We now have a rollie pollie ollie on our hands!  He is a little Houdini and can get out of anything (swaddle blankets, bouncer chairs, bumbo chair???).  I had to buy a bigger rug since he is rolling everywhere now.  I had flashbacks of a couple of Christmas???s ago yesterday when Ty managed to roll under the tree and was trying to pull ornaments off.  Tanner did the same thing at this age.  As Tanner was born in May and Ty was supposed to be born in May, it makes it a little easier for me to judge Ty???s development.   There are some developmental delays but they are not all that significant.  Ty still won???t eat off a spoon and he can???t sit up.  Ty is actually more advanced in his communicative skills though than Tanner was at this age.  (Of course, Tanner still has some speech delays so that is not surprising).  Maybe I shouldn???t say speech ???delay??? with Tanner.  That may not be accurate.  He doesn???t converse using as many words as many 3 year olds do but he isn???t suffering from it eitherJ.  All in their own time I guess.

Ty is continually moving in a forward motion though.  Once he figured out how to roll both directions, he just took off.  He loves this new found freedom.  I think the Bumbo chair (I mentioned that in a previous posting) has done him good too.  It has a low center of gravity so he has to work at it a little harder to sit up which strengthens his tummy.  He can hold his weight sitting up if he puts his hands in front on the ground.  This only lasts a few seconds but still it is progress!

He has also learned to ???pat??? and it is so precious.  He is continually patting my hand when I hold him.  Mommy is a patter so he must have learned the behavior from me.  He is such a little copy cat and loves to mimic.  He wants to talk so badly!  He really watched our mouth and tries to imitate shape and sound.  Lately he pretends to cough all the time just so I will cough back.  He loves responsive communication.  I bet he will be chatty chatty chatty once he figures out some words.

Can you believe we are only about 6 weeks from his first birthday????? Wow!!!!  This first year we may wait until May to celebrate it.  In the future we will celebrate his birthday on the real date (January 17^th) but this first year we may not.  During this winter season, we may not want to do a big party (virus reasons) and he won???t be old enough to enjoy it anyhow.  As a point of fact, most one year old children are not old enough to enjoy their birthdays either but at least they can eat their birthday cake and I don???t see Ty being quite ready for that in Jan.  Haven???t made a final decision on this one yet.  Jury is still out.

Why is it that as soon as you think you have a kid figured out they change?  I had just determined that Ty liked vegetables and not fruits and then this week he switched teams.  Now he is refusing vegetables but will eat fruits.  Aaaaghhhh!!!  The cereal bottle is still working though so I am at least grateful for that.

He learned to hold his own bottle though this week!  Tanner learned that at 6 months and Ty is 6 months adjusted so he seems on target with his fine motor skills.

Speaking of a change in behavior, last night Jim and I giggled when we saw Ty on his tummy in his crib eating the bumper pad ribbons.  What is the big deal you say?  All babies do that!  Not if they have always been swaddled they don???t!  Ty has learned that if he rolls from side to side he can work the swaddling loose and get his arms free.  He was happy as could be free of his straight jacket and munching away on his bedding.  Why do we bother swaddling still?  Because Ty is still on an apnea monitor and a sat monitor at night.  If he gets loose from the swaddling he starts eating his chords.  Worse, he starts rolling over and gets chords wrapped around his body and sometimes his neck!  Not good!  He loves to be swaddled for sleep and if he wakes up during the night and unswaddles himself, he has trouble going back to sleep unless we reswaddle him.  We will have to break this habit soon but swaddling is our best course of action while he is still on monitors.  For right now, we just have to wait him out.  Let him escape until we know he is sleepy and then redo it.  I thought of a new thing to worry about yesterday though.  We have just laid wood laminate down in Ty???s room.  Eventually the crib will be moved in there.  Tanner never attempted to crawl out of his crib but I feel pretty certain that Ty will.  Imagining him crawling out of the crib and landing on his head on the wood laminate sends shivers down my spine.  The trials and tribulations of motherhood???always something to occupy our imaginations.

Amanda, and her mom and grandparents came to visit Ty this week.  They live about an hour away so between that and our lockdown, we haven???t seen them since September.  I posted pictures in the Nov album if you want to check them out.