Category: week in review

As I write this I’ve just gone in (as is my custom) to check on Puff and make sure he’s sleeping. It continues to amaze me how far he’s come from when we first brought him home, his tiny outline taking up so little of the bassinet, and always exactly where we left it. Now, when we go in to check where he is in the bed, he has a toy near him, and he could be anywhere, at any angle in the cot, but always breathing softly (sometimes too softly for my liking).

The big development for this week is that he now has a toy (or a choice of toys) to take to bed. His favourite so far seems to be Monkey, a gift from Uncle M & from H. Here he is with Monkey.

The days of him knowing how to stand up in the cot, but not get back down again are over. The trick to having him sit back down again (so that I can remove his sleeping bag) is to say “can you get Monkey?” After a lot of repetition, he will eventually get down, and find Monkey. Before that happens, though, expect to see a lot of this:

This week was Mum’s birthday, and to celebrate, we went out to a cafe that Dad had chosen, so we could have breakfast together: Mum, Dad, Aunty Chan, Uncle Jordan and Puff. The cafe had gluten-free bread, and so Puff had his first ever cafe breakfast:

There were plenty of distractions at the cafe to keep Puff quiet and on his best behaviour. Notable were the ceiling fans.

We went along to morning church to watch the baptism of baby E. This proved a little too much sitting still in a pew for Puff, and saw Dad make a couple of hasty trips to the back of the building – hopefully not a sign of things to come!

Dad has been pretty busy the last couple of weeks, and so the only other event that we’ll cover here is the trip to the Night Noodle Markets in Hyde Park, again with Aunty Chan and Uncle Jordan. Puff rode in with Mum on the train.

He was very well behaved, though we were grateful to have the extra helpers so that everyone managed to eat (even Puff, though this time he ate the food we’d brought him from home).

Puff’s favourite part of the markets was – as the sun was setting – looking at all the decorations that were lit up. There was a lot of looking up at the sky, and reaching out to touch things that looked interesting, but were a long way out of reach.

A few other firsts for the week:
* first time being happy to get out of the bath without a fuss (even helping by starting to climb out)
* first time locating a banana in a visitor’s bag, and proudly announcing the find
* more animal noises learned, along with some car noises

This has been a week of teaching Puff how to improve his sleeping skills.

Due to illness of other babies, Mums’ group was canceled last Tuesday and so Mum stayed home and tidied the house. With the house so tidy, Mum and Dad went on a date night, watching our first movie at the cinema since Puff was born! We managed to get him off to sleep before heading off to watch the movie – a really pleasant night out. Thanks (again) to our babysitters for making it possible.

Thursday saw a trip into the city where Mum caught up with K over some yum cha.

It was at this point that Puff learned his latest trick (we still have no photos of this) – standing up in the cot. Sadly, he hadn’t worked out how to sit back down again, so we’ve seen a few days of him waking up, standing up in the cot, and then crying because there was nowhere for him to go.

Normally, in these situations, he would just go back to sleep, so we’ve had many times this week of going into his room and re-settling him.

The good news is that he seems to have worked out how to sit back down again (yesterday), so he should have a better chance at re-settling himself.

In playing, he is still enjoying the blocks, and a new toy – an alphabet playmat. Here he is taking it apart.

With his eating, we’ve been a bit dismayed in the way that he would take ever larger pieces of food, and try and fit them into his mouth. The way to fix this has been a bit counter-intuitive: by giving him even bigger pieces of food he has no choice but to take bites. Here he is trying his hand at eating an apple.

On Friday, Puff went to his church mother’s group, and on Saturday we had B over for lunch, and then went to our first book launch for D’s new book.

Sunday was a long-awaited trip to Katoomba with C&J. Here he is being carried around.

As he gets more mobile, we find he is rediscovering old toys, and changing his favourites on a regular basis. Here he is with the current favourites.

He is getting quite crafty at exploring his environment: having seen us open and close the sliding door in the dining room any number of times, he has started to try for himself.

Lastly, today marked his first bath in the real bathtub: we’ve put the baby bath to rest at last. Once we work out how to take a photo of him in the bathtub that would be suitable for the blog, you’ll see one.

This week we’ve made a conscious effort to take photos of Puff when he’s away from his eating chair, although I’ve had to make a couple of exceptions. He’s continuing to try and get beyond his fear of the sound the coffee grinder makes, and help Dad with the coffee making. It certainly doesn’t hurt that he’s a big fan of trying out the frothed milk afterwards.

