Category: week in review

We’re getting towards a point of counting down to Puff’s second birthday, and wondering where the time went. This week, Mum and Aunty C and Uncle J were helping out with a baby shower, so Dad spent some time looking after Puff. Sadly, it took so long to get through breakfast that he slept most of the drive, and so we ended up in a small, suburban park.

Here he is with the slide: he’s going through a phase of not trusting his ability on the slide, but with a bit of encouragement he’s generally okay.

After the baby shower was over, we went to a farewell party that one of Dad’s workmates was holding at Darling Harbour, and then went for a train ride around Darling Harbour: Puff liked it, but it perhaps went on too long for him.

As a reward, we gave him his first taste of some ice cream, but didn’t tell him what it was called – so he can’t ask for it until he’s older.

Sunday saw us make a trip to Cronulla to catch up with baby M and his parents. Here he is holding onto a free balloon. Sadly, this one didn’t last long: he threw it around enough that the string came off his hand, and the balloon flew away.

While we were waiting for everyone to stop talking, Puff and Dad went over to a nearby stage where a free band was playing. He looked interested in what was going on on-stage, but the best part was when the music stopped. He noticed that they’d stopped, then you could see him thinking for a fraction of a second, and then he started clapping. He enjoyed clapping so much – more than watching the band, I think – it was great to share that with him.

Puff has actually been playing the drums at church (after the church service is finished) for a couple of weeks now, but he’s now getting better at it, and more focussed on it – it’s harder to distract him and encourage him to try something else.

The biggest challenge this week has been consistent, loving discipline when he doesn’t want to do something. Most often this week it’s been problems getting him to eat. I know the parenting books suggest this is normal, but it doesn’t make it any more bearable. Still, even when there has been a long period of time dealing with his moods, he goes back to being the kid that we’re used to, which makes it all worthwhile.

This week’s high point was obviously mother’s day, but there were a few other things of interest (not least of which having two separate nights out, thanks to the long-suffering C&J for babysitting).

Mum and Dad went to watch a movie last Tuesday night, and on Saturday night went out to see a comedian (Ross Noble) who – among other things – compared children to tiny suicidal monkeys, always looking for the most dangerous possible place to stand. There is some truth in this.

As we’ve seen in past weeks, one of Puff’s favourite things to do at the moment is to stalk C&J’s cat. He often asks to see “Bentley Cat”, and when he gets the chance to visit, will chase him around for a long while, chanting “meow”, “meow”. As his co-ordination improves, these sessions get more and more elaborate, but so far there have been no major injuries to either of them.

Saturday saw us make a longish car trip to visit some of Dad’s old friends. Puff was determined to be anti-social when he saw how many toys that he’d never seen before were on offer. He played with one in particular that read out the alphabet (including the letter “zed” rather than “zee”) so many times that later that day, he sang the entire alphabet song, a feat he’s repeated a number of times since.

He’s also trying to learn Disobedience by A. A. Milne, and on occasion will give up on one and start the other.

Mother’s day was a good time for Dad to look after Mum a bit. While Mum enjoyed a long overdue sleep-in, Puff and Dad headed out for a walk, some breakfast, and a play in the park.

When walking on the footpath, we insist Puff holds onto one or both parents’ hand. This is fine for a while, but then Puff grows bored, and insists on being picked up. He does this by walking into the path of an adult, so they can’t go any further. Dad has now perfected a deft move where he spins around, keeping Puff walking in a circle and ending up where he was. Puff, defeated by this for the moment, will then continue walking with only some mild whinging.

Breakfast was a bit of a struggle. Despite being a serve of ever-popular “Bana Bread” (sometimes called by its proper name, sometimes not), Puff didn’t really want to be eating it, and only had about a third, though he did drink the entire babycino (or warm milk in a cup, as Dad pitched it to him).

With breakfast over, we walked to the park, again with some level of unhappiness on the part of the smaller member of the party. Once we arrived at the park, though, his mood picked up, and he was happy to explore the various options.

From there we went home, and drove to Glebe where we had a Mother’s Day Brunch at Elizabeth’s cafe – Mum, Dad and Puff all had a great time, though we left before much of the opera singer’s performance for the sake of keeping the peace.

From there we went to another park, where Puff played on still more play equipment, including this boat. He needed help to get into it (“needa help”), but was really happy once in there.

Mum’s other present for mother’s day was a pair of slippers. Puff occasionally lets mum wear them, but is enjoying them as his own extra-large footwear most of the time.

This week has seen life start to return back to normal after a lot of adventures. As such, we’ve spent a little more time at home, and a bit less time travelling around.

