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Oh man the trouble just keeps piling up deeper and deeper. Niko took his first wobbly unassisted steps today, going from hanging on the radiator to the couch, 2-3 wobbly steps, where his bear was chillin’. That bear is serious biznes, y’all.

Later he took 4-5 slightly more confident but still comical steps toward me as I held the phone out temptingly.

He will not walk to me if my hands are empty.

He loves me but not, you know, that much.

Dude has his priorities and they are “soft stuffed things,” then “remote controls and the telephone,” then “food,” then “mama.” Oh wait, put “tata” and “djedo” (”grandpa”) ahead of “mama” please.

There’s a lot of really vital stuff people who have or around little kids need to know. One of them is the mouth sweep. Little kids and babies like to put stuff in their mouths. Horrible stuff. Terrible stuff. Dangerous stuff. Weird stuff. Foil balls. Cellophane. Bits of cardboard/paper. Lint. Hibiscus leaves. This is dangerous, and you’re a horrible and neglectful parent for allowing tiny death to enter your child’s living area, let alone make it into their mouth. Someone should probably remove your baby from your care, along with any pets or plants you have, as you’re obviously unfit to care for anything.

Anyway, once your baby gets something into their mouth they aren’t supposed to have in there, it can be hard to get it back out. They clam up real good. And if they’re at that tricky age, they also have sharp teeth.

Here’s what you do.

Grab your baby and hold them on their back, on your lap. Tip their head back. Hopefully they’ll open their mouth on their own. If not, gently force it open. I know, it seems weird to use “gently” and “force” in the same sentence, but bear with me. Once the mouth is open, look for any foreign objects. If you see anything suspicious, use one of your fingers to sweep it out. Gently, quickly, and smoothly, sweep your finger from one side of the mouth to the other.

You should be able to snag that whatever-it-is easily, and be able to set your squirming wonder back on the floor for more playtime. Or pick them up by the thighs and hang them upside, walking around the house, raising and lowering them while saying “whoop! whoop! whoop! better not drop this baby!” Babies love this, especially if you do it in front of a mirror.

A good way of telling if a baby/small child has something in their mouth they aren’t supposed to have is that they get very quiet and walk around with their mouth firmly shut. Also, if you they’ve been out of sight for longer than thirty seconds. You might also notice that your child seems hungry, but rejects a bottle after an attempted suck– that’s because there’s something preventing easy swallowing.

Sometimes the mystery item is lodged on the roof of the mouth (hello, damp cardboard/paper) and can be slightly trickier to see and grab. But it’s not impossible.

Today, Niko figured out how sippy cups work… for the most part. He still has a problem tipping the cup up enough, and sometimes just sits there sucking on the spout getting nothing but air. But he figured out actually sucking on said spout, whereas before he was just pressing his tongue against it as though it were a nipple he could press against the roof of his mouth and get liquid out of.

The sippy cup’s main advantage over the bottle is that he can’t squeeze the bottle’s nipple and spray himself in the face with formula. Also, the sippy cups are plastic and not glass and can be thrown about without fear of breakage and glass shards.

In addition to learning how to use an almost big boy cup (a real big boy cup has no lid), he’s on a pretty good eating schedule. In the morning I make him cereal consisting of 2 tablespoons of powdered baby cereal (oats, barley, or “8 grain and yoghurt”), enough whole milk to make it a pleasing consistency, and then pureed fruit mixed in. Then he has 6-8 ounces of formula. After his first nap, he gets a meal in a jar (turkey and mixed veg, meat lasagna with veg, chicken and apples, country harvest grains and squash, whatever) and 6-8 ounces of formula. Dinner is a pureed fruit or veg, sometimes with oat or barley cereal stirred in, especially if it’s very thin, and then 6-8 ounces of formula. He sometimes has 2-4 more ounces of formula before bed.

