The last few weeks have been a bit topsy turvy. We went to Yorkshire Wildlife Park on a sunny day and I forgot a hat so VPM and I fashioned one out of G’s muslin! It was super as he kept it on and it covered his neck and ears. The polar bears were great, as was the leopard. A was just as excited about the trees though….
Then we had a rather rubbish couple of weeks. After a decadent 2nd consecutive evening out in a row for me when Mr.J and I went to see Stewart Lee, we returned home to a sleeping A. Brilliant! Until 10 minutes later he woke up in a pool his own vomit which was swiftly followed by diarrhoea. There was a degree of irony here in that part of Stewart Lee’s act was about whether something was a stain or a solid and it definitely crossed our minds as we were stretchering A into the shower on a changing mat covered in liquid excrement – niiiiiiice! It lasted a few days and despite my best attempts to avoid it, I also caught it but only very mildly. We were very lucky as Aunty W was on holiday from work and able to help out with childcare so I could do some working from home.
We were looking forward to seeing friends the following weekend but they called to say they had a suspected chicken pox case so we erred on the side of caution and ducked out. But then guess what? A came out in a few spots which started to look a bit suspicious. 12 hours later one was definitely blistery and he had chicken pox and our friends little girl actually had dermatitis! That meant a second consecutive week off nursery and once again being enormously grateful for my cousins being around to help look after A so I could go to work. He didn’t really have too many spots and they didn’t seem to be itchy either but he did manage to scrape the biggest one on his forehead and I think he will get a scar from that one.
Good news was around the corner though as we had a lovely holiday in Shropshire with Grandad and Grandma J, Uncle P and Aunty C and Andrew. The weather was brilliant. We didn’t do a tremendous amount as A’s lunchtime nap from 12-2 ish makes heading out a bit tricky but we took advantage of that and walked to a local pub with him in our new buggy and he fell asleep and stayed asleep through the starter and main! We went on a steam train and A loved it. He made lots of “ch ch” noises! We also visited the horse in the field next to our cottage about 4 times a day and he made clicking noises to attract him/her over.
But on to our regular updates!
Movement: Nothing massively new here really, His attempted jumps are slightly more jumpy but his feet only move off the ground a little bit! I think the most noticeable thing he has developed recently is climbing into and out of things – especially the bath. It’s not elegant though!
Teeth: No new teeth this month. A lot of finger chewing in the last week or so though. I think the 2nd molars may be on the move and the canines also look a bit red too.
Eating: He’s had a very healthy appetite in the last week or so. I’m not sure if this a growth spurt or if he’s just started to like our cooking more. He seems to be deliberately dropping his cutlery now and has to be asked at every instance of being given cutlery to return it to one of us or to the tray. He loves corn on the cob, and soil.
Sleeping: Ah, sleeping…. Last month I hinted at an improvement. It lasted for about a week. He went to sleep easily, woke up at around midnight and then 4pm and then up for the day at 6.30am ish. By our standards, this was heavenly. Sadly, it totally did not last. With the benefit of hindsight, I think it was actually the chicken pox kicking in. Booooo. On holiday we had a pretty bad run of 9pm ish bedtime and 5.30am wake ups (plus lots of others in between) on a couple of days so we were pretty shattered. One morning we went for a 4.5mile walk at 8.30am so he’d have a nap in the pram and he slept for 90 minutes. (That was the day Grandma and Grandad baby sat so we could have a nice lunch out together though!) It seems that the 12-2pm nap is not conducive to a 7-7.30pm bedtime so for now I think we just have to have later bedtimes.
Play: Lots of playing! We used the washing line pole to good effect on holiday to pull the scuttlebug along (until Aunty C went a bit too fast and A went over the handlebars, whoops!) and also as a broomstick for Quidditch practice! The Duplo train is an absolute favourite, along with building towers. He has been playing more with teddies and his doll, which we have named Dave after Dave Grohl simply because he says “Dayyyyyv” in a funny way as he looks nothing like Dave Grohl. If he got his own way I think he would be quite happy watching videos of trains all day though 
He’s absolutely nailed doing the shape sorter independently at some point in the last few weeks. I left him to it thinking he’d need my help and came back to it all done and he’s speedy at it too.
Communication: There are waaaay too many words for me to remember. Highlights this month do include “Pah” (Pie!! He may not look very much like me but he is very much my son!!!!!), “tayto” (Potato) and “Hiya!” and “Psssssssss!” (please; he seems to know Parseltongue!). Other notable new words are: wipe! (which he asks you to do ALL the time during any meals), help (“howp!”), hand (“ha..”) accompanied by him trying to take you somewhere of for you to help him down a step. Everything related to a colour is still “yer-row” even though he can repeat other colour words. He’s added a monkey “ooh ooh” to his animal noise repertoire too. But, my current favourite is “cuggle”.
All things JenkinSunts! 