Oh Lolly, Lollipop

Gabe loves sweets. Can't imagine where he got that from! We probably indulge his sweet tooth more than we should, but at least we have trained him to know that he can only have such goodies after he eats all of his meal or on special occasions. Or when he "kwaprate wif us" as he would say. Or when we have in some other way bribed or coerced him into good behavior. Or when we make a trip to Target, Wal-Mart, or Publix where they give out free cookies. Or when he goes to his Mimi's house. Or to Gramps' house. Did I mention that we may indulge him a little too often? Anyway, as I say, he knows that he has to eat all of his meal before he can have his "buzzert". However, he makes it clear up front what it is that he wants as his treat by asking if that thing can watch him eat. For instance, if he wants to have a Kudos snack bar, he says, "I want Kudos watch me eat." This means we have to put the box of Kudos on the table close enough for him to reach so he can be sure that we will give him one as soon as he has swallowed the last bite off his plate. We also still have a revolving Halloween candy bag -- we just keep adding to it as he receives special candies for Christmas, birthday, Valentine's, etc. He calls this his "pumpkin candy". So, most of our meals are accompanied by the pumpkin bag sitting on the table.

Yesterday at lunch he wanted the pumpkin candy to watch him eat, and when he had finished his meal, he picked out a blue lollipop. After I cleaned up the dishes, I sat back down with a plum in my hand, and he wanted to know if that was my "buzzert". Once I saw the blue stickiness begin to drip off his chin, I got a baby wipe for him to clean up a little. He continued to eat the lollipop as I puttered around the kitchen. A few moments later, I heard him talking to himself or, apparently, to the lollipop. "I put dis cape on you wike Genral Gweebus." Now, if you aren't a Star Wars fan, this will mean zilch to you. Gabe, however, is a complete Star Wars nut. He has capes, helmets, action figures, multiple light sabres, Star Wars dinner ware, stickers, etc., ad nauseum. So, I look over at the table and realize that he has wrapped the baby wipe around the lollipop and is referring to it as one of the villains in Episode III, General Grievous. Then he begins shaking water out of his sippy cup and dragging the wipe through the water. I never ceased to be amazed at the things that amuse him.

On the Sam front, he has now officially slept through the night 3 nights in a row! HALLELUJAH! I think around 12 weeks or so we went through "baby boot camp" where I stopped feeding him at night and just let him cry it out. The doctor said it would take 3 nights of that hell for him to finally get with the program -- it took 8!!! Then after a few days he started waking up again around 4:00am. I could easily settle him with a pacifier, so that was no big deal...until he started waking up more frequently and I was getting up as many as 5 or 6 times a night to put the pacifier in his mouth. Well, I started really looking at his daytime routine and realized that I had been treating him like he was a toddler and not really respecting the fact that he needed more down time during the day. Now that I am making sure he has a reliable feeding and napping schedule during the day, he is sleeping great at night and even napping better. This has also improved his disposition. I don't think I would call him a difficult baby, but he is a little high maintenance. He likes attention and he loves to be held. Gabe was content to be left in his bassinet to watch his horse mobile. But Sam really loves to interact, and he is such a flirt. He has the most darling toothless grin I've ever seen and he flashes it quite generously. It takes me forever to get any errands done because people are constantly stopping to gawk at him and talk to him. He's begun to chatter quite a bit as well and loves to have conversations with us. I think he might have even been trying to sing with Gabe and me yesterday. He has also learned how to control the pacifier a little bit. He grabs it and take it in and out of his mouth. Before he figured that out, he would tick himself off by grabbing the paci and pulling it out of his mouth without realizing what he was doing. He still has a good bit of cradle cap, and it keeps jumping up on different spots on his head as well as other places on his body, like his neck and the insides of his knees and elbows. I'll definitely be glad when that phase is over.