If he doesn’t eat all of that (and cheerios throughout the day) he wakes up screaming and OMG STARVING!!!! at some point in the night. He settles back down again easily once fed, but still. Night wakings are frustrating.

He spends most of his day crawling around, standing and clapping, pulling things down, putting things inside other things, taking things out of things, and jamming non-balls in his ball popping toy. Oh, and trying to escape the terrible gulag that is the living room. You know. The room with the big soft rug and the toys and the stuff to explore and get into. If only he could escape through the baby gate, into the wondrous enchanted place that is “the hallway.” You know. The place with all the shoes to chew on.

QUESTION:
Parents who feed your kid foods with fish-sourced DHA added in:
Do you notice that your kid’s poop smells really fishy after they eat something with DHA that comes from fish? HAHA YES A QUESTION ABOUT POOP ODORS THIS IS THE EPITOME OF MOMMYBLOG POSTS.

A few weeks ago I had a ridiculously bad nosebleed that just went on and on for over an hour despite my best nose-pinching and leaning forward. I’m pretty sure it’s because of the incredibly dry air we’ve been having, so we picked up a humidifier for Niko’s room because I’m 30 and a nose bleed was hard on me. I can’t imagine sitting there pinching a 10 month old baby’s nose shut. That shit ain’t gonna fly.

Last night he woke up screaming, with a trickle of bloody snot coming out of his nose. 2 oz of formula calmed him down and he went right back to sleep. I’m glad we’ve been running the humidifier at night; I’ve started running it during his naps as well.

Speaking of formula, we use Enfamil. Lately, we’ve been receiving coupons (that look like checks) for a product called “enfagrow,” which is touted as being “the next step” for babies “10-36 months.” Yesterday we received an actual sample of it in the mail. The first ingredient is vegetable oil, the second ingredient is corn syrup. I’m pretty sure I could give Niko the same level of nutrition by feeding him Ovaltine, and it would taste better and be less creepy.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, I get newsletters and stuff from parenting magazines. There’s this constant push to “get your pre-baby body back.” Having a baby changes your body in ways that are pretty much irrevocable, though. That being said, certain events have taken place that have inspired me to start doing kegels with more regularity. I’ve also recently started lifting hand weights and doing crunches, because I want to up my stamina etc and generally be in better shape.

It is hard to do crunches with a baby around. It is hard to do anything on the floor with a baby around. It’s cute and charming when you’re on your hands and knees groping under the couch or a radiator for a missing toy and he comes crawling over, grabs your butt, and stands up clinging to you and then claps his hands triumphantly and starts slapping you. It’s slightly different when you’re trying to keep track of how many times you’ve hauled your legs up and he comes crawling over, grabs your nose to pull himself to stand, and starts slapping your cheek and eye. What the hell? Then tumbles forward and catches himself with his hand on your throat. I like to breathe, little dude! Stop trying to kill me! That being said, I’ve done both crunches and weights for 3 days in a row.

For those of you with kids, when did you start introducing whole milk? Our first pediatrician suggested around 9 months, and our current pediatrician agrees. Not as a formula substitute, but a few ounces a day. Also, what sippy cups did you use, or did you go straight to cups? They all have valves and shit now, and Niko’s having a hard time figuring out how to suck anything out of them, but removing the valve leads to a fast flow and huge mess.

Yesterday, after a long day of doing squats (seriously, he stands up, then squats down, then stands up, then squats down, then stands up, then bounces, then squats down, then stands up, etc), Niko learned a New Thing. I wanted to get some dishes done but still keep him occupied in the other room, so I wanted to put some cheerios in his favorite bowl. He was in the living room, behind the baby gate, and I was on the other side of it and didn’t feel like opening the baby gate. So I leaned over it, pointed to the bowl, and told Niko to bring it to me. I mimed reaching for it and pointed to it and told him several times to bring the bowl to me.

And he did.

He crawled over to it, picked it up, waved it at me, then brought it to me.