Puff continues to change, whenever we think we’ve pinned him down, or managed to get used to the way that he behaves, he mixes things up again.

He’s now having a single book before bed (followed by his bible story, then a prayer). This book is generally a 60-page Dr Seuss book, where he can often complete the lines of the story (though not completely… that would be a little too scary!)

Earlier this week, there was a bit of a reorganisation of his toys: he helped.

A visit to a friend brought a playdate with their new puppy: he seems to far prefer cats (chasing them around and talking to them) but there’s hope yet that he might become a dog person.

We’re starting to find ourselves fighting a turf war: which parts of the house can we store things that appear interesting, but are not among the things that he’s allowed to touch. Here we are finding that the nappy change bag can no longer be stored near his cot.

He is ever fascinated with “yellow digger” and “orange digger” – the earth moving equipment near Dad’s work. Today, visiting Dad for coffee, Puff spent a couple of minutes in Dad’s arms, just looking out over the earth moving equipment and talking about what it was doing.

He is enjoying playing “one / back again” at various opportunities, and if he lacks a towel to use as a prop, he’ll just use his hands.

Lastly, he’s continuing his love of slides, park, and playground equipment. He has a short video of a recent adventure on a slide.

He has an incredibly infectious laugh if something takes his fancy: this week it was being chased in the park – it gave him the giggles.

This week Dad had a Hebrew exam, and took a couple of days off. We went away on a holiday for the long weekend with some friends and family.

The first step was to buy some provisions for the long weekend. Puff is no longer happy to just walk around a shop, though he can occasionally be persuaded to sit in a trolley. Often, he’ll want to carry around his own basket. This is about as much as he can carry, though, and he’ll get annoyed with you if you try and put actual products into the basket.

On the trip down south, we stopped in Wollongong: Dad managed to grab a rare photo of Puff still holding onto Dad’s hand. This is a frequent source of contention at the moment – Puff generally wants to hold Dad’s hand when it’s safe for him to run around, and if he’s on – say – the footpath next to a busy street, then he’s not interested in holding Dad’s hand.

When we arrived at the national park where we’d spend the next three nights sleeping in a cabin, it was heading towards dusk. As soon as we left the car, we could see kangaroos, and a lot of them! Puff said “Puppies?”, but we soon set him straight.

The next day we drove further south to Mogo Zoo. There are a lot of different animals to see, some of which can get quite close to the visitors. Here’s Puff having a go at feeding the deer.

One of the best moments of the zoo trip was seeing Puff learn what sound an otter makes. Dad was holding him while Mum tool photos of the otters – he heard the sounds they were making, and with a big grin, copied the sounds. Even now, a few days later, he still smiles when answering the “what does an otter say” question.

Although brushing Puff’s teeth remains a nightly battle that requires great patience, when we need to take a photo of him, we can ask him to “show his teeth” and he’ll generally oblige. Here he is with Mum:

And here he is with Dad:

One last highlight of the trip away was playing on the sand at the beach. Dad managed to let him have some of the toys, and only built sandcastles about half the time that Puff was on the sand.

The trip wasn’t all smooth sailing, though. We had some serious problems with mosquitoes on the first night, and Puff spent most of the trip with a runny nose, and occasional coughing. For the first time ever, I let him lay down and listen to some of his music (on my iPhone), and he just lay still for a couple of songs. Later in the week we repeated this, and he lay still again!

With winter coming, our latest challenge is to work out how to keep him warm overnight. When putting him to bed last night, we tried to tuck him in under a blanket, but he found it too unfamiliar and stressful, so we had to wait until later in the evening, after he was asleep. Tonight, Dad introduced the blanket as a toy to play with, but when the critical time came, he wasn’t interested. Hopefully there will be some good news to announce on this next week!

With the Grandragon staying for most of the week, there were a range of adventures and visits this week. Let’s concentrate on a couple: Saturday saw us take a trip to the Blue Mountains.

Puff desperately wanted an “apple biscuit”, and – having been told that he had to eat his grapes first, picked up the grapes one at a time, and put them into his mouth to the point where he couldn’t close his mouth.

One difference to the last trip up here – his interest in walking, and in particular, walking “on the rocks”.

A favourite destination at the moment is “Aunty Chan’s”, where he can see “Bentley Cat miaow”. Having spent enough time chasing him around the house – often on all fours – he calmed down enough to offer the cat a treat.

Lastly, a present from Queensland – he worked hard to open it: a new toothbrush! When it’s time to brush his teeth, he struggles and fights, but when it’s a gift, he’s putting it straight to work.

With the Grandragon’s patient tuition, he learned some more songs (twinkle, twinkle little star, and “the wheels on the bus” – the latter he can sing whole verses at a time – even getting the number of repetitions of “the kitties on the bus go miaow miaow miaow, miaow miaow miaow, miaow miaow miaow” right), is enjoying longer books, and sings along with his CDs in greater detail.

Unfortunately, after all the excitement, he’s come down with a cold now, so it’s lots of resting and fluids instead of seeing the sights.

An unusually busy week this week. Dad took a day off to go to the Easter Show, then Puff was treated to a visit from Grandragon, so there was another trip to a show. Then it was time for Aunty Chan’s birthday party, and then today, a trip to Manly on the Ferry.

So for once we have a lot of photos.

Lacking courage, Dad suggested driving to the show instead of taking the unknown number of train journeys. This was a good security blanket for Mum and Dad, but meant that there was an extra $20 to pay, and an extra queue to join, before we could get to the show.

Undeterred, we went through the entry gates, and then through something called “Kids World” – more like “lots of people selling things to parents… world” – we lasted about 45 seconds in there, before heading out, with Dad hoping that this wasn’t the main part of the show.

Mum still hadn’t eaten any breakfast, and so we stopped at a giant stall that sold strawberries. Puff was very excited about this, and didn’t even put up a fight about wearing a bib.

After another stop, this time for a hot dog for Dad (Mum, who was aiming to eat all her Show food on a stick, had a Pluto Pup) and we were off to find the “animal walk”. We went through a few stands before we found a place that sold corn for $4 (and provided Puff with a chance to stretch his legs away from the stroller), and then headed for a large building that housed sheep and ribbon-winning wool.

We didn’t grab a photo of Puff’s face when he first heard a sheep say “baaa” at close quarters. Shock, disbelief, and then delight, all in the space of a second.

With a bit of pressuring from Mum, Dad agreed (even though Puff had just had a milk drink *and* a yoghurt drink) to take Puff on the big slide. If you squint, you can see Dad and Puff at the top right of the photo.

There was a lot of fussing after the slide when it was time to go back into the stroller, but moments later, Puff was asleep.

On our way out, we did some more walking. With a big crosswind, this fountain was spraying water everywhere, but we found a spot for this photo, where Puff could practice showing his teeth, and standing still (his two new things for this week).

As we left the Show (and with a 20 minute walk back to the carpark ahead of us), Puff suddenly found Dad’s shoes fascinating, stopping every 20 metres or so to bend over and look at Dad’s shoes. Here’s a sample.

The one thing we forgot to take Puff on at the Easter Show was a merry-go-round. With the Grandragon helping out (and Dad back at work) this was an easy puzzle to solve at the Fox Studios “Sydney Family Show”.

The next high point was chasing small animals. After a time of being scared of them the day before, he was actually following this baby goat around the enclosure!

Saturday featured a trip to buy groceries with Dad (and some walking around the supermarket, and some being pushed in the shopping trolley). With that wrestling trip over, last minute preparations could be made for Aunty Chan’s party – we went lawn bowling in our pyjamas! Puff didn’t try the bowling, but he had a great time walking around the outside of the green.

Other new things this week: increased confidence on the slippery dip, including a new bar technique: standing up just before the slide, then sitting down to slide down (instead of having to shuffle his way forward while seated).

It turns out that bubble wrap is useful for more than just waving around: if you put enough weight on it, it will make a satisfying popping sound. This poor sheet of bubble wrap has been subjected to all kinds of road tests as Puff found the best way to make that popping sound: including throwing himself down on the floor, using the bubble wrap as a mat!

Lastly, today involved a lot of public transport as Mum and the Grandragon went over to Manly by train and by ferry. Here he is with his most recent obsession: the “this books” (which turned out to mean “Seuss books” – a set of six miniature flip-tab books that he has all but memorized already)

For some reason, the above photo strikes me as the happiest Dad’s ever seen him. A good way to end this week’s post.

What a week! An Easter long weekend meant that Dad had more time than usual with Puff. The end of daylight savings for the year meant that Puff had some slightly upset sleep, but nothing too difficult.

One toy that has become popular with Puff this week is his bucket (and matching sand rake). He soon worked out that the bucket can make an equally good hat, and – despite the physical challenge involved – spent at least one playtime putting on and removing the bucket hat.

While we were watching him play with the bucket, we were cooking lamb: here he is with his first solo lamb cutlet (after some brief convincing, he was thrilled to eat it).

He’s increasingly aware of the camera, and now regularly wants to make a grab for the camera, rather than cheerfully pose.

Though we didn’t give him any chocolate for Easter, he was given some new toy eggs to play with: they’re a favourite toy at the moment.

No photo of his first “real” pair of shoes yet (though it was an adventure taking him to the store – he was happy to have his feet measured, but was a little upset to have to have the shoes put on his feet), but he’s now curious about shoes in general. Here he is trying on Dad’s shoes.

A trip out on Easter Monday to Cronulla was followed up by an epic visit to a playground: he did any number of laps of one slide in particular before moving on to a wider exploration of all the play equipment. When he started to get too tired, he went for a walk with C&J: a great way to calm down his mood before the unwelcome trip back to the car.

His vocabulary continues to amaze us: he can quote large segments of books that we’ve read to him, and use long words (this weekend he asked for avocado and bocconcini toast). We’re seeing a stronger and stronger temper: when he doesn’t want to do something, then he makes his feelings known.

This week has flown past with a lot of busyness for dad. While Dad’s been at work, Puff has been visiting some new friends. First, he had a chance to meet his old friend J’s new little sister R. Here they are resting on the mini couch (one of Puff’s favourite places to be).

Later in the week, he had the chance to meet baby E. here he is, trying to prove that he’d make a competent big brother if the opportunity arose.

At other times during the week, he was very busy, and so when there were chances to rest, he couldn’t resist: here he is catching up on some sleep, with Spot standing guard. It’s worth pointing out that he grabbed the hat himself (despite being restrained in the car seat) and put it on his head.

After dad went to a funeral on Saturday morning, Puff, Mum and Dad headed to Dulwich Hill for breakfast to meet some other friends. Here he is playing with a toy at the cafe table. From there he headed to the nearby park, where he climbed up the biggest slide in the playground – as high off the ground as Dad’s head!

Sunday afternoon was lunch at T,R and E’s house. Dad made his first pavlova, and Puff licked his first beater (it was just cream, no sugar). He was highly skeptical at first, but once he tasted it, he was only too happy to give it his all.

He made up for the lack of sleep by surprising us on Sunday night by going to sleep from 5pm to 9am! We checked in on him several times, but he seemed determined to catch up on missed sleep, so we let him stay down.

This week we’ll have the first Easter when Puff is going to understand what is happening around him. Still trying to work out what traditions to start – so far we’ve decided not to have too much chocolate in the house, and concentrate on hot cross buns (already something of a favourite for him).

With everyone back to full health again (at last), the week has been a normal one. On Thursday we had the car serviced, and Mum and Puff took the train over to Burwood to pick up the car, then spent some time trekking around Westfield while waiting for Dad.

He had a great time walking back and forth in the Westfield, including having the play equipment, but we made the classic naive parents’ call, and took him out to dinner with us instead of going home. He was too tired, and didn’t have much fun with it.

Worse yet, after dinner, having had such a poor run at feeding him, we went to the foodcourt, and tried – unsuccessfully – to give him some more food. he was so tired that he went straight to sleep when we made it home – he didn’t even properly wake up when we changed him into his pyjamas!

Saturday was a more relaxed day – Dad even took a few photos over breakfast to show off how messy a meal the avocado toast can be.

On a visit to some friends’ house, he had a great time playing with some new (to him) toys, and with our friends’ kids.

Outside, we checked to make sure we had a change of clothes for him, and then let him play with this watering can: by the time he was finished, his clothes were soaked, but he’d had a great time.

Sunday morning, and Puff and Dad headed out to a cafe to review it. Dad found this much harder than with an extra person to look after, but managed to get everything done somehow.

Today Puff followed his favourite bakery around the city in search of hot cross buns. Here he is taking a much needed break from the chase, to have lunch.

This week also saw him wearing shoes for the first time: with all the walking he’s been doing, it was high time he tried some out.

This week sees Mum and Dad both sick with stomach bugs. This makes it much harder to keep up with Puff as he runs around, and leaves us wondering what life might be like if there were any other people to look after beyond the three of us!

Let’s recap the week.

On Friday, Mum came into the city so that we could all have lunch together. Here he is as we walk back to the car – insisting that both his hands are held while we walk.

He’s ever more mobile, and even though he can climb onto his toy car by himself, he prefers to be helped onto it by mum or dad.

On Saturday we went for a drive into the city, and wandered around Circular Quay. He managed to make it all the way to the top of the Opera House steps!

We also went through the Rocks market, and he had his first taste of Rocks corn on the cob.

He really liked it. (Dad may have helped a bit).