(Advanced warning, this is a long one but there are a lot of pics too….)
Yep. A whole flipping year. 365 wonderful (and often difficult) days have passed since the absolute and utter love of my life was born. It’s projectile-vomit-inducingly sickly but I honestly think I love him more every single day. Even the days when I’m exhausted from waking up every 45 minutes and where he doesn’t eat anything, pulls everything we own from every shelf or cupboard onto the floor, crawls all over me with a dirty bum and snotty nose and refuses to nap. Because at some point during all that exploring, he’ll smile, or laugh, or pout and it’s just blooming well biologically impossible not to let my heart melt. I really can’t express the depth of feeling that suddenly erupted in me a year ago and I often end up welling up or crying happy tears thinking about it. It’s been a privilege to spend every single one of the last 365 days with A and it makes me so sad to know that in just a few more weeks I won’t get to do that anymore.
Less melancholy and more fun!!!!! A little bit of drama to start with as we had a trip to A&E last Thursday. A fell over and cut his head on the corner of the telephone point which resulted in a bit of screaming and blood trickling down his face. I got it cleaned up quickly and it stopped bleeding quickly too but I wasn’t sure what to do so I called 111 (NHS direct) but because he’d bumped his head I was advised to get him checked out. It was a total waste of time (and I was very annoyed that we were missing baby yoga as A absolutely loves it) but the main thing is that he was OK.
We had a busy weekend with family and friends here to celebrate A’s birthday and he’s been spoilt with lots of lovely presents (thank you cards will be on their way soon folks). I made a ‘train’ cake, though as you will see it’s rather basic but the main cake and the cargo in the wagons tasted nice and it’s the thought that counts. I’m planning to stick with this set up from now on and hopefully just refine and improve it and change the cake flavours year on year!
As well as all the lovely presents A got from family and friends, we bought him his first shoes, a personalised book, some clothes, a ‘Tranquil Turtle” which projects constellations onto the ceiling and an expanding Thomas the Tank Engine flannel!
Yesterday, on A’s birthday we had a family trip to The Deep since A seemed to like Nanna P’s fish so much when he was at her house. He had a great time and walked all the way round pretty much. He loved the fish and waved his arms up and down in excitement and made a little ‘hu hu hu hu’ noise, though he was equally interested in the lights on the floor! He particularly liked the penguins as they were putting on quite a show of jumping out of the water, hopping down the rocks and diving into the water. Here are some photos from our day at The Deep (no flash photography is allowed so we didn’t get many great photos)
Here’s the usual update though….
Movement: I don’t know why I thought I wouldn’t have much to write here once he was walking as there are still so many movement things to do. One of which is ‘dancing’, or in A’s case bobbing up and down! It’s really cute and he seems to like lots of different styles of music too. He still can’t stand up without pulling himself up on furniture but he can now squat down and pick objects up and stand up again so he’s getting there (edit: he did do this once yesterday since I drafted this post!). Sometimes he doesn’t quite get the distance to the object quite right and he falls over but most of the time he’s fine and he’s certainly got even quicker at walking and just follows you around the house. He can safely get himself off the bed now too; he had been able to do this on the sofa for a while but hadn’t translated this to other places until a couple of weeks ago which now means it’s harder to just lie in bed for a bit if he decides he’s off as he climbs down and wanders off. He uses the same technique to get down the step from the landing too but it’s quite funny as when he decides that’s where he’s going he sits down about 3 feet before the step and reverse crawls until he gets there and then gently eases himself over the ledge until his feet reach the floor.
Teeth: I’ve moved this section up as it’s having a big impact on eating, sleeping and playing! I can only presume that there are some teeth on the move at the moment as he’s dribbling lots, chewing everything he can and generally being a bit whingey. He does have a cough and cold too so whether that’s related or in addition to the teething I don’t know. At the moment the tooth count is still 6 though but they’ve become a lot more symmetrical now as the ones which came through later have caught up.
