Papaya the Magical Fruit and other milestones

We may have found our gateway food. Over the past week, Gabriel has shown a marked preference for papaya. We tried it on a whim, and it went over very well -- when we put it on his tray, he immediately puts his hands in it and also brings his hands to his face (but doesn't put them in his mouth). We started it in conjunction with a small vibrator (it was an electric flosser in a previous life) attached to his pacifier and he really liked the vibrations, and when we add the papaya to it, he will open his mouth voluntarily, bite down on the pacifier/flosser, and when it is removed will just suckle back the food and NOT gag. Thomas has also tried this with a spoon (both vibrating and not) and he will still eat it. Today, at the suggestion of his therapist, we offered applesauce simultaneously. He would turn his head away when the applesauce was brought to his mouth, but open up for the papaya. Now we're just on the hunt for foods with similar tastes and textures. I tried it myself, since papaya isn't something we normally eat, and it has an interesting taste and coats your mouth for a little while after swallowing. Definitely different from anything else we've offered before.

We have made another big change as well. Gabriel got his big boy crib and the first night he slept in it, we noticed just how much more space he has. It doesn't look that much bigger, but it's just enough that he can really move around quite a bit. This makes being hooked up to the night drip scary for me, since I can see the possibility of him getting it caught around his body or neck while sleeping. So, since we already were doing drastic night-time rate increases, I cut his night feed down to something he can take in an hour. Now he gets his last feed around 9:30pm after he's asleep. It runs for an hour while we're awake and can check on him, and when it's done we disconnect him and I don't have to worry anymore. Getting him off the night feed was a goal we were working toward anyway, we just did it a little sooner than planned. It's a good thing, since your body isn't designed to digest at night; so getting rid of the night feed will set up his body to get into a more normal daily GI rhythm.

Gabriel has also figured out how to sit up on his own. He's pretty one-sided, in that he always does it from all fours, puts his left leg out straight to balance and pushes up with his right leg bent. We're working on helping him realize there's another side, but it's nice that sitting up is his new go-to move instead of rolling over on his back and kicking he legs. He still really likes that, but he seems to like sitting up more at the moment. He's also seconds away from crawling forward for real. It'll happen any time now. If he wasn't in his high chair at this moment, it could have happened now. He's an active boy -- he's going to be hard to keep up with! Plus, now he is getting way more attached to us, so if we put him in his play pen or go out of sight for a minute he starts fussing. It's nice to see the appropriate social behavior of being attached to your parents, but at the same time it's exhausting for us!