Wazzberries

Wazzberries (wāz'běr'ēz) n. the soft sound of a baby blowing a zephyr through his lips and tongue; "blfblfbbltlfbltfblt." Not to be confused with raspberries, the small, aggregate fruits that a Zephyr enjoys eating directly from neighborhood bushes whilst on strolls to the store.

So, it's been kind of a helluva week. Of course, it was the dreaded 4th of July last weekend, and I think any but the most redneck parent of an infant or small child curses Independence Day with fist aclench and brow afurrow. Zephyr did okay, I guess, all things considered. As usual, we kept his room pitch dark (but for a night light) and kept two loud, cool fans running to lull him into white noise oblivion. But a few epic booms from illegal fireworks (likely purchased from the 'Couve, Portland's armpit neighbor to the north) finally took their toll, and he was up at 11:00, crying, needing to be nursed back to sleep.

And then, as he has done every night for the past week, he woke up again at 3:00am. We thought those days were behind us. We were out of the woods! But, no.

Every night for a week, Zephyr has woken up once, sometimes twice, unable to put himself back to sleep. It varied - sometimes 4:00, then 3:00, 2:30, 5:00. Sometimes he'd wake only two or three hours after being put to bed. Last night he went back to sleeping straight through to 6:00, but who knows what tonight holds in store?

He's also been a bit of a grumpus the past week or so. Granted, this is Zephyr's version of grumpin', so it means he frowns and says "buhbuhbuh", not that he's throwing tantrums or anything. But lately, unless we actively distract him by singing or playing, he will cry actual hair-wetting tears almost every time we try to change his diaper or get him into a sleep sack for bed. I can't figure out what's going on with him that makes him this upset. So we just keep singing and goofing at him to distract.

We have, though, figured out that "buhbuhbuh" is his frustration/pissed off word, as it is always accompanied by a scowl (I like to think he's sounding out the word "bitch"). Other words: "dwadwadwa" (happy, excited, interested) or "blftlbltfbbttltft" (wazzberries of contentment). And this morning he finished one breast, said "moh" (more?) and then moved to the other breast to keep eating.

I think he's going to have teeth any day now, for real this time. He gnaws anything that drifts into his field of vision, and I can actually see the bumps under the gums. So, any day. This will be exciting for his diet, too, since he has recently developed the pincer-like grasp that separates him from the other primates! He can grab blueberries and get them to his mouth, and other finger foods will follow his ability to chew them.

His new favorite foods are pretty much anything that we eat, undumbed, but chopped up for his tiny craw. He loves my minestrone, and grits with blue cheese and corn, and I made him some tomato-roasted red pepper soup with tiny star-shaped pastina, and it tastes exactly like Spaghettios. On these hot days, he really loves shoving a whole wedge of cold watermelon into his mouth and gumming the rind while sucking the sweet juice. I also made him a smoothie by blending strawberries with frozen breast milk, and he really seemed to enjoy that.

Here's Zephyr hanging out with his towheaded friend Zane at the Stanley's raspberry party. Hopefully when they're a bit older they'll form a supergroup of z-named kids and will take over the playground.