Category: week in review

For the first time in a long while, we started using the “good” camera this week: see if you can tell the difference from the usual camera-phone pictures!

This was the last week of Grandragon’s stay with us – she headed back home today, which Puff coped with surprisingly well. Dad has had to stay back working on occasion, and this meant that one evening Mum had to read all the bedtime stories. Dad was home in time to do the reading, but Puff turned him down, preferring Mum to have a go instead.

On Saturday, we went to Wollongong to see Aunty C and Uncle J, and to look at a farmyard nursery. We made it just as the animals were being packed up, which meant that Puff managed to pat most of the animals on their way back to the horse float. He handled the situation well, although he wasn’t a bit fan of the squealing pigs.

Huff is having more and more interest in food – she has a small cache of favourite toys – bright coloured, and with lots of options for gripping. She has a tendency to drop things, but it doesn’t seem to phase her.

Most of the time, Puff is happy. We’re starting to understand what the normal variations are of his mood, and what is reasonable to expect from him. Until everything changes again.

Puff is getting more and more into his craft – we’ve given him some clear plastic boxes that he’s allowed to play with. He’s been very good at packing up when we tell him, and has even started helping to set the table on occasion.

Huff and Puff continue to get along pretty well most of the time. He’s happy to bring her toys back to her when she drops them, and doesn’t seem too jealous of the attention she gets – he prefers to go back to doing craft.

Grandragon had a couple of chances to bathe her granddaughter, and Mum managed to take a few tasteful photos of the event – here’s one of them.

One other major factor of the week was Puff having a great time playing with Bandit. He laughed and played, and was – for the most part – very responsible in the way he was helping look after Grandragon’s cute little dog.

One last thing – he’s starting to learn how to write letter and numbers, and loving it.

Our time with Huff is changing – she’s starting to be strong enough to sit up with some assistance. This week saw her trying out some new favourite toys.

She made her first appearance at a high tea, in Katoomba, looking very elegant in her party dress (thanks to our guest photographer for this shot).

And she had her first go in the high chair. Puff had a bit of trouble sharing this high chair with her, but it seems to have worked out okay.

Friday night saw us (Mum, Dad, Puff, Huff and the Grandragon) head to Bankstown Sports Club for dinner, with gelato for dessert.

After a long walk around the facilities with Dad (some lift rides, seeing some live piano music, and looking around at lots of lights and numbers), there was still gelato to be had for dessert.

Saturday while Mum and Huff were having fun at the high tea, Dad and Huff went to Scenic World for an adventure. We took the train down the mountain (Puff was fine with the big gradient, but didn’t like “the dark”), went on a long walk along the raised walkway, and then caught the cable car back up.

We’re not sure what the highlight was for him, but he was certainly a big fan of the yoghurt that was on sale in the kiosk – it was the first thing he asked about once off the cable car.

Puff’s negotiation skills are improving too. Instead of his usual, somewhat lengthy, bedtime story, he chose a book for a much younger reader, but read “lots” of times. I offered “3” times as “lots”, and he said “a hundred”. I offered “10”, as that was the number of butterflies referred to as “lots” in a recent library book. He met me half-way, with “99”. And then, his next step was “98”. I decided to cave, and read that book once, and his choice of another book once as well.

Another week with the Grandragon staying with us, and it’s been long enough that she has knitted Huff a new travel sleeping bag – here she is modelling it.

She is increasingly interested in the world around her, and likes watching things that have bright colours. Occasionally she will lift up a toy and bring it to her mouth: otherwise, she just looks amazed when she does something new, like watching her feet move around.

In the mornings, she’ll wake up before she’s hungry, and be happy to spend some time in the bouncer, or looking out the window at the light and colours.

Puff has given us some grief this week in his night routine: from somewhere, a fear of bed bugs has crept in, and he’s wanted to have a series of long reassurances from Dad that everything will be fine. It’s tough to convince him that it’s okay for Dad to leave the room, and that he doesn’t have to “stay until eight-oh-oh and then [Puff] and Dad will get up and turn the light off and go out of the room and make breakfast”, but he seems to be getting his groove back.

We’ve had a few cold evenings this week, and so the heater has been on in Puff’s room a little more often than usual. For whatever reason, he hasn’t worked out that getting dressed in front of the heater is much more pleasant, but really we’re happier that he doesn’t play with appliances, so that’s a good thing.

Saturday was a trip into Newtown for breakfast with Dad, Puff and Aunty S, and then a trip to the park, and a stroller ride. We had a great time watching the dogs in the park, and talking and playing in the park.

