We have achieved full mobility. Jude is crawling, grabbing, pulling, climbing, cruising the house, and generally into everything. I don't say "no" much ; usually I just hand him my car keys or point him in a new direction. He eats his own breakfast. He reads his own books. He thinks the toilet is his own private swimming pool. He wants to touch all the light fixtures and loose straps in the house. It's just like they say! It happens so fast. One day he's a baby - and the next? He's a boy.
Jude is hilarious these days. He crawls all over the place, waves at everyone (including himself in the mirror), and tonight he invented a game which consisted of climbing from the couch to the table, throwing a book onto the couch, then diving onto the couch to play with the book. After doing this about ten times in a row, I pulled out the camera to try to capture the moment.
After having been a great eater for most of his short life, Jude has finally discovered that he can have an opinion about his food. He's decided that he doesn't like pureed baby food any more, and pretty much only wants to eat things that he can pick up with his own two hands. Current favorites are bananas (he can eat a whole banana in one sitting!), chicken, and cheese. We need to start preparing vegetables in finger-food chunks. Until now, he's been getting most of his veggies mixed with cereal, but this is no longer working. Next question: what do we do with a freezer full of cubes of pureed fruits and veggies? Make smoothies for ourselves???
We've been keeping an eye out for "stranger anxiety", which is supposed to hit at around this age, but so far Jude does not seem to be exhibiting any signs. He is very happy to see his parents when one of us has been out of his sight for any period of time, but he seems to be just as happy to see other friends and family as he is to spend time with one of us. This makes things a lot easier for us, since we're fortunate to have a few loving babysitters who are willing to take care of Jude so that we can have some time to ourselves. In fact, my mother is arriving tonight so that we can have our first "Parents' Weekend Away". We're looking forward to it!
The house is very quiet tonight. Jude and his dad are in Wallowa County visiting some of Jude's Eastern Oregon fans. Here are a few cute photos from the last week.
Got to keep the sun out of his eyes...
This one is a little blurry, but it's a good shot of Jude's "happy face".
Making trouble at Grammie's house...
Jude and the "Bottle Dog"...
Jude has started flipping through my books. Not the baby books that we get for him from the library, but my "literature". The other day, he spent over five mnutes (which is a LONG time for a baby) flipping though the pages of my book on the couch. I tried to get a video of it, but as soon as I pulled out the camera he abandoned the book and made a bee-line for me. I decided to post the video anyway, because, well, you'll see...
We finished weaning Jude to formula this weekend. Actually, he pretty much weaned himself. I know most of the books say that babies this age are rarely ready to stop nursing, but it had gotten to the point where I was lucky if I could keep Jude nursing for more than about 30 seconds at a time. If we hand him a bottle, he will lie back on the couch or floor and work on it until it's done (or mostly done), but he has pretty much no patience for eating while being held (even bottles don't work very well while holding him, except for in the middle of the night). I decided that it wasn't worth fighting with him about it, especially since it means I can stop pumping while the boys are out of town. It was a little bit bittersweet for me to realize that he seems happier to not be nursing these days, but all in all I feel good about it. So, he will be on formula for another two and a half months, then we'll start the transition to whole milk. Hopefully that will go as well as this transition!
