Nearly Christmas!!

Yes, t’is that time of the year again, where Christmas is but a few days away.  This year, by way of comparison to last year, should be totally different, as Jack is now running around a lot more, and certainly playing with toys a lot more too.

I don’t mean that in the sense that he didn’t play with toys previously, but rather than just knocking down the Lego buildings that I put together, or throwing the train-track sections, he’s actually playing with them.  He’ll get Lego blocks from the bucket and stack them up higher and higher, or he’ll push the trains around the track after attaching carriages, and so on.

He’s a lot more fun to be around, and again don’t read that as that he wasn’t before, but I think as he’s saying more and more things, as he’s slowly learning about the world, he’s doing more things that kids do, rather than babies.

Maybe I’m not wording this properly, or laying this down on paper screen as it is in my head, but I’ll carry on and see if this makes some sort of sense.

His talking is getting much better as the weeks go by.  I went away from work a few weeks ago, for a week, but when I came back, I noticed how much more words he was able to say, or see how pronunciation had improved of words he could say before I left.  I’m sure that before I went away, he was able to say/repeats words that were of three syllables; now, he’s onto four syllables, or say short sentences of around that length.  At home, we’re trying to talk to him properly, as we’re away of the words and phrases that we use, as he repeats them back like a parrot in seconds.  Because we knew this was going to be like this, we wanted to make others around him aware that he could repeat ‘stuff’, and something that we wanted to make sure he didn’t start repeating, was swear words. So much so, we’re quick to jump on someone that uses any form of profanity in his presence, threatening that they’d owe him a £5 for each curse uttered.  It’s not that people wanted particularly to swear in front of him, it’s just that I think sometimes they simply aren’t aware they’re doing it.  I know that the day will come when he mutters his first, but I’ll get the bar of soap ready for him to wash his mouth out. Or something.

Last year at Christmas, we didn’t really make too big a thing out of it for him, as he was, to be honest, totally unaware that anything was going on, except seeing more of our family members within a short space of time.  Presents weren’t really anything to him, except that he liked getting into the empty cardboard boxes.

This year, however, he’s a bit more aware of things going on, and it’s an opportunity to get him to do more things – Claire has been teaching him to sing Jingle Bells, which… is…. getting there…! Maybe next year, we’ll be teaching him to hush it up a bit, after the fifteenth time!  Claire has also been telling him who Father Christmas is, and he’s getting much better at saying it too!  He’s had the occasional present to unwrap already (naughty, I know) but he now knows that if you rip off the paper behind a big box, there’s a gift inside just for him.  Call it ‘preparation work’ for Christmas day!!

He’s also getting much better at telling us what the problem is, which is something that I think we, as grown-ups take for granted.  For instance, if he falls over in the other room and bangs his knee, by telling mummy where it hurts means that she can kiss it better quicker and the tears (and screaming) stop sooner.  Or if he’s getting tired, he’ll actually say ‘Tired.’ – short and sweet maybe, and admittedly we’re probably aware of this before he was anyway, but his own internal diagnostics have told him that, rather than us trying to tell him he’s tired and that he needs to go to bed!

There is one slight downside recently, in that we struggle to get him to clean his teeth.  So much so, it’s my job (bad cop) to pin him down on our bed using both arms and legs to do so, and then somehow manage to get a toothbrush in his mouth to give them a twice-a-day scrub.  He screamed originally because of the teeth coming through, but more nowadays because he’s being forced to do something he doesn’t want to do, but simply will not do it himself.  Both Claire and I are conscious that we want him to look after his teeth and if he gets used to cleaning them regularly, then maybe he will, but if we don’t make the effort ourselves to do so, then how can we expect him to when he’s older?  He’s got lovely little teeth and I’d hate for him to not look after them and for them to go bad and horrible.  My teeth aren’t so pretty to look at like Claire’s are, as mine are a bit twisty and irregular, but neither of us have any fillings or fake teeth, etc.  (Hell, I still have a baby-tooth!) But my point is that, independently of each other and with help (and/or restraining!!) from our respective parents,  we’ve both made an effort when we were young to look after them, and so far so good.

Anyway - All good fun. And I am looking forward to Christmas this year, in seeing his little face when he opens the mountain of presents that we’ve bought him.  Failing that, the look on our faces should be a picture when he goes for the boxes again this year.

Midnight Screams!!!

BANG!

It was the dead of night, and the noise woke me instantly.

I must have gone from fast asleep to completely 100% wide-awake in a small fraction of a very fast split second; in this time, I knew what had happened as, just then, it started….

WWWWWHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Yep, Jack had fallen out of bed at 03:30 in the morning. But not just any bed; Ours, which is quite high off of the floor.  But (luckily/unluckily) I wasn’t in it, so I had to climb out of the spare bed, realise where I was, navigate the piles of junk that we’re in the middle of sorting out, out the bedroom down the hallway a bit and into our bedroom to find Claire trying to calm down the ever-so-slightly upset Jack.

This was not an ordinary night, as the events earlier in the evening were almost trying to tell us.

Around 11:00ish, Jack woke up screaming, and I mean very loudly.  He seems to wind himself up into these screaming, crying tantrums, that it’s difficult to know what to do with him.  He doesn’t want to be picked up, he doesn’t then want to be put back in his bed/cot, you can’t soothe him, calm or anything. Nightmare. I can only conclude that this behaviour must be from his mum’s side.

Eventually, he went back to sleep, but only for a bit, as at 01:30, he’s awake again crying and screaming.  As I was due to go to work the next morning, Claire took over, which was good, as there was extra flappy-arms-screaming-paddy-tantrums when I tried to pick him up; his mum was ok, but not me.  Fine - I went to bed and was soon followed by Claire with a somewhat calmer Jack, but one that didn’t want to sleep in his bed, so she brought him into ours to see if that might help things.

For the record, Jack has never successfully slept in our bed. Ever. Even when he was really small, he only ever slept in his Moses basket/crib/thing or in his cot in the other bedroom.  So, to think that it might work was a bit of a faff. 

Knowing this sleeping situation would not work, I volunteered to sleep in the other bedroom, which was good for me, as I managed to sleep until the 03:30 awakening.  Claire, on the other hand, (bless her) didn’t manage to get any sleep, as Jack would wake every 20-30 minutes and have a bit of a cry, only to be soothed back to sleep instantly by his mum.

Getting up for 06:30 normally isn’t too much of a problem, but that day, strangely, it was…  Ho-hum. Fun and games of having kids, I suppose!

I’ve just added a ‘Tantrums’ category to the blog site… I have a feeling that I might be needing that in future.

There’s a giant in my car!

Claire and I have both suddenly noticed that this little crying ball of poo that we brought home from the hospital has actually grown. Lots.

I noticed when Jack and I were in my car, and he was strapped into his car seat; I looked around and saw that there was now this… child sitting there in the back, and not the shrivelled up baby that I remember being in there once.

Jack says she notices that he’s grown when she lays him on the changing table, as he nearly fills the length of it.

Having said that, he’s not over-big for his size, I don’t think. But his size/height is certainly put into perspective when he’s around other children! Our friends came over a little while ago with their son and daughter, and that’s when I noticed Jack was dinky compared to these older two.

For me, it’s a lot more fun now that he has grown and can do/say more.  Like going to the big play places, filled with padded climbing frames, ball pools, slides and more.  I’ve wanted to go before, and thought about borrowing someone else’s child just for that, but it’s really good that Jack likes it, although I end up sweating and more worn out than Jack does, as I have to constantly chase him around the climbing frames, as he gets easily bowled over by bigger kids running mad around, and to stop him from randomly jumping down great heights.  And to stop him from attacking other kids when they’re playing with something that he wants.  Little monster.

When we’re in the car, he’s much more aware of what’s around him, and can spot a tractor a mile away, even if it’s in a field perpendicular to the road we’re travelling on. “TRAC-TOR!” is what comes shouting from the back of the car!  Good eyes.

Nursery Update

Over the past several weeks, Jack has been getting considerably better whilst at nursery.  Ok, he cries a tiny bit now when we drop him off, but once we’re gone, they say he settles down really well now and actually enjoys playing with the toys, running around etc.

When I went to get Jack from nursery the other day, Tracey said that she was really pleased with how he’s been behaving as the weeks go on.  Obviously, they knew this would happen, as I’m sure that they’ve seen it lots before, but it’s probably more on our part, as when we used to leave Jack at nursery and he was crying, we seem to imagine that’s how he’ll be all day, crying and missing us, etc.  But he doesn’t and it’s more a case of Claire and I getting used to that more than Jack.

A week or so ago, I got there to pick him up after I got home from work, and had to chase him to get him to come home!  That made a bit of a turn-up for the books!

Nursery time!

We have started taking Jack to nursery just a few miles away from our home, and it’s fair to say that he doesn’t like, nor does he want, to be there.

