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2008-09-07 - 11.34pm previous entry next entry
Several milestones for Nathan (again!) and loooads of photos
Thank you so much for the sweet messages after my last entry with the video clips! :) And also the positive thoughts about homeschooling! Congratulations to Robbi on starting homeschooling at last! :) I'm excited for you, but how are THREE of your kids school age?!?!
Well, as usual, it's already late. I have a scary amount of photos to post - I kid you not! I just uploaded FIFTY (ish) to my photobucket, and those are just of Nathan!! They're the ones I chose from the bunch of photos I had on my camera. I cannot fathom how I'll manage to show you all the photos I've been taking lately. *sigh* Somehow I must!! I really want to get all the photos that are important to me on here. This is my back-up memory bank! I should get gold membership for a bit again so I can back up my diary. Sometiems I think of switching it ALL to Blogger or something, because every other bloggy place is making Diaryland seem teeny-tinier than ever before, even though I think Diaryland was one of the first places to keep an online diary. So I wonder whether it will eventually get eclipsed completely? I know they say it won't "go under", but I get nervous these days, with 7 (SEVEN!) years of precious memories stored here. Should I move it all over? Is it more secure there? Hmmm, thoughts....
Anyway, that is not what I wanted to write about! I have soooooooo much on my mind (not much of it particularly exciting, just flotsam mainly) that I have really been wanting to write about here, but I just don't seem to get chance! Well, I DO, but I prioritise other things sometimes. Like I will just read a TON of blogs (I am behind on those in general lately so have been starting to try and catch up) for a whole evening (or two!), or I'll read the Bible - I am really eager to read my Bible lately. I started Cover to Cover - Through the Bible in a Year for the 2nd time, on August 17th. I'm on Day 26 so I'm a bit ahead. I would really like to read it in half the time if I possibly can. I read it through last time in about 2 years, during pretty much the entire time I was housebound with M.E. I love that this book takes you through it in chronological order (which is NOT necessarily the order the books are arranged in!). I just finished Genesis, woohoo!! :) I'm reeeally enjoying it!
Okay, I must get on with what I came to write about!! It's Monday tomorrow, so I don't want a crazy late night to start the week!
Nathan has had a BUSY week! He's teething, but still no sign of that first toothie yet. The main thing is (Milestone #1!!), he is now crawling properly. He started on Thursday evening - he did five "knees", as my mum and I call it, haha! As in, knee-knee-hand-hand-knee. Not much of a crawl, but a definite first start! Then he flopped and did the rest as usual on his tummy with his elbows and toes! He practised the short crawl a few times on Friday, and then on Saturday he really started doing longer crawls. He still prefers his old army crawl because it is less wobbly and gets him there faster if it's across an entire room or something. He already seems stronger crawling on hands and knees today, so I'm sure he'll lose the army crawl fairly soon. For my records, he was 7 months and 3 weeks old when he started crawling. His developmental milestones are adjusted by a month because of his early arrival, so it's the equivalent of 6 months and 3 weeks. Which is EXACTLY the age that Matthew started crawling! But he never did any army crawling of any sort before he set off properly. He just stayed stock still on his hands and knees, rocking and rocking in frustration, hehe!
I have got a tiny video of him crawling but it's soooo tiny and short, and I haven't got around to uploading it. Plus I'm sure I will have more impressive footage over the course of the week!
Milestone #2 is that he's stopping at toys and propping himself up with one arm in a sort of "half-sit" to look at the toys and play with them a bit. He still isn't sitting unsupported much yet, only very occasionally and for a few seconds (read: less than 10!) at a time. I always have to really encourage him to do it, and most of the time he just refuses and pushes back to lying down, or tries to stand up and walk! So, he'll sit when he's ready. He's by far the latest of my babies to sit unaided. Here he is doing the pause-at-a-toy "sit" (and then another one of him playing from that position):
Milestone #3: Nathan is suddenly really interested in one of the dolls we got for the boys last Christmas! It's the big "boy" doll (in the photos above), the one that only a few months ago I used to confuse for Nathan all the time when it was lying on the carpet, hehe! I would glance quickly across the room as I walked to get something, and freeze for a second in horror as my foot nearly stumped into MY BABY BOY! But wait, no, just a doll - phew! ;) They were the same size for ages, and some of Nathan's outfits were rather similar! Anyway, he suddenly seems really interested in it, and crawls to it if he catches a glimpse of it, even trying to pull it out of the toy basket (which is too high for him to reach up to right now).
