I’ve been meaning to post an update about Qais for awhile now, but haven’t gotten around to it. If you’ve missed it, there’s a lot of pics of him on flickr and on facebook.

He’s starting to talk a lot. He’s not saying anything we can understand, but he says it very often, and damnit, he means it! Very vehement at times – quite entertaining to listen to. I’ve been trying to catch some of it on my iPhone with the voice memo feature, but so far I’ve not been pleased with the results. His other favorite sound to make, when he’s not trying to talk, is what we have started to call his ‘dinosaur noises’. He’ll open his mouth really wide, and hold it open, and then make a single sound that goes on for as long as he can exhale. He’s not playing with tones or notes or syllables. He’s just going for “how long can I make this one noise”? It’s really quite endearing. I’m not sure the other guests at the restaurant thought that the other night.

Which leads me into the next bit. We’re totally out of the phase where we can take him out to nice places. A few weeks ago, he surprised us by grabbing the lip of my water glass at a restaurant, and pulling the whole thing over on the table. Luckily, it was well before the dinner rush, so nobody got mad at us. Still, he’s getting to be a danger to the public order. We knew this day would come – when we wouldn’t go out anymore because of him – but it’s still sad to know it’s here. It’s time to gear up with the baby sitters/grandmothers to arrange our quiet times, I guess.

He’s also on the verge of crawling. We keep thinking he’s about to do it, but he never quite makes it into forward motion. He’s able to turn himself around (full 360s), get up onto his hands and feet with his belly fully off the floor, and move backwards. Just no forward movement. He also never bothered with rolling over. He can, if he really wants to, but doesn’t seem to care much about it. Charlotte and I have both read a lot that it’s normal for a large percentage of kids to skip that stage, and honestly, I’m happier without it. The thing he really has mastered recently is sitting up. He can’t get himself into the position, but once he’s sitting, he’s hard to knock over. He’s got amazing balance, and it takes a strong push to overcome his center of gravity. (We only push him over when he’s sitting on the bed, not to worry).

I’ll let Charlotte cover the food he’s been eating recently.