I don’t know if he knows the word “bowl” (it’s not one we use often; he totally knows “ball,” though) or if he just saw me pointing or what. But he picked it up and brought it to me, and as a reward, he got cheerios and then got to chew on the bowl.

Win win for all concerned.

If you are wondering how Christmas went, it went well. Niko handled the sudden influx of OMG PEOPLE very nicely, and he received clothing, toys, books, a gyroscopic bowl that is spill-resistant, and a stuffed panda bear that has hard plastic eyes and thus is not age appropriate but DANG how he loves to hug it and rub his face against it and toss it away and then crawl over to it and pat it. He grins when he sees it. So we let him play with it any way because we are terrible, negligent parents who have obviously neglected his emotional growth by not providing him with more stuffed animals and soft toys. Even though he hasn’t shown ANY interest in ANY of his other stuffed toys, except to chew on them.

In more me-centric news, I am brewing up one hell of a cold, and I really hope Niko doesn’t catch this. For unselfish reasons, I wish this because he’s my little kikiriki and I’d shield him from all terrible things if I could. For selfish reasons, I wish this because I really don’t want to deal with a sick and cranky baby. Especially one who’s had 3 days of diarrhea recently and is also teething (two new teeth on top, and a sudden increase in drool makes me think more teeth are breaking through the bottom). Other than the mudbutt, he’s been (knock on wood) very healthy, with only 2 mild nasal congestions/low fevers. That is not bad for 9.5 months. Not bad at all.

Some friends of ours are having a baby, which we are overjoyed about, for both selfish and unselfish reasons (selfish: they can store/use our old baby stuff so it’s not kicking around here! we won’t be the only ones with a baby! we can pool child care or something! we will have a built in playmate for Niko! unselfish: they are going to be super awesome parents) so I boxed up all the clothing Niko has outgrown (2 large storage bins), his old receiving blankets, socks, mitts, hats, and sleepers and a handful of newborn diapers (1 large storage bin), the boppy cushion we hardly ever used but got it used for super cheap so who cares, his bouncy/papasan seat that was a life saver, his dr bronner bottles that I don’t like because they have lots of fiddly bits and he didn’t have excess gas so they didn’t save the day, and a crib bumper that prevented him from getting limbs stuck in the slats of his crib (1 storage bin).

Babies accumulate a lot of stuff.

And, yeah, most of it’s because they grow so dang fast. But we also got a lot of stupid stuff (swaddling blankets with Velcro that he was able to bust out of from infancy) and stuff we didn’t use much (mitts, hats, anything in size “newborn.”)

Anyway, it was poignant to go through this stuff and look at his tiny jimjams and socks and everything and think of how tiny he used to be and how big he is now and how huge he’s going to get. And, you know, 9 months old. I could have conceived, born, and birthed another baby by now.

Thank God I didn’t.

I just used some online percentile charts and according to THEM Niko is ~75th percentile for weight (lolfattylol) and ~50th percentile for height.

Obviously I need to start strapping him onto a rack and stretching him out some.

Niko had his 9 month check up on Saturday, which was a day of Great Trials and Tribulations.

It snowed and then it sleeted, and we were late to the doctor’s office, but the weather was so terrible that a lot of patients canceled their appointments. This turned out to be super good for us, because apparently our doctor canceled our appointment, but nobody called to let us know this and reschedule. Ha ha! How droll! But since there’d been so many cancellations, we were able to squeeze in to see some random doctor.

Dr. Random very obviously worked with babies a lot and knew their language and enjoyed them. He also made jokes about Niko growing up and having sex with girls. It was… weird. He is 9 months old. Why sexualize him?

