A Hard Day and New Discoveries

Yesterday was a hard day for me.  Xander went to day care for the first time.  It is a home day care with a wonderful lady I have known for years, but still, it was hard to let go.  Yesterday was only a partial day as a trial run.  I scheduled my CLEP test during the day for that purpose.  He apparently did pretty well.  She said he had one crying spell where he stuck out his lip and cried.  She said he looked so cute all the other kids came over to see what he was doing, which made him stop crying.  Once they started walking away again, she said he stuck the lip right back out and cried to get their attention.  The little stinker. :)

Next week he will start going all day, twice a week, while I complete my CNA classes (now required to get your RN).  Unfortunately, I also had my Microbiology class last night, so until 7:20 pm, the only awake time I had with him was spent feeding him.  Needless to say, I came straight home from class and spent the evening with him.  We read stories, played with his new ride on toy, and took a bath together.

Speaking of our bath, Xander has learned how to splash!  It is so funny to watch.  He smacks the water, but still jumps when he splashes himself.  We also worked on kicking his legs.  What he particularly liked was trying to play with his feet through the water.  Last weekend was particularly warm, so I had him in shorts and no socks.  As a result of bare feet, they are his new obsession.  He REALLY wants to get them to his mouth, but can't figure out how to do it from a seated position.  He ends up folding himself in half trying to get them in.

To encourage him to play with his feet, I put these rattle socks on him.  He thought they were great fun!

Xander now says mama, but I am not too excited because I know it doesn't count yet.  I think I have written before that he babbles when he cries.  Well, it has progressed into saying "mamamamamamamamama" when he cries.  I really need to try to capture it on video.  However, I know that when I show it to him in the future he will ask why I video taped him crying rather than seeing to his needs. :)

YBCR is still Xander's favorite, but he has decided he also likes Baby Signing Time really well now.  He watched it with my dad a couple of times last week.  My dad pointed out that Xander gets really excited about the word "milk."  I had had no idea he even knew what milk was yet, let along recognized the sign for it.  It makes sense, though, for a little boy who loves nothing more than to eat.

Baby Sign

I've been meaning to write about this for a while, but kept forgetting.  About a week and a half ago we got the first Baby Signing Time DVD.  It is super cute.  All the lessons are set to music and they have babies doing the signs also.  Xander likes it, although not nearly as well as YBCR.

More than anything, I think the DVDs will be good to teach me the signs, so that I can teach Xander.  I need to get better about signing to him.  I also think that a slightly older baby would learn more from the DVDs.  Definitely one I will be keeping for future babies, but I haven't decided whether I will buy the next few DVDs or not.

Oh, goodness gracious those silly songs get stuck in your head for DAYS.  I kept finding myself singing them.