puff and huff

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!

Week fifty. Getting ever closer to his first birthday, with all the panning out into the future that goes with that. People are starting to remind me that I’m no longer young, but that looking after a baby will keep me young. I have to agree: it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to make animal sounds with quite so much enthusiasm as in the last few weeks!

Puff has managed to master the difficult vegetables like peas (as we saw last week), but he’s now moving into this tendency to throw unwanted food off his food tray onto the floor. To try and add cuteness to this routine, he makes it look like this is all a surprise to him, and that he doesn’t understand gravity.

We had a church “day away” in Cronulla on the weekend, and so took him back to Grind (the first cafe he ever visited, when he was only four days old) for a visit. This time the cup was empty (though it didn’t take him long to try and start eating the cup).

We’ve also started trying to prepare him for crawling on grass. He’s more comfortable with it now, but if you leave him on grass for a little while, he has a tendency to lift his hands up away from the grass – even if he’s crawling on his stomach.

Most of his play takes place in the dining room. Watching him explore the room – each time fascinated by what should be familiar toys – is always interesting. He is more confident with the magnets, having figured out that they can stick not just to the fridge, but also to the dishwasher!

Though he can be quite distracted with toys that make noise, he is happiest with simple toys that he can chase around the room: at the moment, he’s starting to be more confident climbing up to things, and occasionally over them (if they’re low enough).

The biggest thing he’s worked out how to do this week, though, is to sit up by himself. He moves himself into crawling position (on all fours), and then crawls backwards to sit (he hasn’t worked out how to crawl forwards yet, only backwards… odd).

He doesn’t stay sitting up for long, but it’s very impressive to see him achieve it!

Oh, and one last thing: he’s starting to learn the actions to songs. If we sing “If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands”, he will clap his hands, sometimes in time with where the actions should be in the song (depending on tiredness… your mileage may vary).