A List of Soren Things I Don't Want to Forget

1. When he really wants something, he crows like a rooster. One of the things he always wants is someone else's food. It doesn't matter if he's just consumed a belly-stretching 5-course meal; if someone else is eating, he wants in on the action. Now.
2. He spends a lot of time smacking his gums together like a senile elderly living life sans dentures.
3. He clicks his tongue as though he were speaking an indigenous African language.
4. This morning, in the course of 2 minutes, he threw a pacifier in the toilet, unraveled the remainder of a roll of toilet paper, emptied a box of EmergenC packets, threw my glasses on the floor, and pulled a basket of toiletries off the bathroom counter, strewing its contents everywhere. All this was accomplished from the safety of his doorway jumper.
5. Speaking of "safe" places, Soren took a dive out of his high chair earlier this week, landing head-first on the hard kitchen floor. While I worry obsessively about possible brain damage that might result from this accident, his father merely chuckles to himself at the thought of Soren casually looking around, arms tucked against his sides, little body catapulting toward the floor.
6. He will go to ANYONE without crying. (But I think he likes me best.)
7. He alternatively practices speaking in a deep manly voice and a high squeaky voice.
8. At 11 months, he can turn on the stereo and change radio stations; he can climb a full flight of stairs without supervision (I thought he was playing in the closet!); he can say "Mama" and mean it; he can single-handedly set off the carbon monoxide detector.
9. While riding in the car, he will spend 20 minutes or more studiously examining, with furrowed brow, the novelette Good-Night, Baby, which is, according to him, a serious contribution to the cardboard literary canon.

I predict a broken bone before the age of 3.

My poor little noodle.

In just a matter of four days, he's managed to contract yet another bad cold, whack his eye against a cement block, and bloody his nose on the side of the bathtub. That child is an accident waiting to happen. He's all exuberance and no forethought.

Yesterday Abe, Soren, and I were driving up town and we looked back to see Soren sitting in his car seat, looking sadly over the cloth of his gray hoody into the cloudy scene passing by. A single tear (I kid you not) streamed across his bruised eye socket; snot trickled into his open mouth. He was staring bleakly out the window as though life no longer held any meaning for him. If anyone had noticed that little face peering though our Honda window, they probably would have called child protective services. Abe and I decided he looked like a hardened street kid who had recently been in a fight. Using a raspy manly voice, Abraham narrated Soren's thoughts: "It hasn't been an easy life, but I've gotten by. Never asked nobody for nothin'. Just made a living for myself with my own two hands, sometimes working, sometimes fighting. But I've done it alone. And I don't need nothing or nobody. I can get by just fine."

(I wish desperately that I'd gotten a picture. Soren's got such an expressive face. For illustration purposes I've taken a non-smiling picture of him and doctored it in an attempt to make him look as sad as he did yesterday. It doesn't even come close to capturing the sheer melancholy.)

A little Soren update:

Things my baby likes:

1. Sweet Potato Puffs.
2. Pulling hair.
3. Electronics: remote controls, telephones, stereos, baby monitors, alarm clocks, power cords, electrical outlets, et al. If it has something to do with electricity, he will spend lengthy periods of time examining and chewing on it.
4. Vegetables
5. Bathing. (This is how bathing goes with Soren: first he plays with the waterfall coming from the spigot. He'll poke it, run his hand through it, try to drink it. Then I'll lie him on his back and he'll flail his little limbs like a frog. Next he rolls over onto his belly and plays the "crawl forward/slide back" bathtub game until I get bored and take him out. Some soaping is involved.)
6. Being hung upside down by his legs.
7. Peter, Paul, and Mary
9. "The Grumpy Lady Bug" by Eric Carle
10. Kissing
11. Music -- especially piano music.

