Not Little!

I am having some serious issues lately as I've been discovering that Nikolai is not a baby anymore! The latest thing is that he no longer wants to be cradled or "held like a baby" while he is drinking his bottle before bedtime. Instead, he wants to sit up next to me leaned against the arm of the rocker while he holds the bottle himself. He is also slightly indignant when I try to feed him jarred baby food for dinner instead of real food that he can feed himself.

He has quite a will of his own, and expresses it every few minutes with either screams and whining or giggles, depending on what he thinks. I'm pretty sure that he is working on something approximating "ah ma ma" and I even heard an "addy" the other day after Colin had walked out of the room.

While I was dropping him at daycare one morning this week, his teacher told me to wait before I put him on the floor to play, because she had to lock some doors and put some things away so that he couldn't get into them. All the other babies are too little to get into trouble. I guess it is a good thing he is moving up to the toddler room this month!

We've also been having fun at swimming lessons at the YMCA. He had his first lesson last week and seemed to like it. He was a little intimidated at first, but soon got the hang of splashing and kicking. He didn't cry when we went under water, but he seemed pretty put out by all the water in his face. Since his first lesson last week, bath time has become a mess. He is so excited and splashes water so far across the bathroom that I can only fill up the tub a little bit for fear of causing a flood downstairs. I'm looking forward to seeing him play in the pool tomorrow morning! Also, he took a 2 hour nap after last week's lesson, which is highly unusual. I just found out from my mom that he is going to the same Y where John and I learned to swim. I remember how much fun we had with the kick boards, but they use noodles now instead. I hope Nikolai has similar good memories someday :)