I was watching him play with it this week and realised that he was actually giving it kisses! He has recently started to give open-mouthed kisses to us. It was hard to tell at first if they were kisses or not, because he always BEAMS with joy when we kiss him (he's so precious!!) and his big beaming smiles are wide-open-mouthed. But he is definitely trying to kiss now :) And he was working really hard trying to kiss the doll's nose/mouth, which I thought was so sweet! I took photos of course! :)
Milestone #4: Nathan started pulling to kneel up at things on Friday, the day after he started crawling. This is RIGHT in keeping with his brothers - they all seemed to do several big milestones in a bunch around this age. I think one of those big milestones for the other boys was a first tooth (Arthur for sure) so I'm wondering all the more about Nathan's first toothie! It can't be that far off now! :)
Anyway, he pulled up to kneel against me when I was sitting on the floor, which was exciting, and he was so pleased with himself! Arthur and I clapped him (Matthew was napping) and he loved that!
Milestone #5: Within a few hours he had discovered that pulling to kneeling makes it much easier to pull to standing!! Here he is kneeling at the jigsaw puzzle box on Friday, during Matthew's nap time, and then attempting to stand! The box edge was too low to the ground, but he was definitely trying!
On Saturday I took him up to bed for one of his naps, nursed him on the bed, and SUDDENLY he was wide awake and super excited about the cot bars that are up against the side of my bed. He kept trying to clamber over me to get to them, so I sat by him to watch what he wanted to do. He crawled up to the side of his cot, and started to grapple at the bars like he was trying to pull up and kneel there. He was almost frenzied in his eagerness, hehe! He made such cute little heh-heh-heh enthusiastic breathing noises, and had his tiny little pointy tongue sticking out with concentration. I nearly interrupted his efforts to eat him whole, but decided it was only fair to let him continue. ;) He pulled up to kneel at the cot bars eventually, and clung on with one hand while he batted the cot side with his other hand (in glee!):
He seemed REALLY happy and satisfied with that for quite a bit, and then suddenly got that focused look and the frenzied heh-heh-heh thing started again. I wish I could describe to you exactly what he was like as he did this. He worked so hard with his little leggies and arms that weren't used to that kind of activity! Eventually he managed this:
But the frenzy did not stop until he was triumphantly doing this!!....
Neil's eyes nearly popped out of his head when I showed him the photo, hehe! So that was Saturday (yesterday). Today Nathan has been working very hard at the Fisher Price Ball Blast toy (he has been interested in that for a while, frequently "asking" me to hold him near it so he can pretend to stand or sit at it and play with it!). He pulled up and knelt at it after a bit of effort this afternoon, and then let go and did not realise that if he lets go, he falls down rather heavily in a random direction! I need to stay closer to him when he's trying new things, I know :( I am not sure if I can always be there to do that though. Poor sweetie, he has a few bumps and bruises coming his way with this new stage he's entered.
Anyway, he went right back to try again, and I got the camera out this time:
He moved round the the other side to try again, and seemed a little unsteady so I sat near him and put my hand out to steady him, and he instantly used it as a helpful "pull up" aid, and stood up! He clung on tightly and eagerly pressed buttons and things on the top of the toy, and I took some photos. He looks so steady and grown-up here, I can't believe it.
Nathan seems to have become a lot older in such a short space of time, all of a sudden. I suppose it's just the fact that he's hit a few milestones that take him into "older baby" category or something. He has also had a growth spurt, and his head has grown like crazy recently too! His hairline seems more receding than ever, haha! And the sort of "male pattern baldness" area above his forehead has quite a pale, veiny effect at the moment, as though there has been fast growth there. It almost seems stretched! But I'm sure it can't really be. Anyway, his head has recently grown fast. Maybe that makes sense anyway, that he must have had some recent rapid brain growth to lead to the milestones he's hitting - and the increased social skills and communication too.
He's beginning to show a really playful cheeky personality (help! hehe!), very similar to Matthew's at this age. Matthew was actually more playful though, and by 8 months of age was initiating games with Arthur more than the other way around. Nathan likes to go for things that are a bit monkeyish, like a box of hankies on the bed (to pull out all the hankies), and he KNOWS that it's a monkey thing to do. He finishes nursing, gets a sudden undeniable twinkle in his eye, then flips over and starts to army crawl his way to the pillows at the top of the bed (where I keep a box of tissues). The whole way, he has his cheeky little pointy tongue out and he tosses glances over his shoulder with the MOST sparkly mischievous eyes. He makes his eager breathing noises as he goes, (heh-heh-heee) which sound more like "thhh-theee-heh-theh" with his sweet little tongue in the way there :) I honestly could eat that boy right up. He's so scrumptious!