Because of the usual working week that both Claire and I have, we have not needed to take him to nursery before, as Claire, her mum and I share looking after him during the weekdays over a fortnight.  But as we’ve been having him in environments that he’s been comfortable in, we thought he might need to learn to play with other children and get out a bit more, to learn somewhere else than our homes.  Get him out of his comfort zone a little and meet new boys and girls his own age. Plus, it gives us a bit of time to do stuff when he’s not around, so there’s benefits to us too.

The nursery he’s been going to have been really good with him so far.  They’ve changed their shift patterns a bit so that the same people are with him when he’s there, or as they know he’s not too happy, they try to get out the toy that they know he likes, like trains and cars, etc. But he still doesn’t like it, nor does he appreciate their efforts for him.

The first couple of weeks, he had to go for an hour-long ‘taster’ session, and then to keep doing that regularly such that he became familiar with the surroundings, but where one of us would stay during that hour. Then it would be himself for an hour, then four hours, and so on. Unfortunately, they don’t don’t do boarding, otherwise he’d be booked in as mummy and daddy could *really* do with the sleep!!

He’s getting better at going as time goes on and gets older and used to all of it, as in, he doesn’t cry all day now. Just most of it, but that’s progress eh?

He might look small and fuzzy-haired, but little Jack ain’t daft.  Last time I took him, he seemed to know where he was going before we even pulled into the driveway and instantly, the bottom lip came out, tear drops and everything. I thought this was just coincidence, but Claire’s mum said the same thing too, he seemed to recognise the road of where the nursery is even before seeing the nursery and burst into tears.  And before you think, again, coincidence, he doesn’t cry in the car normally; he’ll sit there in the car of the car and look out the window, pointing out things like buses, tractors and the like, so it can’t be that.

I’ve taken him this morning and dropped him off, but clever daddy had a little plan, in that we’d go the other way and come into the road from the top end, rather than from the bypass. Clever eh?  No.  He didn’t get it straight away, but he knew where he was.

Normally, I park out on the road, but this time we pulled into the car-park behind the nursery and he walked in; that is progress in itself, as last time I took him, I had to carry him as he was in his head-back-screaming-tantrum mode, which helps of course. But no, today, he held my hand and walked in, sobbing to himself admittedly but, nonetheless, he walked all the way into the tweenies room (i.e. less than 2 years old but older than a screaming baby). 

I thought I’d stay a little bit, just to help get him started and quickly retrieved the police car, fire engine and the helicopter from the toy box that they set out in expectation of Jack’s arrival, where one of the ladies that work there was happy to try and get his mind off things for him. 

I don’t think he’ll be too bad today, as although he did cry when I said bye-bye, he was pushing the cars back and forth and putting the little driver in his seat in the police car.  Little signs, but hopefully a big message!

I swiftly made my exit and until I shut the car door, I’m sure I could hear him crying.  But he’ll be fine, I’m sure.  If not, it’s them that had to bear his noise all day!! (Evil laugh!!)  Me? I’m off back to bed for the sleep I didn’t get last night because of his crying at midnight thru to 2:30am.

Rugby Tackles Galore

This weekend, we went down to Bath for a 1 year old birthday party, for Claire’s friend’s daughter, Lara.

The whole day was great and Jack was being very well behaved for most of it, until the man with the bouncy-castle appeared…!  When they were first allowed onto it, all the children went into shy-mode, not wanting to be the first.  Except Jack.

Not bothered by things like shyness, Jack (with me shortly behind him) went bounding towards this inflatable land.  I didn’t know what he would make of it and so I climbed onto the bouncy castle too, just to help, of course.  We started to bounce around and then one tumble after another and suddenly, it was filled with children that arrived from nowhere.

To put things into a little context, Jack was certainly one of the smaller children there that day, and was easily knocked around by the bounces that the other kids were putting out. He spent most of the time on the floor, struggling to regain his footing, and this is where he decided that he needed a little help.

So, the most logical thing for a 19 month old child to do, is to hold something that might appear stable and secure. Namely, another child by the scruff of their neck! Needless to say that the other child, an older girl in the first instance, didn’t appreciate this and began crying by the time I made it over to them.

Jack didn’t see the problem in this, and although it did seem quite funny in a naughty sort of way, I knew the girl’s parents would be on-looking and so I had to do the ‘say sorry, Jack’ bit.  The girl looked at Jack as if to say that Justice had been done and that he really saw sorry for his actions, especially as Claire’s standing at the foot of the castle telling me to tell Jack to say ‘sorry’.

In reality, Jack is 19 months old and has no concept of ‘sorry’ or other people’s pain, as kids of that age don’t.  All the while that I am ‘telling him off’, he’s got a big cheesy grin plastered across his face, as throughout this little chat, he’s being bounced all over the place and is quite enjoying it.

Sadly, this wasn’t a one-off, and it soon evolved into Jack taking a dive into a little boy as a result of a bounce from another older boy, taking them both to the ground.  Once on the deck, Jack remained clinging to his new buddy, holding firm for whatever reason.  Again, I had to step in, but by this point, I had already retired to the sidelines because of the amount of kiddies throwing themselves around like loons on there. 

Again, I had to go through the motions of ‘telling Jack off’ for his actions, but he didn’t really get it, and wasn’t ‘sorry’.

I’d like to think that the other children got motion sickness, or simply bored, of the bouncy castle and retired one by one, but I think Jack’s assaults on them may have had an impact. But he was like a little hit-man, taking a different child down each time, so it wasn’t like he was bullying any one child in particular…

Garden sprinkler + baby = very wet baby!

Simple maths, I know, but a combination that was very funny to watch!

We’ve had grass put down in the garden and so we’ve got the garden hose out to water it (lots) and last night after I got back from work, Claire had let Jack outside to play before his bath-time and he had wandered over to where the sprinkler was spraying water.  It’s probably worth noting here that he was only wearing his white baby vest and a nappy (of course, as Naked Toddlers Make a Mess!)

As he’d be poking around with the sprinkler, the direction of it changed and he caught a bit of the spray.  As I mentioned in the Confidence++ post, he’s getting more and more brave and so kept going back for more, despite being ‘bitten’ by the sprinkler!

At one point, he was leaning almost directly over it looking downwards at it whilst the sprinkler sprayed off to one side, and then as it came back, he copped a real eye-full and was almost instantly drenched.

At this point, Claire was sitting on the doorstep laughing whilst I was trying to get a £250 prize by capturing it all on the video camera! (Hmm, one day maybe I should actually submit that to ‘You’ve Been Framed’!)

The end result was a very soggy Jack – standing there in his now see-through vest, dripping from head to toe in cold tap water!

Although the weather outside was still quite warm, he started shivering until we wrapped him up in a big bath towel and whisked him off inside.  But, you can see that he was absolutely enjoying himself by the big beaming smile plastered all across his little face.  And that he whined when we brought him in! Kids, eh?

Confidence++

Jack is getting more and more confident as time goes on. I know that’s pretty much a given, but it’s the effect on him that makes us both smile.

For example, before, he could crawl - but if we were to hold his hands, he’d walk.  Then, as he got a bit more sure of himself and obviously a little stronger too, he started to walk and realised that it’s an improvement on crawling and so gained more confidence in himself and his abilities.

Now, not only is he running, but he’s also walking backwards and playing on it too.  When Claire or I chase him around the house, he’ll respond more like a little boy by trying to duck  or dodge the attack.  Sounds like an obvious thing to say, but I think it shows that he’s learning to use these new fangled ‘muscles’ in different ways.

Not only the walking/running thing, but also in his general being – him being more confident means that he’s developing more and more of his own character, expressing himself to others about what he does and doesn’t like and more importantly, what he does and doesn’t want to do.

It’s a bit difficult, as able to tell us what he wants, possibly as a result of the baby-sign classes that Claire has been taking him to, but he’s not at that point whereby you can argue with him or bribe him properly, which is what I’m looking forward to next.

Jack and Alfie (the resident Westie) are also getting on a bit too well as a result of Jack’s confidence; possibly, that should be ‘over-confidence’ in that respect, as Jack is happy to play with Alfie (and vice versa) but Jack doesn’t yet understand that there’s a currently-unreached limit with any animal, that has certain consequences. 

To be entirely fair to him, Alfie is absolutely brilliant with Jack.  Sometimes Alfie doesn’t want to be around him, which is fine, but then other times, he does and can sometimes get a bit boisterous with his playing.  He can grumble and growl a bit whilst doing it, but the intention is not to bit or anything, but little hands coupled with very soft skin against the dog’s teeth is going to make marks one day.  We’ll see. All good fun though.

The New House!

So, we’re in!

Jack was pretty much oblivious to the whole moving process as he stayed over at each of his Grandparents house the day before and after the move, which bought us enough time to get his bedroom furniture all assembled again.  

