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August & Ten Months

Mark Loves Cookies, Brown's Bay, August 2013
Mark Loves Cookies, Brown’s Bay, August 2013

Baby Mark is turning ten-month-old today, and as usual, I am marvelling over the fact the tiny little thing I carried for nine months turned into a very energetic dragon.

We are back in Canada after a month spent in France, and Mark learned tons of new skills, some commendable other not so much.

After month onemonth twomonth threemonth fourmonth fivemonth six and month seven, month eight and month nine, here is the update for month ten!

Mark is crawling full speed now, a skill he picked up at my parents’ apartment—apparently, the best way to encourage a baby to crawl is to surround him with stuff he shouldn’t touch. Hence, more motivation to move toward said stuff. Once we got home in Ottawa, it took him about a day to realize he could now follow me from one room to another and he usually does so without complaining too much. But if something is in his way (oops, the door shut close!) or if I’m too fast, he will sit there and scream for me to pick him up.

Mark is also very talkative now, another skill he picked up in France. Must have been all these conversations over dinner and these endless French arguments over politics, art and life in general… He says “mama” when he wants me but there is also a variant of it that means “milk,” I think—it’s more like “mmm”. He also says “dada” a lot, although we are not sure what it means—it’s not Feng, he just punctuates his “sentences” with “daDA!”. He discovers “blowing saliva bubbles” and calls “eh, eh, EH!” louder and louder when he wants attention.

He favourite position is now standing and he grabs anything within reach—chairs, tables, etc.—to pull himself up. He doesn’t want to sit down in the bathtub anymore, which is really annoying—not to mention dangerous. He is pretty steady on his legs but falls quite a bit on his butt. In this case, he usually screams for a few seconds and then moves on.

Mark is definitely showing some character. He can be very stubborn: for instance, if you put something out of reach, he will climb on you to get it. He doesn’t let go easily and demands attention. If I talk with Feng for too long without interacting with him, he will say “eh, eh, EH!” until I say something. He also gets frustrated when he can’t do something and he will let you know loudly.

He seems to understand “no” and likes to challenge me. For instance, he puts everything to his mouth these days. I let go on a lot of stuff because I simply can’t be there all the time, but I draw the line at shoes, dirty stuff, wires (!), etc. I usually look at him and say “Mark, no”. He looks back at me, pauses, and waits for me to resume whatever I was doing to see if I’m going to say “no” again (I usually do and it can last for quite a while). If I have both the time and the patience, I’d rather say “no” firmly than take away whatever he was putting in his mouth, so that he understands why you can’t do it. The same goes for the plugs. We bought outlet covers but even with them on, I try to teach him what stuff shouldn’t be touched and why. We will see if it works in the long run…

Food-wise, he still takes bottles of formula but I give him a lot of “snacks” such as cookies (he had bread in France), pureed fruits, avocado, rice, tofu, eggs, etc. He loves yogurt (he had a lot of it in France because it was so hot) and apple sauce.

On the downside, he started to complain about everything—being dressed, bathed, changed, put in the stroller or the car seat, etc. It gets really annoying because these are things I do multiple times a day and I simply can’t cuddle him through all these steps! But he usually stops crying after a minute or two—he doesn’t really cry actually, more like loudly complaining.

Other than that, he is of course a perfect baby, especially when he sleeps or hugs without punching me in the process.

Never a dull moment, I’m telling you!

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Zhu

French woman in English Canada.

Exploring the world with my camera since 1999, translating sentences for a living, writing stories that may or may not get attention.

Firm believer that nobody is normal... and it’s better this way.

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