Iyyar

Grandma E emailed me the other day and asked how Iyyar was doing. She mentioned that he doesn't get much press on the blog, and she was right.

Well, B"H, Iyyar is doing fine. He is smiley and chunky and has a very definite mohawk, especially when his hair has just been washed. He's still got the dimples and when he gets excited and doesn't know what to do with himself, still jams as much hand as possible into his mouth. If you pick him up and lift him up over your head, he does his signature openmouthed grin, and you'd better watch out below because there's usually some drool on the way down.

The most remarkable thing about him right now, honestly, is the sleeping. At bedtime--around sevenish--he nurses a lot and then I put him in his crib (the pack and play, in our room), somewhere between "sleepy but awake" and "absolutely wide awake, giggling and playing." I come back twenty minutes later and he's snoring, and there's usually no crying in between. When I contrast this to how he was just three months ago--or how Barak was just last night--it's kind of unbelievable. But there we go. Of course, he does still wake up to nurse every three hours all night long, but we're working on that one.

Favorite activity right now is sitting in front of the rubbermaid box of baby toys. He'll pull them out, one at a time, to suck on and bang; when he's done, he'll drop them and go for the next one. Eventually, the box will be empty, and he'll be up to his ears in dropped toys. At this point, he looks at the empty box, looks at me, and cries, because Imma, there's no more toys in the box! Like a good Imma, I put all the toys back in the box and he's happy again.

The baby saucer is on its way out, unless Barak is doing something interesting that Iyyar can watch. (This is making it notably more difficult to cook dinner.) Weight-wise, he is on the outer limits of what I can handle in the sling; I still carry him in it, but it won't be long. He's totally out of all his 9-month clothes and most of his 12-month outfits are getting kind of short in the leg; the 12-18 month things are still pretty big on him though. He loves to be tickled and is very, very giggly.

Oh, and he wakes up every night, like clockwork, at 10 pm for a snack. And funnily enough, that's him now.