We now have a 2 year old! Dad had a chance to wish him happy birthday on the day, then he came in to visit at work for lunch, and then we trekked out to the western suburbs for a dinner – it was a long day for him indeed, but he slept well at the end of it!

People were very generous to him: he had a range of gifts: one of his favourites is this couch. We’ve seen him have a great time on these toddler couches at other peoples’ houses, but we were surprised at how much he’s taken to it – if he decides he wants to read a book by himself, he’ll reliably sit down on his couch to read it.

Though he still has a tendency to blow kisses at the camera when he notices one, we can usually distract him by asking him to say “fishsticks”. The rest of the time he pulls this face.

Here’s a rare sight of what Puff might look like in the future.

He had a great time at a small, family barbecue on Sunday, with great weather (and Dad having his first solo attempt at cooking on a barbecue), but there were a couple of moments where he decided to rest.

One surprise this afternoon was when Mum came into his room to check on him after his nap. He’s worked out how to take his nappy off, and is – by all reports – pretty pleased with himself for working it out!

Later in the week, we opened another present, this time from another Uncle. some more details of that next time, but here’s what the wrapping looked like: thanks Uncle M!

We’re now just two days away from Puff’s second birthday. The grandragon has been staying with us for some of this week, which has been good for both of them. As such, there have been a few different family gatherings for Puff to go to: this led to a pretty tiring time for him, where he fell asleep in his eating chair in a crowded room!

Earlier in the week we saw him trying to figure out how to use a “bubbler”. He was fascinated to see that he could push a button and have water come out, but didn’t manage to get the coordination quite right: he would stop pressing the button when he went to drink, and so the water would stop.

He found it so distracting that it was a while before we could coax him away from it. In fact, he’s been having a tougher time when trying to deal with being told he can’t do something. We’re seeing more tears, and more of a tendency towards tantrum-throwing, no matter how patiently or consistently we explain things to him.

On election day, we introduced Puff to an important Australian tradition – the election sausage sizzle.

He’s already memorised a lot of his books: here’s some rare footage of him reading the end of a book to himself.

One other event of note from this week was his attempts at jumping into the ball pit. He has almost figured out jumping: in this case it’s more of a stepping out rather than a jump up.

If asked, he can tell you that his birthday is August 26th and that he’ll be 2. He knows his name (though we don’t talk about that here), and he’s getting more and more comfortable around strangers, as long as Mum or Dad are around.

Some special guest photography by uncle Jordan this week

Increasingly, he’s choosing time with Dad when he can have it, but when we are walking along, he’s generally pretty keen to hold hands with both Mum and Dad. We’re trying to get him more comfortable with people apart from his parents, but it’s a slow process.

This week, Mum and Dad have both been sick, leading him – one dinner – to solemnly pronounce “Mum’s a bit sick… Dad’s a bit sick… [Puff]‘s a bit sad”. We were worried at first – is he really sad? What about? Should we be doing something differently? We think, though, that he doesn’t know what “sad” means yet, and it’s just a word he’s been saying.

Most of the time, now, when we go somewhere where he’ll be expected to be quiet for a while, we take these Dr Seuss books. He’ll read them, put them in the box and take them out again, and generally remain distracted for a good period of time.

He pulls some amazing faces: here’s one that suggests his capacity for mischief.

It took a fair amount of explanation to get this shot to work – he wasn’t quite understanding the concept, but he had a lot of fun playing with Uncle Jordan nonetheless.

One of his favourite things is to play in playgrounds. He’s getting more interested in climbing on things, but he still has a way to go before he’ll be happy to take the risks involved in some levels of climbing.

When getting ready for bed, he’ll generally ask to play with the Bonjela. We don’t let him actually open it, but he’s pretty happy taking the tube out of the box, and putting it back in again afterward.

Today we went to a wedding for some of dad’s old workmates, and Puff (after a little while being anxious around her) managed to get his first hug from a bride.

He was dressed up for the wedding. It’s no surprise that there aren’t many button-up shirts in his wardrobe: the less fiddly his clothes are, the better in general, but it was good to have him dressed suitably for a such happy day.

Parents of older children are starting to speak with increasing glee about the “terrible twos” which are only a couple of weeks away. Indeed, for the past few weeks we seem to have had a preview; Puff is becoming more certain of what he wants, and – though he’s usually good at communicating, there are times when we’re not sure what he’s saying.

He’s started riffing on the books that he knows, and will often swap some words around to make up his own variations on songs (and not just “meow”). There’s an increasing sense of rhythm in the singing that he’s been doing.

In an effort to get him to play outside more, Dad took him to the park on Saturday afternoon.

A trick that Mum taught him is “cold hands”. It’s not actually all that pleasant.

Here’s some more singing: he hasn’t quite figured out the singing-while-doing-the-actions for this song.

He had his first experience of the X-Box, watching Mum, Dad and Uncle Jordan playing Halo. We explained it to him as “Mummy fell down”, and “Daddy fell down” – imagine our surprise when – a day later – he started saying things like “Mummy fell in the water”… it seems that everything that he does gets soaked up into his brain for later playback.

Although he’s getting better at eating with a spoon, there are some meals that end up being pretty messy no matter what happens. This smile notwithstanding, he’s been pulling some excessively cute faces when he tires of eating. Hoping to have a photo of it for next week.

Not many photos this week. We had a few opportunities to go out, but didn’t really take photos of either of the two birthday parties that we went to over the weekend, so these photos will have to do.

Puff and Dad went to check out a cafe while Mum rested in the car. Incredibly, despite unwelcome attention from a female patron some months his junior, Puff seemed to have a good time, and only spilled about a quarter of his babycino. He even managed to amuse himself for a while by unstacking and restacking the sugar sachets while Dad talked to the cafe owner.

A trip to Westfield in the stroller meant some time in the stroller. His favourite resting place for the stroller was certainly in front of this ad: there’s no such thing as too many cats.

Puff has learnt that there are different kinds of mice – the ones that say “squeak” and the ones that say “click”. He has a USB mouse that he’s quite fond of: he likes playing with the scroll wheel and the latch where the USB cable tucks away. We spotted him trying to use his mouse as a phone, and trying to talk to Aunty Chan with it.

This week saw him lose his crayons for a day or so: – he’d had a half-hearted go at writing on the wall. Here he is back to the normal use for his crayons.

Puff seems to have a great handle on when he needs to rest: this week we’ve been pretty busy with birthday parties and other events, and so he’s missed a couple of naps. Here he is trying to catch up.