Tuesday 16 July 2013

Thirteen Months

Sebastian at thirteen months...

Looking sleepy and serious

It seems like we're really getting a feel for his personality these days. Sebastian has a great sense of humor, he can be a real tease. He still loves acting like he's going to hand you something, then pulling his hand back at the last moment, with a certain teasing smile. The more you act surprised by this, the more amused he is. He also likes to joke by an unexpected object on his head, then laughing at his own cleverness.

He's also gotten quite clever at getting what he wants. He is forever trying to get his grandparents glasses. At first you could always tell he was about to make a grab for them by the sly smile on his face. But recently he's taken to making a sudden grab while looking the other way.

He can be quite serious when concentrating on mastering a skill or examining a new object. Hand him a novel object and he will go quite still, a look of happy concentration on his face as he examines it carefully, quietly exclaiming "hah!" to himself. He can also get quite serious in a new situation, like going to a new place and meeting new people. He will start out cautious, sticking near me, then slowly venture out to explore, coming back to check in with me frequently. But usually by the end of the visit I am having to run after him to keep him from getting into absolutely everything. He is still really interested in interacting with other kids and checking out what they are doing. He is slower to warm up to adults, but if they seem nice and genuinely interested in interacting with him, they usually get a smile for their efforts.

Sebastian is trying to learn words, and he has learned a few signs. He does "ba" for "back" when he wants to put something back where it came from (he does this a lot). And he's just started to a sort of "bwa-wa" for water. Pretty much all his "words" start with a "b" just now. We have been introducing a bit of baby sign language, and he now knows the sign for hot, done, water, eat, breastfeed, more, sock, cat, and bird. Some of these are not super clear yet, for instance his "eat" and "water" are pretty near identical, but usually clear by context. His interest in signing picked up a lot once he learned "more" and realized he could use it to ask for something he wanted.

The thing about him being able to communicate what he wants is that he can be quite persistent. When he's signed "more" for the tenth time for you to pick him up so he can investigate the window latches, for instance. He has a few of his own signs, such as a sort of dance which means he wants the tv on. Most of what he watches involves a lot of music, and he loves to dance to it, which has got to be one of the cutest things ever.

Sebastian weighed 10.2 kgs as of a few days ago, and I don't know his height but it seems like he gets taller every day.

I haven't taken many pictures in the past month. We have been busy. Which also explains why this post is an entire week late! But here are a couple more:


Figuring out how to use a fork

Having colored on his hands and mouth with washable marker