Also, Niko apparently has a tiny head and is falling on the growth charts, or else my growth chart figurin’ is wrong. He is now 28 1/2 inches tall and weighs 22 pounds and 6 ounces, which puts him in the 50th percentile. According to my calculations, 3 months ago he was in the 75th percentile. However, the doctor didn’t say anything about him falling behind, so I’m going to assume I was just wrong. HOWEVER, the nurse measured Niko’s head about 8 times with two different tape measures and then the doctor measured it 3 times with yet another tape measure, and apparently the dude just has a small head. It’s 44cm around, and in the 25th percentile.

Which makes it super odd that sunglasses and hats don’t fit his melon, as he has an undersized head.

Unusual for me, I did not research What Goes On At A 9 Month Check Up. I usually look into These Things, as I need to Be Prepared and Know What To Expect. So I was all set for vaccinations, and thus unprepared for the sucker punch of blood labs.

They took blood!

From his tiny arm!

From the even tinier vein in that arm!

Sorry, baby. You seem to have inherited my thin, “thread-like,” “rolling,” super crappy veins.

Nesko held Niko in his lap while blood was taken, and I tried not to pace around and cry. IT WAS HARD.

Then we went out to the car and Nesko made me eat 2 hamburgers because I looked like death (I had a cold or something) and then we went home and I took a nap. I woke up when my parents came over, but only because I love them. If it were anyone else, I would have stayed in that bed. (again, a cold or something.)

Niko woke up and got excited to see them.

Then we went to Nesko’s family for their Slava, which is a celebration of their family’s patron saint (St. Nicholas), only it’s a fasting holiday so we ate fish and there were a lot of strangers and Niko cried because OMG STRANGERS. There were also his little cousins (note: not technically cousins) who are sweet kids but also were bored and loudly rambunctious.

Poor little Niko was up too late.

So was poor little mama.

On the other hand, those same strangers shoved money into Niko’s pockets because apparently that is What You Do with a baby. This is a tradition I can get behind.

Considering how boring our lives are, it was a super busy day.

I also forgot to ask the doctor about the speck of a rash on Niko’s arm: eczema or RING WORM? I’ve been fretting about this for a week and also trying to figure out how he’d come into contact with ring worm (aliens?) and come up with nothing. Nesko looked at it and agreed with me that duh, it was just eczema and then he pointed out that it looks nothing at all like ring worm except it’s vaguely roundish sort of kind of if you ignore part of it.

Then on Sunday Nesko and I ran around and cleaned up and did dishes and found out our visiting guests were visiting for less time than we thought, so we went out to eat instead of making pizza, and Niko got to sample bits of Persian food and charm everyone at the restaurant.

Then he came home and ran a fever and had a snotty nose and was an all around crankenpuss, but he seems to be doing better today.

(I made pizza for dinner anyway.)

A few months after Niko was born, my hair started falling out in clumps.

It has since grown back, and I have patches of hair that are an inch and a half long, and curly. I’m not sure if it’s curly because it’s just so short that it isn’t weighted down, or if it just grew in curly. It sticks out kind of goofily, but eh. It’s better than bald spots.

I wanted to quickly make a list of things that Niko would rather eat than green beans:

Broccoli (surprisingly!)
His fingers
His toes
The arm of his highchair
The tray of his highchair
His spoon
My fingers
His bib
The cloth I use to wipe his face
Anything else in the whole entire world

And now for a list of things Niko would rather play with than the telephone:

Nothing

So, you know, if anybody has a suggestion on where to buy a realistic cordless telephone toy, complete with beep noises and rubbery buttons and possibly a recording that says “NO. NEW. MESSAGES. FOR HELP PRESS. ONE.” We’ve seen obviously toy looking cell phones and telephones, but I don’t think they’d capture his interest.

I’ve thought of dragging out one of our old cordless phones that won’t take a charge for longer than ten minutes, charging it up, and letting him play with it. But I’m worried that he’ll lick the battery terminal or something and hurt himself.

