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2005-10-01 - 9.33pm previous entry next entry
First step!! And video clips :)
It's October!!!! My little boy will be a year old next month, can you believe it?!! It's Alex's birthday this month too, which is just too amazing. How are our babies growing up so fast?!!
I did not forget Cameron's anniversary on Sept 24th. I am so happy that it happened to be the day that we learned I had a new little life growing inside me. It just seemed so fitting. I miss Cam, but he just blessed my life so much, and it makes me all the more grateful for each moment that I spend with my own child(ren!!). His funeral was October 6th. That was a hard day too. After that maybe the time of year will feel less haunting? I feel more settled inside somehow, now. I don't know why. Maybe it's that the date has passed. Maybe it's the new baby growing inside me? Maybe it's because I don't have pre-menstrual hormones anymore?! ;) Anyway I feel more at peace again with Cameron's death, and the anniversary of it, which is good.
Okay I have SERIOUSLY been neglecting this diary of late! I need to catch up! Almost all of my pregnancy musings will be in my pregnancy diary (link on the left there), and I will try to keep this diary for things about Arthur and daily life and my own non-pregnancy thoughts, etc. I think I will refer to it when it overlaps with things I want to write here though, and make references to how far along I am so that I don't lose track if I ever read entries back in the future! I am 4.5 weeks pregnant today. And spotting and cramping, but I think things are okay. I see the doctor the day after tomorrow, but everything else looks okay to me. I feel pregnant. But I'll write more about that in the other diary if I get time tonight.
But for now, I have BIG Arthur news!!!!! He took his first step today!!!! Yay Arthur!! I don't know that he will be walking anytime soon though, because it was just one little step, and I was surprised that he even took it because I thought he wouldn't take steps till he was spending much more time standing unsupported. He doesn't do that much yet, though he lets go of things frequently to stand alone (very steadily) for up to 10 seconds. Usually only about 5 seconds though. Today I was lying on the floor and he was standing holding onto my shoulder. He let go and gave me the biggest grin, standing there all strong and steady by himself! He does this a lot though. Then he lifted his foot, took a step towards me, and put his left hand on my shoulder again!!! It was definitely a real step because he started unsupported and didn't fall towards me or anything. He shifted his weight really well :) But I can't really imagine him walking properly anytime soon. Maybe he'll take another step or two sometime soon, but it could be a while yet before he takes off. Anyway I am so excited! My big boy took his first step! He is 10 months and 3 weeks old.
When he lets go of things now, he flings both his arms up above his head as high as he can, so he looks like he's standing and stretching as tall as he can! He beams hugely while he does this, so I think it's his way of showing me that he's extremely pleased with himself for doing it, hehe! His balance is pretty good, he doesn't wobble even with his arms up, but he needs to hold onto something again after maybe 5 seconds or so. If he doesn't, then he sits down in a hurry, usually backwards!
Arthur is getting really good at stopping himself from falling when he unexpectedly falls or trips to the side. He saves himself with his arms before his head can hit anything, which is a relief for me!
I updated Arthur's Video Clips page (link on the left again), as I have a new video of him to post today! It's of him laughing at me :) The thing he seems to find funniest in the whole world is when I (or Neil) drop something by mistake and go, "Ooh, ooh!" as it falls (which I seem to do a lot these days!). For some reason this CRACKS him up! A couple of days ago we were in the kitchen and I opened the medicine cupboard to check if we needed to buy more painkillers, etc when we went shopping. Two packets of things fell out on me as it opened and Arthur, who was busy cruising around the dining chairs and things, suddenly started laughing soooo hard! I love to hear him laugh like that, it is so infectious! It does me good :)
Anyway, as I picked the things up I dropped them again and he nearly fell over laughing! So I set up the camera (not very good angle unfortunately) and proceeded to repeat the incident over and over! He loves to have funny things repeated, even if they are obviously faked after the first time! ;) He laughed so hard that eventually he lost his balance and fell onto his butt, and when I stood him up again he had hiccups, bless him! Anyway he acted like he wanted more, so I carried on, and he laughed and laughed! Eventually I figured it was getting old, so I shut the cupboard and Arthur got SO annoyed with me, hehehe! He is doing that a LOT these days - very annoyed screechings and moanings if something stops that he was enjoying, or if he was headed somewhere and I shut the door because I don't want him to get into that place. This often happens when I block the stairs off. He gets so mad!
