Late night update

Carter is going through a really nice sleep phase at the moment. After several weeks of fighting going to sleep, he stopped fighting in the last week, and now is really easy to get to sleep. I didn't do anything differently; he just seemed to grow out of the most recent fighting phase. I'm sure it will return, but for now I'm enjoying the ease of bedtime.

He's almost too big for his little IKEA tub now, so I have set up the tub in his bathroom with all sorts of fun stuff. (I'll take a picture tomorrow.) Tonight was the first bath in the big tub, and it went really well. He seemed confused about why we were in there, but excited to have new bath toys. He didn't tear around the tub like I expected to, but sat there fairly quietly while I washed him.

He is signing more and more, but seems more interested in making up his own signs than using mine. That's fine, but it means I have to figure out what the heck he's trying to tell me. It's all about context. He uses the sign for "milk" (opening and closing a fist) as the basis for all his signs. If he holds his fist close to his body and in a vertical position, it means he wants to nurse. If he holds his fist palm-down and points it towards something while making the milk sign, it means "want". Doing that at the dinner table generally means he wants more of something, or wants some of whatever I'm currently eating. If he does it at the cat, it means he wants to pet her. Et cetera. If he holds his fist palm-up, it means "light". (That one is actually somewhat close to the real sign for light, which we started working on last week.) He will also make a very tight fist every now and then, which indicates he has pooped in his diaper. Every now and then when we ask him if he's pooped and make the sign, he will shake his head "no" or will make the sign back. He's not terribly consistent about it yet, but it's interesting that it works sometimes!

You may have noticed that I started a Twitter feed for Carter. It's embedded on the left side of this journal, and you can also follow it if you have a twitter account of your own. It's been fun so far! I'm enjoying trying to write from his perspective. :-)