I think that the first day that he was here, he wasn’t aware that this would be where we’d be living, as he was throwing those sorts of tantrums that he would when he was tired and wanted to go home to bed. 

He’s got much more space to put his toys now – not that it mattered before, as Claire and I have become used to having a small bundle of his toys in each room of the house. Some were intentional, like the toy cars in our bedroom that he could play with whilst we got dressed, or made the bed, but others were of Jack’s doing; he’d slowly distribute stuff that would marked his territory.  Who knows where it would stop, maybe with the taking over of the world, one bedroom at a time.

We’re running on 10 year old internet connections at the moment (56k dial-up) and have only just got that, so the uploading of photos, videos and even blog posts have been heavily restricted.

A new world

Well, maybe not quite a new ‘world’, but we are on the cusp of moving house, at least.  We have a buyer for our house and have put our dibs on a new house and things are very close now to exchange/completion, etc.

The reason I mention this, is probably my reason for have not posted anything recently, as each night after work and weekend days have been spent packing another area of life in the Rigby household into boxes.

So – back to the topic of the overall blog, Mr Rigby Junior. Here’s a bit of an update. 

He’s changed so much recently. So much, that it’s only when looking at pictures and videos of him from just a few months ago, that to us, it’s really noticeable as we’re seeing him day by day, little by little growing up.

He’s running circles around (literally) as he’s totally mobile now, which is good,  although a probably to keep track of him each minute.  He’s also found that the world isn’t flat, and want to climb up on absolutely everything, from the stairs to boxes, shelves, sides, in the bath, out of the bath.  Things just don’t seem to appear to him as a problem – just things that are in the way and need climbing over.  He will even climb directly over the top of me, if I am laying on his playroom floor and there’s something that he ‘needs’ the other side of me, whereas a couple of months ago, although he could walk, he would have walked around me to get where he wanted.

Little things like that make you smile at the time.

Talking – well, he’s getting better at that! He’s able to repeat words when you fire them back to him, mostly 1 syllable words like mum, dad, Jack, dog, car, truck, train, shoes, and so on, occasionally daring to begin with the 2 syllable words, like tractor, as he does seem to like tractors.  

Years ago, when we used to go and baby-sit Claire’s god-daughter Bethany, she must have been at the slightly older age where she could (and would) repeat pretty much anything you liked. So, over the course of the evening that we were there, I got her to say words from a Chinese takeaway menu, such as ‘egg fried rice’ as at the time, I thought it was hilarious in a very sad way, simply for the reason that she had no idea what egg fried rice was.  Obviously, I wasn’t thinking very creatively at the time, so, bringing this idea to my own child, my plan is to get him to say something like ‘Intel Pentium 4 Quad-Core Processor’, simply for geek comedy value. Claire’s not so sure though.  But time will tell…!

He’s also been taught (we don’t know entirely by whom as yet!) to yell for the dog, which is actually really funny.  Here’s what I mean:

Jack will pick up one of the dog’s chewie bone-shaped thing and to start with, we thought that he wanted to eat it, or play with it, etc and stopped him.  When we stood back and watched, he picked up the toy and then wanted to give it to Alfie, our Westie dog. With Alfie just out of sight on the stairs, Jack stood there at the foot of the stairs and, in incrementing volumes, started to yell…

“Dog’

‘Doooog!’

‘Doooooooog!’

‘Doooooooooooooooog!’

Of course, Alfie was far to lazy clever for this nonsense and simply ignored him. When Jack found him laying on the stairs, he started to climb the stairs with this dog toy in hand and when he got to him, he offered it out to him, expecting Alfie to take it.  (The reason why this dog toy is still around, is probably because we bought it ages ago for Alfie and he’s not bothered with it, meaning he doesn’t like those sort, but we didn’t have the heart to tell Jack this.)

Naked toddlers make a mess…

Yeah… I’ll bet you know what I’m going to say here.

Sometimes we let Jack run around in the nod normally after a bath, before he goes to bed. I think that we think that it’s ‘airing’ his bum and bits, as they’re cooped up in a nappy all day and night.  This hasn’t been a major problem until now. The last ‘incident’ that we had in this situation, was where Young Mr. Rigby decided to let out a little wee on the carpet, stopping and standing still to do so.

This morning, however, he took things to the next level.

After a shower first thing, he was standing butt-naked at the baby-gate in the doorway of his playroom and, in the blink of a grown-up’s eye, several large chunks of soft-looking brown poo appeared on the carpet. It was my eye that is the blinking benchmark here, as I saw him standing there looking all innocent in his birthday suit, glanced away, glanced back and had to double-take on what I saw.

By the time I had chance to rush and grab his, he stood in it and had begun smearing it on his legs and into the carpet.

Taking his straight to bathroom and into the bath, Claire came over and we began hosing down the little poo-maker. Sitting there all chirpy in the bath, whilst he looks up at us with them big blue eyes, it was a bit difficult to keep a straight face. We washed him all over again and then began the process of getting a nappy on him and quick, although it did feel like a case of the closing the barn door after the horse had bolted.

Aside: Claire just came in to where I’m writing this blog post and has read it before I had finished it – she instantly ‘fessed-up to already having picked up a bit of Jack’s poo from the carpet in his bedroom and cleaned up the minor mess before I even knew anything about it, thinking that she had got away with it, and that Jack wasn’t going to do any more. Well, she was wrong!!

High Pitch Screaming

We just had to go up there to see Jack, as he was literally screaming his back teeth out.

He did this before about a month ago, but we couldn't work out then as to why he was doing it.  Our first thoughts were, and are tonight, that he has a tooth coming through, but the effort that he’s putting into it, makes me hope that there’s five coming through!

The problem is not only that he’s screaming at top volume, full bore, etc, he gets himself so wound up, that he’s an effort to calm down again.

We tried to give him some medicine that will help things, as well as help him to sleep, but he ended up throwing it all back up again.

Of course, having just been sick, he’s then a bit grouchy too.

He eventually calmed down, thanks entirely to Claire, but not before he needed a whole new set of pyjamas and bed clothes, replacing the sick-covered ones.  And in case you think it’s only baby-sick and not too bad, this is the same sick as you and I would produce! Smell included!

The joys of parenthood, I suppose!

Biking up the road!

A while ago, we bought Jack a funky-looking trike – bright colours, bigger wheels, the lot.  It took ages to put it together and then he didn’t use it, as it was a struggle to climb on to it, because of it’s size in comparison to him.  It’s really good, as it’s even got a handle on the back for us to push with, but it also twists too, which controls the steering – fantastic!

Anyway, now he’s a bit bigger and a lot more sure of himself, he’s able to climb onto the trike much easier than before, even though it still looks like a struggle to me!  So, we’ve been pushing him around the inside of the house, and was ok with it, but not entirely sure, as straight lines can be a bit boring.

So today, to liven things up a little, I put Jack’s shoes and coat on him, sat him on his trike and strapped him in (using the built-it seat belt – safety first and all that). He looked a bit worried as I pushed him out the front door (i.e. down the step!!), but he looked a little better when we started to go around the back of the house on the brick patio, occasionally off-roading on the grass for a bit more excitement.

Making full use of his baby-sign language, the two hands come together to make the expression of ‘more’, meaning “don’t stop now, Dad!”.

All went well, so I upped the ante a little, and I pushed him out through the gate and onto the front garden, making circles around my car and various stones for a bit of extra ‘spice’, as it corners quite quickly.   Again, the baby-hands come out to say ‘more’, but this time, he’s pointing down the road, as if to say, “Take me that way, peasant!”.

And so, I did.

We were off up the road, made a quick u-turn on the pavement a good stone’s throw away from our house, and then back, stopping occasionally to check the expression on his face, as although we’ve simply gone a little further than before, the stones on the pavement shake the plastic-wheeled trike, but he’s still held on.  When I’ve checked his face, he’s got a beaming smile on, from ear to ear with his eyes wide open! He loves it.

‘More, MORE!’, as the hands come together with a bit more force.  Back past our house, to the same distance the other way, again, beaming smiles whilst the wind rushes through his little blonde hair, as by now we’re walking at a decent pace, too.

I originally put the seat-belt on, as a means of slowing him down in case he wanted to get off, buying me enough time to grab him before he stacks himself on the floor in a heap.  The fact is, he didn’t even need it, as he didn’t want to get off – he was holding the bright yellow grips firmly in each hand, letting go to wave at the occasional artic lorry that goes chugging by.

Incidentally, it’s a bit weird when your toddler son waves at an articulated lorry that’s coming towards us as the road bends through the village, only to see the cab-filling-driver inside waving back, floppy-armed mimicking the way that Jack was waving at him! 

Embarrassed, I waved back, smiling as if to say, “Erm, yeah, hi.” 

Why are the TV remotes in the fridge?

…because Jack put them there!

Of course, it makes perfect sense really. If in any doubt as to what happens to a Sky+ remote, simply check the fridge, as Jack is in the habit at the moment of storing random things in there.

I’ve got a little beer fridge in my office downstairs and some of the things I’ve found in there also extend to those little pinSentry devices used for internet banking, so it’s not just limited to infra-red-based devices.

It’s not a problem, and I don’t think that anything has been damaged a result of his storing them in the chiller, but I thought it was a funny/strange/odd thing to do, and worthy of being mentioned here!  Must be something from his mum’s side!

Walking Wonders (cont.)

Since the blog post about Jack’s walking, he’s getting better and better as each day passes. 

His confidence in himself is probably what is increasing, as I think that he’s physically been able to walk for a little while now – when we used to hold his hands, he’d be fine, but he’d start to panic as soon as you let go, even though he was fine.

Either way, his walking is fantastic.  It means that he can make the other side of the house before you know that he’s gone, which is a worry!  People used to say: “ooh, when he can crawl, then you’ll be on your toes…”, which later turned into “ooh, when he can walk, you’ll be on your toes even more..!”  True to form, now that he can walk, he’s off.  But it’s actually ok, as it’s as though now that he can walk, he’s expanded the horizons on where he can go, in that, beforehand, we didn’t really want him crawling on the grass, but now that he can walk, he’s able to wander over to the trees in the garden, or chase Alfie (the dog) around, albeit slowly and with arms flapping around.

Also, the fact that he’s up on two legs now rather than crawling around on all fours, instantly makes him look… more grown up? Does that make sense?  Obviously, he’s still garbles his words and dribbles a fair bit, but the walking thing certainly helps.

The Beach
Friday afternoon, as the weather was really nice and we were both off work, Claire and I decided to take Jack and the dog to the beach for a walk.  We weren’t expecting a great deal, in that we took the buggy/pram too, expecting to have to push Jack along the beach, but getting some fresh sea-air in the meantime. Yeah… he was off, and wasn’t hanging around for us!

I think he really liked it, as we let him wander off where-ever he wanted to go, as there wasn’t anything (or anyone) around to bother him, except of course the billions of litres of sea-water that was gradually coming in-land.  Other than that, he was fine, occasionally tripping over something that wasn’t there, but that was probably because he was trying run after the dog and that his flappy little feet couldn’t keep up with his head!  I don’t think that the dog who wasn’t overly impressed about it all though.

We also took his shoes and socks off and he and I went into the sea. He was splashing around, getting wet, getting me even wetter, all whilst giggling about it the whole way through.  He kept trying to go towards the crabs that were floating in the shallow waters, but they still looked quite alive to me!

The weather there was brilliant that afternoon.  The sun was shining, but it wasn’t baking hot, there wasn’t very much of a breeze at all, and the best thing was that the beach was empty!  We kept Jack’s coat on in case of him getting cold, but in fact it more helped in keeping the sun off his head more than anything!

Also, true to form, we did manage to take about 200 photos that afternoon, the better ones of which Claire has uploaded to Jack’s mini-site.

Return of the Mega-Yak

Yes. It’s happened again. And this time, it was all over me.

It was probably my fault for making fun of it happening to Claire, but this time, my little saved his entire stomach contents for his dad. Thanks son.

We’re trying a new approach in giving him his milk at 19:30 when he goes to bed, rather than to put him to bed without it, and then wake him up at 22:30 to feed him, change his nappy and put him in his little sleeping bag.

So, as I’ve been at work all day, I took Jack upstairs to get his pyjamas on, and Claire get his milk ready for me to give him. No problems. Yet.

He drank about half of it, which wasn’t surprising, as he’d not long had his food. And dessert. And fruit. With more fruit, with vegetables too in places.

Most of the time, he gnashes through the food with the only teeth he has so far, which are at the front of his mouth, and then spits out the skin from the grapes, or the blueberry ‘shells’ and so on, so I didn’t really think that he eats a great deal of them. Until now.

After his milk, he tried to get up and wander around, but a little half-heartedly, as he was shattered from going swimming earlier with his mum.

Before he got really sleepy, I took him into the en-suite in our bedroom to brush his teeth as normal, but just as we got there, the eruption was imminent!

Within seconds, we were re-creating the final scenes of Pompeii. Instead of hot black ash and lava, there was brightly coloured pieces of recognisable food that he’d eaten a couple of hours ago, all mixed together and decorating the floor, the walls, the toilet and the sink. And the door. And of course, Jack and I.  As I was holding him in my arms before the point of impact, it was all over me, neck downwards.  And it was obviously body temperature, which is very not-nice!

Luckily, we were in the en-suite which has tiled flooring, making the clearing-up a lot easier than if it had happened on the carpet!

I think I must have moved him before allowing the milk to settle, but I sort of had a niggling feeling in the back of my mind that this might happen. If only I had paid more attention to said ‘niggling feelings’, I could have tried to get Attack Number Three over Claire instead of me - but hey, there’s anyways next time!!

(Seeing as this is the third time now, I’ve even added a new category to the blog-site about Mega-Yak.  Yes, I’m sad…)

Walking Wonders

The other morning before I left for work, Jack decided that he would show the world (or at least, his mum and I) that he could walk by himself!

I’m not saying that he’s stopped crawling in favour of walking now, especially not overnight, but he will now voluntarily walk across the room to another object… this is something that we’ve been trying to get him to do, but he just wouldn’t have any of it. Although, we did find that crawling between his mum and dad wasn’t enough of a prize, but walking for the Sky remote was!

He’s really funny in the actual walking-part of it all though, as he’s a bit gangly on his feet, wobbly about like a drunken zombie with his arm outstretched reaching for whatever he’s walking towards. Also, he knows it’s something that he’ll get a lot of praise for, and will make sure that his mum is watching first and then go for broke.

Now that the weather has brighten up and reached t-shirt weather, we’re able to play outside a lot more now with him, walking him around the garden, chasing the dog, footballs and so on. He quite likes it out there, as well as walking out towards the road, as there’s cars, vans and lorries out there that he obviously seems to like too.

Anyway, hopefully, now he’s walking around a lot more, he’ll realise that it’s much better than crawling, as that’s only for babies and Commandos or Marines that crawl under barbed wire, with live rounds being fired over their heads. Jack will happily hold one of my fingers whilst walking too, so when he starts to doubt himself about this whole ‘walking’ thing, holding my hand sometimes helps to give him that little assurance that he needs.

Strange day, turned out good!

This morning, Jack was a bit upset from about 03:00 onwards until about 05:00-05:30, and as Claire went to work yesterday, I went to sort him out.

I don’t know what the matter with him was, but he was screaming by the time I went into him, and so I picked him up and tried to calm him down by laying him on my chest as I sat in the rocking chair. It sort of worked, to a fashion, and before long, he was back asleep.

Or so I though. 15 minutes after getting him back to sleep, he was crying again, and I was back in there.

The pattern above must have happen several times in the early hours of this morning until about 05:30 when I was left laying in bed wide awake.

Instead of laying there hoping that I’d sleep, I thought I’d nip downstairs and get a few jobs done whilst Claire and Jack were still sleeping, assuming that the little man stays asleep!

Well… he did. Claire didn’t wake up until about 09:00 and then we both went to wake him up, as he was still fast asleep, catching up on the sleep he didn’t get in the night. I was a little hesitant about waking him, as I was expecting the same screaming/grumpy Jack that we’ve had a taste of recently, but no. Actually, he was in a good mood and stayed that was for most of the day!

We went to the local park to walk the dog and ended up walking Jack around the park, holding his fingers whilst his little legs did twenty to the dozen. Only occasionally did he start to get tired and his legs caved in on him, but other than that, it’s certainly the longest distance that he’s ever walked.

Whilst we were walking, we did that “1…2…3… jump…”-thing, whereby Claire and I had hold of one of his hands each between us. Good fun. He certainly enjoyed it!

Screaming Baby Alert!

Yes, it’s true – he can scream and very loudly at that.

The only thing that we can see is the problem, is that Jack’s teeth are causing him pain. Because of this pain, he’s not only fussed about eating very much. Because he’s not eating very much, he’s putting his nice little routine out and then he’s hungry in the middle of the night and is awake for a period of time. Being he’s awake, he’s then tired at different times in the day, hungry at different times, and it’s a struggle to know what to do and when, for the best.

Calpol is good, but it takes time to work and it does wear off.

If you haven’t got children, you may not necessarily know about this – basically, it’s paracetemol in liquid form, for babies and children. That, coupled with Nurofen for Children, and MediSed can really help Jack sleep with his various growing pains.

We don’t really ‘keep him dosed up’ all the time – that’s a bit pointless, wasteful and is ultimately giving him medicine that he may not even need, which I think is a little backward. The main times that we generally need to given him anything like that is at night times, but then it can be a struggle by yourself, as when he needs it, he isn’t calm and relaxed enough to take it without splashing it up the walls, or covering himself in it.

