For the past few nights, the J-man has been playing with a bottle in the bathtub. We keep one there so I can semi-easily fill it and rinse his hair. He has figured out that if he holds the empty bottle under the water, it makes bubbles. He LOVES the bubbles. On Tuesday night we actually got him to say “bubbles” with actual Bs (instead of the “mmmmb” sound he normally makes)! It was very exciting. On Wednesday night though, he figured out that we were asking him to say “bubbles” instead of making a sound… so he switched back to the “mmmb” sound! I wonder if this is one of those times where kids are learning the “rules of language” and start being strict with the rules even though English is not – where before now, the kid would say “feet” but has learned that the plural of many words is made my adding an “s” to the end, so they say “foots” now instead.
There has been a barrage of sensory needs coming from the J-man lately, and we’re trying to figure out how to stop the oral seeking behavior of biting Mama. So far, a wet washcloth will do the trick, but we’re trying to find something a little less shirt-soaking. His teacher has suggested heavy shoestrings, because they are easily portable, and will still provide that cloth resistance he likes.
On the new baby front, I was at the doctor Wednesday for another “tummy check” visit, when she told me that I’m measuring 2-3 weeks ahead. Last time I did that, but last time I hadn’t lost weight during the pregnancy either! I asked if my “natural padding” would affect that number, and she said it MIGHT add 1 week, but definitely not 2-3. Come on baby – hang in there until May! We’ve been nesting, but of course for us that means major projects. We’re going this weekend (at some point) to buy the wood flooring for the 2 rooms, which then has to acclimate to our house before Tim can put it down. He also will be pulling up the carpet (and tack strips) and readying everything for the wood floor. I know he can’t wait!
Posts that hopefully are similar:
- Nesting is Hard Work
- Leap Days and Our Children’s Unchartable Development
- The VERY LONG birth story of E. Normous
- Heavy Work
- Whatever Gets You Through
- Teaching the Doctor
- Worry and scaredness
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Mary describes his default ‘b’ sound as “mmmmmb”. I tend to describe it like a guttural, sort of hard swallow sound without actually swallowing. The truth is it really defies description. Even the speech therapists struggle to make sense of it.
You might be able to come close to duplicating it if you make a humming sound from deep in your throat, quickly and slightly and shallowly drop your Adam’s apple and let it come back to normal – twice in rapid succession – and do all this with your lips slightly open. That’s in the ballpark, but to be honest, I don’t have a clue how he does it.