He is really starting to assert himself over things he wants now. He has always particularly hated being wiped in his highchair after eating. Now he makes SUCH a noisy fuss when this happens! Occasionally if he's annoyed enough about it, he stops my hand wiping him by gripping it in both of his, looks me right in the eyes, jaw set angrily, and screeeams for as long as he has breath, all the while holding my gaze! I just return his gaze the whole time and stay completely calm (despite temporarily losing my hearing, hehe!). When he runs out of breath he waits to see what my reaction will be, and I just calmly say something like, "That noise isn't going to make any difference, Arthur. Mummy needs to clean you!" Aren't I infuriating!! ;) But he needs to know that he can't scream at me and get his way for doing so. My response works better the calmer I stay - I have discovered this through trial and error, believe me! ;) He usually lets me finish cleaning him after that, albeit with a lot of grumpy fuss! Funny boy!
Okay I need to eat and pee, and then I will be back to finish this entry.
Back again! Dinner is cooking. I ate some raisins :) I am soooooo hungry!
I forgot to say before, I added another video clip to the Video Clip page. I think I must have forgotten to post it when it was taken. It's of Arthur watching the washing machine on a spin cycle (very excited and noisy - he just loves the washing machine!) and then crawling around the kitchen a bit. It was taken just over a month ago, so he was 9.5 months old I think. Anyway I added it right before the new clip of Arthur laughing. It's a longish one though - about 3 minutes - so I hope that doesn't cause trouble with loading and viewing...
I hope you guys enjoy the video clips!!! :)
Let's see, what else? Arthur says Mama constantly. Con. Stant. Ly. He seems frustrated as though he wants me to understand things but that's all he knows how to say, poor thing! We need to teach him some more signs. He knows medicine, milk, and more. That's not very many signs for a baby who is getting to the stage where he needs to TELL me things a lot now. I don't want to overload him with a billion new signs though. I need to choose a few, ones that I think will be most relevant to him for now.
He has started to call me, "Mummy"!!!! I am so thrilled! It's very cute, it sounds like he is making so much effort to get the sound right, and it's a very careful, "Mah-mee!" sound :) He also says, "Dup!" (very cute and staccato!) when he is starting off up the stairs. He sometimes says it every time he reaches a new step on the way up! He sounds so purposeful and eager, it's the cutest thing! He climbs the stairs mostly with his feet now, but still uses his knees a lot too. He has said "Dup!" once or twice when he has wanted me to pick him up too, or as I've lifted him out of his highchair. I always make the words "up" and "down" clear to him as I tell him what we're doing, around things like the highchair and the stairs, so maybe he's just picking that up?
Oh oh, I know what else! The stairs reminded me. He climbs ALL the way down the stairs now! He goes backwards, and uses his feet only!! I think I said before that he was sweeping behind him with his feet until he found the edge and then stepped down? Well he isn't really sweeping any more, he just steps backwards and down until he's at the bottom! He loves to practise going up and down the stairs, it's one of his favourite things! Once or twice he has walked down the stairs FORWARDS with us holding his hands (tightly!). He so often seems to want to do things like Mummy and Daddy do them.
He jumps on the bed :) He holds on to the headboard on the spare bed and jumps and jumps soooo energetically! It's so cute, because his jumps are so tiny and he breathes like he's so excited, and awww! If his bounce starts to get out of rhythm, he stops for a moment and then starts up again. His feet leave the bed sometimes!