Jack is normally very good. He’s well tempered most of the time and we haven’t had much problems in that respect. However. The last few days have been a bit… unusual. At times, it seems like he’s cried for days and, occasionally, there’s no consoling him. He can be in a mood, tired and sometimes hungry and when he doesn’t get his way, the tantrums come out in full force!

The amount that he’s cried in the past few days, I’d hope that he’s got about 10 teeth all coming through at the same time!

But then, babies do cry. They do have sleepless nights sometimes. Teeth do grow. So, I think that we’re seeing it as one of those things and taking it as it comes really. Once he’s settled down and back to his routine, he’ll be fine again. Until next time…

MMR Jabs

Last week, I took Jack for his MMR jabs – only I forgot to blog about it!

Yeah, so, I took Jack to the local doctors’ surgery for his jabs, and I think that it could have gone a lot better.

Last time he had to have some jabs, Claire took him and was worried about his next lot, the MMRs. I volunteered (foolishly, in hindsight!) to take him, booked the day off and that’s what we did.

Jack was extremely tired before we had even got there, and was ultimately, grouchy. (He must take after his mum or something in that respect!)

Waiting in the waiting room was bad enough, as he didn’t want me to hold him, yet he didn’t want to go on the floor. To be honest, I was quite happy with that, as it is a bit grim in there on the chairs, let alone the floor; plus, all those sick people that normally sit there too, coughing and spluttering... Not good.

Anyway, the appointment was for 13:30 and even though we were there in plenty of time, we didn’t get seen until about 14:15 and then it was straight into the nurse’s office.

I think Jack knew what was coming here – a bit like taking the dog to the vets, they just know it’ll result in a needle somehow. Jack knew that this wasn’t going to be good nor easy, and he was right.

The nurse started to tell me about what he was going to have, and trying to engage in conversation about life in general, which was pretty hard-going, as Jack was wriggling like a caught fish on lap as I sat in the chair. I had to ask her to proceed straight to the bad stuff, which is when I asked how many injections there were going to be today.

“Two, but it’ll be fine.”, she assured me.

When I asked if it was possible to have two nurses, armed with a needle each to do the jabbing, she was quite surprised as though I was the first person to even suggest such a thing. A bit flustered, she talked me down, telling me that “it’ll be fine”, as she “does this sort of thing all the time”, despite me saying that Claire had a nightmare of a time with the second jab last time, as he tensed all the muscles in his little legs and kicked ferociously.

Anyway. I think that she might have quietly changed her mind after she couldn’t even stick him with the first jab, bearing in mind that I was already holding Jack still. She had to get the other non-nurse lady in the room just to hold his legs down, which proved to work…the first time.

The second jab, however, didn’t prove to be as ‘easy’ as the first, and he really made sure of that.

So. I’m sat in a chair, holding Jack as best as I can, bearing in mind that he’s not only thrashing his legs in protest, but also turning over to face me and then back around again. The opposite leg from last time is now rotating at a pace just behind his body, and she’s trying to get hold of his thigh with one hand, whilst the other is poised, ready to pounce on the target, once locked-on.

I really had to hold him tightly, the other lady clamped down on his little legs and, finally, the nurse scored a hit.

Jack was left sobbing and screaming at the same time, making me feel like a really bad dad for putting him through all of this.

We had to then wait back in the waiting room for 15 minutes, I guess it’s just to make sure that he didn’t have a reaction to the drugs.

After all of that, we came home and he slept for a good couple of hours, as he’s certainly worked for it!!

I now understand what Claire meant about last time. Strangely, I seem to remember my work cancelling all holiday for me in future where I have to do that again. (joke!)

As much as I don’t want to have to go through that all again with him, I’m sort of glad that I went, and sort-of saved Claire the ordeal.

Up-chuck Galore

I don’t know if it’s anything (food-wise) that I’ve given him in the past 2 days whilst he’s been in my care, but Jack managed to throw up the volume of three people’s stomachs last night, again, all over Claire!

A few months ago, Claire got back from work on a Saturday evening in time to get Jack to bed. Coincidentally, I was about to get ready to nip down to the local Chinese takeaway to collect our order. So, I handed Jack over to his mum and started getting my coat on to go – just as Claire got to the top of the stairs… Mega-Yak strikes! All over Claire, the carpet, everywhere. Nice.

Almost the same thing happened last night.

Claire got back from work and had bathed Jack and got him ready for bed around 19:30 as usual, when I was about to leave to get the Chinese takeaway.

This time, Claire had made it just inside the playroom when Mega-Yak II strikes! Claire just froze holding him, but managed to re-route all available energy to her voice-box in the form of calling me. Loud.

I made it from downstairs, up and into the playroom to see the last moments of Mega-Yak II making my wife’s white blouse… not white anymore. It was everywhere. Fair play to Jack, I don’t think he could have planned it better. It was all over her hair, face, shirt, arms and certainly all over the floor in the playroom!

At the time, it was grim. Now, it’s quite funny thinking back, hence I thought I’d mention it here; as I’m sure that when Jack is old enough to find worms and mud funny, he’ll want to know about this! :o)

Personality? Check!

I know it probably sounds like an odd thing to say, but Jack has developed his own little personality which has almost appeared from nowhere!

What I mean, is that he’s got his likes, his dislikes and then he’s got his own way of expressing his choices to us, all in a good way.

When Jack was a little baby, he cried, poo’d and then cried some more after a little bit of sleep. When we gave him food, he eat it. All. When we gave him his bottle of milk, he drank almost all of it, all of the time.

Now, if he’s not interested in something like food, or doesn’t want to finish his milk, he can be quite stubborn and not have it. We try each time we feed him now to give him lots of food before he gets bored, and then change something so that it is different and so on. With his milk though, once he’s had enough there’s no changing his mind. Obviously a trait he’s got from his mum!! ;o)

But food and drink aside, it’s weird to see him do the things he wants to do, and also funny watching him throw a bit of a tantrum when he’s doing something he doesn’t want to do.

Like for instance, he likes watching the cars, lorry, etc go by outside the window, or when we’re driving along, he’s now tall enough to see over the passenger seat in my car and he’ll point out a bus at quite a way away. Sometimes, we can even use this car/lorry watching as a means of calming him down when he’s upset or bumped his head or whatever. He’ll happily stand on the window-sill in our bedroom, holding onto the window handle with one hand and the other smacking or prodding the window as and when he sees fit. And yes, we are always directly behind him, before you think otherwise!

The past few weeks, he’s been a bit more clingy than he’s probably ever been before – which means carrying him around all the time, which is ok for a while, but when you need to put him down to get his or our food ready, he can get quick upset, and quite quickly too. He soon gets over it if we try to ignore him, as there’s things that we have to do without him in our arms, such as getting food in or out of the oven, etc. It’s then that the tears come out straight away, mouth wide open and the screams start! Literally within about 30 seconds, he’s seen a toy or something he wants to play with, or somewhere he can go and investigate and it’s as though he forgets what he was all upset about!

I’m really glad that Claire’s been making a massive effort with him in taking him to Sign And Sign classes – baby sign, that is. I think that you can already see in his face when he’s not happy about something, and if his baby signing improves further, then this might alleviate more problems down the line, or make them easier for us to understand what he’s after or trying to do. He’s already got a certificate for proving that he can wave his hands to tell us little things, which is what it’s all about. If he’s able to tell us in a simple yet effective sign of his hands that he’s not able to verbally pronounce, then it’s great.

At the moment, he’s able to, basically, ask for more of something; this is what he got his first certificate for. If we give him a baby-biscuit, or a chocolate button or something that he likes, he uses both hands to sign the word for ‘more’ and then he points at what he wants. Simple. Bonjella is a good one for that – he likes the taste of Bonjella teething gel and, if you let him, he’ll have the lot. (Except, that’s bad, as he’s only allowed 2 or 3 ‘shots’ a day of it!)

Good stuff though. He’s funny to be around and is always up for a game of peek-a-boo!

Past couple of weeks…

So, so many things have happened in the past few weeks.

Jack is an absolute star. He’s eating a lot better again now after having a stint of eating bits, probably because of teething again.

No, he’s not walking… yet. We keep trying to make him walk between us, as well as getting him to walk with him holding our hands. Having said all that, he’ll happily scale the walls, sofa, cupboard doors, etc, which is what’s slightly infuriating, to say the least.

He’s understanding more and more about what we say, more than we know, probably. How do we know this? Well, he’s getting better at pointing at things when we mention them and trying his best to pronounce them but still sounds all goo-goo ga ga, which is still funny.

