Dexter got a Leapfrog Alphabet Pal caterpillar for his birthday from his grandparents. It has 26 feet/buttons, one for each letter of the alphabet, that you can push. It has a few modes to change it from saying the letter to making the sound of the letter or play a song. When we first got it home, Dexter would inexplicably start crying whenever it played a song. We're not sure if it was the pitch or what, but he'd start whining. We put it out of his reach for a while because that was just annoying to hear him cry out of the blue for no reason. We brought it back down a couple days ago and he magically no longer cries when it plays a song. Babies are just incredibly odd sometimes. Anyhow, Mr. Cobra got to playing with it while it was in the phonetic mode and of course had to try and make it say the "f" word. We discovered that Leapfrog had censored that word. Instead of the "ck" sound, it says "that tickles!" No matter how many times you try, and with a "c" or a "k", it just laughs at you. That of course spurred a 15 minute quest to find all the words that were censored. Pretty much anything you can't say on TV was censored as well as the terribly dirty word "sex". Some good 4 letter words were out of the running just because it doesn't combine letter sounds like "tch". It's funny how a censored baby toy became half an hour of fun for the parents.
Tooth number nine finally broke through. I'm not sure when, probably a few days ago. I'm tentative to stick my fingers in his mouth to check because he's a vicious biter. He's still biting both Mr. Cobra and I when he gets mad. He does it when our hands are near him, usually in the process of taking something away from him. Mr. Cobra got a nip last night and Dexter got the wrath of dad. A simple "no biting" in a firm voice from dad sent Dexter's lip to pouting 2 inches out and he went to play by mom. I can't get that reaction out of him no matter how hard I try. I guess dad is just scarier!
Sleeping has been hit or miss, but about half the time these days he's sleeping till about 5:45am in the crib before waking me up. I always want to sleep a little more, so I put him in bed with me so he'll sleep till 7am. I've been getting pretty decent sleep on those nights. The other nights are either; a couple quick trips to settle him back to sleep in the crib by putting him on his side and making sure the blanket is over him, or it's complete hell with 1-2 hour stints trying to get him back to sleep.
We've been trying hard to teach him to go to sleep by himself by letting him cry more. It really depends on the situation because he's often times just so tired that no matter how much I stand over his crib and try to keep him in a sleeping position, he just tosses and turns. Those are the times when it just works to let him cry because he's so tired that he just can't get to sleep. We comfort him every so often and inevitably i's just after the comforting that he finally drifts off. The first time we did it, he slept till 6am. Granted, he woke up in a very foul mood that took half a day to shake that I completely blame on him crying to sleep.
I was very against the cry it out method until now. I guess that he cries so much during tantrums these days that it just doesn't phase me as much. I also think he's old enough and quite capable of going to sleep without me. I don't think it would've worked as effectively until now.
I've gotten back to gym finally. It's taken months for my arthritis to get under control and work to ease up enough that I can go again. I love it. I feel so much better. I have a lot of work ahead of me to get back to where I was before I had Dexter. I don't have the time to go the 4-5 times a week I was going when I lost 30lbs, so I expect it to take a very long time. I'm determined though because I feel terrible about myself. I weigh only 10 lbs less than when I had Dexter. I'm at the worst point I've ever been. I blame it on the increased dosage of steroids because it made me eat. At the same point, I stopped going to the gym because my arthritis started flaring and I felt tired, achy and weak. I'm completely off the steroids now and I feel really good, so it's time to get back into control.
