puff and huff

As we drive back up our driveway with Puff in his seat in the back, he will say “Check Mail”, and get more and more excited until someone takes him out to the letterbox to see if there’s any mail. We’re seeing this more and more – he will notice a pattern in life, and then get very excited about being able to say the name of whatever it is, so he can participate.

Feeding times are generally going well: he has his moments of being a fussy eater, but most of the time he will get through a meal in a relatively timely fashion.

He’s very hands-on in his eating approach (despite our best efforts to teach him how to use a spoon, it’s a pretty slow and ineffective process) – here is a small insight into what his hands look like towards the end of a meal. Note for dads: clean your child’s hands very carefully before picking them up or letting them loose anywhere – crumbs can be quite tricky to remove from the tiny recesses of a baby’s hands.

On Saturday, we took Puff to Cronulla, couldn’t find parking, and so went to Glebe instead (it made sense at the time). In his sun gear and the ergo carrier, we did some walking around Glebe Markets looking for a new pair of sunglasses for Mum. He had a great time doing some people watching.

After the Markets, we went down to a park at the other end of Glebe Point Road for a picnic lunch, overlooking the water. Puff had a great time watching the little kids on their bikes, and the puppies. Oh, the puppies. It was very exciting.

Saturday night we went out for dinner, and to see a show while Aunty C and Uncle J looked after Puff’s night routine – thanks for letting us have a night off!

One Christmas present that Puff received (as we’ve mentioned before) was the croc. He will cheerfully tell you that a croc says “snap snap”, but still doesn’t trust its teeth. Here he is, after some persuading, patting it, but away from its mouth.

One other new thing in Puff’s routine is his walking practice. He’s able to walk quite quickly while pushing this block trolley – most of the photos (this one included) are a blur just trying to keep up with him.

He’s come a long way with the trolley from his first hesitant steps: he can now confidently change direction, turn in a small-ish space, and even fall over and pick himself up again.

You might be able to tell from the video that he’s in the advanced stages of losing his baby hair and replacing it with grown-up (?!) hair – apparently this is normal for at least one part of his family tree, and we’ve been quite relieved to see that as the bald spot makes its way backwards on his head, it’s being replaced with new hair. This does give him an unfortunate, somewhat monastic look at the moment, but we have every confidence he will have a full head of hair again in, say, another three months!

We’ve also been practising taking him outside in the backyard to try walking on the grass. Once stood up, he can stay standing without holding on to anything for a few seconds, and will even take a few hesitant steps before falling over into Dad’s arms. Not long now, and our whole experience of parental life will change again.

It’s hard to describe the sense of pride that comes from watching him (or hearing him) learn about new things: with a little bit of prompting now, he can say the whole of the grace we’ve taught him: “Thank You Father God for this food, Amen.” Amazing.

We’ve also made some slight changes to his bedtime routine: it now goes dinner, getting ready for bath, bath, pyjamas, clean teeth, milk, up to three books (“bunnies”, “party”, “duck”) and then his bible story, prayers and into his sleeping bag and into bed. His most recent addition to his cat toy and monkey toy is his favourite blue bear, named “Bear”.

This week has raced past in a flurry of sermon preparation activity for Dad. Despite best efforts, he was still spending most of his weekend working on the sermon, and so he missed the epic trip back to Ryde Aquatic Centre for splashing around, enjoying the wading pool, the waves and the slides. Thanks to Aunty C and Uncle J for filling in the gaps while Dad sat in the air conditioning working on his sermon.

To make a bit of extra parenting time for Dad, Mum brought Puff in to the city to have a work-day lunch with Dad. Here he is in one of the more successful attempts to try rice paper rolls (he wasn’t convinced about eating them).

He is really enjoying being read to at the moment, asking for extra books before his evening bedtime story from his kids bible. New favourite books are We’re going on a Bear Hunt (a book that fills Dad with anxiety at the flagrant parental neglect) and Diary of a Wombat. He has probably chosen these books because they are the longest books that he can comfortably sit through, and it buys extra time.

For the first time in his life, he’s sad when it’s time for his Bible story, but it soon passes. Here he is reading with Aunty C.

He’s also been making progress on his walking around (if he’s in the right mood, he can walk up and down the kitchen pushing his block trolley). He’s also having fun driving his little car – this week he learned how to go forward (beyond the more familiar backward).

One other little milestone: while praying this week, he said his name for the first time in the context of the prayer, and then later in the week, he used it in context to refer to himself! Another little highlight of being a parent.

This week saw us travel to Canberra to visit friends, visit the last Sydney coffee tweetup for the year, ring in the new year, swim, swing, and play. Dad had five out of seven days off work, and was just getting used to being around all the time when it was time to head back to work. That first morning of heading back to work was a little tough – I was reminded again to be sure that what I’m doing with my time at work is worth missing out on watching Puff grow up.

Moving on to some pictures. Puff had a great time visiting with J and N down in Canberra, and wasn’t shy at all in moving around the house.

When we returned to Sydney, we raced to a physio appointment for Mum while Dad gave Puff his lunch in the waiting room. From there, we headed over to a tweet-up in Glebe, where Puff impressed everyone with his good behaviour.

For New Year’s Eve, we went to friends’ new house where Puff played with baby E a little bit, and then Mum and Dad stayed up to play Halo, watch fireworks, and play more Halo.

In the New Year, we had a great time swimming and playing at Ryde Aquatic Centre – he really loved the water (and even the wave pool), and was probably swimming for an hour or an hour and a half before we went to the other corner of the centre for a barbecue, all for A’s birthday.

After the birthday party was over, we dashed over to Koorong to grab some books for Dad (a couple of Hebrew items and a commentary on James) – it turns out that Puff is now big enough to enjoy some aspects of the playground there!

We also made a trip over to Grandma and Grandad’s house, and had a quick go at some of the play equipment there: the favourite was probably the swing (or perhaps it was just the easiest to photograph).

Another morning we went out for breakfast, and Puff – who has been developing a great love of trying the milky “froth” from the top of decaf coffees managed to get almost all the way through a babycino (Mum helped a bit towards the end when the spilling started to get out of control).

We’re putting some more wheat into his diet, though he still eats a lot of gluten free food. We continue to be amazed at just how good natured and well behaved he is – he’s a great baby.

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!