Category: week in review

With every week, Puff gets more intent on exploring the world. Unless he’s quite tired, he’s not as happy to be held and watch what’s going on, he wants to look at it, touch, and yes, put the whole world into his mouth: apparently this is how babies explore the world. We find this quite troubling, as it means he’s trying to lick surfaces that really shouldn’t be in a baby’s mouth.

For example, when previously he might have been happy to hold an orange and have a look at it – and it’s only been a little while that his hands have been large enough to hold an orange, now it goes straight into his mouth.

Although when we put him on the ground sitting up, he hasn’t consistently figured out how to manoeuvre into a crawling position, he can manage it on occasion. Overall, his ability to move around and explore spaces is improving: here he is trying to get into his bucket.

Some of his other toys have taken on new functions. Most notably is his play mat. Originally we would lie him down on the mat and have him look up at the suspended toys. Later we would watch him swat at the toys. Later still he would crawl around on the mat and play with bits of it. Now he lifts up the whole mat, and makes the toys swing back and forth, and watches it. It’s just one big toy to him!

His sitting is really solid. We’ve been cutting down on the amount of TV he gets to see, and so he can sit on the couch and have stories read to him; he doesn’t just stare at the screen waiting for the TV to go back on. Not sure how long this resolve will last: hopefully a while!

We had a couple of outings this week: one was a quick trip up to the shops in the stroller. He has a few more toys to keep him interested, but once we get going he enjoys it well enough. Pushing the stroller is a bit limiting in opportunities to interact with him: he’s facing forward, and you’re facing forward: perhaps this is why we don’t use the stroller all that often.

We also went to a friend’s birthday party in the city: we were running horribly late, and so it was a bit of a late night for him, but he remained in good spirits the whole time we were there, impressing a number of guests, and sleeping in the car on the way home when we feared he would scream.

Lastly for this week, a video of Dad reading him his favourite storybook. This was the fourth time in a row we’d read it: I think the 3rd time would have made a better video, but this is what we managed to capture. Each page has a different texture on it, and he’ll usually stop and feel the relevant part of the page, but not so much this time.

This week Puff turned 9 months old! How quickly it’s all gone. We’re starting to marvel at how big he is – it’s really astonishing how much he’s changed in such a short space of time.

This week was a pretty busy one for dad, with a big essay to work on for college. Having other things to do at home – things that require a longish attention span – has been a bit of a challenge, but with puff’s increased ability to amuse himself, and play happily on his mat for a while, it is getting easier. Here’s puff helping dad taking a break from the essay writing:

Aunty Sarah helped Puff play the piano a bit this week: I think he quite enjoyed it, though he hasn’t quite mastered the art of letting other people play.

A lot of time is spent now playing on his play mat. If we sit him on his mat, he is generally content to stay sitting, and just stretch out and grab toys.

Once he’s in a crawling position, though, the mat is just a suggestion, and he can make his way around to whatever or whomever he finds interesting. When he wants to be picked up, he will grab my hands and put them under his arms: this has happened several times now, so I know it’s not a coincidence!

Diet-wise, we’re trying him on some more foods that he can eat by himself; he usually has a good go at them, and takes little pieces out with his four (!) teeth. The latest tooth finally came through this week after a lot of threatening. Overall, he hasn’t been too distracted by getting these teeth: his sleeping patterns remain much the same.

He’s also had his first cold this week: as far as energy and enthusiasm, he’s about the same, but he has a pretty scary sounding cough.

One high-point that we’re yet to successfully capture on video is learning to clap his hands. We keep saying “clap your hands”, and sometimes he’ll stare back blankly, but other times he’ll actually do it: they don’t always completely line up, but it’s great to see him understand what we’re asking him to do, and to build up some more coordination! The funniest little anecdote from this has been when he was in his eating chair, holding on to the tray with his right hand. Dad said “clap hands” and he moved his left hand from the left side of his body in towards the middle of his body, in a clapping motion, but kept the other hand firmly holding on to the tray!

Only a parent could find that a funny anecdote, but Dad loved it.

We close this week with some footage of him playing with his red toy-storage bucket. Sometimes it even has toys in it!

A couple of photos from this week: we tried him out in his first shopping-centre ride: we sat him down in this fake car. With a bit of encouragement, he stretched his hands out to take the wheel, and then surprised both of us by using the steering wheel to stand himself up!

I was a bit worried about trying him out in this tunnel, but he cheerfully crawled all the way through it!

It seems that it was just a phase for a few days, but his ability to move around and splash in the bath is becoming the stuff of legend. It’s amazing to think that only a few months back he had to be supported all the time while in the bath, and that I was trying to teach him how to splash, ever so slightly, his hands in the water.