We’re starting to see increased signs of how strong-willed Puff will be as he gets older. Having decided that he had eaten enough of his main course, he started in with the now-familiar “na-na… na-na… na-na-na-na-na-na” that indicates he would like to move on to having a banana for dessert. We thought it was still time for him to eat his main course, so we gave him another option. He actually made it through 2 whole adult-sized rice cakes with avocado.

After that, he had some pear (with a bit of practice, he managed to come up with a word that sounded a lot like pear), some blue berries (a lot less success with the “b-” sound for berries, he kept stalling on “p-” instead, which is a consonant already overloaded with potential meaning (it can mean “up” and it can also mean “pants”).

The big news for this week, though, was his belated birthday present from Mum, Dad, Aunty Chan and Uncle Jordan – a trolley that holds blocks, and has a handle for walking around. Assembly was a team effort, and – like most assembly tasks – not without its hassles. Sadly, some of the pieces were too small for Puff to be involved, so some people were keeping him distracted while others were putting the trolley together.

Once built, we let him try walking around with the trolley. It seems to be helping him build up confidence in standing up without having an adult hold one or both of his hands!

Puff has found the blocks moderately interesting, though he hasn’t shown much enthusiasm for stacking them, or having other people stack them. Mercifully, he is certainly a fan of putting them back “in” the trolley.

A sad occasion this week had Puff dressed up in his formal clothes. The funny face he is pulling is part of his new-found ability to make kissing sounds.

Afterwards, he had a chance to try out an heirloom eating chair. This had been in Uncle Jordan’s family for around 60 years!

When playing, Puff will cheerfully look for a specified toy (if the mood takes him) – he continues to be fascinated with ducks, and knows how to make them squeak.

A visit to Aunty Chan’s work this week saw him put some of his newly-acquired “feeding” skills to work. It’s good to see him share.

Lastly, a short video to show his crawling and climbing skills. Magnets continue to be his favourite toys; he’s impressed us with how high on the fridge he can reach, if the right motivation can be found.

This week was one where Dad was pretty busy with meetings. It’s one of the harsh realities of parenthood, trying to find a balance between spending the idyllic, unhurried time with your family, and getting done all the things of life that you have agreed to do, however foolishly.

We’re beginning to realise that our best chance of taking a photo of Puff is when he’s eating. He has a tendency to do incredibly cute things, but generally there’s some level of physical danger involved in running and grabbing the camera at that particular point.

By way of example of missed photo opportunities this week, he realised again that he could play “peekaboo” with the towel after his bath. This time, instead of pulling the hood over his head, he holds up the side of the towel, so that he breaks eye contact with Dad. Dad will then make a fuss, asking “Where’s Puff?” and he will pause, then move the towel out of the way, and Dad will say “There he is!”. This is the way the game has played out for many months, though without Puff’s active participation.

The new twist is, when Puff hides with the towel, Dad will then duck out of sight, so when Puff moves the towel again, he can’t see Dad. Dad will then say “Where’s Dad?”. This is, clearly, the funniest thing in the world. At least this week, anyway.

Though not a photo of Puff, it would be remiss not to mention the red sky that we saw last Wednesday in the big Sydney dust storm. Dad went out into the backyard to capture it: the reflections you see of the flash are simply from the *dust* – this photo was taken outside in the open air!

Puff had a big Friday. First, a trip to Grind, for some reading in the window, and a coffee with C and CJ.

Then, a couple of phonecalls led to another playdate, this time at Coogee with E. It seems like they varied between playing together, and playing near each other.

Once the green container (the one with the sultanas in it) came out, Puff’s interests were moved away from playing with others, and towards his current favourite snack.

Attempts at learning to share somehow ended up with E feeding Puff some sultanas – I know it’s a food photo, but you have to admire the effort of capturing a moment that was this fleeting.

On Saturday we had a church meeting in the morning, and then headed back home for some sermon writing / essay writing time, with a break in the middle for a special guest reader to pay Puff a visit.

The last highlight for this week is a new fruit for Puff to try. His ability to consume what we’re calling “the yellow fruit” (and what he’s calling “Nar-nar” – this takes the form of an increasingly heated mid-lunchtime question: “Nar-nar?” “Nar-nar?” (scoffs entire fistful of food into his mouth) “Nawr-nawr?”.

Here he is trying blueberries. He didn’t eat as many of them, and in fact wasn’t entirely certain about them, but he tried a fair few before giving up.

Another week has flown by, and it’s time to reflect on what’s been happening. We’re starting to see Puff try to use words to describe what he wants. So far, we can figure out when he’s saying “more” or “done”, “nana” (banana) or “ta” (sultana), “bye”, “quack”, “hiss”, and we’re working on “thankyou”.

