Tuco’s First Word and Other Things

Tuco has been uttering consonant sounds for a few months. He’s made all kinds of sweet sounds like babababa and der der der der der. We knew all this must be leading up to Tuco gaining the verbal skills to say actual words. He has said things like dadadada and mamamama, but those haven’t counted as words before because it was clear he was just jabbering and not really referring to either of his parents. But on February 15, 2012 he meant what he said. That’s right, Tuco said his first word and it was–

Dada.

Tuco’s dad came into the room, Tuco stopped what he was doing, and looked at his dad straight in the eyes.  Then in a tone that had a “Oh hi, old chum!” ring to it, Tuco said it. It was clear that he knew what he was saying. He did it again the next day too.

Hopefully the next official word will be “Mama.”

In other Tuco news, he is pulling himself up all over the place. If there is something near him that is a foot or more off the ground, he will try to use it to pull himself up. When Tuco wakes up from a nap, I no longer find a little tiny helpless baby laying there crying. I now find a little boy having a great time standing up and talking nonsense. When he was born, it seemed like this scenario was so far away.  I think I will always be nostalgic for his baby phase, but I am truly enjoying these new phases.

If you want to know a secret, my days are spent trying to entertain Tuco enough so that he will be ready for a nap when the time comes. As soon as I put him in his crib and close the door, I feel a sense of relief. Time to relax a little. But then, about 20 minutes later, I miss the little guy.  He’s just so much dang fun right now that it’s easy for me to forget how much hard work it is wrangling him from getting into trouble.  I’m not saying every day is a super happy fun day–I have my days of feeling stressed out and over tired. There are times when I am sick and tired of him crawling over to the heat vent to stick his fingers in it. And sometimes I wish he could just chill out a little and sit quietly while I send an email or write a blog post.  But mostly, I am happy to enjoy this time with him because I know he’ll be graduating high school before I know it.

Tuco at 9.5 Months

I’ve not been very blogariffic lately. It’s hard to come up with stuff to write about that isn’t completely boring. Plus I’ve been over-revising  a post about how swim class with Tuco brings out new feelings of mom inadequacies for me, but I haven’t been able to get my thoughts out clearly. Maybe someday I will post it. Spoiler alert: the inadequacy feelings have nothing to do with wearing a bathing suit, and swim class with Tuco turns out to be fun after all.

I have also been feeling guilty about skipping blog entries on Tuco’s eight- and nine-month birthdays.  To ease my guilty feelings, I am writing this “Tuco at 9.5 months” post. I’ll start with some stats from Tuco’s nine-month doctor visit:

1. Tuco is 30 inches tall.

2. Tuco weighs 21 pounds and 4.7 ounces.

Not impressed? Consider that 9.5 months ago, he was only 21 inches tall and weighed only 9 pounds. Consider it! This is exciting stuff to me. As is the fact that Tuco is now eating regular food, like Cheerios, chicken noodle soup, and lasagna.  He also eats little yogurt bites, which are like the astronaut ice cream you tasted when you went to a planetarium in grade school. Yeah, I know they taste like that because I’ve eaten them.

Hmmm, what else about Tuco at 9.5 months?  Tuco can army crawl his way around any room, and he’s working on getting his belly off the ground for a proper baby crawl. He can climb up the one stair from our family room to our kitchen, though he hasn’t figured out how to get back down yet. He loves taking baths, going for walks, and flipping though his baby animals book. Tuco hates getting his diaper changed, not being allowed to eat my cell phone, and people all up in his mug without him initiating the interaction. He’s also perfected a light shriek that he couples with a facial expression of displeasure to warn me when I am treading on thin ice and he is about to go ape sh*t.

This kid has changed so much since he was born, and it hasn’t even been a year yet.  Can’t wait to see what else is next. If he could find a way to give his mom a proper hug soon, I would be ever so happy.

Here’s the part of the blog post you really want–pictures of Tuco: