Another week, another long weekend. This one was a bit quieter for us – a few short trips out, but no travel out of Sydney. A belated birthday present turned up this week – a wooden toaster. Proof that the simplest things are often the best – it’s a toy with no bells, whistles, or flashing lights, but he’s had a lot of fun with it. He’s even learned that “bread” goes into a toaster, and “toast” comes out.
His eating has been up and down: sometimes he’s happy to eat what we give him, other times he’s not such a fan. He generally has a couple of solid meals each day, but one (or two) meals in a day can be a struggle.
His reading and singing is getting better. Here he is with the rainbow song that his Grandragon taught him.
A trip to Darling Harbour on Friday saw Puff and his friend E have a grand outing – at one point they were even (unexpectedly) holding hands!
Just like last time, he really enjoyed his time on the little train that carries passengers around the harbour.
We’ve borrowed another couple of library books and he’s already memorised them. We dragged out a CD that we hadn’t played in a few months, and when we played it, he was beyond excited. It was like a little tape recorder had triggered in his brain – he kept asking for the CD to be repeated until he had it pretty well committed to memory.
This week saw us take a trip down to Canberra for a few days to spend time with some friends. Before we made that trip, though, we saw him do a great job negotiating what he was going to have for dessert:
We weren’t coaching him on counting up to three on his fingers, this was just something he put together himself. He prevailed – we gave him all three types of fruit (watermelon, rockmelon and strawberries), and he ate most of them.
At the prospect of playing a game on the Wii Fit Plus, he was pretty excited: in the early stages of playing the chicken / bulls-eye game, he was flapping with a lot of energy.
A present from Uncle M was a toy we’re calling “Army Bear”. It’s taken a little time for him to get comfortable with this bear, but he’s pretty happy with him now.
Once we reached Canberra and checked into our hotel (the high point for him was certainly pressing the buttons in the lift), and settled in, we gave him the chance to watch a couple of videos on Dad’s phone. He was quite happy just sitting on the edge of the bed watching these videos for quite a while: we feel a bit guilty letting him spend time watching videos (shouldn’t we be encouraging him to read), but it was a good way to postpone stir-craziness.
Having caught up with our friends for dinner on Saturday night, and for lunch on Sunday, and having tried church in the morning, we thought it might be time to try the hotel’s local delicacy, so we queued up for Schnitzel. Puff had the kid’s meal schnitzel, and had a pretty good go at it.
On Monday it was a public holiday in Canberra. Mum took Puff to see Floriade (but didn’t take a camera), and Dad went to catch up with an old uni friend, M, who took this photo of Puff and Dad. Puff is trying his first chocolate – a milk chocolate bear on a stick.
As we headed back to Sydney, we stopped in Goulburn to have lunch. Of course, Puff fell asleep in the car about 10 minutes before we made it to Goulburn, and stayed asleep for a couple of hours. Lastly, on the way back to Sydney, we stopped in Bowral so that Puff could have a late lunch.
What else could I mention?
* Puff had a great time playing with 4yo J, and 1yo N down in Canberra
* When playing at a rest stop in Goulburn, there was a climbing-train for kids to play on: Puff mostly climbed onto the train, and then sat on a seat and looked out the window.
* Puff managed to sleep on a friend’s bed, not in his cot, for the first time (it took Mum some serious coaxing, though).
* When Aunt S read him a story from Busy, Busy world about a detective named “Sneef”. He has since decided that this is the funniest word in the world, and we’ve spent a lot of time this week laughing about it.
* He can say “sibilant says S” and “dental fricative says th” as a result of a friend’s tweeting about phonetics, and Dad’s curiosity
* He was referring to the spa bath as a “space bath” until we set him straight.
Holidaying with a 2 year old in two is certainly not the same as holidaying as a married couple – there’s a lot of extra time spent packing and unpacking, and not as much (if any) time spent reading and relaxing.
The extra insights into the world that are brought about by looking through his eyes make it worthwhile. His excitement at pressing the buttons on the elevator, bringing joy to other people by smiling and talking to them; his good manners: – it’s a joy to be his Dad.
This week saw us embark on a few different adventures, but not many photographs, unfortunately. Friday night was a Dads-and-kids event at the local library. Puff and Dad went along, heard some stories, watched a video, and did some craft together, and then we went out for dinner with Mum. Because there were other kids around, it didn’t seem appropriate to take photos.
We had a few different stop-ins in different venues where there were toys for him to play with. He has such an industrious tendency to his play – it occupies his entire attention, and he explores the toys – taps them together, works out how they might fit together, and even – on occasion – adapts some of the stories that he knows to the toys he’s looking at.
A first for this week – Puff spent a little bit of time in a creche, while Mum and Dad spent time working on an event for a friend. He survived it quite well, though Mum noted that he was asking for more cuddles than usual.
One birthday gift he received was this cowboy hat. At first, he wasn’t sure about it, but this week, we saw a big change in heart, and he’s decided that he’s quite a fan of being a cowboy.
This is the face we’re most likely to see when we take a photo of him – it’s his “want to see” face – he wants to know what the photo looks like.
This week, when he wasn’t eating, there was a lot of climbing going on. We tried to call in on more play equipment than in a usual week in an effort to give Puff more of a chance to run around.
Poor Mum has been a bit unwell this last week or so, and so when Puff went down for his nap this afternoon, she was quite relieved to find – 4.5 hours later – that he was fine, and indeed still resting!
Saturday breakfast was with Uncle J and C, and Uncle J and Aunty C. Taking a rare break from reading Dr Seuss books, we saw him spend a happy 20 minutes or more playing with his blocks.
We helped him cope with the crowded nature of Glebe markets by taking a break climbing around on the equipment (and refusing to eat his Gozleme).
When on Sunday we found ourselves with a couple of extra hours, and so went down to Cronulla to have a look around – it was a little busier than we were expecting as they had a Spring Fair on. True to form he went to sleep just as we were arriving, but he managed to sleep for a while in the stroller as we walked around.
After a leisurely lunch at Alley Break, we finally made it to the promised play equipment, where he pushed himself to climb every piece of equipment where he could find a gap.
Today, we went to an indoor play centre. He had a great time in the ball pit, and climbing up and sliding down: with some encouragement, he even climbed up and down things that he’d previously lacked courage on.
Here’s a brief insight into what it’s like to wake up the boy in the morning: he’s in a bit of a bouncing phase at the moment.
Another week, another blog post. This week saw some additional family time courtesy of Father’s day, and a day off on Thursday to make up for Dad working on the previous Saturday.
Dad took Puff to his Kindermusik class (where he was the only Dad), and then to the local library, where he had his first library card, and borrowed his first couple of books (Hand, Hand, Fingers Thumb, and Spot’s Snow Day).
This meant that we were able to make a trip to a bakery – Puff sat very helpfully and ate about 2/3rds of an entire croissant. Not sure if this counts as good parenting or not!
On Saturday, after a trip to a social media gathering known as “Operation Bacon” where Puff acquitted himself beautifully by exploring our online friends’ house without damaging anything, and behaving himself through breakfast and beyond, we made a trip to the Powerhouse museum. He had a great time exploring everything he could that was suited to him.
Here he is trying out a giant Rubik’s cube.
And here he is walking around with a tail on: granted, this is more for the parents than the children, who don’t necessarily see how they look wearing a tail.
A highlight was this interactive pond: it was data-projected onto the floor, and then splashed when someone walked in the water. He had a lot of fun dry splashing around in it.
We’ve probably given him more access to watching videos on small mobile devices this week than in previous weeks, but he has responded with some substantially better behaviour than last week (it could be the extra sleep he’s been getting).
A visit to Grandma and Doc on Father’s day included a long session sitting in Grandma’s lap watching her play “Angry Birds”.
And this week’s other new behaviour has been “play sleeping”. He takes his toy blanket, and lies down. Sometimes with a book, sometimes with toys, sometimes with both.
One noteworthy change in behaviour was brought about by the book “the Dragon Machine” – after going to bed before 8pm, Puff stayed awake for a couple of hours talking about the book. We think he was trying to memorise it, but it was strange behaviour indeed. As we have done with new books in the past, we limited his access to the book for a couple of days, and everything seemed to return to normal.
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.
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