On the eating front, we had dinner at aunty and uncle’s house. He coped quite well eating in an unfamiliar chair and house, and managed to eat a lot – mostly the vegetable patties that mum’s been making for him these last couple of weeks. It’s a lot like the food we used to spoon-feed him with, but it’s lightly grilled in a non-stick pan so it’s easier for him to pick up and eat.

Tonight he had his first omelette.

In a visit to mothers’ group, he had the chance to play with C and E. Here they are, exploring E’s toy chest.

Last week mum had a spare lunchtime where she was out and about, and so ducked in to brasserie bread for a quick bite to eat – Mei from Brasserie Bread showed up to say hi, too!

There was also a chance to try out one of the highchairs at a Westfield.

Another notable event this week was Mum having a night out with some other mums, while Dad stayed home and gave Puff his bath, and put him to bed. Both mum and Puff had a great time, and Dad enjoyed the extra time with his little boy.

We also saw Puff go for a short crawl, properly, on all fours! Dad would like to see Puff crawl around for a little while before the walking starts: every day it seems like he’s a little closer to taking his first steps.

This last week has seen Puff more stroppy, and more often than usual. He’s had a temperature some of the days, and has been going to bed later (around 8:30, or sometimes 9:30pm) and waking up later (managing to make it almost through to 11am at least once), but still tired a lot of the time.

On Friday, there was an opportunity to meet some fans of Brasserie Bread in Hyde Park for a tweet-up. It was a beautiful day to be outside, and a good chance to introduce Puff to some people that we only knew from Twitter. Puff even landed a mention on their blog!

At home, he’s showing more and more dexterity in the things that he does: here he is with his hands a blur as he plays the xylophone.

Having made changes to his cot, we thought that we wouldn’t need to worry about leaving him alone when he sleeps – at least for a while. Imagine Mum’s surprise when she found him with his socks on the floor – he worked out how to open up the sleeping bag, remove his socks, and keep sitting in the cot waiting to be picked up!

One thing that we saw him do once this week, but not repeat (and we didn’t get a chance to capture it on video) was to play “peekabo” himself with the towel that he lies on after his bath. With both hands, he would grab the hood part of the towel, pull it over his eyes, pause, and then remove the hood again! He did this about six times in a row, and hasn’t tried again since.

Last, but not least, we had the wedding of S and K this week. Dad was driving one of the wedding cars, and so it was up to Mum to prepare Puff’s food, drive him to the church, to the reception, and home again. It was great to see our friends get married, but we learned that going to a wedding with a baby is a completely different experience to going without one!

It seems that most of our pictures are taken when he’s sitting in his eating chair: I’ll work harder to correct this for future weeks!

In an effort to get him to drink more water, we’ve been trying a series of different cups – some kids cups, sometimes the grown-up cups that we’re used to. This week we tried a metal espresso cup. As it turns out, it’s exactly the right size for him.

With Aunty Chan and Uncle Jordan away this weekend, we had to find another aunt and uncle to spend time with Puff at Grind. Here he is, after everyone has had a go at feeding him (including Dad), just taking in the ambience.

When visiting A&M and baby M, Puff decided to explore the room, with his Dad following him around. This particular toy was so interesting that he climbed up on it several times to play with its many distractions!

The main highlight for me for Father’s day was a card from Puff and Puff’s mum, giving me some ideas about what I’ve been doing right this past year-and-a-bit. A close second was – when Puff decided that getting up at 6:20 on Father’s day was a good idea – Puff re-settling after only brief encouragement from his Dad.

With his increasing determination to take control over who is feeding him, we’ve changed our evening routine: for the past two nights, we’ve been eating dinner together with him – when he sees us eating, he feels more confident about putting the food into his mouth – especially when it’s new food.

We’ve decided as of tonight that he won’t be eating off a plate for much longer, but off his tray: it’s a little too tempting for him to flip the tray over, and spill food everywhere.

This was the week that Puff turned one year old. We’ve had plenty of time to prepare for the idea that he is a one-year-old now, and – as if to reinforce how much he’s grown, he had the chance to meet the newborn baby J this week.

Mum had a free afternoon, and so made a trip down to Grind, where he sat happily in the window, just above where he’d been sleeping in the capsule a year before.

He’s getting pretty good at opening presents, although we generally need to tear the wrapping paper a little bit so he can get started.

When moving around now, he’s still happiest crawling to get from one place to another, but increasingly we’re seeing that he wants to get down on the ground and start exploring. When he’s in exploring mode, he starts to investigate climbing on things. Mostly he’ll climb on familiar people, but sometimes, he’ll try and climb on trusted objects.

