Baby steps give way to strides

This month it really hit home - Matteo's babyhood is quickly drawing to a close. Indeed the days have been long, but the months have been short, and as I look at his newborn pictures I am stunned that tiny wee man is the same smiley boy that can now do so much. Two more months are that's left before he's a toddler...so very bittersweet.

Seeing as I am feeling terribly nostalgic, I think it makes sense to give the run down of the leaps he has taken of late....

• First he figured out how to go from belly *back* to sitting, and then his army crawling evolved to slow, deliberate crawling with arms that shot forward almost in a salute...which by month's end evolved into a fairly coordinated, medium pace

• Early in the month he figured out how to pull himself onto his knees, and by the 11th he managed standing, which was both exciting and frustrating for him as once up, he couldn't figure out how to get back down. On the 23rd, though, he successfully crib-cruised 2/3 of the way around, which definitely made standing that much more rewarding. In reverse order, on the 25th he figured out how to put his bottom back down safely. As you can see in the picture, he was VERY pleased with himself and his new skills
• There have been a few times this past month that I've been genuinely shocked at what he seems to comprehend. Now I know all mamas think their children are brilliant, but it caught me off guard when I said "no Matteo" when he started to go into Paco's bowls and he actually lowered himself down and moved away. Likewise it seemed somewhat advanced to us that after undoing his car seat buckle, he now raises his arms to be lifted, and once (and admittedly it may have been coincidence) he moved his toy from one hand to another so I could continue dressing him. Of course one of his favorite past times is also banging pot lids, so I'm not totally delusional about his abilities - just impressed by the glimpses of (what I see as) greatness
• Food has continued to be a challenge and while he's gained almost a pound, he remains at the bottom of the percentiles and continues to be peckish some days, and a dynamo eater others. The days I pick him up from school and find he's eaten all his food I'm walking on air....the day he ate them all AND drank all his bottles it felt like Christmas morning...if he could do the latter every day I might explode. I have learned from my mistakes with Lily, though, and have made sure that when he does eat, he is exposed to a great variety of foods. At dinner we try to eat as a family and he gets whatever we are eating cut into tiny, toothless pieces. As a result he's eaten cheese pizza, fried polenta, pork tenderloin, every vegetable under the sun, steak, garbanzos, lentils, quinoa, smoked chicken ravioli...and more often than not he loves it! Adventurous eating and the need to make separate dinners will hopefully never be an issue with this one

And what about Miss Lily? Man I wish we had our own reality show with a camera crew to capture all the things she says. Her concept of time (this day/the next day/weekend/years/etc) is still WAY off, but she dearly loves telling "remember when" stories, especially of anything fun or funny that we shared. Perfect example is the strange picture posted here. It's from this horrible ballet book she dearly loves to read at night. The story is lame and the illustrations hideous, yet she more often than not insists on reading it at bedtime. And if there is only time for one story? Well, then she'll slip it inside another book, happily declaring "tricked ya!" when I discover it....and we'll read it yet again. Because she loves it so I've never pointed out its shortcomings, but one night Lily pointed to the protagonist and said "she looks like a little Grandma," which caused a giggle fit it took me a LONG time to recover from. As Lily dearly loves to make me laugh, she's said "remember the little grandma? That was SO FUNNY!" at least once a day since. She's all about the "inside joke."

But that's not the only funny thing she's said of late. She's also informed me that "if you go to Malificent's birthday party, she will feed you poisoned cheese and you will DIE" and shared that "do you know what dinosaurs died a long time ago? So they wouldn’t eat us and you wouldn’t die." Yes, I do see the theme here - but she's five and with that comes the awareness of life and death. At least thus far it isn't a scary thing, but a matter-of-fact one involving fairy tales and cheese.

The other recurrent theme is private parts. I appreciate that her school has a curriculum around respecting your body and keeping it safe...but that said, "nether regions" are now perhaps too common a topic. For example, she saw a picture of a dinosaur eating a long worm and declared "that’s his private area!! You know why he’s eating his booty? Because it’s soooooo delicious!" Thankfully she also has a sense of propriety, often declaring "well that's weird" if something seems off to her or "that's rude!" when things either don't go her way or someone is unkind. Now if I can just get her figure out social acceptability with her own words I'll really have it made.