Gunner is just blowing me away. Today at breakfast, he used a two-word sign combination: he said 'Daddy eat' . We were all having a Saturday breakfast together or scrambled eggs and toast and Gunner was doing his usual signs- more, water, all done- and asking for berries when he didn't like the eggs. Then he looked at Arron, who was muching away, pointed to him and then signed Daddy Eat.
'Whoa, omigod, did you see that? He just signed Daddy eat. He's saying that Daddy is eating!' Mom's eyes are duly popping out with excitement.
'Yeah, wow, I saw it. That's amazing.' Dad's jaw is hanging on the floor.
- Isn't combining two words something they are supposed to only do much later?' I wonder while mentally preparing to google 'gifted genius baby' and  'Mensa'.
Gunner has stopped signing and is looking at us like, 'What's all the fuss about?' As an encore, he sticks his finger in his nose.

Sometimes, when he gets fixated on one sign or starts just babbling with his hands instead of identifying things by their correct sign, I start to think maybe I've done something wrong and confused him, and maybe it's not working out too well after all. But then he does something like what he did this morning and shows me that he is starting to really understand words and the concept of how language is used, and I realize that when he has his lags he is just processing all that information and will soon start using the signs properly again. Signing with Gunner has been a great way to help us bond, and it has turned into a kind of fun project for me, too.

Daycare Disaster Continues

According to Atiyeh, who runs the daycare, Gunner is not taking it well at all. She expects babies to cry for 15 minutes or so after being dropped off, but Gunner still wails inconsolably all day, even in his second week at the center. On Friday, she told me he not only cried all day but wouldn't eat a thing and didn't nap. I'm starting to worry that I'm going to traumatize him unless I take him out, but I really need to have somewhere I can put him at times.
Part of the problem is that she doesn't know him well, so she doesn't know how he likes things done. Also, she doesn't sign with him. And on top of that, she won't let him take a bottle to bed for his nap, which is just as well because I should have never let him get into that habit in the first place. Nonetheless, not having it makes it hard for him to get to sleep. I have been trying to introduce one of his bunnies as a comfort object, which will hopefully eventually replace the botle.
Atiyeh said that having a child there who cries all day makes it harder for her to attend to the other 8 children in her care. Her husband is there too, but Atiyeh still has at least 4 little babies to take care of herself. Unless he starts to adjust soon and things improve, she said, we should start thinking about cancelling our contract and withdrawing him from the daycare.
To be honest, this would be as much of a relief to me as it would to Gunner and Atiyeh. It's convenient for me to bring him there, but it's causing us so much heartache that I'd almost just rather keep him home and deal with the trouble of having to bring him to work with me or scramble for someone to watch him everytime I need to do something without him.
I have decided to just leave it up to God or whatever and let it go the way it's going to go.

Another Joker in the Family

Gunner keeps astonishing me: now he seems to show signs of having a sense of humor. The other day, he hit his head on the frame of the mirror in his room. Missing no opportunity to teach him a new sign, I pointed my index fingers toward each other and said ' Ow! Hurt! You HURT yourself!'. Gunner picked up on this right away and promptly signed 'hurt' right back to me. Then he intentionally banged his head into the mirror frame, turned around to me, and signed 'hurt' again. And then he did it again. And then one more time. I wasn't sure if he was enjoying using a new sign or just being plain silly.

The next day, he signed 'hurt' when I lightly bit him on the thigh. I know you're not supposed to give love bits, but he's made of cookie dough and it's just irresistible. 'Did that hurt, Peaches? Oh, I'm so sorry! I'll be more gentle' I said. Clearly, he had gotten the use of the sign 'hurt' down.

The following morning as I was nursing him, he stuck his little hand in my mouth. Oooo, I just love to nibble those cute baby shrimp fingers! I bit down really, really lightly on the tip of his finger. He immediately pulled his hand away and brought the other one around in front of him and signed 'hurt'. I doubted that I could have really hurt him, but who knows, maybe babies are more sensitive to pain than we are. 'I'm sorry, Babydoll, but your little baby shrimps are just too cute to resist! I didn't mean to hurt you. Mummy's sorry'.
He brought his fingers up to my mouth again. Try as I might to hold back, I was compelled to nibble. Just a teeny tiny bit. I barely even touched my teeth to his fingertip.

