aendr

It's been a while since I last posted - and even longer since I last did an "Alex update". Part of the delay is due to my starting work 2 months ago, and life being rather busy since.
Alex is nearly 14 months old now! Looking back on the last post about him, there's a lot of change. Let's see...

Oh dear, I first mention that he's 9kg heavy. Well, several colds, ear infections, chest infections and bronchiolitis later, he dropped to 8.5kg before Christmas, though we think he's gained quite a bit over Christmas. He's not heavy enough to turn the car seat around (min weight 9kg), though we'll try to prolong his rear facing a while (max weight 13kg in this car seat). In supermarket trolleys, I have to watch he doesn't try to eat it (which wouldn't be good for his teeth if I stopped or banged something suddently, not to speak of the horrors of what grime is on it), and watch out if he tries to take something out of the trolley and drop it on the floor. Though he likes to reach out and touch things, he doesn't yet grab them, but that will come! Progress around a supermarket can still be slow with him though, he smiles and waves at complete strangers and I often have to stop and respond to people telling me he's gorgeous or handsome or "going to be a wow with the ladies". Elderly gentlemen like to shake his hand, elderly ladies just coo. Sometimes he's shy and buries his head in my front, sometime he just looks at them with a serious, studying expression - he went through a period of not responding to strangers at all - but now he's back to his grinning at anyone giving him a compliment or smile.

He doesn't clap and wave as much any more, it's as if he's "done that". His latest is to point. Pointing has been a firm favourite for a couple of months, but has changed into an imperious point, usually up, and exclamation of "da!" (an escalating repeated imperative) requiring us to pick him up and let him interact with whatever it was he was pointing to. This is usually either our wind chime or an elephant on a spring given to him by Caroline, though all the hanging Christmas decorations were popular. We also get requested to spin the wooden spiral hanging over the stairs, though we don't let him touch it. If we don't pick him up, then wails result. We don't pick him up every time, though. (The demand to be carried and temper if refused has increased since Christmas when Granny and Uncle David and we would have time to accede to his requests frequently.) Vocally, he hasn't really any definite words yet, but does say "abla", "gah", "da" and some liquid rr and mm sounds.

He's still requesting to stand frequently, and not yet sitting or standing himself up. He cruises around, holding onto furniture, legs, walls, whatever he will, not always sensibly! He carries things in one hand, while cruising leaning on his forearm, and will clap standing up, leaning on his forearms. We await the day when he moves and forgets to hold on. He can get quite far when we're not paying him our full attention, especially to get at something interesting or forbidden. The top stair gate is installed, the bottom one ready but we don't need it yet.

He's feeding himself with spoon or fork, but prefers us to load them for him, though will try it himself occasionally. He realises that a full tummy happens sooner with our help.

He loves pressing buttons - on the TV, on books which make music or "Rrrroarrrrrrr!" On his pretend phones, on our laptops! (He has interacted with IRC a few times already.) He also likes to stack blocks, take apart duplo and has recently started to place duplo blocks together (though the hit rate to begin with was severely limited by trying to put them together backwards, or at totally the wrong angles.)

Hopefully my next update will not be so delayed.

Alex learned to roll (from front to back) a fortnight ago - he did 3 rolls on the Thursday, 2 the following Monday Sunday and 1 the other night. He seems to do it most easily when naked.
He also gained a tooth (Left 10 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_teeth) on Saturday and is cutting R10 today.

Well, last time I was a day late; this time I'm 10% late. He's 110 days old and has grown a bundle.

He finally grew into 0-3 months clothes, or at least outgrew the "newborn" clothes in the week he was three months old, as per my prediction. I think he may get to 3-6 months clothes sooner though. He's still in a limited range of the 0-3 months clothes we have - the rest being way too big. He's now 58cm long and 11lb 15.5 oz. Alex is smiling and laughing now, gurgling and cooing and it sounds very much like he's saying "now" when he wants his milk. He also looks around and smiles when one of us comes in and says something out of his sight. He's rather fond of gnawing his left hand, though there's no sign of teeth yet. He's reaching out and batting and grabbing things, even pulling them to his mouth. He's best with dangling things because their weight is supported but we do try him on things to lift. He's showing a distinct preference for grabbing with his left hand (yay), but I know that that could change easily before he settles on a handedness. He's holding his head up fairly well, but still not steady for very long, and we're encouraging him to lift it and develop his neck and core body muscles with tummy time and sitting up time. He's pretty small, so some of the physical things will take time.

I'm now in somewhat of a, well I can't call it a routine because it's not, but we get along. I have afternoon tea with the ladies from my antenatal class on a Monday, on a Thursday morning I go to "Bumps'n'Babes", and generally try to get out two more days of the week (usually just a walk into town to grocery shop, visit the library for "Rhymetime" or similar) but have a day at home to relax. We learnt baby massage for several Wednesday afternoons, for example. I'm a third of my way through maternity leave and it's hard to imagine returning to work. We've been looking at nurseries in preparation. Having picked one to register at, I have sort of volunteered to go and do some science based activities with their preschoolers; Alex would be looked after by them while I am there and I can have a look at what they're really like not just when they're showing people around. I was thinking coffee filter paper chromatography butterflies, maybe some pen lid divers, that type of thing. If anyone has any ideas (this is aimed at 3-5 year olds) then let me know.

I'm also using cloth nappies, specifically sized ones with wraps (Tots Bots Bamboozles and Flexitots with Motherease Rikki wraps). He seems quite happy in them and it's nice not to have a bin full of nappies. We're still in dispos at night or if we're going to be out for a long time. hsenag is a bit reluctant to use them, bit too difficult for him maybe? It's not like you need a PhD to be able to work them!

...because I'm in the hospital looking after Alex!