Unless it’s really early in the morning, he’s usually pretty spot on with his cars, trucks, lorries, and so on which are still dotted around the room. I keep adding the occasional new photo to the collection; we now have a Police car, Ambulance and a Fire Engine, as well as a blue Porsche and a photo of Mater from Disney’s Cars (as he really likes that!)

Progress update

The days are flying by, and the little lad is still crawling by.

Despite our best efforts, Jack is still crawling around the house and not showing a great interest in walking much. Which is fine, as I’m sure that when he does walk, he’ll be a nightmare to keep in one place!

He will, however, climb up and over almost anything that will support his body weight, as well as hanging on things too. These include things like radiators, speaker cabinets, or anything in sight that a 1yr old kid can grab enough of. He’ll even lay facedown on top of one of the speakers next to the television, legs and feet up in the air, with his arms stretched out in front of him trying to reach the wires behind the telly!

He’s also getting a dab-hand at using the phone too. Each time he picks up the phone, he looks at it, pointing and saying ‘Daaa’ at the same time expecting to see a photo of his pa. He even managed to get hold of the cordless house phone the other weekend and phone his grandparents down the road – Claire’s dad had to call my mobile to tell me that they could hear everything that we was saying, as the little monster had dialled and then wandered off to play with his tractor! Good job it was someone we know, and local too!!

He’s getting better with his identifying of real-world objects, with some thanks to the flash cards that we’ve put around his room. I still like to test him regularly with where the Bus is, or where the Tank or Digger is. He’s getting much better and now when we look out the window and he see’s a car, it goes' something like this:

Daddy: Jack, what’s that?

Jack: Kaaaaaa

Daddy: Yes that’s right – what noise does a car make?

Jack: brum brum

It’s quite funny. Well, it makes me smile anyway!

2nd night alone

Jack spent his second-ever night away from us the other night, staying with my folks and… it was great! The dog was at Claire’s parents’ too meaning that we didn’t need to get up early or in the middle of the night or anything! It was absolutely fantastic! The house was silent!

My parents really enjoyed having him over to stay for the night too, which was good. My mum said how surprised she was at how well behaved Jack was, even after we had tip-toed out of their house Friday evening! She said he almost cried a couple of times when he’d realised we had gone, but he soon got over it with the prospect of two old grandparents to run around after him! It probably didn’t help when she’s showing Jack photos of all of us, saying ‘who is that?’… doh!

On a serious note, it’s really good that we’re able to leave him like that, that both sets of our parents are willing to have him, and that he’s good in their company. We’re really lucky in that respect, as some folks don’t have their parents close-by, or some people’s parents aren’t willing to help as much as ours, and of course, some aren’t willing to help at all.

My folks had moved to Wales not long after I was born and so had neither sets of parents within at least 300miles of them, so I appreciate that it must have been difficult. But then, I suppose, it’s a case of just getting on and doing what’s best really.

Claire’s drafted her mum to help a couple of days a week with Jack, as Claire being back at work, too, makes the normality from before we had Jack, come back into our new normal life with Jack. Claire has always really liked working but really likes being with Jack too, so working a few days a week is good all round. It also means that I get to spend loads of time with him too. All good fun.

First Birthday? Done.

Yes, as mad as it sounds, Jack is already a year old.

I know that it was only a matter of time, but the time has flown by. Already, we’re packing him up for university, as that’ll be here soon.

Jack had lots of new toys to add to his growing heap of brightly coloured plastic in his playroom. So much so, that Toys ‘R Us are getting twitchy.

It seems that most of the toys for kiddies these days all require batteries, are filled with lights and make random noises in the night! I don’t remember that far back, obviously, but I don’t remember having toys like that. A better comparison, maybe, would be that I don’t remember younger cousins or family friends’ babies having such toys – instead, they were more Action Man-esque, in that they were figures or toys that you played with. Hmm, but maybe then I’m thinking of toys for older children.

Anyway, Jack had a small family gathering on the weekend following his birthday, where I cooked the most of the meal… on the barbeque. Outside in the cold. In February. Claire’s folks, my folks and my sister came to which the little sprog a happy birthday, making Jack the centre of attention yet again - something that he’s getting to enjoy. He seems like pulling their strings by getting them to clap after he has – something he even managed to do the other day in Church for a Christening with the other attendees. (He claps. They clap. He laughs. They laugh. The Vicar notices. I laugh.)

As with Christmas, he didn’t really get the point of it all. We tried half-opening presents and encouraging him to rip the paper open, which almost goes against everything that we’re teaching him, such as how he handles books and not to rip pages, etc. And then we give him brightly coloured boxes and show how to do it. Madness.

He didn’t really get the whole ‘singing happy birthday in the presence of a cake and then blowing out a fire single-handed’. Just to make sure he knew what we were doing, (and to get the most out of the ‘1’ candle) Claire and I re-lit it, and made everyone sing again. Again, he looked bemused, but it made us all laugh when he joined in the clapping at the end. We were all clapping that it was his birthday; he was clapping that we’d all finally finished singing!

One thing we tried, being that it was a party for a child, was to make the jelly component of jelly-and-ice-cream. The only problem, was that we didn’t have any jelly moulds and tried at several places in town to get some. I had a brilliant idea of using ice-cube trays and filling lots of them with different flavoured jelly and then serving them up together, by popping them out of the mould. Simple.

Well - Here’s a tip for you:

“Don’t try to use ice-cube trays as jelly moulds. It doesn’t work like that.”
– Brett Rigby, 2010

We found this out the hard way.

After making six different flavour mixes of jelly, and chilling each of them to set in the trays, serving them (whole and intact) wasn’t easy and ended up scooping them out with a tea-spoon. The result wasn’t bad, as we made the best of a bad situation, it just was not the ideal-world scenario that I had envisaged. I think everyone liked it though, even my sister Emma who “doesn’t like Orange jelly”. :o)

All in all, I think he really enjoyed himself. We did.

Walking efforts

Whilst I think of it, I thought I’d mention the state of play with his walking, as people keep asking about it now he’s a year old.

He can stand up and sit down by himself, but this is only when he’s holding something, to keep him stable. Same, too, if we hold his hands, even if he’s got just one of our fingers, he uses that to keep himself stable whilst happily walking across the room.

But he seems to be aware that he’s not holding something, if we try and make him walk without. Then, he’ll stumble a few steps, and then falls forwards, which I think is because his nose is too big and heavy, and pulls his head towards the ground.

Either way, as I say, he’ll do maybe three steps in succession, but either fall (and we catch him) or he gets worried and his knees collapse under him.

Good fun trying though. He doesn’t mind at all, but he’ll certainly let us know when he’s had enough of that!

Change of plan…

Ok – so here’s the day’s events so far…

Jack didn’t wake up until about 07:45 and was in a really good mood as a result. I was thinking that maybe he’d be a bit grumpy or something for sleeping so much, but no.

We got up, washed and dressed and then the plan *was* that we went to Rhyme Time – basically, lots of mums and the occasional dad with their babies and small kids sitting around going through nursery rhymes. It’s a free thing, so they tend be packed, and held in the library in town.

I know Claire quite liked going to Rhyme Time before she went back to work on Thursdays, as it’s an opportunity to get out of the house and meet other mums in the same boat, etc. And, it’s all quite safe to let them roam around a bit. The worst they can do, is pull a few books off the shelves.

But anyway, we didn’t quite make it there this morning, as I we got to town a bit early and decided to go straight to the Church Rooms, where they hold the sessions to have the babies weighed frequently. As we were pretty much the only ones there, we had the 1:1 treatment, and she was telling me what he can and can’t have, now that he’s a year old.

By the time we left there, time was getting on, and so I decided that rather than going to the library and being 20 minutes late for a 30 minute session, I’d take him to see his Grandma (at work)and Great-Grandma (at home)instead. On the way around to seeing his Great-Grandma, we saw that Granddad's car was at home too, so we called into see him too!

So, busy day, so far.

We’ve just got back, warmed his milk and he soon fell asleep in my arms after it. Peace and quiet for a little while.

The start to a good birthday?

I don’t know if someone told Jack it was his birthday today, but he’s certainly making the most of it, having a really long lie-in!

As I write this (at 07:37) he’s still asleep in bed! I’ve been awake since Claire left for work this morning, just before 07:00, and have been expecting M’ Lord up there to have woken by now and demand attention.

But no.

The first birthday!!

Oh my word.

…

…

It’s finally here.

Jack is one year old tomorrow. A whole year old, 365 days and all that.

I wanted to write something here about the fact that it’s his birthday, not because it’s his birthday, but the fact that it’s here, upon us.

He’s grown so much in the past few months, its unreal. He now stands up taller than the side of his cot in the mornings when we go to get him up. He can even reach the drawers on the unit beside the cot and bang it shut when he’s bored! Little monster.

