A First

On Saturday night, we moved Ennio into his own room. I thought that this moment would make me incredibly sad, but it didn't. I think because we waited until I was really mentally ready (and also really, really tired of not getting any sleep because of his constant pawing at me). We set up his room with his new sheets and everything. He liked them a lot. Wow, I said, look at your bed! Wow, he said. But of course just putting him in his own room did not stop him from waking up and looking for me. He still wakes up and cries and calls for mama. Then I go over there and sleep with him until morning. Last night though, he slept through until 5 am! And Boon went over to him, and he was satisfied sleeping on him! I went over too because he called me, but really, I probably didn't need to. Anyway, we couldn't believe it.

Best part of Ennio moving out of our bed is that I can watch TV in bed now. I love that. Oh, and we can have sex.

The End

Tonight, for the first time ever, Ennio did not ask to nurse. I did not offer. And so I believe our nursing days are over. March 6, 2009, that might've been the very last day Ennio ever nursed. If he asks to nurse tomorrow, I will let him, but I don't know that he will. I was very surprised that he did not ask tonight. It's strange because he's a nursing fiend, and it's not like he's shown any lest interest lately. If anything, I thought he was showing more interest in the sense that he's always pawing at my breasts in the night. Just wanting to hold the nipple.

I never imagined, never ever, ever, not even when I was pregnant that I would nurse him for so long. Even after I had him, I thought, if I can make it to 6 months, great. But somewhere along the way I turned into a vehement proponent of nursing and was determined to exclusively nurse him until he was 12 months old. Then after that, it just kind of continued, and I didn't even really want to wean him. And he certinaly didn't want to wean himself. Even just recently, I was thinking, man, I'm probably going to have to wean him by force because he'll never give it up voluntarily. And now it looks like he is on his way to doing just that. I am sad about, sort of. Relieved, sort of. I didn't want to have to wean him by force, so that is good. But I'm sad that I didn't know that last night might've been the last time he ever nursed. And I'm sad that that stage of our relationship is over. I loved the closeness, the feeling that I was really give him total comfort - that he was just so relieved, relaxed, content when he was nursing. I know that I can still provide him comfort in other ways, but I don't know that the level of comfort, the type of comfort that nursing provided him will be matched. I loved watching him nurse - especially lately because it made it feel like he was a baby still, and he always looked so content, like there was nothing that could bother him in those moments, like he was safe. And I was the one providing that safety. I will miss it immensely.

progress

Ennio is saying more and more words. Boon and I counted in the car, and he now has over 20 words in his vocabulary. He's also starting to use them spontaneously to convey his wants. This morning he was on the couch in the office looking out the window at Boon and some plumbers. Then he said "ba ba" (which in this context meant bao bao) to pick him up. Then he said door - because he wanted me to take him to the front door to look outside. Very exciting.

Other new words he's recently added are:

• up
• down
• yellow
• door
• bao bao (ba ba)

As for his chewing, Robin is very happy with his progress - only concerned that he doesn't always chew his soft foods. I still feel like he can't eat a lot of foods though, but I don't know if that's a function of not being able to chew or because he doesn't like the taste/texture. We still feed him a lot of frozen pureed baby foods, though I try to mix it with pasta so he has something to chew. I go to Whole Foods and my entire cart is frozen baby food. I feel utterly self-conscious about this - thinking the check out girl is looking down on me for feeding my baby so much forzen food. Boon keeps reassuring me that we're doing a good job feeding Ennio, but I can't help but stress about it all the time.

Dadigle

Ennio's favorite "word" is dadigle. I don't know what it means or where he came up with it. But he usually falls asleep at night having that been the last word he says and as soon as he wakes up in the morning, he's at it again. I actually love it too - it's very sing-song. Daa-di-gle. Tonight Ennio was practicing his speech laying in the dark before bed. Yeh-yoh, yeh-yoh (yellow). He's got quite a few new words:

• turtle
• cold (told)
• car (tar)
• yellow
• dog
• hi (ha)
• poa poa
• gong gong (da dong)
• apple
• blue

He is really starting to use his words to communicate now, which is great. Hopefully his pronunciation will start to improve slowly as well.

busted up

I am very irritated because Amy let Ennio break a second necklace of mine. A really beautiful vintage glass necklace. For some reason she thought it wise to put around his neck and he broke it! Of course he did. I mean, he's a toddler. What's so infuriating is that when she was describing it to me, she wasn't apologetic at all! She just basically blamed Ennio for doing it! Like it was his fault. She's the one who put it around his neck. She was "shocked" that Ennio broke it. At the end, she was like, tsk, next time can't give him the necklace again. Um, really? You don't say. Ah well. Small thing in the grand scheme of things, especially in these economic times. What isn't.

mimic

Ennio has started saying more words and is starting to mimic our words spontaneously. This morning I was showing him the tulips Boon got me for Valentine's Day, and I said they're lavender. When I sensed he was going to try to copy me, I said, purple. He then tried to say purple. So he's added another new word to his vocabulary. His pronunciation is still pretty off, but at least he is copying us and trying to say words.

He also loves to mimic the dogs. He crouches by their food bowls and smacks his lips. Then he goes to their water bowl and does the same thing. It's hilarious and super cute.

The other night Ennio talked in his sleep - said "yeah" a few times with intermittent cries because he was waking himself up with the talking. That same night he also starting laughin in his sleep.

explosion

This weekend, Ennio had an explosion of new words. He actually repeated after us on his own - without any prompting! Unfortunately, he repeated the F-word. Boon thought this hilarious and cracked up every time Ennio said it.

But he also said Floor, when I said "put that on the floor." Then when ichatting with my mom and dad, Ennio said "pear" and "po po." Maybe even waffle. Yesterday he was saying bubble and even said "more bubble." So, here is a list of Ennio's current vocabulary.

• mama
• dada
• more (moh)
• yeah
• water (wawa)
• chair
• floor
• bubble
• pear (pa)
• ball (ba)
• PoPo

I think that's all of his words. Half of them he started saying in the past few days. I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that Boon has been home with Ennio because Amy has been sick. I need to get Amy to get him to talk more.

I'm concerned because he seems to be making all his progress at home and not with Julie. I don't know if that's because he doesn't have a good rapport with her or what, but need to figure that out.

Baby Steps

Well we decided not to move him into his own room, just to completely night-wean him instead. I am happy with this. I think N is too.

N is also saying "uh-oh," although sometimes it comes out "uh-ah" instead. Just have to keep working on the long oh sound. He will also say Yeah, and is starting to use yeah and shake his head for No. Even though his vocabulary is still very limited, I actually think his progress has been pretty good - making improvements pretty regularly.

It made me angry when Boon's mom said that Ennio's progress was slow. Really, really angry. What does she expect? And really, his progress has been pretty good lately, I think. I'm also sick and tired of hearing them keep telling us that so and so's kid didn't start talking until 2 and half. I don't care. I really don't. I also don't believe her because their definition of "talking" is incorrect. They don't think when a child uses a word, even if it's a made up word (e.g. Amadeo used to say mem mem to mean more food) that it isn't a word. So they don't consider that to be talking. Stupid. It's really frustrating dealing with them sometimes. Really, really frustrating.