avocado8

Surprise!

I remember being in the car with my mom one time, back when I was in college, when she expressed surprise at some detail or other I'd just related about my life. This intrigued me, and I asked her what else about me surprised her. She responded, "well, if the list were very long I'd have to say I didn't know you very well." I wonder if more about me would surprise her now, or whether I've become more predictable over time. I certainly suspect that in the early days of parenthood the surprises came fast and furious.

This is my experience, in any case; as well as I think I know Austen, he's developing so fast that there are times when he'll do something that just makes my jaw drop. There are other parenting surprises as well—perhaps the biggest one of all being that I actually have a parenting instinct—ranging from things we thought we knew but didn't to things we thought would never change but did. Some recent surprises:

Austen is watching. I knew that I could demonstrate behaviors and eventually Austen would learn to repeat them, but I didn't realize how closely he was watching me when my intention was not to model behavior. For example, last week I noticed that when he's "cooking" on his ottoman, Austen will tap the spatula on the edge of the pot when he's done stirring and then move the spatula to another pot. I do this when I'm cooking: I tap the excess food off my spatula, and then stand it up in an empty can or measuring cup. I've also noticed that he's picked up my stirring and scraping techniques. [This reminds me of the time my sister and I were in a supermarket with her two year-old son, chatting while we inspected the mangoes. We would sniff each one to see if it was ripe, and if it passed muster, we'd put it in our cart. The next thing we knew, J, who had his own little kid-sized cart, picked up a mango, jammed it up his nose, and then tossed it into his cart. My sister and I looked at each other with our eyes bugged out for a second, and then we CRACKED UP.]

Austen is expected to drink two cups of milk a day. I remember reading somewhere the question, "how much milk should I give my baby?", but I don't remember the entire answer. I only remember that there was an admonishment not to give too much, since cow's milk is designed for the nutritional needs of fast-growing calves, not slower-growing human babies. I found out at our doctor's visit on Friday that the cup to a cup-and-a-half that I rather guiltily admitted to giving Austen was actually insufficient. Apparently he needs at least two cups a day, unless he's eating two or three yogurts a day. (Luckily, most days he *is* eating two yogurts a day.) I realized I'm sort of winging it on the nutritional front, figuring that if Austen eats better than I do, he's ahead of the game. Honestly, though, I should never be anyone's nutritional standard, much less a growing child's. I'd say it's probably time to read up on child nutrition, but my instinct says to just keep feeding him a wide variety of stuff, and he'll probably turn out OK.

My, that's SALTY. I've definitely experienced the increased sensitivity to sugar that comes from not eating sweets, but I've never really believed—or had the opportunity to experience for myself—an increased sensitivity to salt. Compared to Al and his family, I'm a saltaholic... though compared to my own family, I eat hardly any. (My mom instituted the policy of "separate salt and pepper shakers for each person," probably because she could never wrest the salt shaker away from my dad. Mom salts EVERYTHING from cantaloupe to ice cream, and my dad can't eat anything unless it's covered in a crust of salt and pepper. For the record, all three of us have blood pressure that's normal to low.)

I've never been a big fan of salt *in* food, but I do love big, crunchy kosher or sea salt crystals on top of pasta, lentil stew, soft pretzels, eggs, and more. Since Austen started eating off my plate a few months ago, however, I not only stopped adding any salt to foods I was cooking (any recipe that said "salt to taste" or "season well with salt and pepper" got none), but I also stopped adding so much salt on top of the food. Sometimes I add a bit to half the plate, but more often than not I just don't add any. As a consequence, when we stopped at Tampopo for sushi a couple weeks ago, I said to Al, "something's wrong with this soy sauce. It's SUPER salty." Al laughed and said that that's the way it'd always been—I'd just never noticed before. Needless to say, it's now almost impossible for me to eat my parents' cooking, and I was a bit sad to discover that the two potato knishes I bought at Artie's in NYC on Friday were much saltier than I'd remembered. They were still the best knishes I've ever had, but so, so salty.

Austen can reach doorknobs, tabletops, and cooktops now. I should have known this day was coming, but it still caught me by surprise. I think what changed—in addition to Austen growing about an inch in the past three months—is that he's become very proficient at standing on his tippytoes and reaching. He's also become quite a climber (he tries to climb into the tub himself now), and he'll stand on anything that will help him reach his goal, from pillows and boxes to my laptop. =:o This new reach combined with his love of pots has required me to emphasize that he should NEVER, EVER grab a pot off the stove. I've also tried to teach him that the red lights mean that the cooktop is HOT. I hope he's soaking in this information.