Some of his clothes seem to have shrunk too. The older stuff I mean. The clothes that he had several months ago, seem to be a bit tight, especially the baby-grow/jumpsuit type of clothes that go over his head and get his feet in too, stitching together between his legs. However, the alternative is the newer clothes that are still too big for him that make him look like Maggie from The Simpsons, where her blue clothing drags behind her and trips her up every other minute – Jack’s just the same, as it’s his ‘feet’ in his new baby-grow/jumpsuit thing that are too long and drag behind him.

Claire and I were just talking about this being a weird year, and that it feels like a really long year in one respect, as we’ve had almost zero sleep, but then on the other hand, it seems like the days/weeks/months this year have literally flown by – once we’ve got home from work, had food, sorted out Jack and got him to bed, there’s a bit of time left to clean up, or in some cases, make his food, and then it’s midnight. Kapow.

But, as I might have mentioned earlier, tomorrow is indeed Jack’s birthday. I have the day off work and we’re off to Rhyme Time in the morning and then off to see how much the little fattie weighs.

We’ve noticed that there’s a few photos missing from the SkyDrive photo collection and we’re in the process of uploading them. Same, too, for the video clips on Jack’s website: my mum constantly has her digital camera set to video mode, and has helped in almost doubling the video clips that we have of him to process, and upload to YouTube, and then linking to the website. I have days occasionally where by it’s great to do something like that, but at the moment, finding the several hours to sit there and vet them isn’t possible!

Oh, one other really important fact for me to record here, is that we have officially taken… 4806 photos of Jack in his first year, which averages out at about 13 photos per day!! That’s quite worrying really..!! But we’d rather have them and look at the occasionally, than to have not taken them at all and wish that we had.

So – tomorrow, Jack stops begin none-years old! Wahey!

“He’s like… a giant!”

I’ve just been upstairs in Jack’s bedroom helping Claire put him into a baby sleep-suit for the night after she had fed him his nightly milk, when Claire pointed out the size of our child, saying “Oh my God, he’s like a giant!”, claiming that “he must have grown… today!”.

Well, there’s a good chance that he has, I suppose, but whether he’s grown the inch or two that Claire’s making out since last night is a little doubtful! And thankful really, as he’s getting through clothes a bit quicker now that he’s growing!

Admittedly though, tonight he did seem to be a fair size, laying face down in his cot, with his arms to his sides and legs straight-ish, compared to the size he was when we first started using that cot with him; back then, he was all small, tiny and scrunched-up anyway, but then he’d sleep in a sort-of vertical foetal position, laying on his front with his bum up in the air, with his arms and knees tucked in. He still does that occasionally when we first put him to bed, but in the mornings, it’s quite random as to the position he’s laying in, let alone the orientation of the bed that he’s wriggled into overnight!

Aside from his height, he’s starting to get heavy too – picking him up and carrying him around the house, we’re starting to notice it a bit more very recently!

Little fattie!!

Nose-job, anyone?

He’s getting more and more entertaining to be around recently. He’s always been a bit of an attention-magnet, but he’s starting to do things, as well as trying to say things, that really make us smile!

Like today for example:

I’ve had a bit of a pants day at work, staying late to get some stuff done, which means getting stuck in lots of traffic on the way home. When I got there, Claire and Jack turned up just minutes after I did, as they had been at a swimming lesson. From what Claire’s said, he should have been absolutely knackered tonight, as he hadn’t slept a great deal and had been splashing around in the pool.

I went out to the car to help bring him in and he’s smiling away and jabbering away as is becoming normal, except he had no trousers on, as once Claire had dressed him, he crawled through a puddle in the changing room and got soaked! When I opened the car door, it was absolutely baking in there, as Claire was trying to make sure he didn’t get cold! She had put a dry pair of backup-socks on him, and wrapped a blanket over him, but he’s a dab-hand at getting socks off, and does so with a devilish look about him too, so he’s sitting there in just a jumper, coat and his nappy!

I brought him in and took him straight upstairs to get some trousers and socks on him and, standing him on the changing unit, he’s raised both hands and landed them on both of my ears, and then comes at me with his mouth wide open, trying to bite my nose off!

Luckily, I survived this time, but he’s getting quicker and quicker each time. Apart from dribbling right down the front of my t-shirt, he didn’t cause any damage, but I don’t think he’s doing it to hurt, but think maybe this is some sort of baby-affection? Who knows.

Or maybe:

At the dinner table, he’ll be chewing away on some strange-looking carrot-based crispy thing, and he’ll offer it to you as innocently as anything and allow you to take hold of it, and then not let go as though he’s changed his mind, again with the devilish look.

It’s not necessarily that because he’s ours that I find some of the little things he does funny, but for a baby, he’s not half bad.

Some random Dad-like thoughts

A year ago, things were starting to seem a little more… ‘real’, with regards to this whole baby-lark.

Claire was, by then, heavily pregnant and carrying the warning label that she could plop-out a baby anytime.

As daft as it sounds now, for someone like me that has had absolutely nothing to do with babies (ever), this was a shock waiting to happen.

Blissfully unaware of what would be happening from one day to the next, little did I know how things worked, when they would happen and the consequences of them happening.

I know that we had been to the antenatal classes and all that, but that was the driving *theory* lesson that I took before I started to learn to drive. Knowledge? Out. Learn by experience? Most definitely, in.

Everything turned out well though. A year on, Jack’s doing great. He’s keeping us on our toes and although he does like a routine, nothing ever seems to be set in stone with him. Some mornings he wakes up early, around 5:30-6:00am, and then some mornings, like the other morning, he was still fast asleep at 7am, and had to wake him up so that we could take him to his Grandparents house whilst we went to work!

It’s good fun being a dad though. I can’t speak for Claire being his mum, obviously, but I enjoy it. Poo-y bums, I don’t. Playing with the toys and teaching him things, yep.

My folks still have our Scalextric set from when we were 7 or 8 years old (blimey, 22/23 years ago!!) but I’m not allowed to have it until our Jack (and any others we may have) are old enough to play with it. Same for the train-set, but I wasn’t as keen on that as I was Scalextric. (I had a red Ferrari, similar to the one in Jack’s photo flashcard – coincidence? no.)

I remember when we were kids, my dad was always playing with our toys too. I’d build the Lego Forklift Truck that I had for Christmas or my Birthday, to wake up the following morning to find that my dad had “did an A-Team job” on it, making it an armoured forklift truck that was then 4x wheel steered instead of 2x. I didn’t mind too much afterwards, but seeing the thing you’d spend hours building be ‘pimped’ like that wasn’t funny. But it is now, and I' can’t guarantee that I won’t do the same to Jack’s Lego-equivalent!

It’s true what they say, though, in terms of your body gets used to a change in sleep patterns, and surprisingly, you can function on 4 to 5 hours sleep if you need to. That’s not to say that you’re not useless at work the next day, but hey.

Car! Ca! Ka! Kar! Kah! – Part 2

In the first post about this, I said how we’d got the various photos from Google Images of a car, a motorbike, etc and printed them out on 7”x5” photo-cards, laminated them and stuck them around the playroom as flashcards.

Well, actually, he’s not half bad! And, that’s not me or Claire making it up.

Here’s my proof that he knows what things are called, but not necessarily know how to pronounce their names.

If I carry Jack into the middle of the room and hold him whilst I kneel down on the floor, I can ask him where the car is, namely the bright red Ferrari which is in the centre under the window. Easy, really, as he knows these things that drive around outside are called cars, and that’s the one that most resembles a car.

But then, if I ask him where the van is, he’ll look around, seeing the motorbike and the double-decker bus that are to the left of the car, ignore them, swing his head around to the right of the car, sometimes looking around me, to see a white Ford Transit van on the wall perpendicular to the window-wall. Then, you can see his eyes lock onto it, like a bird of prey seeing a mouse, and whilst his smile forms on his face, his hand is already up with his finger extending the best he can, pointing to the van.

Ok, I could have trained him to do that. So, he knows where the car and the van are, but then if you ask where the motorbike is, you can see his expression on his face change, as if to say, “ooh, I know that one… where is it?” and then scan the images again, looking for the Orange County Chopper motorbike photo.

Between the car and the van is the photo of the Land Rover Defender, which I’m calling a Truck, and he can find that too. To the left of the motorbike, is the double-decker bus and he can do that one too.

The others, namely the helicopter, aeroplane, tractor and Eddie Stobart artic lorry, haven’t had much attention from us yet. But in terms of early progress, I think he’s doing great! Claire still gets confused sometimes as to what they’re called! (Joke!)

Admittedly, if you were to ask him what any of them are called, they’re all cars, but I’m working on that!

Car! Ca! Ka! Kar! Kah!

However he’s saying it, he’s saying it when pointing at cars. And vans. Buses… and articulated lorries too.

But he seems to think that things that drive by outside the window of the house are called ‘cars’ and although he’s wrong on a technicality, he’s not a million miles away really.

