12/12/12
Can’t believe we are 10 days to the end of the year. The year just seemed to fly by, and I can barely remember the later days of being very pregnant, and the early days of handling a newborn. These days it’s more about alternating between “don’t do that!…oh what the heck, yes, throwing the avocado on the floor does make that sound” and “No! Don’t go near the fan, it’s dangerous!”
Mostly that kind of conversations. Of course we have a lot more fun than just those. Heh. Lots of picture book pointing, and identifying the objects. It’s pretty amazing how the verbal skills haven’t kicked in but the cognitive skills have. Can’t say “cat”? Points to picture of cat in his picture book. He does try to give me some advance warning to the things he does, or wants to do. “DOH!!!” usually means “throw”, “moh” means “more”, “eh!!” & lifting an item towards you means to repeat the action, “cad” means “cat”.
Ollie identifies his toys by how we have described it to him, or the sounds it makes. So getting him to bring his nursery rhymes book to you requires you to probably sing one of the rhymes or say the instructions it give (“turn the page”). And he is starting to imitate. Which is funny and annoying, depending on what he is imitating. Just the other night, he imitated his godpa clearing his throat. So the two sillies were clearing their throats at each other for about 10 mins. -_-”
He is pretty confidently mobile now. He can walk long distances (in baby distance haha) and will object to being picked up unless distracted. I have “threatened” him by saying he needs to hold my finger when he walks otherwise I will pick him up. He has complied with it, but I do occasionally let him wander off a little on his own and he will obligingly come back to me when he is done with his “exploration” (usually standing on a different coloured tile or a bumpy surface”.
His sleep patterns have changed again. For the past week or so, he has gone from 2-3 hourly feeds to mostly 4 hourly feeds. The first two nights caught me unaware and I wasn’t used to THAT much sleep. I know my boobs definitely weren’t. It gradually extended after Ollie allowed Donald to put him down to sleep at night. Since then, Donald now puts Ollie to sleep after he has nursed and today, there is almost no fuss, and Ollie falls asleep quickly too. Is he then self-weaning??
It seems like we are close to establishing some routines, and yet taking a few steps back when we hit a change. Is that what parenting is all about? There will be a couple of new changes in the next few weeks, with Ollie having his dinner earlier, and I do intend to bring his bedtime forward (family members, please be warned hor). We’ll see how things pan out then.