Then, I wait till he's almost at the pillows, increasing his speed and starting to stretch out his little hand for the tissue box, and I say in my best fake stern tone, "Na-than?" He stops straight away and sort of half-twists onto his back (legs still front down, back twisting so his head is lying back to look at me), and gives me the most cheeky look! He beams and his eyes sparkle so much. You can tell he is having so much fun playing at being a monkey-boy, and then he does a sharp intake of air which is almost a squeal, such is his excitement, turns back and reaches the tissue box. He LOVES it when I then pounce on him and swing him away from the hankies.
Good golly, I love that baby boy soooooooooo much. My chest is sort of aching just writing that stuff. I think I might pop. Ah my sweet lovey boy bean!
Nathan's cringeworthy nicknames continue. There really is no hope for any of my children. It's an affliction of mine. ;)
He has a LOT of nicknames, many of which would probably nauseate the non-cutesy of you. Quite a few of his nicknames seem to be food-related. He's my Pea. Also my Bean-Pea. And my Bean-Pea-Pickle. Or even my Bean-Pea-Pickle-Pea. It can get worse! ;) The more squish-him-up-to-nothingness-because-I-cannot-bear-how-much-I-love-him I'm feeling, the longer the chain of names, hehe! He is also my lil Muffin, and my Waffle. Now, any of the food related nicknames can be finished with a "Bean" or a "Pea". There are some crazy combinations out there, haha!
Okay, now we get off the food-related nicknames and onto the even more embarrassing ones. Muffin has various additions: Muffin-Woo, for example. Also, somehow another word has combined with muffin to produce Fluffin. The poor child is often Fluff for short, or in one of the aforementioned "squidgy-hearted" moments: Fluffsy-Woo-Wee-Waffle-Woo. Yes, I am blushing. I know there are people feeling distinctly queasy right now. But I want it recorded! I know one day I might forget which child had which overly cutesy nicknames, and I want to remember clearly, because it's part of my very fondest, loveliest memories of their babyhoods.
The one I'm using most at the moment (though I use LOTS all the time) for Nathan is P. Fluffin. I don't know why! He just is. Mr. P. Fluffin. Or Little P. Fluffin. Oh my goodness, I squeeze him up so tight to my chest when I call him that. Again, the WHY escapes me, but there you go.
Also, with Matthew pronouncing his name, "Ninny", that has worked its way into lots of the things I call him too. Ninny-noodle (which is shortened to Ninny-noods, or lately just "nood" (poor, poor baby love)), Ninny-noo-nobblet, Ninny-knees (which has become just "knee-caps" for some reason!). And Ninny has recently developed into "Nin-zy" or Ninzy-woo. Or even just Ninz.
Please remember that I do also love and nurture my little ones and they are reasonably well-adjusted (!) and happy, so I urge you not to make that call to Childline on their behalf. ;) Really, by the age of 3 or 4, the amount of daft nicknames is drastically reduced! There is hope for them, eventually! ;)
Okay, it's really late and I must go to bed. I did a little photo session with Nathan yesterday while the older boys were out at the park with Neil, and there are quite a few photos from that. They are of Nathan on the sofa with Monkey, because I did a similar session with Arthur on the sofa with Monkey when he was 6.5 months old, and again with Matthew, but I think he was only 4 or 5 months old. So I suddenly had the idea to do it with Nathan, and I'll post the results (along with a reminder photo from Arthur's and Matthew's sessions) in a separate entry this week sometime!
I do have a BUNCH of news about the other boys, and general waffle from the recesses of my brain, which I will really try to write down soon, because I so want to! I hope I'll find time this week one evening. If only I wasn't taking so many photos of the boys (particularly Nathan!) right now! Every time I come to catch up on the computer, there are like 80-120 more photos to dump off the camera and upload, edit, and resize! It puts me off getting down to it when I'm tired, but I don't like to leave the photos undone and just go on and write waffle instead. Anyway, I'm glad to have done some catching up with Nathan's photos!
Back soon! :)
Recent entries.....
Moving time... - 2009-01-04
Christmas Eve! - 2008-12-24
Long-overdue update, a few Nathey pics and a video clip :) - 2008-12-01
Lots of news! - 2008-11-03
Nathan at 8 months... - 2008-10-12