Category: week in review

This post is early for once, as I’m taking a bit of a break from the internet for a couple of days (in theory), and I’m keen to keep the series of posts going.

Christmas this year has been a big rush of visiting relatives, with trips to church, his Grandma and Grandpa’s house, to the T house, and back home for a Christmas dinner. A couple of days later, we also managed a visit to Puff’s great Uncle and great Aunt’s house too.

We’re still working out what level of Christian involvement will work for his level of understanding; he seems to enjoy reading his kids’ bible and listening to songs on CD / iPod and at church, and joins in saying grace at meals, but beyond this, he doesn’t seem to particularly understand what’s going on yet.

Next year, we’re aiming to have an advent calendar, and do a better job in the lead-up to Christmas so it makes some more sense for him.

Our annual tradition of gift exchange with a neighbour continues. Only a month ago he had no idea about what to do with shape sorting toys, but now he’s able to work them quite effectively. It’s good to see his physical co-ordination pick up, not just his vocabulary.

His uncle gave him a soft toy that is quite unusual-looking but very cuddly, and already looks to be a new favourite.

All the excitement of waking up early (for him) to get to church, come home for a sleep and then have family lunch took its toll, and he had a nap in the car from one place to another. He continues to look surly when sleeping, but still cute.

Another toy is this all-wood fire engine with removable pieces: again, he’s having a lot more success lining up the people into the circles that they sit in.

Another food milestone was this mango seed: he had no hesitation to try it out, and seemed to have a great time separating the mango from the seed.

Here’s the aftermath.

I’m not trying for a gift-centric post, this is just the way the photos have come together this week!

Harder to photograph are the challenges of having him obey. Sometime he obeys more readily than I expect – even something bizarre like “sit up and drink your drink” is generally met with immediate obedience, while “say hi to this person” is met with a shy “no”, and him burying his head in my shoulder.

In general, though, he remains a good humoured, obedient little boy who is taking more risks with standing unassisted, but still hasn’t really tried to walk unassisted (though he’s more keen to try walking with only one hand supporting him).

Somehow Christmas is only a few days away! There’s been a flurry of activity in the last week: some family things are going on, meaning a few extra trips out, and even a couple of late nights.

Saturday saw us make a trip to Cordial at Newtown for breakfast with Uncle Jonathan and Cathy. Puff had his first go of normal wholegrain toast. He seemed to like it well enough, and not suffer any ill-effects from it, but we’re still mostly keeping him on gluten-free bread for now.

Another high point for Puff’s week was sitting on Grandma’s lap, having a book read to him. Grandma reads much more slowly and carefully to him, pointing out all the details of each page. He was a bit unsettled at first, but settled down a page or two into the book.

Monday night we had dinner with Aunty Chan and Uncle Jordan at B&J’s new place, giving Puff a chance to play with C&J and their play equipment. Despite being a bit over-tired, he had a great time on the swing.

When he’d had enough of the swing, he had a go at walking (with Dad holding his hands) all the way across the grassy backyard, and then climbing up the slide. This was quite different to his level of success trying to crawl on grass, where he (somehow) lifts up his hands and feet so they’re not touching the grass!

When Dad was carrying J for a while, Puff started to get stressed, and so Dad ended up holding both of them for long enough to snap a few photos.

Lastly, this week has marked our best attempts so far to teach Puff how to eat with a spoon. Here’s part of a sample lesson. Note that he’s already been spoon-fed most of the yoghurt (nyo-gut) from the cup before the lesson begins.

This week saw Puff’s first haircut (in a proper hairdressing place, no less), a couple of Christmas parties, and some of the usual activity. We even (though there were no photos) had dinner at Aunty C and Uncle J’s place – Puff kept saying “Cat… Cat… Where’s cat?” about their pet kitten, and eventually managed to summon the courage to pat the cat, albeit carefully supervised.

Given that Puff isn’t a big fan of electric motors (he gets stressed when he hears the coffee grinder, for example), I was a bit worried that he would be stressed when the clippers came out at the end of this haircut.

