Trent's Words

Trent can say several words now. He says "Mommy" quite clearly and unambiguously. He also pronounces "Bye" correctly and uses it in the right situations. He says "Da" or "DaDa", but not as well as "Mommy". He has other words that he doesn't pronounce correctly, but that he does use consistently to refer to things. He uses "Ba" for his bottle. He says something I don't know how to spell that means kitty. He uses several other sounds for several other things. Tina things he has about a dozen words total.

Trent Pulls Up

Trent can now pull up. He can also perform a slow hand a knee crawl. What he cannot do, is pull up and then get back down safely. Seems to be a little flaw in the process there. Almost as if the human development process where randomly evolved instead of intelligently designed. Anyway, when we put him in his bed, he'll sometimes feign sleep, wait for us to leave the room, pull himself up on the side of the crib and start crying. Then, if we don't get there in time, he'll fall to one side or the other and invariably knock his head against the side of the crib.

Trent's First Trip To The ER

We've just returned from Trent's first trip to the emergency room. Trent was having difficulty retaining fluids and was becoming dehydrated, so his pediatrician recommended taking him in to the ER to receive intravenous fluids. So, Trent had an IV put in his arm and we had to keep him calm and still for a couple of hours while he took on fluid. He seems much better now, and we've been able to get some oral hydration solution into him without him bringing it back up. On bad news side, Tina appears to be coming down with the stomach flu now.

Trent's First Illness

Trent has gotten through his first eight months of life without an illness. Now in his eighth month he's come down with some sort of stomach flu. He's been suffering from diarrhea and vomiting. To his credit, he's been a real trooper. He's been mostly cheerful despite spewing formula all over himself on several occasions. The main challenge now is to find some way to keep him hydrated until the virus runs its course.

Trent's Progress

Trent seems to be on the verge of crawling. He can already go pretty much anywhere he wants by crawling on his stomach. He gets up into the crawling position and tries to take that first move forward and collapses back onto his stomach and crawls from there. He also is so close to being able to get himself into a sitting position. He can jack himself up onto one arm. If he could just get an inch or two higher, he'd fall into a sitting position. If I stand him up against the Superyard, he can grab a hold and stand up by himself for brief periods of time. Trent has also shown signs of playing Peek-a-boo. When given a cloth, he will sometimes cover his face with it and then pull it back quickly while laughing hilariously. It's hard to tell whether he's doing it as part of a game or not, but he does repeat the behavior, which seems like an indication. One last new behavior to mention, Trent now guestures with his arms to indicate that he'd like to be handed off to someone he sees nearby.

Icons of Trent's Youth?

Every generation has icons of its youth. My generation had those little people with the spherical heads and the cylindrical bodies. They sat on the little bus and bumped up and down as the wheels turned. And then there was the Fisher Price barnyard set with whatever animal sound that was supposed to be when you opened the bard door. A cow? Wounded rhinoceros? I think maybe for Trent's generation it might be this rug with a streets and buildings. Does every kid have one of these? Trent and I also just returned from Babies 'R Us with a Superyard XT. Well, two of them actually. This allows me to create a baby coral within which I can create a relatively safe environment for Trent to explore without my having to provide continuous supervision. For instance, I can create this blog entry while only have to glance over at him every minte or so. He seem very happy. Inside the fence lying on top of his rug.

Trent's New Tricks

Trent has developed a few new tricks. He can now roll pretty much wherever he wants to go. He does seem to be following some sort of plan. I don't think he's just randomly ending up grabbing a hold of the cat's food dish. He can push himself up from the waist forward on his hands. He can make small forward progress by pushing up and then pushing forward with his feet. I think I've seen him momentarily push himself into the crawling position. It's a weird feeling sometimes. You think you see him do something and then second guess yourself thinking you just imagined it. He really loves the cats. He always has a smile for his mommy, but any time a cat crosses his field of vision he just smiles and laughs. He has taken to sleeping with his legs tucked up underneath his body. This has the effect of pushing his butt up into the air. It always makes me laugh. He really is a pretty well-natured happy little guy. Maybe he's even an extravert. Hard to imagine where he got that gene. I think my maternal grandmother was an extravert, but she's the only one I can think of in the family. Sometimes, I think I hear him say something. Like el-oh. Sometimes, he even says it at a time that's appropriate, like when I walk into his room in the morning to get him out of bed. That I'm probably just imagining.

Trent's Progress

I'm a little behind on Trent news. He's now six months old. He can roll from his back to his tummy and visa versa. If placed in a seated position, he can remain in the seated position from several minutes. He has very strong legs and can stand with assistance without problems. If you hold him up and lean him forward, he'll take steps. I walked at nine months, so we're expecting Trent to be an early walker too. He eats solid foods. He babbles a lot. Sometimes he appears to say the syllable "ma" in an appropriate context, but that could just be random. He also seems to combine the syllables "el" and "o" occasionally when he sees me after waking up. Again, may just be my imagination.

Trent Talks It Up

Trent has made some progress on his talking. He's started using more words intentionally. He's learned to say "please" as a prompt when he wants something from Tina or I. "Thank you" appears to be more difficult. After all, he's usually already gotten what he wants by the time "thank you" becomes appropriate. He uses the word "ball". When we're looking at picture books Trent will point at balls that appear in the pictures and say "ball". He's learned to say the word "moon". That word comes from the classic Goodnight Moon. Trent can point out the moon in the window and say "moon". Trent can also point at light fixtures and say "light". He's also demonstrated some understanding of the scripting associated with using a phone. He picks up a lot of things that are vaguely phone shaped and make taking sounds into them. He usually ends up by saying "bye bye".

Trent Rolls One Way

Tina and I observed Trent roll over last night. When motivated by a tempting rattlely object, he can now roll over his right shoulder onto his stomach. Once on his stomach, he can also nudge himself forward slightly if an object is placed in front of him outside his reach. He has not yet demonstrated the ability to roll from his stomach onto his back. And when the tempting object is placed to his left, he won't roll left to get it. Hopefully, this doesn't mean he's a republican.

Trent's Allergies

After Trent's four month pediatrician appointment, we had some blood tests done. The little guy had a pretty tough day. Four shots and a blood draw. The results of the blood tests are back and Trent is allergic to...nothing that we tested him for. Tina tells me that these tests have the potential to yield false negatives, but we're going to try reintroducing the foods we've been avoiding. Tonight we had pizza! Tomorrow night Chinese! It's good to have all the tools back in the box.

The Name of Trent

In one of my trips to the wikipedia, I discovered that the name Trent is one of the standard cast of characters adopted by the cryptographic community when creating narratives about communications sequences. For instance, "Alice wants to send a message to Bob". Trent is the name used for a trusted third party or a neutral arbiter. Here's the disambiguation page for Trent. As mentioned on the page, Trent was the location of an important catholic convention and a major diplomatic incident that could have changed the course of the American Civil War. The name is a favorite of mine because it is the name of one of the characters from Daniel Keyes Moran's The Long Run.

Trent Comes Home

Trent came home from the hospital today. He has a clean bill of health so far. It took him about a day to learn to breast feed, which was worrisome, but he's doing well with it now. The cats have both approached him and sniffed him a bit. Tina's parents brought his first hat home early so that the cats could smell his scent for a day or so before Trent's arrival. I'm feeling pretty good. Haven't gotten much sleep, but seemingly enough to function at the level required to take care of an infant.