From there we went to another friend’s house, where we played with their kids and had lunch together, and then a quick trip to Koorong to try out the play equipment. Sunday was a day of two different church services, with a trip to the shops in between.

This was an odd moment during the week. Puff had spelled out the names of various numbers, and had all of them right, except that the seven was backwards. Once this was pointed out, Puff couldn’t help himself but fix it right away.

We were asking Puff what he wanted for dessert, and he said “10 jellybeans in a cup”. Dad went to the cupboard to fetch a small plastic bowl, but Puff said “No, that’s a bowl”. The next plastic receptacle retrieved from the cupboard was deemed a “container”, and then “Yes! That’s a cup! Good Daddy.”

Not much by way of photos of Huff this week, but we managed to snag this brief photo of her after her bath.

A couple of new behavioural traits from Puff emerged this week. One was his tendency to say “Not yet, soon” when asked any to do anything he doesn’t want. The other one, which he’s already outgrown, is to take his rubber ducks, and then sit on this inflatable chair while he “hatches” them.

On Friday night we took Puff and Huff out to dinner. At the table there was a little display of Keno cards (the ones for betting) and little pencils, and he had fun drawing lines between the different numbers (at least until we found him something else to colour in). Another challenge – the enormous “kids meal” portion sizes – are you really meant to have the same portion when you’re 2 and when you’re 12?

Saturday was some father-son time, and Dad and Puff headed to Eveleigh markets, and then across Newtown to Sydney Park. For whatever reason, Puff didn’t want to go down the slide, and preferred to climb down the wall instead. He did this a good half-dozen times and had to be coaxed to explore anything else!

Sunday saw us make the trip down to Mittagong for a friend’s baptism. Once the eskies were no longer needed, Puff had a great time playing with the ice.

He also saw his first jack-in-the box. Given his tendency to be stressed by surprises, he coped really well with it.

One other thing that is a regular part of Puff’s week is a trip to some kind of play equipment or other. No matter how engrossed he gets in what he’s doing, though, he still has time to look up and see what his parents are doing.

We’re still struggling to make progress with getting him to feed himself an entire meal. This week saw him make some direct requests to be fed, even when eating easy meals like toast. No number of explanations about what “big kids” should do seem to resonate. Still, next week is another chance to fix it.

We managed to make the purchase decision for our replacement car this week, so there was a mix of public transport, borrowed cars and our new ride. We’re driving a 4wd car now, with a bit more space than we had before (and still a high ANCAP rating).

Huff continues to grow up ever so slowly. She’s starting to get interested in holding toys, and enjoy interacting with people – if left alone in her bouncer, she will yelp a little bit until someone looks at her again.

Huff spends a lot of time playing in the bouncer – it’s a good in-between zone between being carried and being on her playmat on the floor. With Bandit (and the Grandragon) visiting at the moment, it doesn’t seem like a wise place for her to be!

Puff continues to surprise us with his ability to remember larger and larger sections of Beatrix Potter books, and to point out words that he’s memorised.

One benefit of having no car this week was that Puff finally had a chance to take a couple of bus rides. He enjoyed them immensely, though there’s a major lack of convenience involved in taking strollers on and off the bus, and waiting for timetables to line up.

To celebrate Public Holiday monday this week, we went on a long-ish car ride. We travelled up to Hornsby, and then back down to Cronulla for play equipment and gelato respectively – it worked well with everyone’s sleep patterns, and provided an opportunity for some family time. Despite the cold-ish weather, Puff was happy to have an ice cream (except, oddly, the cone).

Sunday morning, in a vain attempt to give Mum a pre-church sleep-in, Puff and Dad trekked up to the local shops. Dad was hoping to have a breakfast pizza, but Puff insisted on a “babycino with sprinkles”, and there was only one place where that could be found. He managed to eat half his banana bread (showing some skill in slicing with a plastic knife) before tiring of the whole endeavour, and the trip home.

Pre-work breakfast with Puff continues, and Dad has been taking photos of his breakfasts of late. Puff – ever involved in whatever Dad is doing – asked to be part of the photo, and then made sure that we added a photo of Monkey into the mix. This continues to be Puff’s favourite toy, and is increasingly personified into Puff’s daily adventures.

Other events this week
* travelling down to Wollongong for Aunty C and Uncle J’s housewarming

* visiting Grandma and Doc
* not quite making it to Vivid Sydney, but having Japanese food for dinner on Friday night instead

We’ve been hoping for a while to be able to upgrade our car to something that would work better for Mum’s back, but this week, our hand was forced when (don’t worry, everyone is fine) our car was in an accident – sandwiched in between two cars.

