It's been a big couple of months for the Little Guy. After finally learning to control his constant drooling, we experienced a few dry weeks and then he began to cut four molars all at once. Again, he frequently sports a damp triangle that extends from shoulder to shoulder and down partway to his navel. I put little bibs on him, ones that we were given when he was born that now almost seem too babyish for him now that he's a big guy, but he doesn't like them much and pulls them off when he thinks of it.
He's expressing his preferences very clearly, and it's amusingly distinct from how the girls did so. Allison Clare, of course, was vociferous from birth and by 15 months was throwing major tantrums many times a day--screaming and writhing when moved along to each activity in her routine. Gillian was much more mild, but there is definitely a core of strong will in her. Little Guy learned to shake his head no, but what has made us marvel was that he also accepts when we shake our heads at him--if he's putting something in his mouth, we call his name and shake our heads and he looks inquisitively at us and takes it out. He doesn't put it back in either. Such willingness to comply with parental instruction is heretofore unprecedented among the Fee children.
Then in the last couple of weeks, he's learned to nod his head yes. He doesn't bend at the neck, so it's something between a little ducking movement and a bow, but with his eyes open and intent on you to see if you're getting his message. I love when he does it--he's so serious and big-eyed because he is usually indicating that yes, he does want something you've offered to him, and he's really hoping that this communication thing will work out. It's helped us realize how much he understands also.
All of this improved communication, along with his recently picking up several words--bye, hi, shoes, doll, and a sound for something he wants (disss, probably a version of this) and one for something he wants back (deee, with a sad tone)--seem to have been made possible by his finally being granted (by the grace of God, our pediatrician, our health insurance, and wonderful UPMC Children's Hospital) ear tubes. He'd had near-constant ear infections over six months, but hadn't quite hit the benchmark for surgery because the number of distinct infections was low--the problem was that each of his infections took weeks to clear up due to a possible antibiotic allergy that counterindicated the most effective treatments. It was kind of a low-grade nightmare. He didn't get fevers, but he'd start pulling on his ear or batting at it and maybe he'd be grumpy or maybe not, and although I didn't want to bring him into the doctor's office just because he was scratching his ear, I'd take him in and he'd have an ear infection and they'd have to try several antibiotics and the one that worked last time wouldn't work this time, etc. Or he'd have to have injectable ones and get the shots in the office. I started to dread even slight colds because he always ended up with an infection. I finally got so that I could almost sense when he had an infection. And at last, he got the tubes. The procedure was so fast I'd barely gotten back to my seat in the waiting room when the surgeon was out to tell me that everything had gone well.
Within a couple of weeks, he'd begun picking words up more rapidly, and overnight he was more cheerful and focused on sounds and mimicking things more clearly. I felt so bad for him that he'd had to endure so many months of discomfort--thankfully he never seemed to be in terrible pain, but he's clearly just so much happier and so fully engaged in the world. He loves to get his hands on things that he's seen us use--a large hand soap bottle that he'd somehow absorbed was used to refill other smaller bottles, a toothbrush that he knew needed a tube of toothpaste tipped to its end. I love that he's watching. I can't wait to hear what he's going to talk about next.
