The Stories of our Lives

We lost our baby; now, it’s a little boy that greets us and smiles and chats and jumps with excitement in his crib in the morning, ready for a new day of exploration.

At one point, I told Frank “it’s like we have a little dog: he runs on all fours, he “yips”, he comes to see us for hugs, he licks and gnaws on everything, he comes to rap on the door when we’re in the bathroom…”. To which Frank added “…and he’s happy when he gets a cookie.” But he soon passed that stage, since he has a lot more prehension, amongst other things, than animals do, and his language is steadily developping.

His language, in fact, now resembles conversations out of Age of Empires or a child playing at imitating Chinese. He often entertains himself with long monologues while playing with his toys. The last few days, he’s also liked to converse with us by saying “A!”, to which we reply “A”, and him again says “A!”, and… so on.

Since last week, he’ll once in a while, when standing near a piece of furniture, make a little step or two without assistance to reach another furniture. These are still excessively small, and his concentrated efforts are not yet applied to this task, but it is easy to recognize in this the beginning of his first steps – which we try to encourage by placing him standing and tempting him with grames and toys.

More and more, he shares our meals. This is practical for us, and he loves to be allowed to eat the same food he sees us eating. His milk is solely 3.25% milk, 3 bottles of 6oz during the day and one of 8oz before sleep at night.

Next week, Xavier will start making visits and little stay-over practices at his future daycare – this is actually one sitter with a daycare set in her home. He’ll be going four days a week starting mid-july. This will also mean back to work for his mommy, who sees this change approaching with a touch of nervosity, a touch of confidence and a touch of melancholy. How she will miss her little ray of sunshine!…

Since this morning, little niÑo has been having problems with a stuffy nose – which bothered his daytime naps big time. Before going to sleep, dad and mom cleaned his nose with Salinex, then emptied it with the pear and administered Dimetapp drops decongestant (courtesy of dad, working under advice)… and now here’s hoping for a good night!