Anselm Ioan turns fifteen months today.
A year ago this month, he was finally starting to sleep longer stretches at night–up to nine hours, I think–until summer traveling threw him for a loop and he reverted to every 3-4 hours. And napping for 45 minutes at a time.
Now he sleeps 12 hours at night, and takes two two-hour naps a day. He’s the first child to still be taking two naps consistently at this age. Thank goodness! Although I’m looking forward to the days where we can be out all morning without being concerned with missing naps, it is nice to continue in our months-old routine for just a little longer.
He’s a funny little guy. Our bedtime routine consists of a change, a book (Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? is his FAVORITE right now. He watches intently while I read, quietly popping in his thumb near the end of the book, and quietly murmuring “zhe enn” after I declare it “The End” and offer the book for his perusal. He flips back and forth between a few pages before tossing the book to the ground (unless I catch it on the way down.) Then he leans against me, cuddling his “my” and sucking his thumb, before I lay him down in the crib. Once there he immediately kicks himself in a circle and protests. By the time I am out the door, he’s over his complaining and quieting down to sleep. It’s almost like he just has to throw that in there.
This month he added another form of mobility to his repertoire: The Bum-Scoot. It has changed the way he sees the world. I have no idea how I have ended up with two very unorthodox movers (crawling? what’s that?) but Bum-Scooter #1 has turned out OK, so I try not to be too frustrated by it. At the very least it’s cute, and at the most it means he’s much more content than he has been these past few months.
Along with this mobility, he has encountered the truth that not all things are available to his touch. Through these encounters, I have learned that he is more strong-willed than Ephraim but not as stubborn as Clive. Thank goodness.
Another jump forward this month was his relationship with Clive. Clive was nineteen months old when Anselm was born, and was not too terribly concerned with The Baby except to find out what happened when he poked The Baby in the eyes. While he’s never been totally disinterested, because of his age Clive wasn’t as fond as Anselm as Ephraim was, and has been, since his birth. But now that Clive is nearing three, he’s taken a special interest in his baby brother, wanting to be with him, to make him laugh, to tickle him, to show him things. It means that Anselm now has two very adoring Big Brothers, and a major highlight of our day is first thing in the mornings when I get Anselm up first and bring him into the boys’ room to get them up. There is much joy and excitement on the part of all three boys when they are all together again for the first time that day.
He is keeping up his noodly-loopy-squealy-sounds, but now punctuates them with a growl.
He can say everyone’s names, but ONLY when he’s in the mood. He is a lot like Clive in his perfectionist refusal to speak until he is either perfectly capable of saying the word he has in mind, or at least until he is feeling congenial enough to talk to you. He has started a gravely-growly self-narrative, though, which he brings out when he’s playing alone or is just not aware he’s being watched.
He himself is endlessly observant, as if the whole house atmosphere is endlessly intriguing and worthy of very close inspection; he will spend an hour or more scooting quietly from room to room, looking at this or that. He watches his brothers very closely, and is eager to be entertained by them and entertain them in turn. On the whole, he has the air of someone who knows very well that he is The Baby Of The Family: that his snaggletooth grin is dangerously disarming; that Mama melts when he sucks his thumb (that little finger on the nose!); that The Cat finds him irresistible; that his brothers think he is the best baby brother anyone could ask for.
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