We’ve been a bit swamped here lately with school starting for both of us. Ergo, no posts for a bit. So, here’s the skinny.
Toren started daycare on the 12th and hated it. He cried all day, every day for the first week. Debi didn’t take it very well and I, of course, was in Fort Lauderdale, so I was no help.
Everyone we talked to said that you have to give him at least two or three weeks to settle in. The second week started out as bad as the first, but by the end of the week he was finally settling in. He still doesn’t like it when we drop him off or leave, but he doesn’t cry all day now and actually plays quite happily there.
Our big concern during the first week was that he would only get attention when he cried, thus leading him to get positive reinforcement for negative behaviors. Turns out our fears were unwarranted. While the daycare is expensive, it’s also a very good daycare and they are aware of things like this. He gets attention at various times, but not just when he cries. Ergo, he’s still very smiley and happy.
On a different front, he’s still not crawling, though he does roll over from his back to his stomach. He doesn’t, however, use rolling repeatedly to move around. He has become an expert in his walker – he’s all over the place in it.
And he’s developed his most unique/bizarre trait so far: he stores food in his cheeks. It started a couple of weeks ago and he does it almost all the time now. He basically puts as much food in his mouth as he can, pushes it into his cheeks, then continues eating, drinking, and doing whatever else he wants to do. He slowly eats the food, but it can be in there for up to about 30 minutes after he’s done eating. I’m guessing this is some sort of recessive chipmunk gene:
He also really doesn’t like us feeding him anymore – he just wants to feed himself. He has a very good pincer grasp and can pick up just about anything now to feed himself. He’s not all that picky, either: mac and cheese, cooked carrots, peaches, green beans, cheerios, cheez-its, veggie burgers, hummus, pancakes, etc. I don’t know that we’ve given him anything he doesn’t like at this point, though there was the horseradish sauce – yeah, that didn’t go over so well…
