Up and down

This weekend was filled with more pale stools and thus more mild terror and more milestones, so a roller-coaster of happy and worried, which has been kind of par for the course, actually. (And because English is not the same as German, rollercoaster as I kept typing it, is not a word. The spellcheck helpfully suggests cholesterol. No. Not what I meant! Really!)

The happier milestones:

• RJ was batting at a toy and grabbing on to it for the first time on Saturday, and then repeated. We were given a "playgym" of a wooden nature that's really more of a tripod, and in light of this newfound appreciation of dangly toys, I assembled it. I am skeptical about its huge floorplan and think that clipping things to the side of the crib or hanging from a clothesline might be more my speed, but I'm willing to give it go.
  
• He's been standing a lot and planting his chunky little legs like a gymnast sticking a landing, and looking about as pleased with himself while doing so. If he's crabby about something, moving him into the standing position usually brings an instant smile. STANDING.
  
• He's also getting increasingly interactive with other people, including his big brother, with lots of smiling.
  
• The downside to that is that suddenly feeding him outside of the house is an epic battle because the world is Just. So. Interesting. He'll get hungry but just whip off at five second intervals and then get mad that he's not eating AND looking around. Well, kiddo, if you agreed to take a bottle, then you could do both. Tough.
  
• Bottle taking has not been going so well. He prefers to gnaw on the nipple. Happily, he does not do this to me.
  
• He's also showing a huge interest in gnawing on his hands and drooling up a storm. The drool is just a part of normal development at this age, and not necessarily correlated to teething, but he does like having his gums rubbed and chewing on things. Really, he'd like to eat our food. He's staring it down and thrashing at it with increasing determination.
  
• In fact, face massage is a big favorite, even though it's probably not a sign of itching.
  

We had our first post-snowstorm (and post-icestorm) trip out of the house, and it was very very exciting to wrangle both boys on the final trip of the ferry being retired from service. (We did not get featured in the article, though we were interviewed.) We combined the joyride with a shopping trip to our favorite warehouse store, where both both did fabulously, and Ephiny got the house cleaned while we were out. I'd gone a bit stir-crazy from being confined to the house by a lack of road-plowing. I still feel a bit bad about taking RJ out of the house right now given that he's still susceptible to whooping cough and people on island are not vaccinating at record-high rates, so I try to limit the exposure to kid-based events, but I figure mainland shopping is probably okay, especially if he's tucked away without people touching him or coughing on him directly. It's a fine line between safeguarding his physical health and safeguarding my mental health.