It’s been astonishing to see how fast he has gone from taking his first steps to using walking as his preferred method of moving around. With this new-found confidence has come an increased desire for independence. Here he is trying to remember “feet first” at climbing around a slide in a park.
His counting is getting more impressive too: here is a somewhat staged video of him towards the end of dinner:
This week saw me make the trek up to the Blue Mountains for MKC. It was tough for everyone. It wasn’t until it was time to leave that it really hit me how much I was going to miss having Puff and Mum around. Sure, it was only a brief time in the scheme of things, but I’ve made a number of choices to try and maximize the time I can spend with Puff and Mum, and so when I end up with choices that undermine that, it’s always sad.
Last week we went to dinner for one of Puff’s uncle’s birthdays. This week, we took Aunty S shopping for a birthday present, and Puff had a chance to ride around in a toy car of sorts:
He wasn’t entirely convinced, and in fact we spent a lot of time holding his hands while he walked around the Westfield instead. I don’t think I was ready for just how slow it is to be moving around a shopping centre at 17 month old pace.
Mid-week, Puff and Mum came in to have lunch with Dad and some of his workmates. Everyone was very impressed with how well-behaved he was: indeed, until Dad accidentally mentioned “mango”, he was happy to eat some snacks and look around.
After yum cha, he went for a quick walk through the adjacent shopping centre. It’s been suggested to us that to help his walking develop as best as possible, we should hold off on giving him shoes to wear – this means that we’re looking for safe flooring options as places for him to practice.
With Dad away, Mum took Puff for another yum cha meal – here he is waiting for the other guests to arrive.
Lastly, here’s an indication of how he’s progressing with using a cup: he still drinks water out of his cup-with-straw a lot of the time, but he’s improving on using a cup without spills.
