobbing. He was clearly not in pain. He was sad, confused, scared. After about ten minutes, as Daphne was getting out of the shower and he got a glance at her, he finally let me nurse him, and he fell back to sleep. When he woke up this morning, he was fine. Normal. No idea what happened, but hope it's not a regular thing.

Today, Mal had another cool first. We were out on the porch and heard an ambulance siren. Mal looked over at the fire station! The truck was sitting in the garage, and I said, "That's not the fire truck! It's an ambulance!" We live about 10 blocks from a hospital, and 10 blocks from a police station, then less than a block from the fire station. So we hear a lot of sirens. But Mal is used to the light show that accompanies the fire truck's siren. A couple of minutes later, we heard the ambulance again, and again, Mal stood up and looked down at the fire station. Smart little kid!

So, it looks like he's starting to grasp cause and effect. He definitely is getting easier in some ways. For instance, he will stay in the nursery at church for half an hour to 45 minutes before he starts really fussing. He stayed about an hour with my sister last week, no problem. He no longer screams when I shower. That one's a huge blessing. Mal is perfectly content to hang out and play with his dad.

In fact, Mal is starting to seek James out, and will go to him instead of me at times. Mal says with regularity and specificity, "Da-da," when he sees James. Everything I've read says kids this age repeat syllables and don't attach meaning to them, but it's pretty consistent. (He only says, "Ma-maaaaah!" when he's crying.)

Mal still likes to be held a lot, and isn't a huge fan of being in his walking chair when I'm making dinner, even though we're in the same room. He wants to be held. Ever since I accidentally grazed his leg with a hot cookie sheet, though, I do make sure I'm not holding him whenever I'm using anything hot. However, now that he's very mobile and knows how to maneuver the walker, everything is within his grasp. In this house, with no cabinetry, that means he has access to our entire pantry and most of our cooking pans. Scarier, he could probably pull one of the units over on himself. He's never in the kitchen alone, but all the same, I'll be glad to get somewhere that we can close doors that are part of permanent fixtures!

As for me, I'm almost always tired. I'm almost always sore. Between the bike rides, the walking, the baby-wearing, the carrying, and the sleeping-funny-so-I-can-nurse, I'm just in need of a massage (something that has only become a possibility in the past two weeks or so). Mal is still very much 24/7 in a way that Daphne wasn't at this age, so I rarely feel refreshed and rested... but it's getting easier, if only because I can read him better, and meet his needs better. There is so much less crying now, and so much more laughing. Having a baby is just work, and it's absolutely worth it.

I forgot to add this in to Mal's 6-month update, but wanted to get it in writing to horrify him someday (honestly, I don't expect my kids ever to read my blog unless I die and they're hungry for more of me posthumously): Every time we change his diaper -- EVERY time -- he has to do a manual junk check. "Yep, it's still there. Stttttretchhhh-BOING. Strrreeetchh-- BOING!" Good times. In other words, he's a normal boy. It's just my first time to mom a baby guy, and I think it's adorable. He ends up with baby powder on his hand a lot.

Mal is still sleeping with us. He seriously cannot sleep more than about an hour without waking up to make sure someone's there. It feels like he's nursing a lot more at night than he used to, or maybe it's just that he's not tapering off like I expected he would at this age. But he nurses a lot less frequently during the day, as he's a champ at consuming real food now. I don't feel pressure to nurse him to calm him down in public anymore like I used to. I know we can go three hours or so and if he starts to get fussy, I can distract him with something else, no problem. This means we can go places and do more things, whcih I love.

I'd tried giving Malcolm milk before, and he wasn't impressed. He never took to formula, either, and I tried all of them: dairy, soy, mixed, gentle tummy formula, etc. However, a friend suggested trying cashew milk, and that seems to be the one for the boy. He sucks that stuff down! He also likes pretty much everything we feed him, and I think he's ready for stuff beyond baby food. He had scrambled eggs last week (pictured above), and I'll look to see what we're having this week that he can enjoy without teeth. I also gave him part of a strawberry-banana smoothie we made last week, and he liked it, too.

So here we are in the second half of the first year. This is where it starts getting fun. Finally. :) Glad we made it this far. Excited about the future!