Here is all the stuff from the car, on the side of the road.

Today Huff makes it to four months: she becomes more and more interested in her surroundings, and can even pick up a toy occasionally, before letting it go again.

Huff had her immunisations yesterday (we had to line it up while we still had a hire car) and was weighed – she’s going well, at 5.84kg.

Sunday brought some new challenges to encouraging quiet play while Mum had a much needed sleep-in. We went outside and played with chalk, and it took some careful negotiating to have Puff wear a jumper, despite the low temperatures. Dad had to write out the whole alphabet in chalk, and then some numbers.

To make the most of our hire car, and as a crazy surprise, we called in to see Uncle J and Aunty C. Puff played ever so briefly with their cat Slinky.

A couple of times this week Puff was asleep on couches or in arms: – he’s been running a bit short on naps this week, but has caught up the last couple of days.

There were a lot of disagreements about the suitable spoon to eat one of Puff’s dinners this week. This was caused by tiredness, we hope!

Today Puff made ‘block sandwiches’ – he even went to get a plate for them, and then put the smallest one in the fridge! It seems that there’s no shortage of imagination in his life!

Mum brought Puff and Huff to pick him up after work today, and then we had dinner in the city. From there, we jumped a tram to get back to the train station.

After that, there were some disagreements over how many Beatrix Potter stories Dad should read before bedtime. Puff thought ten, Dad thought one. Unusually, Dad won out this time, due to the lateness of the hour.

The highlight of the week for Dad was taking Puff to the park on Saturday afternoon. We went late, close to sunset, and had to go to the shops afterwards. Puff ran around the park with Dad, holding both Monkey and Cat the whole time. There were some big kids on the play equipment, but when they left, we headed for the brick wall around the climbing frame and the slide. Dad and Puff walked around in a circle arguing about whether it was dark enough to leave the park, talking about where the moon might be, looking at helicopters and stars in the night sky. It was just one of those great moments of being a parent, and Dad wanted to remember it.

It’s been a tough week. Dad has finally handed in all of his assignments, but everyone remains sick to a lesser or greater extent. Dad took a day off to look after Puff and help Mum get some extra sleep, and today was a work-from-home day with a lot of unhappy child noises.

Dad has a new appreciation for how hard Mum’s job of looking after the kids is: the relentless grinding away of the emotions that comes from the screaming and the negotiating.

But there are a few moments that make it all worthwhile. After a few moments of unhappiness, we managed to capture this picture of Huff looking happy in a new dress.

When sitting down, Huff has a tendency to play with her fingers. The cue that she’s hungry is when she starts to put them into her mouth, but until then, she does a great little Montgomery Burns impression.

In the mornings, around breakfast time, she likes to wake up a little before she’s actually hungry, and sit in her bouncer and watch the world go by. She continues to be a low-maintenance baby for the most part!

With Huff’s continued happiness to sit in the bouncer, Dad broke out Puff’s old playmat (which, let’s be honest, Puff has no memory of whatsoever) – this made for a cute opportunity for them to play together – when Puff wasn’t getting a little too close to her face, or trying to cover her face with a toy.

Friday night Puff suggested “let’s go out for pizza”, and so we visited friends and ate dinner picnic-style on their loungeroom floor.

Saturday was a trip to a friend’s house for his birthday party. One bonus of the house was this cubby house. With its steep staircase, it was easy for him to get up to the verandah level, but he didn’t have the confidence to walk back down: this meant that he was standing up there a bit longer than he might have liked, until Dad figured out why he was still there!

Another trip out with Dad so that Mum could sleep was on Sunday morning. A quick trip down to Cronulla, then a stroller walk around the suburb: – we were almost out of time (Dad wanted to get back for church) but he really wanted to play at the playground. We compromised, and he had five quick slides.

Monday saw an overtired Puff out at a shopping centre – when he finally had a chance to play on the play equipment he didn’t do any climbing, but just played with the upright toys.

A few other bits and pieces:
– Puff is still not a fan of a large group of people starting to sing “happy birthday”, which we saw happen twice this week
– we had some fairly significant outfit-change-required nappy changes for Huff this week
– a surprise trip to see Aunty C and Uncle J on a school night made for a very late night (and helped Dad get his assignments done)

Let’s hope that next week is a little easier to cope with.

Everyone has been sick at one point or another this week, so it hasn’t been all that much fun. A tired Puff means an ill-disciplined Puff, and we’re seeing more screaming and tantrums, and less ease in dealing with him.

