Immobile Communication

Eamon is at that great age (6 ½ months), where he can communicate and interact, but when you put him down somewhere you can be reasonably sure he’ll still be there if you turn your back for 10 seconds. I know that these days are numbered, however, since each day he seems to be doing something new and different on his milestone chart.

Eamon "helps" Mommy fold the laundry

For instance, Eamon can definitely turn over now. He can turn over onto his tummy, and onto his side, and onto his back. He hasn’t figured out crawling, yet, but he has figured out to roll short distances to get what he wants. The other day, he rolled onto his stomach and even got his feet and bottom up and pushed, but forgot to move his arms, and then became frustrated because he wasn’t moving. Other times, he pulls with his arms but forgets to move his feet. There’s a lot of baby to coordinate, but I know that it’s coming soon.

He’s also trying to sit himself up. He can sit for a long time if you put him in that position, but has yet to be able to go from lying down to sitting up unassisted. He grabs onto his crib rails and heaves, though nothing quite happens yet (once again, that’s a lot of baby to pull up). Eamon also attempts to sit up while his diaper is being changed, which is just fascinating.

Mmm...remote control...I shall love thee and covet thee always....

Even more pronounced, however, are his advances in communication. He doesn’t talk yet, but he has learned that he can initiate communication. He laughs and smiles almost all the time (when he’s not tired or hungry, of course), and is always trying to get others to laugh and smile with him. He's been playing Peek-A-Boo with us for awhile now (where he puts a diaper rag over his face, and then pulls it away and laughs when we shout Peek-A-Boo).

Peek-A...Huh?

He’s also learning to mimic. Aaron and I give Eamon raspberries all the time on his tummy, and the other day, to my surprise, he grabbed my leg and did the same thing to me! Now it’s one of his favorite tricks to make the people in his life laugh. Today, when Eamon and I went to lunch with my friend, Charmaine, she banged on the table while talking, and then Eamon banged on it, too. She banged again, and so did he, and on and on it went. When she occasionally remembered to talk to me, Eamon would bang on the table again to get her attention and keep playing their game.

THBBBBBBBBT!

Unfortunately, not all of Eamon’s communications are positive. He’s also learning to be a bit, how shall we say it?—manipulative. Eamon and I were shopping in Babies R Us a few days ago, and I was looking for something on a registry. Eamon was determined that he wanted that registry, and kept grabbing at it. I was looking for a specific diaper bag, so I just kept moving the registry away from him and ignoring him until I suddenly heard a loud wail. I looked over to see the tears welling up and the little mouth starting to pout as he reached for the registry again. I put the registry behind my back and told him, “No, you can’t have it, now stop it,” and he gave a very disgruntled sigh and started playing with the toys on his seat cover. He hadn’t been upset at all. He just wanted to see if he could use the crying to get what he wanted.

The shadow looms ever closer...

But 95% of the time, he’s a smiley, happy little guy. That manipulation thing was just a fluke, I’m sure, and probably won’t happen again.

(Sigh. We're in for it, aren't we?)