Oh! 'Hurt', he signed again.

Now, I knew that couldn't possibly hurt. 'Peaches, that didn't hurt' I said, smiling. He put his hand back up to my mouth again, apparently going back for more, but this time I didn't even nibble, I just let him put his finger in my mouth. As soon as he had touched my bottom teeth with his fingertip, he yanked his hand away and signed 'hurt'.

'Hurt? Gunner, that didn't hurt!' I said and then I noticed his impish smile. 'That doesn't hurt. You're full if it!' He smiled with my nipple still in his mouth, stuck his finger in my mouth one more time and again signed 'hurt' but by now he was having trouble staying on my breast because he was giggling. I started laughing, too. 'You full of it!!! That's doesn't hurt! You're just full of it, aren't you!' He seemed to perceive that I was calling him on his con and apparently he found that hilarious. I was just amazed that a 13-month-old could have a sense of humor like that. Lately, he seems to have so many more dimensions to his personality and I keep discovering new things about him every day. It's just awesome.

Assorted Updates

Gunner is finally starting to walk. He can take a few steps by himself and is now willing to walk a bit while I hold his hands. Up until now, if I tried to do that, he would just sink to his knees, but all of a sudden he's into it.

After a veritable signing explosion, Gunner has now kind of put the brakes on and gone back to just signing some of the old standbys plus a few new favorites including truck, car,   bicycle, motorcycle(which he got the hand of today at the Nascar display on Crescent) and hurt. All day long, everywhere he goes he signs bicycle, motorcycle, and truck/car. That's the new big thing right now. Sometimes he will still do a bunch of other signs on cue when I show him a picture book, but a lot of the time he just keeps signing bicycle while I show him pictures of other things. I think it's his way of telling me he wants to see the bike.

Also, I think he may have misunderstood 'bath' to mean 'kid'. I used the sign 'bath' for the picture of a girl wrapped in a towel, explaining that she had just had a bath. Gunner now does that sign when he sees other kids in the book. I'm sure he will get it straight after a while, and it would probably be a good idea for me to learn the sign for 'towel' to avoid further confusion, but for now every kid in a book is a bath. At least I'll know what he means when he signs 'bath' the next time he meets a little boy. Let's hope the boy doesn't know signs and think Gunner is telling him, 'You need a bath, Buddy'.

He did one more thing today that amazed me: he stacked mega blocks, fitting the bumps into the grooves and pressing them together just like he is supposed to. Having had next to no experience with 13-month-olds up until now, I have no idea whether this is typical, but it seems to me that this is pretty smart for a kid his age. The baby book lists 'building a towe of (x) cubes' as a skill that is acquired later on in the first year, but I don't know if that would include Mega blocks. It seems pretty clever to me. I don't want to be one of those mothers that is always bragging about how smart their kid is, but I am secretly starting to think that Gunner is brighter than average at the very least.

It's been a long time since I've written an update. Gunner is all over the place. I'm working. I can hardly keep my apartment clean and get a decent night of sleep, nevermind write on the Net.

Super Signer

The signing is going very well. He can do about 17 or 18 signs, maybe more. He does some of them more often than others. Here is a list:
more, eat, water, milk, bottle, bread, cheese, ice cream, berry (her tries), banana
dog, lion (possibly other animal, too, it's a made-up sign: he pats his fists at his ears to show the animal's ears), elephant (makes trumpeting sound and signs the trunk)
car/bus/truck, bicycle
hat (also used for umbrella), shoes
book, brush, flower (sniffs his nose, sometimes makes sign), light, rain, bath
potty (for poop)
all done, hurt
daddy

Ok, I just counted 26. Pretty amazing. Everyone is impressed. He has also done the sign for 'Oma' a couple of times, and has also atempted 'boy', though it's not all that clear. Suffice to say all my hard work finally paid off.

As for the EC, it was going pretty well until I started sending him off to Arron's place in the mornings at 6:30 so I could get a bit more sleep, and also started leaving him at daycare temporarily. Since he spends a lot less time with me, he's doing a lot less EC, but it's not a big deal as long as I keep it up at least part-time.

