Spud was sick from Thursday morning through Saturday morning, with a temperature at one point spiking above 103 degrees (Fahrenheit). Our baby book rule of thumb for a trip to the doctor is a temperature >104 degrees or over 3 days with a fever (or, of course, other noticeable symptoms, such as turning blue). So we took him to the doctor on Saturday morning, just around the time he started cooling down and feeling better. My truck does the same thing: that mysterious clanking noise under the hood vanishes when I take it to the shop.
He has made significant progress on two major fronts: communications and mobility. About a month ago, we noticed that when a cat came into the room, Spud would sometimes babble out the word "diddy" (which could of course be a reference to well-known rap artist P. Diddy.). At first, we thought it may have been random; he babbles a lot of words that sound a lot like actual words (see: Palin, Sarah), but over time it became more and more clear that he was putting the same letters together in reference to actual kitties in the room and was conjuring up his first word. He is officially off and talking!
He's also been saying "Daddy", although this is a tougher call. His favorite consonant by far has always been the letter D. For several months his favorite babble was "d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d". So it was an easy jump to "dee dee" and "daa daa" and finally "da dee". Make no mistake, I have been workin' "daddy" heavily, repeating it over and over until he repeats it. One might call this brainwashing. But it hasn't been clear if he's referring to me when he says it, or if he still just likes saying "D" words. Lately he's said it a few times when he actually looks at me, so it might be official word #2. This is entirely unfair to Claire, of course. He doesn't use "M" a lot yet. She carried Spud around for nine months and handled the Herculean 3 a.m. feedings and well over 50% of the diapers, while I've pretty much been mailing in the whole Daddy thing (ok, no not entirely true).
He's also trying to walk, with a little help. He went from total immobility to crawling to standing up (and a couple of days later, to standing up and sitting back down) in only a couple of months. Now, if we hold his hands, he can take little steps and walks around like a pro.
The thing about adult humans is, they are very rarely capable of rapid leaps forward in their physical or mental abilities. Improvement is slow, if it ever happens at all. Months on the StairMaster or years gathering and thoughtfully processing experiences and information are required before an adult person can smile and proclaim themselves to be New and Improved. Mostly, we slowly grow physically softer and emotionally stingier. Yes, Darth Vader went from kicking Luke's ass to giving him gentle fatherly advice in about 17 minutes of screen time. Yes, the Grinch's heart grew three sizes that day. But such rapid and profound changes just don't happen in the real world (baseball players on steroids notwithstanding).
Babies are different. Spud is just an amazing little rapidly-changing human. We are having so very much fun watching him grow up and figure this life stuff out.
