MonkeyMel: 8 Months and First Day of Preschool

Eliot for comparison now...goofball

What a happy baby!

So Malcolm is a mover and a shaker and a busy, busy guy now. His hands are always busy doing something, and if you put him on the floor in a room full of toys he will amuse himself for hours. Literally. He can crawl, get from a sitting position to a crawl, and get from the floor into a seated position. He's everywhere. He loves the dogs water bowl, so now Daly is horribly dehydrated half the time. He loves Daly and Eliot too. He also has a little temper. If there's something he wants and he's not getting it he makes this little angry noise. It's pretty cute actually. His chattering has switched from mamas to dadas. Of course. He's almost never crying, so content, as long as his hands are busy. He's a huge fan of baths too. You know what he's not crazy about? Food. Huh. He's definitely not his brother!

I think I've been talking about Eliot starting preschool for almost 6 months now. And he finally did it, he's finally in school. It's been a little traumatic for me. It's a lot, this new schedule, for him too. He seems to be enjoying it though, it wears him out a ton and makes him really hungry. He's also not one to chatter on about what happens - so I just get snippets of what may have happened. They talked about germs. He rode on a tractor. They made handprints. His teacher's dog is silly and eats balls. The first day of orientation I was holding his hand through the parking lot. When we got to the sidewalk he said, "You don't need to hold my hand any more, mama." Oh buddy, I know. Damn this growing up thing is breaking my heart. And he's still a baby! You forget about the letting go part. I get so wrapped up in the day to day baby-rearing that I forget they'll grow up and leave and I won't see them much and I'll need to fill all this time with my own wants and needs. I look forward to it and I'm so sad at the same time.

We pulled back on potty training Eliot. We had him in underwear for about a month and he was doing pretty good I guess. Or we thought. But he had never once told us he had to go to the bathroom. We had to beg and cajole him in there every hour and he would go, and keep his pants dry until the next time we begged and cajoled. If we were late in getting him there he would just pee his pants. If he had to poop he would just poop his pants. And finally he was sitting there with his head in his hands and feeling so sad he hadn't kept himself dry and I just called it off. We're going to wait a month and try again. So back to diapers and he could care less. I wish he cared a little more but Eliot is not one to like change. He's my son after all...