Dax's Journal

Trying to keep up

Whew! I've been meaning to update here for awhile. I don't know where the time went.

Ok, so lots has been going on here. Last week Dax's Nanna was visiting. We had a great time and it went by way too fast. (A personal note to my mom: Thank you for making Dax the Best Dressed Baby in daycare and thanks for cleaning my kitchen!)

Here's a picture of Dax and his Nanna at the beach. Doesn't it look like a lovely day? Yeah, well. Not so much. The wind was blowing so hard that we all got a free microdermabrasion treatment. Even though we could have built a sandcastle in Dax's tear ducts, he handled it like a champ. Needless to say, we weren't there long. But I still have some awesome pictures.

In other news, Dax is 9 months old today. He continues to drag himself about the floor all herkey-jerkey much to our amusement. Every once in awhile he'll crawl in the traditional manner for a very short distance but he definitely prefers his own creative method.

He's still very mellow but he's definitely letting us know what he likes and what he doesn't. Fortunately for his dad and I, we seem to be understanding each other very well. Life is definitely getting more interesting. When I feed him I need to have several spoons on hand because he likes to snatch them away from me and throw them on the floor. Sometimes it takes two of us to change a diaper or to get him dressed. Tonight when I was giving him his bath he refused to sit. Not just to sit still. To sit at all.

I love watching him discover new things. He's constantly learning and it amazes me. Every day he does something new or makes a new sound or finds a new way to express himself. I know that I use a lot of superlatives when I write about Dax but that's because, when I think of him, my head is filled with words like amazing, wonderful, and miraculous.

He's moving at warp speed and I'm just trying to keep up.

Bugs and Children

Daycare uses the "Buggy" in the morning when the person assigned to the Infant Room hasn't arrived for work yet. They also use it when they transport the kids for their daily "Outside Time".

It's funny watching the kids look around, peeking in the rooms, as their teachers push them down the hallway. It's their little tour bus.

Fast track

This weekend at my friend Caren's baby shower, Dax created his very own method of transportation. It's not really crawling. And it's not really army man style. It's more a sort of lurching, pulling action that makes him look sort of like he's doing the side stroke across the floor.

Tonight I was watching him side stroke about when he pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, rocked back and forth a bit, and then pushed himself into a sitting position. Yet another first. He was beyond pleased with himself.

But he wasn't done yet. He then proceeded to impress me with some baby yoga by assuming the Plank Pose.

And while part of me is thrilled to see him developing new skills? Another part of me is utterly freaked out by how quickly this is all happening. Does anyone know where the pause button is on a baby?

Sure, it's cute now....

The good news is that I did not allow him to get a tattoo of a heart with the word "mom" in the middle to honor my first mother's day.

Maybe

Dax seems to be considering crawling. Maybe. Actually, it is more like he is thinking that maybe someday he might consider the possibility of attempting to crawl.

His primary method of getting around (such as it is) involves rolling. He also spins in circles on his tummy like a tiny breakdancer. Sometimes he does a funky little butt-bounce. None of these methods have proven to be very effective so he seems to be experimenting a bit.

Lately he's been pulling one knee up underneath himself and leaving the other leg curled around in front. He looks like he's about to do the splits.

Tonight he managed to get both knees up underneath himself and he rocked back and forth a bit. I managed to get this picture right before he decided that being up on all fours was a committment he was not ready to make.

He still hasn't cut any teeth but his drooling has definitely increased. I don't know if that's a sign that he may be about to cut teeth or if it is just a side effect of his new love of the Bronx Cheer.

8 months

Dax turned eight months old yesterday. To celebrate, we spent the day with my friends Robin and Janice. Of course, there was cake. Dax didn't get any of it...but still, there was cake.

To be honest, the cake wasn't really for Dax. It was for me. See, Robin makes THE BEST EVER cake. And I didn't get cake for my birthday or for my baby shower because I had that oh-so-fun gestational diabetes. So, yeah. Cake. For me. And I more than made up for my birthday, my baby shower, and about four future birthdays. I'm telling you, the girl makes a mean cake.

But enough about me. This is about Dax, after all. Can you believe he is 8 months old? I know that I say that all the time. Or some variation of it, anyway. I'm constantly baffled by how quickly time passes, by how much he's grown, by how much he can change in the span of just one day.

Have you noticed that I haven't used the word "sick" in this entry? I don't want to jinx anything but....I haven't had to use that word in reference to Dax for awhile. In fact, he's the healthiest one in the house right now.

He continues to charm us and anyone in the general vicinity during every waking moment. The other day I was stopped at a stoplight when I noticed movement off to the right. I looked over and found the occupants of a minivan waving and clapping and smiling and laughing. They were playing with Dax.

The most amusing part of this story is that, as they pulled away in their Town and Country minivan, I noticed that they had Iron Maiden and Metallica stickers all over their back window.