Eating: Not much really in the last few weeks but sweetcorn, meat and rice cakes have been the most popular items on the menu. I think that’s mostly due to the teething as he has days when he will eat more and days when he eats lots less. Apart from birthday cake anyway….
Sleep: No major improvements here, alas! He did sleep for a whole 4 hours when we had friends around for board games recently (and last night too) but after that thanks to a cough and cold and more teething we had a rough few nights in the run up to his birthday as he just wanted to suckle ALL night but I was so uncomfortable and he was obviously full of milk so kept being on and off and on and off and on and off and getting upset. After all this Mr.J attempted bedtime solo the next night though and was successful so that’s a big step forwards. I thought he would enter the room triumphantly but he said “Oh bugger, does this mean I have to do bedtime every night now?” I’ve also started to wrap him on my back for naps and that seems to be working quite well; he sleeps and I can get stuff done and it also means he’s not feeding to sleep so hopefully that will help once he goes to nursery and that won’t be an option anymore. Last night and another night last week he also went to bed clutching his toothbrush as he seemed to enjoy gnawing at it. I thought I’d just take it off him once he was asleep but his grip held firm!
Play: A really does lovely baby yoga. There’s not very much yoga going on really but lots of sensory play and he has very much enjoyed exploring snow (grated bread), wiggly worms (brown noodles), ducks in the pond (yes, he did get soaked!) and kissing baby bumpkin! When we’re at home there’s not much ‘play’ as much just exploring the entire house. If I’m in the kitchen then pretty much everything gets taken out of every cupboard; apart from the one with chemicals in which is locked. I did think all the other cupboards were safe until one day he pulled out a blow torch – thankfully he’s not quite dextrous enough to turn the dial and press the ignition button but it has been moved now.
The cordless phone on the landing is very popular; he’s only managed to ring Mr.J (from a preset) once but sadly both the bathroom and kitchen bins and the toilet are also very interesting. The toilet seems particularly fun too and he has been testing the buoyancy and durability of the baby monitor receiver… it isn’t very buoyant but after a couple of evenings on the radiator it started to work properly again.
He’s had lots of fun with his shape sorter recently and can get all but the star shape in fairly reliably, when presented with the correct hole. He really likes a small ball of red wool (Collinette Jitterbug if you want to be geeky) and he keeps taking this out of my craft basket (and chewing it) and then this entices Lyra too so it becomes really fun! His love of the cat seems to be inversely proportional to her love for him as he is yet to master touching her gently or not shouting too loudly with excitement when she doesn’t immediately run away. Despite my worries he loved being on a train so when we went to London to see some of my friends from work he had a great time playing with the suitcase handle, looking out of the window and smiling at the all the different people on the train.
Communication: The day after my last blog post, he started to clap. We were having lunch in Pizza Express and he spontaneously did some clapping. This was then added to playing with the shaper sorter as he gives himself a clap every time he let’s go of one of the shapes, regardless of whether he got it into the sorter or not!! He sometimes joins in when I sing ‘If you’re happy and you know it’ now too. Although I don’t think anyone else would understand him he’s using more different sounds as different ‘words’; “dada”, “dah” for that, and a slightly short “da” sound for ‘ta’, when I say “Go go go!” he will repeat back a “Guh guh guh” and he has his own sound for ‘hot’ too. He still says “Ca…c” a lot but he has made a “tuh” sound separately so I’m sure he’l figure out matching those up soon. He comprehends tons of what you say to him; if I say “shall we go to the kitchen..” he’s off and it’s the same for lots of other objects and activities. He makes a very adamant “Mmmm mmmmm mmmm” sound and holds his hands out if there’s something he wants but can’t reach (or have) and he also makes is very clear when he’s upset because you’ve taken something from him that he wants but the best thing of all is the little “hu hu hu hu” noise of excitement. Sadly no videos as I’m too busy running around after him to be able to film!
All things JenkinSunts! 
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