New timetable

Remember I told you about my funny week? Well it's happened three times now and shows every sign of continuing. The biggest clue, apart from the smile on Daddy's face, is the new timetable that's appeared on my bedroom door. Mummy or Daddy show it to me every day to help me keep track of what type of day it is. There are "Mummy Days", "Daddy Days" and - best of all - "Mummy and Daddy Days".

We had a really good Mummy and Daddy day this weekend, when we went to visit a small zoo not far from here. There were tigers and ponies and and lemurs and donkeys and parrots and pigs and lions and fish and bats and GIANT guinea pigs and snakes and raccoons and goats and lots of other animals. Oh, and a llama who kept aiming his sneezes at me. Daddy ran away to keep us safe. My favorites were the macaws. They were talking to me so I tried to talk back. I need to practice my macaw noises though because I don't think they understood me. The goats were shouting at each other as well and that made me laugh.

Mummy and me feeding a pony

There was also a huge ball pool and not many people there so I had it all to myself for ages, which gave Mum and dad the chance to eat their sandwiches.

I've just read what Daddy's been saying about me. It's true I did use my potty a few times, but I think Daddy was a bit too proud (and why should he be proud when it's me that's being clever) so let me tell you I've decided very definitely not to use it since then. I am not sitting on the thing. No. I. Am. Not.

Anyway, I must go and get some sleep now - I think I've got a Daddy day coming up and I want lots of energy to keep him busy.

Planning my next special day

Ten-month (and a bit) progress report

I keep thinking about things I should post here, and then they slip my mind or time passes, and I end up thinking that a post covering everything would be far too long. So here's a few highlights off the top of my head...

• Food
  Since he's been on solids, virtually all his food has been made by us (okay: mostly Rachael), almost exclusively from one of Annabel Karmel's recipe books. We tend to give him some finger food (bread, rusk) and spoon the rest in ourselves. Just recently he's started to push our hands away even though he's hungry; he wants to feed himself rather than be fed like a baby. We've started giving him a spoon and are keeping a very close eye on what's going on. Things are starting to get messy!
  
  
• Movement
  He's now developed a really good proper crawl, on hands and knees. At first he'd get up on his hands and knees but drop to elbows and tummy to get anywhere, but now he's really going for it. He's been pulling himself up to his feet for a while, and now cruises around the furniture fairly well, although our sofa arms are too high for him to get past so he gets a bit stuck. We bought him a "Toddle Truck" - one of those old-fashioned trays full of building blocks with wheels and a handle - thinking he'd play with the bricks for now and use it to walk later. On day one he was happy walking along with it while we held it (to stop it rolling away too quickly), but the next day he pulled himself up on it and promptly walked across the room without any help at all. And, boy, did he look pleased with himself! He's also - once only - stood entirely unsupported for about 20-30 seconds; We really couldn't believe our eyes.
  
  
• Sleep
  Now here's an area where we really needed to see some progress, so I'm very pleased to say we're beginning to. Rachael had been keeping records of every time he woke and for how long, to see if we could identify a pattern. Sure enough, we decided much of his waking was not out of discomfort, hunger, wind, teeth, or anything else we could think of, so it must have been simply habitual. So we changed our strategy again (settle him in the cot and only pick him up if absolutely necessary) and after a fairly short time the wakes have become shorter and now less frequent. We've even had a few "through the nights" which is fantastic.
  
  
• Other physical development
  He has two teeth, and still very little hair. Everyone tells us how beautiful he is, and we agree with them. The potty has been an astonishing success: we does a wee in it most days, and has even done a poo in it several times. We're keeping quiet about that in case it sounds too boastful! And today he had an eye test because we thought we'd seen a bit of a squint in one eye, but he passed with flying colours, picking out faint shapes on the paper that usually defeat older babies. The last one I couldn't see without my glasses!

I'm sure there is much more to tell, but I started by saying I didn't want the post to be too long, so I shall stop here.

A different kind of week

Something funny happened this week, and I think I quite liked it - although I was a bit confused at first. It started on Tuesday morning: when I woke up, Mummy gave me my milk as normal but then she went out to work and left me to look after Daddy by myself until it was nearly my bath time. I had to explain to him what we like to do on a Tuesday, and he must have understood because after breakfast he took me to the library where I meet up with a group for some singing. I was pretty tired after that so I got Daddy to walk me around in my pram for an hour and a half. I find the movement helps me to sleep, but I think he might have stopped for a coffee at some point. We spent the afternoon playing at home and I practiced walking with my new toddle-truck. I surprised everyone last week by pulling myself up on it and strolling right across the room without anyone's help.

Mummy was very pleased to see me when she finally came home, so I gave her an extra-big cuddle on the sofa. She looked like she needed it.

If I thought Tuesday was odd, though, you should hear what happened on Wednesday: I woke up and Mummy had already gone out! I called out for Daddy, and he had to give me my milk and my breakfast. We went out shopping in the morning (some people might think that's pretty boring, but I quite enjoy it because there's always lots of interesting stuff to look at), but because Daddy wanted to get back in the car to come home we had lunch at a funny time and I didn't really feel very hungry. It was okay though, because in the afternoon I took daddy along to Sing and Sign with some of my best friends. (I haven't really got the hang of any of the signs yet, but I do like to point at things and have lately started to clap and wave, too.) I slept in the car after that, and then my supper was late.

After all the confusion it was good to wake up on Thursday and find things back to normal. I wonder what will happen this week?

Photos - and a video!

I've neglected Ainsworth's photo site lately, and hadn't uploaded any new shots for the whole of December. Finally I've taken some time out to get things up to date. Here's a link to the site, and here's one to a slideshow of the December shots.

Way back in April I mentioned that we'd put together a video for the grandmas to enjoy. Well, we've continued with that and have done five videos so far, the latest of which was given as an extra Christmas present. When I get around to it, I'll put them on so you can watch them here if you feel so inclined, but there is one short extract of Ainsworth and his Grandma that I just had to share. It makes us smile so much every time we watch it. Make sure your volume is turned up...