Having a ‘smashing’ time

The other morning, I managed to wangle a lie-in whilst Claire got up with Jack, as he was having ‘one of those mornings’ where he wanted to get up early.

I managed to sleep-in until about 8 o’clock in the morning, which for me at the best of times is a fantastic lie-in; When I got up, I wandered into spare bedroom, which has now transformed itself as Jack’s second bedroom/playroom, to find Claire and Jack playing quite peacefully. Although Claire looked quite bemused, thinking that I knew what had happened so far that morning.

It turns out that Jack had been a bit ‘playful’ earlier in the morning during their breakfast and had managed to reach up at the kitchen table and grab at the cloth placemat that Claire was using for her breakfast and pulled at it, bringing it and everything that was on it, onto the floor, including a plate of toast and a three-quarter-full glass of orange juice!

As Jack’s toys were already on the floor from him playing earlier, these added to the carnage that I saw when I nipped down for a peek, as Claire couldn’t clean up properly, as Jack is getting quicker with his crawling. It was as though Jack had been through the cupboards and smashed every plate going, as it looked much worse than it really was.

It has made us realise that he’s also getting taller and things that were previously out of his reach are now potential targets of destruction!

Kitchen mayhem

As Jack is old enough now to move himself about, and quite quickly too, he’s also able to reach up and grab at the kitchen cupboard door handles, which was funny to start with, as he just used to hang onto them, but now he’s more curious as to what’s inside, it’s a job to keep up with him!

I’ve just been right through every ground-based cupboard in the kitchen and have fitted those little latches that only a grown-up knows how to get in, just to be told by Claire that Jack’s worked out how to get into the cupboard in the utility room. Great.

Apparently, he pulls the door twice in quick succession and the latch gives way. This is a problem, as there’s all sorts of horrible stuff that babies shouldn’t get to see, such as bleach, or washing powder and other boring cleaning stuff like that, but it also made me smile, as you can almost see that he’s going to be trouble when he’s older.

He does things sometimes and looks at you with ‘that look’ as if he knows exactly what he’s doing and that he also knows that he’s not meant to do that, or his mum might not approve. As the token-responsible parent in the house, you can’t laugh or seem to encourage him as he’ll certainly do it again next time. But I certainly wanted to.

I mentioned something about this to my mum a little while ago, and she said they had to hide their smiles and laughter at stuff we did as kids during a telling-off, all them years ago. Personally, I can’t remember any hint of them wanting to smile or laugh, so they must have done it well, or had plenty of practice, as I do remember being told off quite a lot…

Distractions

Bit of a wide-ranging topic/title, but still quite appropriate, and here’s why:

Jack is getting to that age whereby he’s listening to what you’re saying, and although he can’t talk back, he pretty much knows what’s going on.

He’s able to point, or at the very least ‘stare’ at various objects in the room that you ask him about, such as the clock hanging on the wall in the kitchen, the telly on the sideboard, where his high-chair is, and so on. And they’re things that he understands what you’re talking about and will move to look for them.

These objects in the room have come in quite handy when he’s been having a tantrum or not eating his food, distracting him from what he was doing and allowing you a moment’s breathe to win the fight. Dirty tactics? Maybe. Does it work? Mostly.

On the other hand, there are those other distractions in the house that take Jack’s focus away from what Claire and I want him to concentrate on. The main culprit for this happens to be our friendly pooch, Alfie, who must know when to come marching into the kitchen when we’re trying to feed Jack, or stand there whimpering by the front door wanting to go out and bark at something. Jack is quite taken by Alfie and we’re really glad that they’re not scared of each other, etc, but when you’re trying to get things done first thing in the morning before getting ready yourself to go to work, it’s not the best of help you could expect from the dog.

In terms of me, this blog site and distractions, I’ve had a little too many of them myself recently. (Hence the radio-silence on here and then all of a sudden a burst of activity!) I think it’s too easy to let something like blogging slip, especially when tired after getting up at silly-o’clock in the morning with Jack and then going to work, etc, etc. Excuses, I know, but I know I enjoy writing these posts, so I’ll try to make a conscious effort!!

Maybe another problem, is that we’ve started an internal blog at work and I think it’s fair to say I’ve contributed to it enough recently, and maybe that’s taken away my blogging concentration-quota recently, (or at least the desire to blog at home), despite the topics being totally separate.

In addition to all of this, the actual amount of spare time I have is significantly reduced; something that I was fully aware would happen, and I’ve ‘tried’ to cater for it, but it’s not until you literally have *no* spare time that you appreciate it. So, when I do get a little spare time, I’ve got work/projects that I want to get on and do, and this ‘playtime’ comes mostly at about 8pm – 10pm.

I’m not moaning or complaining about any of this, it’s just that I think that this is a key area of being a parent that I think is worth highlighting for those who have not yet had the joys of being a parent. Maybe this is why parents look forward to shipping their children out when they’re old enough to move out, as the spare time factor returns? Only another 18 years left then…

The snow is falling…

Snow. Great when you’re inside looking out, but horrible when you’re out in it.

The last time it snowed here, was on the 5th February, the day after Jack was born. Why do I remember that? Well, that was the day that the nice policeman closed the road that took me to the hospital, and my dad ended up taking me later on his 4x4 truck.

I just had to go outside and stop the side gate banging around in the wind, and that was quite bad. It appears to be settling too, which might mean it stands a chance of causing havoc tomorrow, seeing as we seem to fall apart at the sight of snow here in the UK.

December already??

It sounds strange to say, but it really doesn’t feel like it should be December already. The weeks and months have disappeared; Jack is now 10 months old and his first Christmas is literally just around the corner, adding weight to they “they grow up fast” argument.

So, what’s happened in the past month since I last blogged? Lots, but where to start.

Jack is doing really well. He’s growing taller and filling out a lot more now, as he’s doing much better with his eating. He’s still eating the food that Claire’s been making for him, which is great. Despite all the work that making the food for him is, I think we’re both really pleased not only that we're able to do that for him, but also what he’s actually getting is exactly what Claire puts in the pan; no extra salt, preservatives, etc.

As he is relatively tall for his age, I think at one point we were a *little* concerned that he was a slightly under the weight-line on the graphs, but when comparing your little baby against a line on a graph, working in percentiles of the countries’ babies, it’s a little easy to get tied up in it all. Stats are just that, in my opinion and as long he’s not off at an extreme, he’s doing ok.

There are some areas of baby-life like this that make me wonder: Just how did people survive years ago without charts and averages etc? People seem to have managed without know what percentile their little bundle of joy is in, and they’ve obviously grown up just fine.

As I said in the last blog post, we all had a helping of Hand, Foot and Mouth disease, which was nice. We’re all good now and to be honest, I’m glad to see the back of it. I hate feeling ill – it seems so… unproductive!! It’s not that we’re *blaming* Jack for us getting it, but he did have it first and managed to get rid of it quickly too…!

He’s not far from walking now, we think. We keep sitting opposite each other on the floor in his playroom, and encouraging him to take a few steps towards one of us, and he’s getting there. He does try, but gravity is a constant force, and one that Jack hasn’t quite come to grips with yet!! He’ll gladly scale the stairs if you let him. And fairly quick too, seeing as each step is chest-height and there’s loads of them, he doesn’t do too badly.

His crawling has improved also. He’s been commando-crawling for as long as he could crawl, but the past week maybe, he’s been crawling ‘properly’, as one would imagine a baby to crawl.

What else can I think has happened? Brain-mush. I might have to post this blog item and get another one posted when I remember what else has happened, as otherwise, this will never get uploaded!!