Today The Bean is nine months old!
-I feel like The Bean's growth has slowed down a little bit, but just the other week Jen noticed that he's taller than his best friend who's always been bigger than him, so who knows! We'll be taking him in for his nine month well-check soon, so I'll post updated weight and length and whatnot then.
-As predicted, his second tooth popped up shortly after his first one. We now believe that he'll soon be getting a third tooth on the bottom right. His teeth are a little crooked and mighty sharp! He's broken the skin on my finger and Jen's boob. The words, "No biting!" are often heard when Jen is nursing and Sophie the giraffe is kept nearby for him to chop on between suckling.
(Note from Jen: Any advice for preventing the biting is encouraged!)
-Starting two days ago The Bean began drinking both water and formula from a bottle. This is a serious breakthrough and does a lot to ease my stress about sending him to daycare in a few months. I hope he continues to take bottles.
-He continues to be an excellent eater. He has preferences, but we can usually blend things together and get him to eat stuff he may not eat if it weren't mixed. New foods include kamut, banana, cheeses, olives, pumpkin, yogurt, oats, raisins, cranberries and probably others that I'm forgetting. He's eating more finger foods and uses his little teeth to bite into things, chewing them up with his gums.
-He's exclusively in 6-12 month clothes now. Some things are still huge on him, but we've come to discover that such is baby sizing. (Not unlike women's sizing.)
-We were having some difficulty with night-waking for a while. Many nights The Bean was getting up and nursing about three times. It was getting pretty rough on Jen especially, but then, just this past week he slept 11+ hours two nights in a row. We're hoping this trend continues. Most nights he goes down around 6pm and stays in bed until about 7am.
-Crawling is still The Bean's main mode of transportation, but he is also getting really good at pulling himself up on things and has started taking just a few steps along an object or from one object to another.
-His favourite toys these days are ones that light up and/or make noise. He has a hand-me-down tractor with animals that he loves (especially the horse) and his v-tech car toy from his cousins is another favourite.
-He loves the sheepskin rug in his nursery. After bath time in the
evening we let him crawl around in his room and if it's not out already,
he'll pull it out from under his crib and roll around on it. He'll
actually throw himself forward onto it, lie there for a second, and then
roll back and forth. He LOVES it when we wrap it all the way around
him and will giggle. It is adorable.
-Jen and The Bean continue to go to swim class once a week. He loves the water and has been praised by the swim teacher for his ability to "swim" underwater.
-He continues to do really well around people. I was surprised this past weekend when we went to my brother's place for Thanksgiving. There were a ton of new people around and he smiled and was quite happy to let them hold him.
-He is getting more and more expressive and interactive. He gives the biggest smile when we go to get him up from his naps. He crawls over to me as quick as he can and throws himself at us when he wants a cuddle or when we're "wrestling." He is also quite vocal when he wants to be and is making a variety of sounds.
We are so lucky that The Bean has such a happy baby. He brings joy to our days!
Of course, music was important before we met, I have fond memories of dancing around the sunroom of my childhood home with my dad to Paul Simon's "You Can Call Me Al." Toronto had an all-Beatles radio station in the 80s that was on at our neighbour's house every time we went over. I still can sing along to almost any Beatles song I hear.
When The Bean was days old we played him Death Cab For Cutie while he slept. Now that he's older we've been looking into finding music for him that we also enjoy listening to. I know a ton of kids who love The Wiggles, but I don't know how much "Big Red Car" -or whatever it's called- we could take.
At the beginning of the summer we read a bunch of reviews and ended up ordering a handful of CDs meant specifically for The Bean, but also for us, 'cuz you know, we've got to listen to them too.
Mind of My Own by Frances England has been a favourite. I'll fully admit that I've found myself turning up the radio in the car when playing it, even when The Bean is home with Jen. The lyrics are lively and positive and are on topics which are revelant to children. Her voice is lovely and the musical accompaniment is fantastic.
Elizabeth Mitchell's, You Are My Sunshine is another album we picked up at the beginning of the summer. It's got a calm folk vibe and makes for nice quiet music. I believe some of the songs are original, while others are traditional folk songs.
The Nields' Rock All Day, Rock All Night is a CD set Jen really wanted to get. She's been a fan of The Nields since before I met her. They used to play in Pittsburgh often and she would go see them play live. A few years ago we went to The Clearwater Folk Festival and they were playing on the family stage. We went over and watched their set. It was fun! In the years between then and now we've often joked to each other about "The Enemy Called Pants" (one of the songs they had played)... now that we have an eight month old, we know what they were singing about! "Organic Farm" is our most recent favourite off this album. The Nields have a distinctive sound, so I'd suggest listening to a song or two before committing to this album, just in case they aren't your thing.
Jack Johnson's Sing-a-longs and Lullabies for the film Curious George is an album I've had for a while. A parent of a student gave me a copy a few years ago because we do a unit on recycling and it has a song on it called "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle". We bought another copy for us. We're Jack Johnson fans, so this album has been great to have.
Recently we've been thinking about adding a few additional selections to our collection. Maybe another Frances England CD. I've also heard good things about They Might Be Giants. Then there are the traditional folksters like Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie (although I don't know that I could handle a song like "Swimmy Swim Swim" any better than I could handle "Big Red Car".) Any suggestions from other parents out there? What do your kids like listening to? How about recommendations for kid-friendly adult music? Feist's 1,2,3,4? Tegan and Sara's Alligator?