Asher Is 9.5 Months Old
Hard to believe, isn’t it? Well, it is for me. Every day I compose little posts about him in my head, and fail to write them down.
Skills
Asher is trying so hard to crawl. He can lean forward very far and hoist himself up onto both knees, but he can’t seem to get one foot out of his way. If he leans too far, he flops onto his belly. From that position, he cannot get his knees up and under him to assume the typical crawling posture. On his belly, he can spin in circles or push himself backward. The latter really pisses him off because he’s usually in that prone position because the thing he wants desperately to reach is in front of him. Going backward when he wants to go forward is very frustrating for him.
Likes
Favorite foods are bananas, apples, and prunes. He is not interested in any meat concoctions yet. He tolerates carrots, pears, and a long list of other foods, but cannot abide peas. I think this is interesting because baby Lucas loved peas. The other day, I tried to feed Asher a commercial preparation of macaroni and cheese baby food: He tasted it and then looked at me like I was completely crazy. Then I tasted it and threw it away.
Of course, being with me is Asher’s favorite place to be. He’s terribly curious about toys and objects, but the very best place to explore these interesting things is in my lap. Toys are great, but Asher prefers gizmos to toys any day! TV remotes, telephones, springy phone cords, computer keyboards and mice, etc., are endlessly fascinating. Ian’s vast collection of light toys and mini flashlights are pretty freakin’ cool, too.
One toy recently became a huge favorite, though. At the Bennetts’ house, Asher became fascinated with a little wooden toy lion. If you press a button, it does a limited little movement. When it was time for me to pick Asher up and bring him home, we took the lion from him. He got all agro and performed his sign for “I want!” which is a stiff-armed, stiff-legged, clenched-fisted, growling thing. Tina graciously gave it back to Asher.
Later, we took the lion toy with us to a party at FCL and Grl_Fury’s house, where we accidentally left it. The Bennetts took it back home with them. The next time Asher was at the Bennetts’ house, he saw the lion and wiggled and grunted and used his “I want!” sign until he had it back in his own paws. This time, Tina said Asher could keep it, because he was so obviously in love with it.
He really, really, really wants to catch Sukiko (a black kitty) and hold on.
Dislikes
I mentioned the peas and meat already. He also dislikes being left alone for even a moment. He can be OK, usually, if one person he knows is in the room, but if we all wander into the kitchen, for example, and leave him for a second playing alone in the living room, he starts to whine.
Asher is not too keen on long drives, having things inappropriate for him taken away from him, or waiting.
Routines
We usually shower together. He happily sits on the floor of our shower, right where he was born, in fact, and splashes while I do my thing. Then I scrub him clean. He seems to love being in there and pounds at the water with his open hands. We have a plastic cup in there and he’s very interested in it, though he doesn’t have the dexterity to fill it with water and pour it out yet.
He’s still taking three naps a day, most days. Soon after we get Lucas and Ian off to school/work in the morning, Asher gets clingy and tired. We go back to bed for cuddles and nursing and he drifts off to sleep for his first nap of the day. Usually it’s before 9:30 a.m. This is good because it allows me to hit my computer to work for a while. I try to do nonwork activities (showering, chores, phone calls, food prep, etc.) after Asher wakes up late morning till early afternoon. Then around 1:30 or 2 p.m. he goes down for another nap. I get most of my daily work done during the afternoon, nowadays.
Personality
I think he’s a happy baby, which is exactly what I ordered from the Universe when he was still cooking inside me. As long as he’s fed and near me, he seems to tolerate pretty much everything with aplomb. He lets other people hold him and love on him still, which means he hasn’t fully developed stranger anxiety yet. He will pretty soon, but for now, he enjoys cuddles from friends and family.
Asher is fascinated with Lucas and watches everything Lucas does. Most of the time he looks at his big brother with an expression of watchful, amused, anxiousness, like he’s excitedly waiting to be startled by Lucas’s many antics. Lucas is often too loud, too fast, and too hands-on for Asher to feel entirely comfortable. But when Lucas slows down and gets quiet, Asher will hold his brother and give slobbery kisses. He loves to pull Lucas’s long hair, which unfortunately elicits a piercing scream from Lucas that startles and unnerves Asher—it’s something of a vicious cycle that repeats endlessly.