So, as he’s trying to say words that he can’t pronounce, I thought I’d help him to be clear what we’re talking about with flash-cards of different vehicles.

Claire’s already printed out a load of photos that are laminated as flash-cards that Jack’s got in his playroom upstairs, but hers are of family members that he may not see everyday and that we can get him to point at, etc. I video’d him standing at the door-gate in the playroom, whilst encouraging him to come over and pick put his Great Granny from the scattered photos on the floor, and although you might not believe me here, he did exactly that. Straight over to her photo, no messing, from a selection of about 8 photos of other people. He’s small and dribbley but he’s not daft.

Obviously, one vehicle from each category, without straying into vehicles such as those two wheel contraptions that you stand on and lean forward/backward/etc.

I’ve printed them out in full colour, all on 7”x5” glossy photo cards and will laminate them ready for Jack to have in his playroom, maybe even stuck to the wall around the room.

We’ll find out how he gets on…

Routines

We always tried to keep Jack in a routine, and haven’t always got it right the first time, but we’re new to this parenting too.

One of the things that we was taught in the antenatal classes before Jack was born, was that “babies need a routine”. I think I might have mentioned about this in the past, but here goes again, a little way down the line this time, as things have changed as he’s grown up a bit more.

Jack has slept through the night since he was about 11 weeks old, which has been fantastic. He started to wake in the night or really early in the morning because of illness, or teething. But recently, he’s been back to ‘normal’ again and so here’s what a typical day might look like.

06:00-06:45

Jack wakes up and usually starts to jabber to himself and then he starts to realise that he’s on his own and starts to fake-cry a little bit. One of us gets up and changes his nappy and cheers him up a little bit by playing with his toys or reading some of his books.

07:00

We’ll go downstairs and get some breakfast for Jack. Recently this means that we make his breakfast whilst Jack pushes the chairs in the kitchen around the room, using it as a means of getting about without having to crawl.

As we've put the child-locks on the kitchen doors, his attention then turns to the dustbin, which then has to be lifted onto the side unit. Claire’s put a stash of toys in the kitchen for him to play with whilst we’re in there, but these are a little different to his normal toys upstairs, as she’s put a selection of (new) kitchen utensils in there, which I thought was odd to start with, but when she explained that they’ve all got different textures, shapes, etc, it all made sense. But no, there’s no knives or anything dangerous, so don’t worry.

He’ll normally have one of a selection of baby porridges that we have for him, each with different flavours, fruit, etc that you simply mix with about 3-4oz of his plastic (formula) milk. After he’s had that, he’ll have some baby yoghurt. Or not, as the case may be.

I tend to leave the mess that Jack makes with his food, as well as his spoons and bowl, etc on the table for later, so it means that he’s not bored whilst I clean up.

07:30-07:45

After breakfast, we get Jack washed in the shower or in the bath. He really likes bath-times and can be in there splashing around for well over an hour before he starts to get bored. He’s got all his toys in there as well, but he’s much rather play with the taps, or even yank on the chain, pulling the plug out meaning more water required.

Once he’s out, he’s fitted with a new nappy and is dressed ready for the day. Providing that nothing messy happens throughout the day, these are the clothes that he’ll stay in until bedtime at night. These are usually a white baby-grow with jeans and t-shirt over the top, with socks to boot. These clothes instantly make him look like a grown-up, as even though they’re small and baby-sized, it gives the impression that he’s older than he is.

08:30-09:00

Assuming Jack’s not still in the bath, this is about the time that he’ll start getting tired; rubbing his fists into his eyes, and stretching his mouth for a good old yawn or two. We get his milk ready and take him upstairs to his bedroom. We’ve been doing this little routine of lowering the blinds and closing the curtains in his bedroom and telling him that it’s bedtime… I think it’s probably more for our benefit than his, but telling him isn’t a bad thing I don’t think.

Sleeping during the day can go either way; 45 minutes in the morning and then longer in the afternoon, or the other way around. Depending on what we’ve been doing with him in the morning can sometimes wear him out more and make him sleep longer first thing, which is good as it means that we’ve then got a good gap in the morning to clean up in the kitchen from breakfast, as well as have a breather generally.

Once he wakes up, we carry on as before and play with his toys, but now’s the time that he’d be going to any baby groups with Claire, such as swimming, or Rhyme-Time in the library in town, etc. Alternatively, now’s a great time to nip to Tesco’s to check out the “honey’s and the mummies”. And possibly get a few bits too.

12:00-12:30

Lunchtime for Jack. Again, he’ll play happily on the floor in the kitchen whilst we’re zapping his food in the microwave. Claire’s still been making good, proper food for Jack and freezing it in ice-cube style blocks in the freezer. His food for lunchtime and evening meals would have been moved from the freezer into the fridge overnight to defrost in time.

They don’t take long to heat in the microwave, and that’s a good thing, as sometimes he can get a little hungry and present this in form of whining and fake-crying. His favourite food at the moment tends to be fish-based; I know that when I open the pot to see what he’s got for the day and am faced with what literally looks like deep-green-coloured slime, (cod and spinach) he’ll love it and scoff the lot.

For dessert, again, more food prepared previously by master-chef Claire, but usually fruit-based. Again, his current favourite is a blend of apples, pears and vanilla-pod extracts – it smells delicious. And again, he loves it and will usually have the lot.

12:30-13:00

Depending on how well lunchtime goes, this is normally the time that we’ll keep Jack in the highchair where he’s just had his lunch whilst we have ours. Of course, he won’t just sit there and be silent, so we’ll give him some fruit to eat, such as grapes sliced in half, or a slice of a apple/pear/nectarine/etc. Either way, he’ll chew his teeth into it, extracting the juice whilst simultaneously mushing the food to a pulp and spitting it into his bib that has a scoop-section to catch the falling waste. Also, we might give him some pieces of a breadstick, or some of his special baby-biscuits or baby-crisps, (made from real babies).

From here on, we’ll play or do stuff around the house with Jack, trying to keep him entertained and, more importantly, quiet. He’s got more toys in his playroom that Toys 'R’ Us stock for Christmas, so there’s no reason why he shouldn’t be busy.

14:30-15:00

Jack will start yawning and getting tired by about now, so the same process as before, we’ll start getting his milk ready and take him upstairs, close the curtains, feed him and put him to bed. By the time he reaches the end of the bottle, his eyes are almost completely closed and he’s been rolling himself over on our chests to snuggle-in whilst we’re sitting in the rocking chair with him. Snuggling means ‘proper-whacked, get me to my bed’.

As I said earlier, depending on how long he slept for earlier will usually mean he sleeps the opposite this time.

15:30

If Jack is still sleeping by about now, we tend to get and gentle wake him up, as if he’s allowed to sleep a little too long, then he either won’t go to bed on-time in the evening, or will want to wake up at silly-o’clock the following morning.

Once he’s awake, we’ll carry on playing with his toys, or take the dog for a walk down the road and into the village. When we do go for a walk, especially in this freezing cold weather, Jack’s got a sleeping bag-type attachment for his pram that keeps him warm even in arctic conditions.

17:00-17:15

Tea-time for Jack. Again, food that Claire’s prepared earlier is zapped, and served, followed by dessert.

17:45-18:00

As before, we try to keep Jack in his chair whilst we have our meal, this time he’s given foodstuffs that might be a little more messy, such as strawberries or tomatoes and he squishes them and slams them into the table on his high-chair before sucking the guts out of them. And spreading them around a bit more. And then slamming them a few more times.

Whatever’s leftover is then dangled perilously over the edge (without even needing to look at it) and whilst he gives you an angelic-and-then-evil sort of smile, he simply releases his grip allowing the food to be pile-driven into the floor and discarded forever. Alfie, our dog, normally likes to check out what’s fallen and scavenge anything he can.

After food, Jack is usually a right mess. He might have strawberry or tomato stuck in his hair, certainly all over his clothes and all over his lap as it fell from his mouth after the mushing. This is the time that we’ll carry him at full arm’s length upstairs to get changed and get his bed-clothes on. As soon as he gets his all-in-one outfit on, he’s a baby again. But still the same little monster.

19:30-19:45

Bedtime! No ifs, no buts: Bed. We’ll just put him in his cot like that and he’ll pull his legs and arms into himself with his bum sticking out as babies do.

Peace and quite for most of the evening, allowing us time to clear up the mess from his tea, as well as doing our our dishes etc.

21:30

We’ll go in and get Jack up to change his nappy and to feed him his last bottle of the day. He tends to fake-cry when we’re changing his nappy, but that’s to be expected when you’re all asleep and then someone wakes you up.

Once the bottle is done with, we put him back in his cot, but this time in a baby sleeping-bag, which has straps over his shoulders and a zip down one side. This will keep him toasty all night.

That’s it until the next morning, when it all starts again: Rinse and repeat.