I’ve got good news and bad news this month. Good news first: we are pleased to share that A will be a big brother at the end of March (ish). A has been very sweet and often says “Goodnight baby” to my tummy and gives my belly button a kiss. He was excited at the scan to see the baby wriggling around and waving too. I don’t think he really knows what’s going to hit him though. He asked me to get in the bath with him last week and said “Mimi, put baby away” and when I said that baby lives in my tummy and I couldn’t put baby away he said “Get out”. Fun times ahead I’m sure!!
The bad news part of this post is that I’ve decided to make this the penultimate monthly development post for A. He’ll be 2 next month and he isn’t changing as fast any more and there’s not as much new stuff to share and it also takes me quite a while to write these posts and I don’t think I’m going to manage to keep up soon. I’ll do sporadic ones instead though and share lots of pics still so don’t be too sad!
There aren’t many pics in this months post as I’ve just not really taken very many – sorry! It’s been quite hectic and stressful this month as we’ve had our existing kitchen taken out and are having a new one put in at the other end and having bifold doors put in where the old kitchen was so most of my photos are of the house and paint colours. I’ll do a separate post once it’s all done – hopefully another couple of weeks and we’ll be back to having a functioning kitchen and not cooking on a camping stove in the living room!
Movement: He still can’t jump. He is still working on his roly poly and yoga but hasn’t really cracked the roly poly. His dance moves are improving though and when he’s not being lazy and asking to be carried or go in the pram, his ‘walk’ is a pretty fast jog now so I have to strife properly or jog to keep up!
Teeth: He has 16 teeth now as the lower left canine has well and truly broken through this month so we’re just waiting for the dreaded 2nd molars now. I can’t se any sign of them from the brief glimpses I get at the back of his mouth but there’s been a lot of fist chewing recently and he does say his teeth hurt sometimes.
Eating: He’s not eating quite so much now, and especially hasn’t eaten much this week when he’s been poorly. He’s had a phase of eating one or two satsumas after tea but now that I’ve just bought another big bag he seems to have gone off them again! He can manage to eat a yogurt without making too much mess on his own now which gives me a head start on cleaning up after tea sometimes and in general is able to use his cutlery independently and if he’s hungry and interested be pretty self sufficient.
Sleeping: Sadly naps, bedtime and nighttime aren’t quite as idyllic as they were a couple of months ago. Bedtime can take a lot longer now and he needs us to stay until he’s asleep, and on a nursery day when he’ll nap for a couple of hours 12-2 ish that can be as late as 9pm. Whereas at home, he won’t nap at all now unless we’re out and about in the pram or car so I’ve had a lot of tactical journeys recently as if he doesn’t nap at all he’s falling asleep in his tea at 5pm. He occasionally still sleeps through in his cot but more often than not he wakes anywhere between 1 and 5am and is pretty insistent on coming into “Mimiiiiiiiii’s bed” but as soon as he hits our mattress he’s out like a light so I’m not complaining unless he wriggles and kicks me too much! He’s been poorly this week and was off nursery on Tuesday and he fell asleep at 10am here:
Play: I have to admit the thing he probably enjoys most at the moment is watching TV. As a result of feeling pretty dreadful for the last 2-3 months he’s watched a lot more TV than before and his favourite is probably Po(stman) Pat. He knows all the characters names and he regularly asks for the episode about Bernie the Parrot and the one with Robots. He sometimes just shouts out “Everybody knows!” from the theme tune too…. I feel quite guilty about this really and I try to maximise the time when I’m feeling well enough to be more interactive though. He’s still train obsessed too and now likes listening to the lady on 1471 – “phone y(l)ady” (It is free right?!) and helping to clean! He loves going out on to the playground too; when he was under the weather at nursery this week and it wasn’t his turn to go out to the playground I think he had a little tantrum! We’ve been today and he was merrily running along the wobbly bridge on the big play area and when we went to Centre Parcs recently he went on an enormous slide with help from Mrs.P and Mr.J to lift him to the top!
We also did some baby Owl handling at Centre Parcs. He didn’t want to hold the first one but he did stroke it but after that he completely lost interest and just said “Put owl away”, “Do buckles” (on his pram) and “Go playground” which was abut 20m away! I enjoyed holding and stroking the owls though. We also went swimming a couple of times whilst we were there. The first time was busy and loud and he wasn’t too keen (neither as I as it wasn’t that warm!) but Mr.J encouraged him and did lots of bouncing and he was also enticed by the mini Peto’s and seeing them splashing around. The second time was more successful as it was quieter and less busy and he let me float him around a bit instead of just holding on like a monkey. We also took him on a water slide and he loved that. Sadly, by then his lips were going a bit blue and shivery so we decided to call it a day. We also went bowling there and he liked pushing the ball down the ramp – I think he probably did better than me!
Communication: He’s really cracked joining up a few words together now. There are so many examples I don’t really know where to start though! He’s also starting to use “I” instead of “You’ when referring to himself more. He’s pretty good at saying “than(k) you” now and “ha(ppy) bi(rth)day” and the other day (when we were washing him from the sink when we had no hot water because of our kitchen renovations) he told me the water was”right tempeture”. His pronunciation of words he’s been able to say for a while has also improved – he ways the ‘t’ in water properly now and the ‘s’ sound in yes is more obvious.
Other random stuff: I’ve noticed he’s able to remember things, or certainly tell me things he’s able to remember now. If you ask him what he had for breakfast he’ll tell you and he told us about something he’d done midweek at the weekend.
He regularly has a wee on his potty before his bath and sometimes in the morning and sometimes does the occasional poo too. He gives me no forewarning of either event and is still dreadful at dressing/undressing himself (although he’s very compliant with both to be fair) so I don’t think we’ll be nappy free any time soon.
All things JenkinSunts! 