For his actual birthday, Mum brought him into the city so we could have a family lunch together. After some Thai food (for Mum and Dad) and rice crackers with almond butter and with avocado, and assorted fruit (for Puff), we went across the way for hot chocolate (for Mum and Dad), and then took some family photos. This one came out the best.

Puff then went to visit Aunty Chan, and was very spoilt when he received another present to open from another friend.

It’s worth noting that we’ve worked out how to avoid having him cry when he is first placed on the change-mat in the mornings. The answer? Give him some soft toys to play with: it has transformed his mood (and we’ve managed – so far – to keep them from interfering in the nappy-changing process).

Lastly, Puff had his 12-month immunisations this week. This time, there are three needles. One in each arm, and one in the leg. They start with the leg and arm on one side of the body, then flip around and approach the other arm. It’s hard work holding him still, knowing that it’s not pleasant, but it’s better than leaving him alone for someone else to do it. As far as I know, he won’t remember at all – I don’t remember my immunisations from that far back – but I think it’s still worth making it as easy as possible for him. We took him out for a late breakfast after the immunisations, as practice for when he’s old enough to remember the event.

As it turns out, week 52 is one day before Puff’s first birthday, though now that I write this, it *is* his birthday and he’s fast asleep. Here’s a review of some of the highlights.

We don’t often allow Puff to play with toys in his “eating chair”, but this was an exception. Sometimes, having him stay in one place without risk of damaging anything (or himself) is too good and opportunity to be overlooked.

The main event for this week was obviously his birthday party. Much of the rest of the time was spent preparing for it. When he arrived, we put down a picnic blanket, and he had a go at crawling around. His hesitancy to crawl on grass made it a great way to keep him safely in one place.

A lot of people came along to the party to catch up with Puff, and his Mum and Dad, and with each other. By all accounts that I’ve heard, people had a good time. Thanks especially to those who came down, didn’t know anyone else, and stayed while looking after their kids.

I’m glad it wasn’t me cutting the cake: I couldn’t really bring myself to do it. This way, I was just concentrating on making sure that Puff’s interaction with the cake-cutting knife was a safe one.

One of the highlights of this week for Puff was getting to spend some time with his Grandragon. Grandragon normally lives in Queensland, and so they don’t get to spend much time together.

Throughout the past few weeks, Puff has shown increasing interest in pulling himself up into an almost-standing position. This week, he figured out how to stand up in his cot. This meant that we had to make an adjustment to the cot we’d been putting off for a few weeks: to lower the base of it, so it’s safer for him. Here’s a staged photo showing how far it is from the mattress to the top of the cot now. Much safer!

The second last update before Puff’s first birthday. The time has flown by – not so long ago, he was looking to his mum for food every three or four hours, and this week we’ve seen more new developments in his eating – not all of them welcome.

We’re starting to devote more time to getting ready for his birthday proper: his birthday cake (you’ll be able to see it on the blog next week) is looking really good so far. We’re looking forward to catching up with some family and friends. Again, more on that next week.

Puff is starting to combine his various skills: he can now add “playing with magnets” to “sitting up”, and creates scenes like this.

A step in sourcing the ingredients for his cake saw Puff take a train journey. He seemed to enjoy it.

There was a market night on at one of the childcare centres in our suburb, and we took him along to have a look: next door to the centre was a fenced off area where various birds could be seen. He had a bit of a look at them, and looked like he was enjoying it!

On the way back, despite the failing amounts of light, we took Puff to a swing for a quick ride. He also tried out the slide, though we had to keep a pretty close hand on him, so haven’t managed to photograph that yet.

Saturday was excellent, a bright and sunny day, and so we went to Mount Annan botanic gardens for a picnic. We let him try eating an apple, though it was a little beyond him: he managed to sneak a small amount of apple into the roof of his mouth for quite a while. We thought he’d eaten it really quickly, and then discovered it in his mouth a long while later.

Though he’s getting bigger and more mobile, he’s still prepared to sit still for photos where his movements are restricted.

With his ever expanding diet, his eating is getting even more messy. Eating a banana is tricky enough if you know how to hold one, but if you’re also fascinated with textures, it ends up being very messy indeed. To try and keep mealtimes cleaner, we’ve moved up a notch from the bib to the smock. He’s a little uneasy having it put on, but once he’s wearing it, he is happy enough.

Lastly, he’s starting to try and stand up. He makes an “a-frame”, keeping his feet and hands on the ground, and then making an A shape with his body, then fidgets a while, and goes back to crawling. Still, it won’t be long, we think, until he’s running around!