So, our little bundle of joy won’t eat real food, but will happily put everything else in his mouth. Last week, we went for a walk on West Cliff with Tamara and Dylan after a brief parking lot pow-wow. After the walk we stopped so the boys could play together on the lawn. Dylan was charming as always, but Ashton kept making a beeline for a nearby patch of dirt, which he happily shoveled into his mouth several times.

My how quickly things change in the life of a baby. Only one month ago, Ashton was eating 3 jars of baby food a day plus crackers/biscuits/cheerios. Over the past several weeks, however, Ashton has gone on strike. He refuses anything from a spoon. Even stuff he likes. Sometimes we can trick him to open his mouth by entertaining him with silly songs or games, but mostly he’s wised up.

So we’ve tried small chunks of many of his favorite baby foods (pears, bananas, apples, and peaches), figuring that he simply wants to self feed. He won’t touch the pears or peaches and will occasionally tolerate the bananas which he tends to suck on and spit back out. He’ll eat peeled raw apples but he still hasn’t mastered chewing, so there are frequent choking/gagging episodes with these and the occasional barf. Such fun. It’s been several weeks since I’ve successfully gotten a vegetable in him, though he previously loved carrots and sweet potatoes. Raw zucchini sticks caused a full body shudder, demonstrating a true aversion and not just stubbornness.

He is highly suspicious of new foods. We had to sneak string cheese into his mouth to get him to try it, but now he likes it. He won’t touch spaghetti noodles, which I thought were supposed to be a favorite of little kids.

He’s still drinking plenty of formula, though even his behavior there has changed. It used to be that when he had his fill, he’s simply spit out the nipple. Now, he squirms away, hollers very loudly, and won’t be silenced or stop struggling until you put a pacifier in his mouth.

So, needless to say, meals have become a bit of an ordeal and I’ve been avoiding taking him to restaurants. Hopefully this phase will pass soon.

Lately, Ashton has followed me every time I use the bathroom, though I keep the door closed when I’m not using it to keep him out. He loves to bang on the glass shower doors, and likes to crawl up my legs as I’m sitting on the toilet so that he can play with the noisy toilet paper holder. He unrolls the toilet paper too, so I’ve taken to leaving the roll on the tank. He’s also discovered that one of the knobs on the vanity is loose and is fun to spin around in circles. But the best part of the bathroom, is when I pick him up to remove him from there – because then he gets to see the baby in the mirror. On several occasions, he’s even thrown a small tantrum when I’ve turned out the light and closed the door before he could see his friend.

The weather has been unseasonably warm lately, so we spent some time out on our covered patio where I setup a foam play mat and the portacrib. Ashton also enjoyed riding in the big swing.

These days you have to be fast with the camera, because our little star will try to grab it and destroy the evidence by drowning it in drool. This here was a close call.

PS – he’s modeling haircut number 2 – an even more delicate operation than the first because this time we had try to cut the backs and sides while he slept, rather than just the top/front as in the first haircut. He absolutely will not sit still for scissors, toe nail clippers, or hairbrushes.

Ashton learned how to open drawers in the kitchen, and had fun playing with baking pans.

up the stairs – but still no interest in learning how to come back down!

bah dah dah bah bah bah bah pah pah dah bah bah bah bah bah…

and so on and so forth. Now we just wait and see how long before he forgets these sounds and returns to making raspberries.

Anderson, who we met through the Sutter Mom’s group, came over with his mom Estrella to play. Anderson was born just 3 days after Ashton, though the boys are very different in size and personality (Anderson sleeps!) Still Anderson enjoyed sampling some new toys and Ashton enjoyed playing and nibbling on Anderson’s shoes.

This has been a gradual milestone over the past several weeks. Ashton has been able to pull himself up to the toy box for a while, but he has now figured out how to reach in and pull out a toy to play with. It’s interesting to watch, because he sometimes realizes that he needs both hands to grasp the toy, but isn’t quite stable enough to completely let go. You can see his mind at work as he tries to solve that puzzle.