It was a little tricky holding him still (not to mention sad to be changing his appearance), but he took it all in his stride. He was much happier relaxing / eating at Grind. Trips to cafes have certainly changed since the pre-Puff days, but it’s exciting watching him learn how to do new things.

We’re getting closer to Christmas, and wondering what we should do for him by way of presents. He’s old enough now to appreciate opening presents, but doesn’t really understand the concept: when he’s finished unwrapping whatever it is, he stops, and is generally quite disinterested in the contents: for him it’s more about the journey than the destination. I suspect that will change next Christmas.

After one Christmas party, Puff headed over to C’s house, where they played quite happily together, at least in this photo (Dad missed this one, as he was at work).

A couple of videos to close with, so you can get a sense of what his speech is like, and hear him laugh.

This week was packed with adventures: a trip to Adriano Zumbo’s cafe, a trip to the city with (church) mothers’ group, and his first flights – to and from Brisbane in Queensland. Where to start?

It seems that all the excitement of travelling into the city on a train was too tiring – by the time he finally reached the window displays at David Jones, he was fast asleep!

The sleep didn’t last all that long, though; before long, he was playing in the park, even taking the time to pose with some other babies.

After the picnic, Mum, Dad and Puff headed to Kinokuniya for some Christmas shopping. Puff had real trouble keeping his composure here – there were many cries of “book! book!” and before long, we sat down to test out some books on him.

Later that evening, we started to put the Christmas tree together, and Puff had the chance to have a look at some of the lights up close.

Most of Saturday morning was spent preparing to head over to the airport: everything went smoothly with the packing, and by the time we sat down on the plane, we were ready for whatever may happen. Ultimately, though, there was nothing to be anxious about.

Sure, it was a struggle for him to sit still for the duration of the flight, but by mixing up book reading, and playing peek-a-boo with toys, and eating, the time passed pretty quickly. It was a bit of a shock to the system for Dad, who is used to in-flight entertainment that’s pitched a little older than picture books! Apart from a brief moment where he grabbed one of his ears, he seemed to cope well with the change in air pressure.

With the birthday party over, Puff set to practicing his walking: by pushing a chair around, he was able to extend the reach of his normal “cruising” around, but without the hassle of needing to take an adult’s hands:

Another bonus with the trip was getting to see M&T and their newborn little girl. Puff’s highlight (apart from enjoying a swim in their pool) was meeting Cookies and Custard who moved too quickly to be photographed together with Puff.

There were a few occasions where Puff caught up with his grandmother (the grandragon), but we’re trying to keep the number of swimming photos to a minimum.

The last visit before heading back to the airport was to see Puff’s great-grandmother – here they both are with Bandit (quite a few puppies this trip!)

Other notable events this week:
* Dad having a bath with Puff
* Catching up with a lot of relatives from Queensland for the first time since January
* Help looking after Puff from C&J
* Waiting in a baby store for an hour until the NRMA arrived to replace the car battery
* Re-visiting church in the Gold Coast and again being made to feel welcome
* Adjusting to non-daylight-savings time and the very early daylight that goes with it
* Spending time with Grandma, Grandpa, and A,J and S

This week marked Puff’s first trip to the zoo, and a few other things: notably, Dad looking after him for his whole evening routine so that Mum could spend time catching up with some old work friends.

It was a good chance for Dad to prove his skills at looking after Puff. Everything went fairly smoothly, with a minor bath-time hiccup (let’s just say there were cleaning products involved).

Saturday was the trip to the zoo, with uncle J and C. Up and about at a reasonable time, we were worried that he would run out of energy before we even made it to the zoo: he was pretty energetic in the car!

By bad planning, we left the cameras at home, but this actually meant that we were better able to focus on the zoo itself, and on Puff’s reaction to what he was seeing. At least C had brought a camera, though the battery gave up before the end of the day, so we were back to the mobile phone cameras!

The first animals at the zoo that captured Puff’s attention was the elephants: he was happily watching them for much longer than previous animals: perhaps it was their size, or the way they moved around.

There was an opportunity to grab a photo through this photo board that was hard to pass up!

