August 28, 2006 - 6:25 AM.

His own room!

It's hard to believe how much things change over the course of a month.

Punie is sleeping IN HIS OWN ROOM. And has been for four weeks, come Thursday. We had put our old mattress on the floor in his room when we bought a new one, and he immediately took to it, calling it "big pullow" and delighting in the sheets and quilts and baby afghans I put on it (useful at last!) He began insisting on napping there, and bedtime (inexplicably?) suddenly became v difficult again - no I will not nurse to sleep on the big bed! (Long outgrown the Boppy of course.) And I resisted putting him down in his room because, of course, it's difficult to pick him up from low down and transfer down the hall to the crib without waking him . . . but one night he finally insisted. And J was totally in favor of it, so we put up bumpers & pillows, and the baby went to sleep and didn't wake to come into our bed (kicking & uncomfortable) or to cry or to do *anything* but sleep, sleep, sleep - until morning.

Of course I came back to our bed and sobbed, missing the child in the empty crib not a foot from my side --

-- but he really has loved it. And he adores his room now for play as well, and when he wants to be in there J or I can easily sit or sprawl on the "pullow" and play with him in real comfort. A first!

He loves his fire truck toy, at last. It was given to him for his 1st birthday, long before he cared about wheeled toys, and it also scared him to death because it had lots of sirens and songs and was self-propelled with a self-extending ladder. Too much! But he kept spotting it in his closet, and got anxious about it being in there, and finally my mother brought it out and de-batteried it, and it became his favorite toy. "Fawa TYUCK. No noise! No noise fawa tyuck!" he will announce, frequently and emphatically. "RED fawa tyyuck. Dog. Guy!" (It has a little firefighter, "the guy," and a little helmeted dalmation, "dog.")

His favorite self-invented games, and there are several, all involve feet. By far the most important is "Tonies," wherein I will sit either in the big chair or on the "pullow" and he manipulates my feet. "Gedda toes - 'paht toes" (together and apart) - "In toes - out toes" (he sits btw my legs and throws himself out again) - "Hlippa ON - hlippa OFF" (he puts my slippers on my feet and takes them off again). A variation of this game involving his own toes is "Dey" - he pushes his feet under a quilt or pillow, sitting or standing, and announces "Dey. Dey" and I am to respond "Where are those toes? Where are they?" and then propose a couple of locations before guessing the correct one. At which he excitedly says "Maybe in-deah - check!" and checks to see if indeed his feet are where he left them. Sounds a little dull put this way but it's totally charming.

He requests various songs from the "leebear" (baby French for library, apparently) - he can actually execute a fair "Ring around the rosie" spin, and likes to sign tree during "In the Leafy Treetops" and "today" during "Teddy Bear Picnic." Pardon me, "pinnick."

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