Things he doesn't like:

1. Loud voices, sneezing, coughing, and crying.
2. Being put in bed when he's not sleepy.
3. Having toys taken away.

Miscellaneous items of interest:

1. One night before bed I expressed some breastmilk and, feeling lazy, left it in its little pumping containers until the next night, when I expressed some more into the same container. I did this so I wouldn't explode in the night, not so that Soren wouldn't have to drive formula, which I don't mind him doing at all. So, since I wasn't worried about keeping the milk fresh or anything, I set the pumping containers next to the sink to be washed. Three days later, I went to work, leaving my son at home with his daddy, who discovered the containers still sitting next to the sink. "Hm," he thought. "She must have expressed this right before she left. I will feed it to my son." So he did. And Soren took it without complaint. He drank 8 ounces of very very sour breastmilk. We watched him carefully for the next twenty-four hours, but he didn't seem to have suffered any adverse affects. This child is not a picky eater.

2. Speaking of which, I recently fed Soren some ground-up Jambalaya, which he enjoyed more than a seven-month-old should.

2. Soren had his first real swing experience today at Pillsbury park. He seemed to enjoy it. His Auntie Loriann took pictures. Swinging alongside him was his betrothed darling, little Aubrey Kathleen Keddington, aged eight months. Pictures will soon be posted documenting this event.

3. Soren always sleeps on his left side. I put him in his crib, cover him with the blanket his Auntie Pam crocheted for him, and he immediately turns onto his left side and embraces the blankie like a friend.

Doing the Inchworm

Soren's developed his own style of crawling for the time being.

Sleeping Handsome

So. I have vascillated wildly on the cry-it-out issue. I've listened to Soren's doctor's lectures about how it's something I must do; I've read Dr. Sears' indictment of the whole idea. Some moms have told me that letting their baby cry it out was the best thing they did; other moms have said that it absolutely didn't work for them and was, in fact, a rather traumatizing event for the whole family. I finally decided to go with Elizabeth Pantley's gentle sleep-through-the-night program and began her regimen.

Then Soren had a night in which he awakened TEN times. Simply waking would have been OK, but the little guy was also crying his I'm-feeling-whiny-and-mad-not-hungry-or-in-pain cry. And I decided perhaps Dr. Baker was right. Maybe it was time Soren learned he isn't entitled to anything he wants anytime he wants it. I finally decided that it was time to let him cry it out. For reals this time.

And I braced myself for horror.

Thursday night we went through our usual bedtime routine. Then I put Soren in his crib, handed him his stuffed monkey, put a plug in his mouth, kissed him, and left. He cried. After five minutes I went in and patted him, gave him back his binky, readjusted his blanket, told him I loved him, and left. He cried for two more minutes and went to sleep. I fairly danced around the house. That was MUCH better than I'd been expecting. But I braced myself for the nighttime, expecting that perhaps horror would ensue then. And he did wake up a lot. But each time he'd cry for no more than five minutes and go back to sleep. It was a miracle! And that's how it's been ever since. He'll wake up once or twice in the night, cry for a minute or two, and then go right back to sleep. That I can deal with. My only complaint now is that his new morning wake-up time is 5 am.

Well, maybe that's not my only complaint. I do have another one. I actually miss getting up with my wee one at night. He was always so sweet and limp and heavy and warm. He would reach up with his sweet little hand and play with my hair while he nursed and we rocked. When he was done eating, he would cuddle against my shoulder and sigh so sweetly and I would smell his hair. I miss that. A lot. During the day he's just so much more active and playful. He doesn't have time for cuddles.

I guess there's just no making me happy. But, you know, I might get accustomed to this whole eight-hour block of sleep thing.

He'll probably cry 'imself to sleep on his 'uge pillo'.

Soren had his 6 month checkup today. He weighs 20 lbs, 12 ounces (90th percentile); measures 28 inches tall (95th percentile); and has a head so big (18 1/2 inches) it doesn't even have a percentile. He's perfectly healthy, though I did receive a rather stern lecture from the doctor about how I need to let him cry it out at night. (No, I haven't worked up the guts to do this yet, but I will. We've got Girls Camp this week, but after that, by gum, he's going to be sleep trained come heck or high water!)

