The New Dad Blog

Jump, Jump, Jump

Yesterday we tested out Jude's tricycle outside, he enjoyed taking it for a spin. In fact we have a very cute video here of Jude "riding" his tricycle. His feet can't reach the pedals but he enjoyed just moving around on it. James and Amy, our neighbors, brought Max's tricycle out and we had a little kid tricycling derby going out the front there for a while.

Jude's understanding of language is getting noticeably better. In the video above when we said "jump, jump, jump" he knew to jump up and down. Now, when we say "up" to pick him up he lifts up his arms. When Marcy says "where's daddy?" he looks around for me. We also play this funny game where we "attack" Jude with kisses and one of us says "I'm going to get Jude" and he laughs right away knowing he is about to be smothered in kisses. There is probably a lot more that he is understanding that we aren't aware of yet.

With Marcy on a 5-day Ridhwan class I got to take care of Jude a lot this week. I fed him a lot, put him to bed and played him more than I have done in a while. We even had an outing to the museum. Jude and I went to the Denver Children's Museum where they have all kinds of exhibits for children. He is a little young to enjoy everything but they had a crawling area made just for kids his age and he liked exploring the area. Here he is leaning against the soft kid-friendly wall.

One thing we have been meaning to mention that Jude has been doing for a while is that he has this funny habit of checking everything out with his index finger. He will be crawling along the floor and he will see something of interest and out comes the index finger to feel it out.

Lastly, after nine and half months we have signs of Jude's first tooth. He woke up screaming this morning at 4am, and we think it was the pain caused by this tooth. You can feel the roughness on his lower gum and even see the outline of a tooth under his skin. So we expect any day now to have that tooth poke through. Hopefully it will be as painless as possible (for everyone!).

New Modes of Transportation

This afternoon we had a gathering in the park with our neighbors. As you can see here Jude enjoyed taking a ride with Max in the wagon. The park is about 300 yards away and they have an amazing garden there this time of year. We did the same thing this time last year when Marcy was pregnant - what a difference a year makes.

Jude continues to expand his palate, and he is getting better at taking food and also even serving himself sometimes. We give him a variety of fruits and vegetables now as well as yogurt and the rice cereal we first tried with him three months ago (now supplemented with wheat germ).

Marcy also discovered a way to make our lives easier when Jude is crawling all over the place in our kitchen and living area. We have our cat food out and Jude had a bad habit of making a bee-line for it and trying to put the food in his mouth. Now, Marcy put our bar stools in front of the cat food - the cats can get to it just fine and Jude hasn't worked a way around it ... yet. Little things like this make our lives so much easier during the day.

Grandma Connie bought Jude this cute little tricycle that Marcy assembled this week. It was a big hit. Even though his feet can't reach the pedals he enjoys us pushing him around in it (courtesy of the big yellow handle you can see). This tricycle will grow with Jude - when his feet can reach the pedals we can take the handle off and we can also take the little restraint out so can get on and off himself. This little toy we expect will give him years of enjoyment.

The other development this week is that Jude is getting more sturdy on his feet. For the first time today he was standing up on with his hands on the couch and he scooted over to put his hands on the coffee table, demonstrating to us that he is getting more comfortable on his feet. He loves standing up, he does it dozens of times every day, but we think he is still a couple of months at least before he starts walking.