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.