Jolly updates

Things about Jolly:

- He seems to have the tall torso, short leg thing going on. He's outgrown torsos way before legs on his sleepers, and a lot of overalls and other clothing (from multiple brands, from multiple continents). We're noticing it a lot as he pulls himself to stand on things, too. This is pretty hilarious because it's definitely a very noticable personal biometric thing... for me. I've always struggled with finding shirts long enough, much more so than pants.

- He's still super excited about wet washcloths, and sucks on them very happily when we're mopping him up after mealtimes. His latest thing is crawling around the house with toys in his mouth, and it's somehow even funnier when it's a washcloth that's dragging on the floor, because it's like we're engaging him to wash our floors for us.

- Eating is going splendidly. We recently established that he does not have a peanut allergy, so now he's at the point where he can eat everything that we're eating, except for things that he can't yet spoon feed himself (spoon feeding by us is still a big no). He did make an exception for my oatmeal the other day, but that only worked because it was clinging tenaciously to the spoon while he manipulated it around with me holding it on to the end. We recently established that he likes pickles and olives, which is awesome, because now I finally have someone to share a jar of olives with. (Ephiny can't stand them and generally looks with fascinated horror as I devour olives... but now, with even greater horror as many olives disappear into our delighted baby.) Other things that are currently a big hit are raisins (usually the ones cooked in my oatmeal in the morning) and really just about EVERYTHING. At the last faculty meeting, he was totally kept entranced by food for a good 75 minutes -- most especially the apple I had packed for myself, intending to bite off a big chunk for Jolly, but he started gnawing away at it with an enthusiasm that apple pieces have never merited before. Since then, he gets a whole apple, which we take turns with. He's so determined to eat the apple even though it is literally the size of his head - pretty funny. The only thing he hasn't really figured out how to eat yet are leafy greens like salads because he doesn't have the grinding teeth.

- I discovered that the solution to a cranky baby is nearly always to feed him some food. So we've sort of established a rhythm of eating multiple smaller meals, with which I offer a bottle of milk, but the milk intake is down to about 8 oz during the day... when it used to be about 3 times that. So, I think weaning is sort of well underway without us really having intended to initiate it. Ephiny will take him to his 1 year appointment at the pediatrician to talk about weaning explicitly, but we definitely are agreeable to tapering off the breastmilk at the pace at which our child is setting. I think the way to get him to remain interested in milk with meals is probably to switch to a cup, since cups are way more interesting than bottles these days.

- Jolly is just a delight these days. He's such an active, energetic, happy baby. He's definitely starting to have very firm opinions about things and is throwing what could reasonably be called tantrums when things don't go quite the way he intended. Distraction works very well, though less and less successful when it comes to hiding things from him since now he remembers where they are!

-He best likes tearing across the house at top speed while shouting "aahahahahahaha" kind of like a baby battle cry. Chasing and being chased is thus really, really entertaining, as is being thrown about and twirling and dancing. He is still enjoying books best out of all the toys, and likes leafing through them at a very brisk pace. But he also really enjoys the puzzle that I had as a kid -- not in the puzzle capacity, but because the pieces have wooden knobs which he can grip in his teeth and then crawl off with.

- Yesterday at a playdate he made the first attempt at standing without holding on to something. It wasn't successful yet, but I think we'll get there soon!

- If you asked Jolly what skill he wants to develop next, though, I think the answer would pretty clearly be climbing... he's really trying hard to get up on the sofa, and when he gets picked up, slithers down off our laps and then tries to climb up on his own again. Since that kid has NO FEAR whatsoever, I think we are happy to wait with the climbing and the couch-diving that will certainly follow.