Other news posts:

The case of the black squiggly diaper: solved.
On Sunday, Soren woke up with a very strange diaper indeed. Swimming in his usual slew of peanut-buttery substance were a herd of black squigglies. It looked like he had a serious worm problem. I saved the diaper. That morning over breakfast I asked Mom about it. She glared suspiciously at Soren's "Bert" doll and said, "Maybe he's been eating Bert's hair." When Abe got up, I made him take a look. "I don't think it's worms," he said. "But I'm not sure what it is." When my sister, Collette, came over for dinner that afternoon, I had her take a look. "Banana diaper," she declared authoritatively. I mentioned it to the doctor today and he agreed with her prognosis.

Many new purchases made by the Skousen family.
We've gone kind of hogwild crazy in the money spending arena lately. It started a few weeks ago when we ordered Soren a doorway jumper and a food grinder from Toys-R-Us. These both proved to be good investments. Soren's happily bouncing and squealing in his doorway jumper as I write this. The food grinder has made it possible for me to share all manner of grown-up food with him at meal times, something he finds most satisfying.

Then Abe and I went shopping on one of his days off and ended up purchasing an umbrella stroller (for occasions when we don't want to haul around the hulking travel system stroller) for Soren, a couple of shirts for Abe, and two pairs of shoes for me.

On Saturday I was connived into a garage sale-ing expedition with my sister, where I ended up acquired a few new toys for the little guy (3 good toys for a total of 45 cents); an 18-volume "Childcraft" set, which I've been wanting for years; a never-worn size 2T snowsuit for $1.00; and a complete potty training set (including unused potty chair and Potty Training Elmo doll) for $5.00. I also bought some shoes for $5.00, a purchase I have come to regret, as $5.00 now seems exorbitant to me for a pair of used shoes. But you know.

So anyway, I've been feeling rich in things and poor in money, so I'm going to try and take a bit of a purchasing sabbatical for a while.

Two women attacked by gigantic horseflies on Sunday stroll.
Collette and I have a weekly Sabbath-day tradition of taking what we refer to as a "Giggawalk," a three mile stroll in which we gossip, vent, chat, and otherwise share some giggles. This week we encountered an enormous herd of mean biting flies that cut our walk short. We must have looked very bizarre to anyone watching from afar: two grown women running several yards, arms flailing wildly around heads and bodies, who would periodically stop and take turns whacking each other's heads, backs, and legs, only to resume running again.

There were other things I was going to write about, namely, our Fourth of July celebration, but it was mostly unmemorable and I'm ready to go zonk out now. After all, it is nearly 7:30 pm.

Soren's first cookie.

My Uncle Dewey had a tragic event occur earlier this week: his remote control died. This was something that simply could not be tolerated, as Dewey's day centers around his visit from the girl who brings him his Meals on Wheels-- and whatever's showing on Turner Classic Movies. He showed up on my doorstep Monday looking forlorn and lost. "I know something better's on a hundred channels away, but it's too hard to get up and find out what it is," he told me. So on the way home from work yesterday, I stopped at Wal-Mart to find him a replacement.

Soren and I walked across the street to Dewey's house to set up the new remote, where we discovered there were no batteries to make it run. I told Dewey we would get some from home and return shortly, but Dewey, who recently held Soren for the first time, declared that "Bill" (he can't remember Soren's real name) was "too fat" for me to carry across the street and back. He said, "I'll hold him while you're gone." Soren and I visit frequently, and Soren feels fairly comfortable with this loud, bearded, smelly old man, and I decided it would be all right to leave him there for a minute. I plopped him on Dewey's lap, kissed him multiple times, promised I'd be back soon. I ran home and when I returned was relieved to find Soren happily reclining on Dewey's lap.

"Oh good," I said. "He's looking quite content."

"Bill likes cookies," Dewey replied.

I laughed.

Then I got nervous.

And, upon further inspection, I discovered that, surely enough, Soren was gnawing on a pink sugar wafer.

The cookie was taken away, Soren cried, and Dewey was chastised for irresponsible behavior.

"The cookie felt good on his gums," Dewey countered.

I couldn't really say much about that. He would know: he doesn't have teeth either.

I think Soren won't be spending much more alone time with his Great Uncle.

Our mini Michael Jordan

Are you seeing a resemblance here?