One for the Grandmas

Most reading this post may not be that interested in the content that follows, but the grandmas certainly will ☺. We thought that we would highlight some of the new things that Asante is doing and saying- Grandmas are always wanting to know things like that.

Over the past couple weeks Asante has become more parrot-like, hehe. He repeats words that we’re trying to teach him, even if they’re not very clear. The words that he’s using everyday without us prompting him are “up”, “out”, “no”, “yes”, “dog” (which means, “I see an animal or insect”) and sometimes “more” and “bite” (as in, I want a bite of your cookie, mom). It seems that as we’re trying to teach him the baby signs for something, instead of learning the sign, he just learns to say the word instead. Oh well, we’ll keep on working on it.

Even though he doesn’t talk a whole lot, it’s been fun to see how much he’s understanding. Last night we asked him if he wanted another bite of spaghetti, and his back was turned to us. He shook his head no, and then looked at us for a brief moment, then went back to playing. Just now, as I’m typing this, Jake said, “asante, are you sure you don’t want to take a nap?” and he said, “yes” and hopped down. One of our favorite things to ask him is, “Asante, are you getting sleepy?” (along with doing the sign for sleepy). If he’s sleepy, he’ll just smile. If he’s not, he’ll make real big eyes and shake his head no and smile. It’s really cute.

Food-wise, he’s eating pretty much everything we are (as long as what we’re eating is decently healthy), minus most meats. Sometimes he’ll eat a little, but because he doesn’t have molars yet, it’s really hard for him to chew it enough to swallow it. Some of his favorite foods are bananas, chili, spaghetti, scrambled eggs, mangos, pears (canned is all we got here), mac and cheese, milk, juice, and rice. He also really enjoys pickles and olives when we have them around. And of course anything sweet. He’s been eating a cookie or two every day since Christmas (dad even let him eat some cookie dough with us- but don’t worry, I made it so there’s no raw eggs included).

He still really likes us to read to him, but right now he’s discovering that he can stack blocks, which is exciting to him. He made a tower of 5 blocks the other day- you should have seen his face! Also, he loves to take things out of boxes/bags/containers and then put them back in, and put the lid on. This can go on for a LONG time. We introduced him to crayons the other day, but so far he just likes to take them out of the bag and put them back in. Oh well ☺. As you’ve seen from the videos, he also loves to dance when we turn on music. He spends a lot of time standing on the bed, looking out the window at the kids playing below.

Sleep wise, he’s sleeping through the night for sure, but wakes up at 6:30a almost everyday. It’s like clockwork. It must be the sun or something. We’ve only been giving him his pacifier when going to sleep, so that’s been good to make that distinction for him. We’re going through an interesting thing with naps…I think he’s trying to give one of them up, but he’s trying to work out which one. For the past week he’s given up his afternoon nap, but that makes him VERY cranky by 5, which is then too late for him to nap. We got him to take his nap at 12:30 yesterday, which worked out pretty well, but he was incredibly tired by dinner.

He’s also become quite the little helper, which I’m so glad to see happening with the new baby coming ☺. He sometimes throws his diapers away and other things that he finds that he thinks is trash. When I (tiffany) am on a straightening/cleaning spree, he’ll walk around, “cleaning” too. one time he came out of the kitchen with our broom and dust pan and started to “sweep” the carpet. He’s starting to help clean up his toys after he’s done playing (if we ask him to and do it with him). I think he’s gonna be quite the little helper with Alethea.

There are 2 other young babies here- both girls- 3 and 4 months old. He’s really good with them- interested but not toooo interested ☺. He likes to bounce the 4 month old in her bouncer- most of the time he gets overzealous with it, but he’s just trying to help. He always tries to offer them his snack or bottle, which we think is really kind.

He makes up games with us too. He’ll pretend to be drinking the bath water so we’ll say, “asante, don’t drink the water.” Or he’ll grab a pacifier and be about to put it in his mouth so that we’ll say, “Asante, are you sleeping?” and then he’ll laugh. He likes us to chase him around the house. It’s good and cute; you’ll love it.

Okay well, hopefully that’s enough. I’m sure we’ve missed things, but this is getting really long ☺. He’s so different than when we left; I’m glad that you’ll get to see him again soon.