Dean Does Lately

Development Milestones

1. Shaking his head No
2. Saying "No, No, No"
3. Clapping his hands - he most frequently does this while playing with one of his musical toys
4. Pulling himself all the way up to his feet

This picture captures him demonstrating his new ability #4.  It also shows him in the midst of playing his new favorite bathtime game - throwing all his toy boats in the tub and seeing if he can bend over into the tub and grab them.  At this point, he has too short of a reach. He is successful at doing this throw & retrieve game when he's in the minitub and does it over and over in the 5 minutes he gets for bathtime.  This makes washing shampoo out of his hair a huge struggle.  Anything that involves holding this little boy down - clothing, diapering, feeding - is a huge struggle since he's never still.

Favorite Toys

Image 1 via Walgreens, Image 2, 4 via Toys R Us, Image 3 via Target

Play Right Music Player // Toy State Come Back Racer // Infantino Spiral Car Seat Toy // Playskool Pounding Bench

Dean loves musical toys right now and will play with anything that outputs tunes.  The music player was a present given to Faith that she's too old to play with that we kept around.  The car seat toy is great since it wraps around the bucket handle and dangles down.  He really likes the mirror and the wooden ring.  The pounding bench has a little hammer that we don't use now, but we put the blocks in so he can pushed them down through the holes.  This helps work on his hand eye coordination and we can repeat the colors to him as he selects a block to push.

Favorite Songs

• Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
• Sweetdreams (Goodnight Song)
• Snowflake, Snowflake

Youtube channel Super Simple Learning makes a version of these songs that are akin to crack for babies (or my babies anyway).  Dean could be in the middle of a complete meltdown and Mark will play this over the bluetooth in the car and he'll immediately quiet down.  You should check out their compendiums - they have 1 hour long sets with all of these songs and more with no commercials.  

That wraps up my weekly Dean Does Lately update.  For those of you with similarly aged infants, what are you go to baby toys right now?  Do you have toys or songs or methods that will pull your baby out of melt down mode?  I would love to hear from you.  We have a lot of toys we've kept from Faith, but I'm always interested in learning about new ones that kids love.

Love, Candace Jean

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