December 14th, 2010 by Busy Mommy
On mimicing:Â Ben has noticed this more than me, but he is starting to imitate us in ways we wouldn’t have thought.
When I sit him on my lap at the computer he likes to daintily tap and shake his fingers on the keyboard, which I know he wouldn’t do if he hadn’t paid attention to us typing- he would have been banging on it if he were just playing. He loves to press the buttons on cell phones (big surprise for child of the 21st century).
This other quick story of imitation has to be prefaced a little. Ben has a music desk/area that has 2 keyboards, one slightly above the other, a computer screen, computer keyboard and mouse. When Ben is doing music his fingers move back and forth among all these devices as he uses his music recording program. And just tonight while Ben was holding Nolan in front of him at his music area, letting him play the keyboard pianos, Nolan was doing the same thing! He’d play one keyboard, then move his hands to the other one, then touch the computer mouse, then press some buttons on the typing keyboard, then play the piano keyboard again. Very funny. It’s so weird how you just have no idea how much they’re observing and absorbing at any given moment.
Another funny example is when I was giving Ben some massage since his back was hurting. Nolan was watching and then he’d come over and kind of press his hands on his daddy too. That was this summer. It was pretty cute.
December 14th, 2010 by Busy Mommy
On food: He currently loves blueberries. He’s getting to be a good water drinker from his sippy cup, along with some occasional almond milk. He doesn’t drink juice. Well he would if I gave it to him. He gets a little treat once a week of half water/half juice at Grandmas which I’m sure he enjoys. A funny story about juice and sugar in general. When I babysat another little boy of 20 months who had a sipper cup of apple juice, Nolan managed to swipe it for a minute or two. When I saw him drinking the little boy’s juice I took it away and he literally fell apart! He sure loved that juice! Then another time I was eating some Trader Joes Rasberry Sorbet and Nolan kept whining to have some. I finally gave in and gave him a spoonful- then a few more spoonfuls. That was plenty of sugar so I didn’t give him anymore and he had a spastic crying fit over it. Sugar is very powerful. In fact I took a picture of Nolan after I gave the juice back to the little boy. This was back in October:
Rough life isn’t it?
He’s still totally allergic to cow and goat milk, but seems to be okay with cheese. Yogurt is iffy- a few bites is okay, but definitely not a whole serving. He loved the green beans I made the other night and Grammy states that he loved her Salmon and couldn’t get enough of it!
He also seems have a facial allergic reaction when he has oranges and strawberries at the moment. He doesn’t like the peel of anything. Can’t remember if I stated that for the record before. He likes to chew on fibrous things like leaves and keeps them hanging out in his mouth for hours at a time.
He is learning to use a spoon and fork and can often manage to get some food on the utensils and bring it to his mouth, but more often than not he just jabs at his food with them or picks some up and dumps it on his highchair tray. Of late he has been taking a piece of his Banana and squashing it with all his strength within one fist. He literally tenses up his whole arm muscle to squish it hard. I generally try to avoid this scenario and the following clean-up if at all possible. He also likes to shake his sippy cup upside down and let the water sprinkle out so he can swish the watery/bean/rice mixture that was once his meal around on the tray. The tray is free-rein for making a mess. The floor is not. My indulgence ends there.
I still nurse him, and he still loves to nurse, but he can easily go an entire 8 or 10 hour day without nursing and be fine. Today he was even with me and didn’t nurse for about 7 hours. So he is growing up and is plenty occupied.
Eating pomegranate like an apple. Interesting. 
