Turning the page

This last week Evan has been building some new skills.  For one, he loves to turn the page when we read him books (and he just seems to be very drawn to books lately too, always crawling to them).  I only let him do this for board books, though, after we had a paper cut incident a few months ago with a regular book.  He has gotten very good at this skill, and I think may be looking more forward to doing that than listening to the story sometimes.  But I say sometimes because he has also grown to have much more of an attention span to listen to the story, at least for some books.  It also probably depends how distracted he is by other sounds and toys at the time too.  Before bedtime and naptime he is pretty attentive to the stories.  In addition to his favorites that I've mentioned before, he also is enjoying Counting Kisses more these days (a book we got him for Christmas) and "Where is Spot?", which is a lift the flap book given to him for Christmas by my friend Sarah.  He is starting to really enjoy waiting to see what is under each flap and I think will soon want to lift the flaps.  However, I'm afraid if I let him do that at this stage he'll end up ripping all the flaps off.  He's not very graceful yet.

Speaking of his lack of grace, Evan shakes his head yes now on occasion, but he nearly rocks his whole body forward and back while doing it and usually loses his balance in doing so!  And I am more and more worried about his interactions with the cat lately.  He makes a bee-line for Roxie every time she's in the room (or even in the next room), and if he reaches out for her it's probably to grasp (and pull) her fur or smack her.  He just doesn't know how to be gentle yet.  I am learning that as well, as he's really started pulling on my earrings and necklaces again, so I have to be very careful around him when wearing such accessories.  I don't want to end up with a earring hole ripped out (seems to have come close to that last night!).

We gave Evan a few new (well, actually used) toys this past week.  I went to a neighborhood garage sale a few weeks ago and stocked up on toys for his new play room, and decided to give him a few now.  One is a Vtech Rhyme and Discover book, that plays music and reads some nursery rhymes, and the other is a Fisher Price Baby First Words mobile phone that plays sounds and lights up.  Both are older models of said toys, but they both still work.  I got the book hoping he could play with it and turns its pages without destroying the book (as he's already bend his Playful Puppies board book cover in half on accident), but its pages are kind of hard to turn.  He still loves it though, since it plays music and lights up.  The downside to the phone is that it's quite large for him still (thus probably modeled after an original cell phone? haha), but he pushes it around and manages to play with it.  I was hoping the phone would appease his desire for our remote controls, since it looks similar.  Alas, I think he knows what the real thing is still.

He was also given a new gift from one of John's colleagues at work: a pair of baby sunglasses.  Babiators, to be specific.  They are adorable, although Evan doesn't leave them on for very long at a time.

He's been taking his naps in his crib now for the past week, and it's going alright.  He goes down usually without a fuss for his morning nap, but the afternoon one always takes a bit more finesse on our part to help him calm down.  He is not napping well in a crib at daycare yet, though, so he often still gets put in his rocker chair there to avoid having his cries and screams of protest wake the other kids.  Hopefully he'll be able to transition his nap space there too, but it may just take more time.

I am not sure if this is related to him now napping in his crib or the fact that I stopped nursing him during overnight wake ups, but I am so happy to report that Evan is now truly sleeping through the night!  For the entire past week (since his 9-month birthday in fact) he has gone to sleep by 8pm (easily without fuss as always) and then he doesn't wake until somewhere between 5:30-6:30am!   Who knows how long this will last, but we are sure enjoying it while we can!  Sometimes Evan tosses and turns and moans while doing so, but it doesn't last long enough that we feel warrants our intervention.  A few mornings ago, he was rolling about and fussing a bit so we thought he was awake.  It was after 6am and John and I were already up getting ready so I went to get him from his room for his morning nursing.  However, when I entered the room, he lifted his head (he was on his tummy) and turned toward me with eyes so squinty you'd have thought he was staring into the sun.  His expression was so confused, and it was clear to me that he hadn't truly woken up yet...until I opened his door.  Thus, I think we're going to try to give him a bit more time to fully wake up in the mornings when possible.

As Evan starts to explore new rooms in the house and gives us the gift of more sleep overnight, we are definitely turning a page in this chapter of his life.  In fact, Evan is eagerly waiting for me to let him turn to the next page.