On sitting (it's banal to some, but endlessly fascinating to me)

Today, it was all about the art of sitting. Something you take for granted until you come across someone (like Liam) who can't do it. Lately, we have been practising sitting up a lot. Liam loves to sit up; he's just not very good at it. Originally he needed to lean on me at all times. Then I started trying to teach him the frog pose (photo #1), where he could hold himself up by leaning forward and planting his hands between his legs. Only he's not happy with that - he wants to sit like real people do, leaving his hands free to wave around and grab at things, like my dinner or Captain's tail. After many, many hours of rescuing him from a face plant on the floor this week (during which time he is folded completely in half - it looks so uncomfortable, though it doesn't faze him in the least) - he is starting to get the hang of things. Not for more than a few seconds at a time, and if he reaches out for something it's still enough to turn him into a pretzel, but he's getting there (photo #2). I think this is great - it will be the epitome of babyness when he can sit on his own and bang pots and pans together, or stack blocks. The hours spent in practise are well worth it.

Also on the subject of sitting, earlier today we went to the car seat clinic. I had an appointment that I was told would last 20 minutes. Well, we were there for an hour. We almost had the seat in correctly, but they felt that it needed to recline a little more than we had it. So they took it out and reinstalled it over top of - I kid you not - a pool noodle. How that makes an infant seat more secure instead of less secure is beyond me. The extra recline cuts into the front seat legroom, so the car seat is now located behind the passenger seat rather than the driver's seat. And in order to retain enough legroom to be able to actually seat a passenger in the front, they had to remove the seat base. This called for the expertise of multiple police officers to figure out. In return for the inconvenience, we did get a free teddy bear for Liam and some hot water pipe insulation and a low-flow showerhead and energy efficient light bulbs for me, as the clinic was sponsored by Union Gas.

I didn't take my camera to the car seat clinic - the last thing I wanted was a bunch of police officers and public health nurses to think I'm some nutjob overobsessed mother (even if it's true.) It was very amusing, therefore, for about twenty photos of Liam to be snapped while we were there - and none by me. The police unit took several, Union Gas took several, I think the dealership may have even gotten a few. We're in various poses with various police officers. Sometimes Liam is in his seat, sometimes I'm holding him, sometimes we're with an officer or two or three, or a public health nurse. I don't know where these photos are destined to go - some police promotion? Some Union Gas promotion? The garbage? - but I hope to see a copy someday.

And, finally, a CIO update. Liam went to bed around 6:45 tonight. Not a peep. As I was typing this out at 7:24 p.m., he started to cry. We're now ten minutes into it. I have a really bad feeling about this.

Edited to add: Crying is done. Duration = 14 minutes.