High points of new learning this week:
* Puff is making it more and more clear when he doesn’t want to go into his car seat. He is quite strong now – strong enough to arch his back completely with his feet on the seat.
* He’s been feeding himself some new foods – some chicken this time, as well as the rusks, celery and carrot sticks that he’s quite used to
* With his Mum sick, he doesn’t seem to mind being at home all weekend.
* He continues to threaten to learn how to crawl properly, but he seems to have mastered dragging himself around, and is happy enough with this as a means of self-transport
* He’s started to show more interest in his favourite books, and even to try and read them to himself
* He gets very vocally upset if you try to remove a toy from him when he doesn’t think he’s finished with it yet
* His sitting is much more stable – he can be trusted to sit in a shopping trolley seat with minimal supervision

The high point for me this week was when I’d just returned home from work. Puff was playing on his mat, and I stood near him. He commando-crawled over to me, and when I put my hands out as if to pick me up, he grabbed my hands. He hasn’t done this again, but I’m sure he will.

Moving around is now second nature to Puff: if we sit him up, he’ll generally stay in the one place and look around, but once he’s on his back or belly, he will spin around to find the source of an interesting sound, or make his way towards something that looks interesting. He has no sense of fear at all: he only seems to know that he’s on a level surface, not that the surface is a metre off the ground!

When we go to a cafe, though, we can still distract him (for a while) with a teaspoon, or a few teaspoons. He seems to get bored of his existing toys (though he generally has a favourite or two), but a teaspoon is never dull.

This week we had a few outings, and mother’s day, and also a surprise visit from the grandragon and great-grandragon. He managed to see them off at the airport, and even to stand (propped up) on a seat while looking at the plane.

A happier memory, to close on, is some actual footage of him heading for the camera. Apologies for the background noise, but it’s really all about watching his face, and watching him move.

Oh, if you’re trying to keep track of sizes, he varies between size 00 and size 0 for clothes, and between “crawler” and “toddler” nappies – the larger, “toddler” ones at night, though sometimes in the morning he needs a more substantial change – to some dry clothes – too. And occasionally, during the day, as occurred at the airport, there are some spectacular nappy changes that require an outfit change too. Not for the faint-hearted.

As each week passes, Puff threatens us with a greater sense of mobility. In the bath, if you flip him over so he’s face-down, he can hold his head out of the water by himself, and – like a ninja – pull a non-slip plastic duck from the wall or floor of the bath and still be holding it when you flip him around again.

Faster, smarter, more dextrous. It’s amazing to watch him learn and grow.

This week we tried out some more challenging food: a slice of apple, and some grated apple. Using his two bottom teeth, he managed to gnaw quite a bit off the piece of apple. Having put the grated apple into his mouth by himself, it would stay in his mouth for a while, and then fall back out onto his bib or tray. He needs more practice here.

Saturday night we took him out to a restaurant with some friends, and he managed to sit in his plastic chair on a restaurant chair, to have his dinner. There were a lot of distractions. Here’s a quick time-lapse of his after-dinner rusk.

He managed to pose for this photo with his dad.

On his dad’s birthday, he visited Dad at work, and stopped for a food court lunch with Mum, Dad and Puff. He doesn’t seem to understand the distinction between posing for a photo and eating lunch: here’s our best effort to have him look at the camera.

He also had his first evening being looked after by a certain aunt and uncle. Mum and Dad had a very unusual evening where there was no Puff to look after. Odd, but good. And they didn’t talk about Puff *all* the time they were out.

What a week! It seems that household life has settled down enough that one of these posts is finished on time for once. Here are some of the highlights (we won’t talk about going up a nappy size for night sleeping, and dad’s quick hands with a nappy and some paper towel saving the day).

On to the photos.

Dad was out a few nights last week, and when he returned to feed Puff, there was a new trick. While in the past, we’ve struggled to fit a whole spoonful of vegetables in, now, (until he gets tired) he pulls out all the stops and brings his mouth to a whole new level of open. Behold: “huge mouth”.

On the play mat, there’s even more stretching, exploring, grabbing toys, being amused by the toys that make sounds. Here’s one move that’s particularly cute when he’s on his mat, and singularly frustrating when he’s in his eating chair.

On Saturday, Puff went on his first walk around the Bay Run – a 7km loop road that was perfect for enjoying the Anzac Day weather, and some good bonding time with Dad. This may well be the most time he’s spent with just Dad, and Mum being at home. Dad had a friend and son to keep him company, though they both had scooters, so Puff and Dad had to walk the track, with Puff in the ERGO carrier. The biggest challenge here was keeping Puff’s hat on.

What do you do when you need to move some washing around in the laundry, and Puff doesn’t want to be put down to play? Work out a new spot for him to play where he can watch what’s going on: hence, playing in the esky. This didn’t go entirely to plan: he started to slip down into the esky before too long, but it did the job. Puff and Dad were both happy for long enough to get the chores done.

One of the biggest challenges in taking photos of Puff’s teeth is his tendency to hide them as soon as the cameras come out. Mum persevered, and proudly presents this photo.

His latest trick, though, has been to work out how he can tip over his toy bucket and get the toys out: all without (yet) learning how to sit up, or even to crawl.

Crawling progress: still doesn’t know how to crawl, but can drag himself around quite effectively, and knows how to go from sitting back to crawling. Not long now and Mum and Dad will have to thoroughly secure the house from small hands.