Daycare Dillemmas

Speaking of daycare, I really hate having to leave him there. I kept him with me twice last week and already once this week and it's only Monday. I started to feel desperate about finding somewhere to put him because it was getting so hard to do my work and to get anything done in my personal life. I found a place for him for 5 weeks but I feel bad about  that because it will create a lot of instability in his life since it is only short-term. Last time, he started shaking his head 'no' and saying 'nay nay' when we approached the building and I could hear him wailing behind the door as I walked away down the hallway. When I picked him up, he was looking desperate and signing 'milk' frantically. I put him in the carrier and nursed him , and he fell asleep against my chest on the walk home. I missed him so much during the day that I started bringing him into my bed at night. It's really hard. On the other hand, when he's away I get an awful lot more done, including studying for my driver's ed course which I have to complete before my contract runs out in January.

Still An Angel Straight From Heaven

In terms of other milestones, today he took several steps on his own. He had a pot in each hand and I guess crawling was out of the question, so he just walked across the balcony. He did take a couple of steps out there the week before, but the rest of the time he has just been crawling like the pro that he is. He also climbs everywhere: right up onto the coffee table, the couch, even the window sill.

He is starting to imitate things I do. He had been really good with the plants until I made the mistake of letting him watch me groom them of dead leaves the other day, and now he thinks it's a good thing to pull the leaves off them. Next time I do something I don't want him to do, I'll make sure to do it when he's not watching. I don't know how I'm going to re-train him to be gentle with them like he was before.

He has an amazingly easy-going, sunny disposition and continues to be exceptionally extroverted, interactive and friendly. I call him my happy bunny. He has learned to say 'hi' and says it to everyone and everything now. Yesterday, he said it to the pots under the counter.

Full-On Fatherhood

Arron takes him in the mornings fairly often now and so far has been taking good care of him at his place. Gunner even spent his first night at Daddy's last weekend when I went out clubbing with my new cousins whom I met the weekend before at my brother's wedding. Arron is thrilled that he is capable of taking care of his son in every respect just as well as I am (except for the breastfeeding, of course). He dresses him, changes him, bathes him in the sink,  and even takes him out on his lap with a seat belt. I get a little ervous when Gunner is with Arron but I try to remind my self that he is his father and I am just going to have to trust him to take care of his son and not run out into traffic with him or let him choke on a piece of dogfood. I seriously hope that Arron and I can share the parenting and somehow avoid having to put Gunner in daycare for the time being. Arron says he never knew taking care of a baby could be so easy, and we are so thankful  it has turned out that way for us. He has been like that since birth: easy, easy, easy. Except maybe for the hyperactivity, which I can deal with. He is hard to upset, easy to soothe, smiles easily, laughs easily, and seems to have a lot of patience.

The Big Move

I finally started putting Gunner to sleep in the crib a week ago. He had been sleeping in my bed with me since I was born and everyone had been telling me that I was setting myself up for serious problem, that I wouldn't be able to get him to sleep in the crib if I did that. At 11 months, he was starting to be a nuisance in my bed, moving all over the place, thrashing around, kicking me in the face, and I started to think that maybe it was time to switch him to the crib for the night. A friend told me about what a pain it was to get his 2-year-old to start sleeping in her crib: she would just climb back out, over and over again, freaking out and screaming, and the transfer meant a good 2 weeks of sleepless nights for the entire family. This made me think I had better do it soon, before he can climb out of his crib, so that night I got him ready for bed, nursed him, and then deposited him in the crib drowsy but awake, in accordance with all the recommendations. He did fuss a bit and it took about 20 minutes to get him to go to sleep, but it really wasn't that hard. I turned on the mobile and he started to settle down, his eyes going half-mast as he listened to the sound of crashing waves and watched the fish go round and round. Eventually, after a little more patting and a bit of a bottle, he crashed out and slept soundly through the night, waking only once for a feeding at 4:00 am. Since then, he has been sleepin in it every night and taking his naps in it, too. I was amazed at how easily and smoothly he made the transition to he crib. I thought it would be a lot more trouble than it turned out to be. After that first night, he went to sleep in it pretty promptly after his bedtime nursing. I sleep more deeply without him in the bed with me, although I go back and check on him several times like a real neurotic before I settle down for the night. I think our co-sleeping experience was great and we both enjoyed it a lot, and now was the perfect time to put an end to it, and we both had a remarkaby easy time of it.