Speaking of potentially deadly stuff he’s been doing, we got this baby gate and it… it doesn’t work very well. Possibly this is because our building is old and our door frames are out of true. But it’s got four rubber stoppers, two on each edge of the gate, meant to cushion the gate in the door frame and keep it from getting scraped up. Every time I set the gate up, at least one of the cushions doesn’t actually hit the door frame. Anyway, I set the gate up so I could leave the living room and do some laundry and headed down the hallway, when out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw Niko crawling towards me. I was fairly certain I’d put the gate up so turned to see, and… the gate HAD been erected. And he had managed to tip it over (because the top of it wasn’t secure?) and had crawled halfway up it, looking VERY triumphant. The top of the gate was resting on a fairly flimsy metal shoe rack, which really isn’t up to supporting 20 pounds of baby AND the weight of the gate. Also, he doesn’t seem to realize what “edges” are and will happily crawl/roll right towards the edge of the bed/couch/changing table without realizing that there is nothing underneath him.

I was worried he was going to crawl over the top of the gate and fall.

And die.

He did not! He was completely unaware that he was in harm’s way! I distracted him with one of his music-playing ball-popping plastic toys, set the baby gate firmly up, and hurried about my laundry tasks. Tonight, when Nesko gets home, we’re looking for the hardware to mount the gate. This means we won’t be able to use the gate in multiple rooms (notably, both in the living room AND to keep him in his bedroom while I work in the kitchen) but since he mostly is in the living room with me or in his crib asleep, this is something we can live with.

IN OTHER NEWS that same day he bit me on the thumb so hard it hurt for like an hour after. He didn’t break the skin, but ow OW ow. He’s kind of a dick sometimes. He also regularly bites my big toe. He ACTS like he’s just playing with my feet/toes but after cutely patting them and giggling when I move them around, he’ll suddenly dart in and chomp me. He also thinks it’s HILARIOUS when I gnash my teeth at him or click them together, and laughs when I “bite” his fingers. He used to Be Very Concerned when Nesko did the same, but now he realizes it’s fun and laughs when Nesko does it as well.

Ba ha ha ha! he doesn’t suspect a thing! We’ll be able to eat him right up and he won’t see it coming! Where is my steak sauce?

It was… a fun time. Only not.

What’s this thing, right here? This… blog looking thing?

Oh, that’s right! I have a blog! About my baby!

That I haven’t updated in a long time.

Well, it’s been a great few years, and now little Niko is finally headed off to college!

Ok, no. It hasn’t been that long.

He is almost 9 months old, he has four teeth (two top, two bottom), he pulls himself up to stand and cruises along the furniture and has never had any problems whatsoever about sitting down from a standing position. He babbles a lot, he loves to eat just about everything, and his favorite toys are the telephone and the remote controls and this digital timer that beeps. He also likes to pull himself up on the entertainment center and slap the tv, whether it’s on or off.

We have rocker switches and he can turn them on and off and cheers when he does so. HOORAY!

We’re 95% certain he’s said his first word. See, when I see him pull himself up to stand, I say “TA-DAA!” and when I go into his room and he’s standing up in bed, I say “TA-DAA!”, and when he crawls over to me, grabs my pants, pulls himself up to stand, and rams his head repeatedly into my crotch, I say “TA-DAA!” TA-DAA! Hooray for baby! What a good boy! TA-DAA! Hooray, hooray! Yes, I now speak in exclamation points.

For a few days in a row, every time he pulled himself to stand, he said “ATAH!” “ATAH! ATAH!”

I’m pretty sure he was saying “Ta-daa.” However, he has since stopped saying it, so maybe it’s all just coincidence.

He also head butted me in the face with his head today. I was pretty sure he broke my nose at first, but now I don’t think so. I mean, it hurts, two hours later, but it’s not hugely swollen and searingly painful. Just… tender and a little throbby. A friend of mine was headbutted by her nephew so hard that she got two black eyes, and received An Intervention at school because someone was afraid she was being abused. Babies: they are real assholes, and are out to get you.