Another week, another tooth. While Puff still doesn’t appreciate having his teeth photographed, we persevere.

One high point this week was being given his first balloon to play with – a helium balloon. He found it completely fascinating, and would just stare up and watch it floating. We then showed him that he could grab its string and hit it around a bit… best toy yet (for a short while, anyway). The next day, having lost some of its helium, it wasn’t quite so fun, and the day after that, it was more dangerous than fun, so it disappeared.

Uncle Andrew produced his “Gloomy Bear” toy, which looks quite scary, really, but has no fear for Puff.

A rare Sunday morning visit to a cafe for breakfast… how to keep Puff quiet? Give him a teaspoon. We’ve known about the distraction powers of the spoon for a while, but here for the first time, a timelapse of how it works (click through for the video).

Lastly, I thought I’d give you a window into the amount of work that Mum does to keep Puff eating: here’s a small sample of the variety of food that he eats.

Another week: this one was overshadowed with all the things we did for Easter. Good Friday morning we managed to get up and ready in time for a 9am service – no mean feat. Puff enjoyed the service for a while, but Dad spent most of the sermon pacing around with him in the back of the church. It was good to see our church family at Easter time, but that was only the first part of our weekend!

In the afternoon, we all jumped in the car, and drove up to Blackheath where some of our friends were staying for KEC (Katoomba Easter Convention). We had dinner there, briefly debated heading up for the evening sessions, but ended up staying in and catching up.

Saturday morning we witnessed the chaos of 4 adults and 5 children getting ready to leave together – somehow we all made it down to the convention centre. Mum did a great job getting up the hill with Puff, and Dad carried the various things that we’d need for the morning. Now that Puff is eating fruit and vegetables and meat, there are a lot of little items to remember: it’s a good thing that Mum does a great job preparing everything (more on that in next week’s post).

We went home on Saturday night, and had a relatively good drive down – we managed to dodge much of the traffic by taking some back streets.

Easter Sunday we were aiming for evening service, and so around lunchtime we headed to Grind so that we could catch up with some other friends. Puff managed to be happy and excited for his whole trip to Grind, but then needed a nap afterwards as we spent some time around the beach with M,R and S.

On Monday we spent the day at Aunty Chan’s house for her birthday. Puff – with all his experience opening presents – helped Aunty Chan. Here they are working together.

We were surprised to find on Easter Monday that Puff now had his first tooth! Sadly, we couldn’t get a photo of it (he wasn’t being very co-operative), so that will have to wait until next week.

The big thing for this week was puff’s baptism. Family (and my friend Michelle) came down from Queensland, and there was a lot of activity. Nonetheless, we managed to keep Puff to his routines pretty well, and so although he was tired at the end of the day a few times, he was still sleeping through the night quite well.

His latest trick is to get up early in the morning (4, 5, or 6) and have a quick feed, then go back to sleep for a while.

Here is a highly abbreviated version of the baptism: for me, the best part was the pre-amble, and the prayers that Puff would become a Christian: this is something that I pray with him each night before bed, so it was great to have a whole church praying it. I wasn’t expecting to feel as happy about having him baptised as I did: it was a good thing to do, I think.

His aunty chan decorated this cake: it looked fantastic. Sadly, it didn’t say “Puff”, so we’ve had to make some changes for the website.

Puff also had a go at opening his baptism presents: he now has a lot more books to read (and a few other things).

Not only did the cake look great, many people have commented that it was also delicious.

But it wasn’t all baptism and family gatherings this week: we had a chance to go back to eveleigh markets, where Dad even took a few photos with his fancy camera (instead of the usual compact digital)

Another highlight was testing out a new toy with the grandragon.

There were other family members who had a chance to spend some time with Puff: notably the great grandragon had a chance to spend some time with him on Monday. And Tuesday, Mum and Dad had (anti) whooping cough injections, to try and keep him healthy.

This week saw us take a trip to Eveleigh Markets, which is near Redfern in the city. Puff had a great time looking around at all the stalls, and then, reluctantly, going to sleep in the sling. As you can see, it’s a large market!

On the way from the car to the market, he showed how interesting he finds the camera – if it’s close enough to him, he’ll take a swipe at it, and try to play with it.

During this week’s trip to grind (where we saw Ads and Mel), he was showing off his new-found strength at sitting up: it’s almost safe to leave him alone. Almost.

We’re seeing him – depending on how tired he is – want to be carried around more, and not like being left on the ground. He’s also developed a few more ear-piercing screams.

When happy, though, he’s exploring new foods. Having seen him demolish a rusk last week, we thought we’d try him on celery. Fresh out of the fridge, it’s quite cold on his teething gums, but by the time he tried to wipe it on my face, it was warm!

If he’s had enough rest, he can still be found having a great time playing on his mat, rolling on his front or back, or sliding around exploring the place. It can’t be too much longer until he’s crawling.

Lastly, a short video of his first taste of spinach (blended into a green gunge). Feeding him dinner is my main interaction with him during the week, and he makes sure that it lasts a while.