What else do I need to update on about Arthur? Oh he is getting another tooth - his sixth. He has been teething so badly the last few days, after a slow run-up of milder teething trouble, and today I saw the familiar "eroded look" to his gum over the new tooth. It's always 3 days from when I first spot that, that the new tooth comes through. It's the matching one to the one he has had for a month, at the top next to his middle top teeth. I don't see any obvious action in the lower gums yet, but they'll probably start up sometime soon I guess. We had to give him Calpol two nights running. Hopefully he'll be okay tonight.
His sleep is so-so. I think any progress we were making is on hold while he cuts this tooth. He gets so upset the moment he wakes, and I have nursed him at night a couple of times recently, because I know he is teething and upset. That is fine. He is still sleeping slightly longer stretches now in the middle of the night - usually something like midnight to 4am, which is great! Last night the teething messed that up, but that's okay. Poor Arthur needs his mama at the moment!
His eating is going well. He eats half a jar of organic babyfood at lunchtime, or a similiar sized portion of one of our main meals, buzzed up in the blender for him. He now eats dessert after lunch too, usually half a pot of baby yoghurt. Breakfast is not very existent though, which isn't ideal. He eats a tiny bit of marmite on toast (spread ultra thinly), and I have discovered he prefers wholemeal toast to white, which I'm glad about! Better for him and all that. But basically he isn't interested in food at breakfast time. I just nurse him after he eats what he wants. I need to work on breakfast I think. I know my milk will go in the next few months. I will introduce cows milk next month though, when he's a year old, and that will help because then I can give him proper breakfast cereal. I don't really want to mix it with formula when I'm introducing him to a new food (and hoping he'll like it!) - that stuff tastes NASTY. Seriously. Nothing against formula specifically, but it really does taste yuck. I need all the help I can get encouraging Arthur to eat new things! I don't think formula will help that at all. I was going to pump breastmilk for his breakfast milk, but although my milk supply is plentiful when he nurses, I am noticing if I try to pump I get hardly anything. So that won't work. Next month I can give him cows milk on cereal though.
I am trying to encourage him onto more of a finger-food tea. He was still getting mashed or pureed fruit/veg for tea - and mainly the old favourite, avocado and banana, which I think is part of the culprit in his constipation. He eats the other half of his baby yoghurt after that. Too much dairy is binding I think, so he really needs more variety at teatime now. I want lunch to be his main, hot meal, and tea to be like it was when I was little - something finger-foody, like beans on toast, or egg soldiers, etc. Fruit and yoghurt afterwards, etc.
He eagerly feeds himself rice cakes and rusks, but he is kind of squeamish about anything less solid or dry. I am trying to encourage him in this at the moment. Today's tea was cheese on toast, banana chunks, two rice cakes, and a fruit corn snack thingy. I just put them on his tray and left him to it while Neil watched him and I lay down on the sofa for a while. He played around with a lot of it, but after a while he ate quite a bit. He had yoghurt after that. Hopefully if I keep offering him that kind of tea, he'll get used to it.
Okay there was probably more, but dinner is ready and I think I will be too tired after dinner to continue. I should update my pregnancy diary if I DO have energy anyway. Neil didn't hear about his job - which sucks because they told him he would get a phone call BY THE END of September. It's October. No phone call. Sucky. So next week if he doesn't hear from them first thing, he will try to get in touch with them I think. Too much is hanging in the balance waiting on whether he has this job or not, so he needs to know. He started back on his Masters degree this week. I am almost hoping he gets the job just so that he DOESN'T have to finish this course!! He has such a busy year ahead of him, and he will have to make up a lot of hours at work for the time he is taking out for lectures. And field trips on 2 full Saturday's in the next month alone :( I hope everything works out for the best. Which OF COURSE it will, since God is in control of it. I'm glad I remembered that! :)
Okay, that's it. I'll try to update again soon!
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