7 Months (And Some Change)

Is it just me, or do these Teddy milestone posts keep getting further and further apart?  I guess it's just the season of life that our family is in, but it's like we're sprinting.

Uphill.

For 26.2 miles.

Anyway, Teddy is a big part of what's keeping us busy, and he's been a busy dude this past month himself. 

Sleep has been touch and go this past month, but it has gotten steadily better than the vortex of snot and pain that we were dealing with in August.

Our little bear has been doing some growing, but he's still on the pocket-sized end of the height and weight charts, and we're okay with that.  If you plant corn, you're not going to get pumpkins, right?  And neither Mike nor I are exactly giants.

So what does Mr. Teddy like these days?  Let's take a look.

Turn-ons: 

• Table food (we share a plate of eggs every morning, and he gets rowdy waiting for his lunch and dinner)
• Grabbing plates and bowls off the table and dumping them in laps; grabbing spoons on their way to his mouth
• Baths/pouring water
• Speaking his mind 
• Big brother's and sister's Pez dispensers - they're an especially good chew
• Army crawling 
• His Kevin the Bird softie
• Taking off his pants without using his hands 
• Escaping.

Who? Me?

Teddy's repeated escape attempts have earned him the alias "Houdini" and a one-way

ticket to the maximum security wing of the Big House, aka: the exersaucer.

Another new phenomenon around is the arch.  No, not the Gateway to the West.  We're talking about a signature Teddy move used whenever he's being put somewhere he doesn't want to be.  As an inmate with multiple escape attempts and a penchant for log-rolling his way off of elevated surfaces, the Bear has been relegated to solitary confinement or the floor.  But he doesn't want to just sit quietly on the floor with a Mumm-Mumm or a toy.  Nope.  So, he arches his back and stiffens his legs as straight as a board, very suddenly, I might add, becoming quite slippery and hard to handle.  What this accomplishes, I'm not sure, but his silent protests are increasingly frustrating to the parental units.

Turn-offs: 

• Socks (seriously, people, what is the point of putting socks on a baby? There is no contouring, no curves for the elastic to grab ahold of.  It's just cankle with a Hobbit foot stuck on it.);

• Actually being a baby: this guy is beside himself because he can't hang with the big kids yet. He wants to get down and wrestle with them, chase them, and play with chew their toys.  I have heard Mr. T actually try to jump in whatever raucous yelling match with them in his own language. 

• His carseat.  We spent 5 hours on Tuesday driving home from St. Louis, and Teddy's been refusing to get in it ever since, even busting an Arch yesterday morning before leaving the doctor's office.

• Milk.  The big guy would rather have what we're having, please and thank you. 

Oh, Teddy.  You've become a total pain just like the rest of us, and we love you for it!