January felt like a long month. It’s definitely been a busy one for A2 – here is her latest update:
Movement: As you can see from the featured picture, she’s getting pretty good at standing independently. Today, in her usual style, she mastered getting down off furniture on the first go. A quick spin around and a slide to the floor and off she crawled. It worked a treat this evening when she gently slid off the bed and then the sofa when I brought her downstairs when it was evident she wasn’t going to go to sleep! She’s really, really fast up the stairs now too and has gone backwards on the Scuttlebug a few times. She’s using the walker more now too but she often prefers to crawl as she can’t steer well enough yet. She also seems to be developing finer control of her hands – her pincer grip has been great for a while but she’s slowly putting her hands together and then shaking them. A bit like the hokey cokey but I think it’s a clap precursor.
Eating: I don’t think there’s anything she’s tried that she has disliked yet. We had scrambled eggs the other day and today she loved her pizza at lunch and salmon at tea time. She also had a little bit of chocolate fairy cake the other day and that was a huge hit, obvs. She will sometimes let me feed her porridge too so there is a lot less mess than other times but sometimes the mess in the kitchen after I’ve cooked and they’ve entertained themselves around me and then eaten is…. significant. The photo here doesn’t do the mess justice!
Sleep: Oh sleep. How we wish we had more unbroken sleep. Let’s just say I’d be LOST without my slings. She has had a virus this last week so that hasn’t helped; poor wee thing had spots everywhere and lots of snot. [I just looked back on last month and clearly brought the last few weeks on myself!!]
Play: . She’s started to enjoy books more now, especially lift the flap books and the “That’s not my…” ones. She always lights up when you sing and dance with her. Her favourite seems to be ‘Head, shoulders, knees and toes’. Today, she’s been super keen for me to get the little bucket of balls off the shelf and exploring the different textures of them and the noises they make. She still loves the trains and play figures though.
Teeth: She has 2 teeth at last! The first was the lower left incisor which I felt just over a week ago and the second was the upper left incisor which I felt tonight. No pictures though as she will barely let me feel, let alone look and she always sticks her tongue over her gums! I can only assume the eruption of the teeth and their movement is what has made evenings and nights worse.
Communication: . I was very remiss and forgot to say last month that on Boxing Day she had started to wave and say “haaaaa” in a “hi” sort of way. She’s been working on that more and does it more regularly and appropriately now and also says the same sound for “bye” too. She is still pretty shrieky at times, but often A1 sets her off and they do a very annoying shrieking echo game, but she is certainly working on new sounds. Today we’ve had lots of ‘a!’s’ and the other day lots of ‘o’s’ and when she wanted the balls down from the shelf today she did an excited bounce along with her ‘a,a,a’ noise.
As for A1, he’s been very entertaining. Here he is singing and playing his guitar:
He cracked me up last week as, wearing only a PJ top on a very icy day, he ran around his room shouting “Shiver me timberrrrrrs!”. The double entendre was lost on him! He’s had some very emotional outbursts recently – getting very red in the face and shouting at us; no idea where he gets that from….. but he’s also been very kind at times too. He likes to push A2 on the Scuttlebug, sling his baby and put all the (Paw Patrol…) pups to sleep for a nap by tucking them all under their own blankets. He has been doing loads of jigsaws. He loves them and is able to do them very quickly. A2 is his only hindrance! We think he’s set for a career in performing as he can recite all of ‘Skimbleshanks – the Railway Cat’ to us. He’s certainly got an excellent memory!
A1 had conjunctivitis whilst Mr.J was away for work which was an extra hurdle to deal with as he was…resistant to having the drops in his eyes to say the least. I eventually got the knack of it by squatting over him, trapping his arms between my legs, holding his head still between my knees and then using my spare hand to try and keep his eye open 
As I just said, Mr.J went to India for 9 nights and I went a wee bit crazy on my own. An example of this would be the fact that I made us semolina for pudding. It was just as a I remembered from childhood – like wallpaper paste!! I was fine with the practicalities and care of A1 and A2, even doing both bedtimes by myself (A2 just went in the sling, obvs) but as a (very) extroverted person I didn’t cope well being on my own over the weekend in particular. The lucky devil is away again for two nights this weekend (!!) but I have made a plan and we’ll be seeing people and if I’m lucky I may even get to play a board game!
That’s all for now folks. Love Dr.J 🙂
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