His favourite thing of all at the zoo was not the ducks, the lion, the tigers, but the fish: there was a place where he could stand on a seat, put his hands on the glass to prop himself up, and watch the fish swim straight past him: when we finally took him away from there, he needed some serious distracting to regain his composure!

After about four hours of moving around the zoo, in and out of the stroller, we put the angle of the stroller seat back, and he went straight to sleep. This meant that we could go through the nocturnal section without having to lift him out of his stroller: here’s a shot of him under the UV lights of the nocturnal section.

Despite all the adventures of the day (and not much sleep), he was still in good spirits when we arrived home, though we went straight to his evening routine and getting him ready for bed.

His vocabulary continues to expand at an alarming rate: he’s started to know some of the words in his alphabet book, and knows a few more words from the mealtime “grace” that we’ve been running through. The vocabulary is a big help towards working out what he’s asking for.

Lastly, here’s what I thought was a camera hidden from him, taking some footage of him stacking blocks:

Another week where life continues on mostly in its normal pattern. Mum made a return visit to Rhodes shopping centre this week, where Puff is now big enough to sit in one of the food court chairs quite comfortably. We continue to be amazed at how (generally) well behaved he can be, especially when he’s eating.

Saturday saw Mum give up her sleep-in to prepare a cake for a party. Puff and Dad went to the party too, and Puff had the chance to meet a couple of rabbits. He didn’t want to say “rabbit”, though, and was content to say “Rat” instead: not quite the same, but he wouldn’t be persuaded otherwise.

Much of his waking time is spent playing with various toys and ripping up his alphabet floor mat. We’ve been encouraging him to say the names of the letters that he’s picking up, and he can manage some of them with a fair degree of accuracy now.

More challenging was when he’d picked up a few vowels, and we attempted to read through the refrain of “Old MacDonald”. He does better when it’s just the song – he can now say “farm” at the right places, and about a third of the time will chip in with “O” at the end of “E-I-E-I”. It’s encouraging to see this kind of progress.

It seems that he’s still waiting to get his molars – he’s often dribbling out water, or chewing on whatever happens to be nearby. In this case, it’s the block he’s holding.

Though not walking unassisted yet, he will happily walk along (for a while) if you hold his hands, and he is fairly steady on his feet. When he has furniture at the right height to hold on to, he will stand up and play while standing up:

And that’s about it for this week: see you next week!

This week was mum and dad’s 8th wedding anniversary, so we didn’t spend as much time with Puff as usual – we even had a night out together with Puff at home (thanks to C&J for looking after him)!

Not a lot of photos this week: Saturday saw us take a long drive over to Balmain to pick up treats from Adriano Zumbo’s patisserie so that we could have afternoon tea with G and B – sadly, with the cakes looking so amazing, we didn’t grab any photos of Puff!

Monday night saw us take a trip to Pancakes at the Rocks for dinner with some of Dad’s old workmates from a past job: Puff showed off how well behaved he could be, and posed for a photo with Dad, who is well and truly showing the scars of Movember.

The crowded restaurant was a great choice: Puff – when he wasn’t eating – kept himself quietly entertained just by looking around.

Back at home, he is fascinated with taking the floor mats apart: he seems especially interested in the letter “B”: – probably because it has two little pieces that he can take out of the B. Beyond that, he will take one (or both) of the pieces, and hide them in his toybox.

Still no sign of walking, but he says “done” really clearly, and with the right prompting he can say “Dad. Na-na. Please.” He’s learning more and more words, and his skills for mimicry are improving.

A week of lots of outings, some with photos and some without. I’ve been trying to break out my “good” camera: see if you can tell which photos are with which camera.

Here’s a shot of Puff enjoying(?) a trip home in the car. It seems that travelling in the car is one of the major staples of his life, but we do catch him enjoying it quite regularly: he will talk to himself, or answer questions, and he’s even started singing along to certain songs on his Colin CDs, which is very impressive.

Apart from the grimace face that was his favourite expression a few weeks back, he can make a quite impressive “fish face” when he chooses to.

