Milestones

Weight: 19 lbs (40th percentile)
Height: 28.75 inches (50th percentile)

My fat baby is slimming down. So much so, in fact, that the doctor told me she wants to see him GAIN weight! Is this the same baby who was topping the 90th percentile five months ago? Who looked like Jaba the Hut? Whose ankles were so fat that socks cut off his circulation, and I was ready to invest in a friend's velcro sock prototype? Who could barely roll over but could sit up like a sack of potatoes? He may be thin on the charts but he's still a brickhouse. A fireplug, people say.
Which brings me to another thing people always say. "He's all boy." What does THAT mean? People have been saying that to me since Sawyer was a newborn. "He's all boy." I've never quite known how to respond to that:
- Last time I checked.
- Yes, he is wearing all blue.
- He does look like a linebacker, doesn't he?
- You're right. There's nothing effeminate about him. Maybe he'll be straight.
- So the doctors tell me.
- Actually . . .
Now that he's older and developing his own personality, I have to say there are certain things about Sawyer that are, in fact, 'all boy.' Like the sounds he makes. He has already discovered that he can make motorcycle sounds, model-T ford puttering sounds, African Bushman tongue clicking sounds, and Indian sounds when I tap my hand against his mouth. Only boys seem to have the genetic disposition to make perfect motorcycle and machine gun sounds. When my brother and I ran around our backyard as kids playing war or cops and robbers I always lost because he could fire out more fake bullet rounds from his lips than I could.
Me: pow-pow. pa-pow-powpow.
Bro: Tchthctchtchthcthcthcthcthcthchthchtch. You're dead.
Of course, this all seems horribly incorrect now.
I must say that my favorite Sawyer thing right now is what he does when he's really excited about something. He holds the object - a block, the remote, a shredded piece of magazine - above his head with both hands and looks up, like he's making an offering to the Sun God. It cracks me up.
He has the run of the house, pretty much, these days. If I leave him in the living room he'll crawl down the hallway into our bedroom and the toss aside the curtain that currently hangs in the bathroom door. Then he'll crawl right past me to his bucket of bath toys. When Scott leaves the house, he'll crawl to the front door and stand up to watch him out the glass. He can walk holding on with only one finger now - even though he's still a bit wobbly. And for the first time yesterday, he let go with both hands and stood up on his own, briefly.
The talking is interesting.I haven't been very consistent about the sign language. I only really taught him one sign - which I invented - for "up." He uses that sign perfectly now and even says 'puh' when he's trying to climb something. Impressive, no? I may have to start inventing more signs because it really is fun. He seems to have dada down. When he sees Scott sleeping under the pillow in the morning he says: dada, and will even lift the pillow off Scott's head when I say 'where's dada.' Come to think of it, he may think dada is the pillow, not the man. Most of the rest of his regular words are unintelligible. I often wonder what he thinks he's saying: rart, baa, mop mop. Scott's decided that I'm mop mop. Which, he says, is the perfect name for me and he's been encouraging it.
I'm not sure Sawyer has fully grasped that he and I are separate entities. He likes to cling to me, climb all over me, suck on my necklace. Sometimes it's just too much and I start moving around the room making him chase me until he starts crying.
I can't believe its already been nine months. Its the end of the single digits. A year is going to be here before we know it. I should be treasuring those clingy moments while they last.