The new thing for this week is, when an upset Puff is asked “What’s wrong?”, the response is an emotional “Nothing!” (or, on occasion “NOTHING!”). This happens at a variety of times, though most of the time – as long as he’s getting his own way, really – he’s good natured.

Huff has been a bit cough-and-spluttery this week, and has made a habbit of breaking with her sleeping-through-the-night tradition, waking instead for a 3, 4 or 5am feed (but only one). It’s still tough for Mum to cope with this change in routine. Here’s an update on what she looks like.

She likes looking around the room, to see what’s going on, and will even be happy looking around an empty room for a while, until it gets too quiet for her.

We tried out her kicking on a mat on the floor for the first time this week, and she enjoyed it for a while, and then wanted to be held again.

On Saturday, Mum took Puff and Huff down to Wollongong to see Aunty C and Uncle J while Dad slept off a fever and sore throat. There, he was taken to see a LEGO show of sorts – he came back speaking favourably of it, so that was a good thing. He was a bit sad that the barbecue had been packed up before he’d had a chance to eat – he explained it in some detail!

Sunday morning Puff and Dad tried to give Mum a sleep-in, so there was much quiet play, and a little bit of video watching on Dad’s old (aka Puff’s) iPhone. Worried about Puff holding the phone for too long, Dad made an iPhone stand out of Duplo, which Puff swiftly started elaborating, adding a Duplo pig and dog, who were then watching the video.

It was a bit comforting to watch the video recede in his attention, though it made Dad reflect on how much the technology has changed since *he* was a boy.

Sunday night the poor sick family bunkered down to have a salad and BBQ chicken for dinner, and it was up to Dad to chop up the vegetables, with Puff offering advice. We were going well with circle-shaped carrots, and with celery sticks, but when the capsicum came along, he asked for “heart shaped” capsicums. Mum remembered that we had some cookie cutters in the cupboard, and you can see the result in the tiny white bowl.

Lastly for this week, Puff’s fascination with forming the shapes of different numbers has taken a painful-looking twist: this is how he makes a nine.

See you next week!

Everyone is back from the Queensland trip, to visit the Grandragon and the Great Grandragon, and – after a few days with no parenting tasks to do Dad is back to the more familiar routine of trying to balance working, studying, and parenting. Which is his preference, let’s be honest.

Rewind to Dad’s birthday and everyone came in to Dad’s work to have a birthday lunch. We had different noodles and soup. Puff did a good job eating, and managed to stay in a good mood even thought it was a long wait for the food to arrive!

Sunday was Mother’s Day, but with the flight and everything else being early on Sunday, we celebrated on Saturday. Dad pushed a little too much to get this card ready early, and there were some unhappy people, but this photo captures the aspect of the day that we wanted to remember.

Sunday morning we were up early to pack the car – some challenges working out how Huff’s hammock was to go on the plane – and everyone was in the car ready to go to the airport. Puff walked through airport security on his own two feet, for the first time.

After a quick breakfast at the airport, it was time to jump on the flight. Mum took this photo from the air. Puff and Huff were both good flyers.

Once in Queensland, there were lots of reunions. Puff had a great time playing with Bandit and fluffing his tail.

An trowel left in a pot-plant made for an exciting diversion for a while.

And Huff had a chance to rest in the arms of her great-grandmother.

Huff continues to learn new things. This week she discovered her feet – hold her at the right angle so she can see them, and she will move them around and look fascinated that such things exist. She’s starting to kick more in the bath now as well. We’re giving her more “tummy-time”, and she’s getting better at holding her head in place when she’s reclining in a corner pillow.

Though there’s no animosity between Huff and Puff, it’s clear that they haven’t worked out a way to play together successfully.

In Queensland, Puff also had the chance to play with his friend H. He wasn’t completely comfortable playing together with another toddler – they’re not in separate houses for nothing! We’re hoping that as Huff grows up that they learn to play well together!

Another fun time for him was meeting our friends’ dogs – Cookies and Custard. Puff hasn’t seen them since before he could walk!

We were sad to see C&J move to their new house – Puff wasn’t feeling well on the day, and took some calming down in the morning before we were ready to head down to see them. Eventually he calmed down, and had fun running around the new place (even if he was a little shy around all the people who helped).

He was well enough to go from C&J’s house to E’s birthday party – he’s starting to understand what a birthday party is, though he’s still not a fan of sudden loud noises like a roomful of people singing ‘Happy Birthday’.

Sunday wasn’t much better for Puff: – he spent some time in the morning resting on his couch (an easier sell for him than going back to bed) watching Hairy MacLary on DVD.

On hold for now – Puff, Huff and Mum are all in Queensland at the moment. They’ll be back tomorrow!