Friday was Macaron day at Adriano Zumbo in Balmain, and so Kel headed over there with Puff to pick up some Macarons. Imagine her surprise to find the man himself there – one of the staff took this shot of Puff: perhaps he should have his own food blog?

After Zumbo’s, Puff headed to the Brasserie Bread tweetup in the park, and met up with a few familiar faces, including K, who was in the throes of her last day at work. Friday was a big day indeed: being Grandma’s birthday, we went over to Grandma and Grandpa’s house and saw almost all of Dad’s side of the family at once. After a very late night, it was home again to bed.

By some miracle, we didn’t have any plans on the Saturday, so after Puff had caught up on some sleep, we headed out of the house in search of somewhere to have lunch, ending up at Bondi Junction. Here is Puff, pondering life’s mysteries.

Saturday was the seventh of November, and so was deemed 7-11 day by the franchise of Slurpee stores. While not going to the same extremes as his aunt and uncle, Puff certainly had a fondness for the cups: he was quite upset when the time came to put them down and go back in the car.

We also made a trip to the REMO store in Bondi Junction – it now has a small retail space where you can browse the products. Puff’s favourite (though he was saying “please” for a number of them) was the giant rubber ducks. It was tricky for him to look into the box, as he wasn’t a fan of the fake-grass carpet: I think it was tickling his feet too much.

From there, we drove down to Coogee – Puff had a great time at a playground designed for people his size and a little larger. Many of the parents seemed content to let their kids run around with pretty minor supervision: given that Puff isn’t walking yet, this wasn’t really practical, though he had a pretty good go at crawling towards anything he found interesting!

Tuesday was Mum and Dad’s wedding anniversary, and so Puff came along for lunch in the city, and was tremendously well behaved. It’s not quite the same as having lunch by ourselves, but was still a good way to commemorate eight years of marriage.

There’s been a lot of outings this last week, with Puff doing some socialising outside the house. It’s looking like he’s getting to be more comfortable sitting on grass, although he is certainly happier when on a picnic blanket.

This week also marked our annual trip to see sculpture by the sea – you might remember what he looked like last year – it’s the same carrier, but he looks very different:

While last year a sun hat was enough – he had no real interest in looking around at the world – this year he’s onto his second set of sunglasses (he’s outgrown the old pair) and a bigger hat.

Here he is taking a break from sculpture viewing to have a bit of a snack.

The sculpture that he liked the most was a house that had hundreds of toys screwed onto it. It was a favourite for a lot of kids – so much so that it was hard to get close to it. We managed eventually, though – he wasn’t too happy when it was time to move away again!

It’s encouraging to see that we can put him down, and stand far enough back to get a photo of him without him being upset: after an hour in the ergocarrier, I think he was happy to have his own space for a little while! Hard to imagine that next year he’ll likely be walking the track himself!

Sunday was marked by Puff’s second tweet-up, spending a relaxed afternoon at Perama in Petersham. Mum and Dad ate dishes that contained haloumi, and Puff largely abstained, though he did try a little bit of the lamb.

Still no sign of walking, but he’s more and more comfortable standing up on things, and pushing his block-trolley along.

Not much this week in the way of photos, so there’s a video of him answering some questions to make up for it. There was a trip back to the cafe where we had brunch for Mum’s birthday, another journey beside the sea for lunch with J, and a lot of time spent at home over the weekend.

Sleeping continues on in good stead: long naps, and long overnight sleeps. He’s still happy to stay inside the cot for now, having not threatened to climb out yet. This week has seen him take a few hands-free walks along with his trolley of blocks (with Mum or Dad close by in case he doesn’t work out how to stop)!

Food-wise, we tried him with corn on the cob. With a couple of new teeth on the way through, I think his favourite part was having something to press against his gums: he wasn’t happy at all when I took it away from him, even when it was just to spin it around so he could eat some actual corn.

This isn’t an entire catalogue of the words he knows, but it’s not a bad start.

Lastly, there are a few toys that we keep out of reach in his room. When he sees them, he calls out for them: the dragon (“raar”) and the cat (“miii…o”). If there are more toys, he keeps on adding words for the other ones, but we haven’t worked out what those words mean.