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2005-12-19 - 11.53pm previous entry next entry
Pre-Christmas ramblings and toddling-bra photos, hehe!
Okay I have a lot to update on yet again, but possibly very little time to do it in, as Arthur is halfway through his short morning nap already.
I cancelled his MMR last Monday. I did some more research on the Sunday and decided to go ahead with it, but then I happened to get my attention drawn to the potential side-effects. Some babies are lucky and don't get any, or only very mild ones, and Arthur didn't really have problems with his previous vaccinations. But you never know, and they can be a bit unpleasant, so I checked them out. The measles part tends to kick in around 1 week to 10 days after the jab, with most mothers saying 10 days. Little ones can get a measles-like rash, a mild fever and be off their food (though some mothers said their toddlers were vomiting too). That would have co-incided with travelling up to Neil's family for Christmas. GREAT timing! Then the mumps part is 3-4 weeks after the jab, again mild fever, off their food, general malaise, etc. That would co-incide with our trip to France to see my parents. I decided not to let Arthur have the jab before Christmas as some part of the holiday would potentially be complicated by naff side-effects. January is pretty much ruled out with his plaster casts, so our plan is to have him vaccinated with the MMR in February. We're happy enough with that. I'm sure I'll still feel nervous when we DO take him, but we'll just get it over and done with. I do want him protected against these nasties. So that is that! :)
I took him to the baby clinic to be weighed and measured on Friday. I figured it had been a while (I think he was last weighed at around 11 months, or probably more like 10.5 months) and I was curious to know what he measured at. I also needed to be sure he didn't exceed the limits for the car seat my parents still have for him in France. He was the oldest baby there - all the others in the waiting room were around 6 months, and some were teeny weeny! He was the picture of society and walked from other-mother's-knees to other-mother's-knees all round the waiting room, beaming at each person in turn with his biggest most charming smile! He loves to socialise and show off his cuteness, hehe! Everyone was smiling at him and complimenting him on his clever walking. He walked everywhere, both with his shoes on, and (once he took them off!) with just his socks on, on the shiny slippery floor. He had no trouble. He is doing great on the walking, and I only see him crawl once or twice every couple of days now. Waaah, my baby is growing up!
Oh, I know I'm getting off the point, but Arthur still loves going about the house with one of my nursing bras hanging from his mouth!!! Hehe! He used to crawl like that till he knelt on the bra that was trailing under him and stopped short! He LOVES my bras. I think they are sort of comforting to him, since they have some association with breastfeeding which is the ultimate comfort! :) I have two lilac coloured Elle Macpherson nursing bras (incidentally THE most fabulous nursing bras ever to be invented) which he particularly loves! Here are some photos of the little monkey man this morning toddling around with said bra hanging from teeth! ;)
He just walked around and around with that thing hanging there, and even stopped to play with his toys now and then before setting off again for another bra-swinging stroll!! Funny boy :)
Anyway, back to the baby clinic! So Arthur got weighed, and he has LOST weight!!!!!!!! A first for Arthur! I was concerned because I mean it's been nearly 3 months since he was last weighed, and he weighed MORE then!! He last weighed 23lbs 13oz, and so I expected him over 24lbs by now. I didn't think he would have gained much because he doesn't FEEL much heavier, and he has changed shape so dramatically lately, slimming right down and losing his baby chub. He now weighs 23lbs 5oz. The health visitor told me not to worry at all, because he has started walking and night weaned in that time, and also I am barely making any milk at all now so he's essentially not really getting breastmilk anymore as such. So she said it's to be expected. She said if I felt worried, I should take him back in 3 or 4 weeks to see if he's gaining any by then.
His weight now puts him just above the 50th percentile - exactly as he was at birth!!! I remember they told me breastfed babies usually go up into the nineties over the first 6 months and then during the second 6 they tend to plateau out until they are pretty much back in the percentile of their birth weight. At the time Arthur was 10 months old and soooooooooo chunky that I simply couldn't believe it would possibly happen, hehe! But it has! I have a lil lean toddler now, how amazing. I am not too worried as he's eating well and very energetic and active all the time. I think I will take him back somewhere in January when he doesn't have a plaster cast on. The health visitor said I could be giving him more cow's milk, as he doesn't really drink it. He just has it on cereal. He likes to sip at my glass of milk when I have breakfast and I offer him as much from that as he will take, but it's never much. I gave him a sippy cup with milk in the other day and he took a little but only as though it was water (which he still doesn't drink much of in the day). His best time for a drink is just before bedtime. He seems thirsty then and gulps loads of water down!
He still nurses as much as he wants to in the day, and whenever he wakes in the evening, but the midnight-5am thing where I don't nurse him is going well. He sometimes cries for a minute and other times just snuggles up and goes back to sleep without a peep. Lately he doesn't wake in the evening so ends up going all night without nursing. Last night he slept 7.45pm till 2.30am before his first waking!!! He was unsettled till 3.15am but after that he woke at 6am for a long breastfeed and then up for the day! :) He sometimes still wakes like crazy though, and is becoming a bit difficult to get to sleep at bedtime. Sometimes he just wants Daddy in the bed with us too, and then he settles quickly to sleep by himself. He's so cute :)
I LOVE it in the mornings when he wakes. He nurses, and then suddenly pops off the breast and says with a little gasp of excitement, "Dada!" and then he launches himself over my body to get to Daddy for a cuddle :) He likes to kiss us both on the lips (still giving those wide open kisses so far!) first thing, and last thing before sleep. He has initiated that himself, which we absolutely love!
He looooooves his daddy at the moment! He loves me just as much as usual, but he is really into spending time with Daddy and getting to Daddy in the morning after he nurses, and if he's doing something where he wants us watching him, he is particularly keen that DADDY is watching closely, hehe! Otherwise he gets kind of annoyed ;) It's so sweet.
Arthur is really starting to have a go at words at the moment. He hasn't really shown any interest or ability on the speech front until this last week or so, except for having said "mama" for EVER and "dada" for a long time too, and then "wow" from his toy. He now says, "hot" (haa), "ear" (eee) and has recently tried "clock" and his first two-syllable word - "oven" (ohh-un)!
Oh he's awake. Will try to finish later.
Back again! He's having his afternoon nap and I am eating a HUGE bowl of cornish clotted cream vanilla ice cream with bright sprinkles!! :) How I long for some hot chocolate fudge sauce but oh well, we don't have any.
Okay where was I? Arthur is doing all sorts of new stuff. He is really interested in anything using his hands. His hand-motor skills are really coming on. He can pick up tiny bits of thread from the (perpetually dirty) carpet with his pincer grasp now. He LOVES his bricks and stacking cups most of all, and likes to lay a "foundation" of bricks very carefully on the floor, but runs out of interest for building another layer on top! They have to be placed just so on the floor, he is so particular! He stacks 3 cups on top of each other with ease, and is working on putting another on top. He can stack the whole set of cups inside each other in the correct order (after a lot of wrong order attempts!).
Continuing his love of all things laundry, he now actually HELPS when I empty the dryer! I make piles all around me of the different types of items so that they are easier to put away. I usually have a pile of cloth wipes building up on my left leg and a pile of nappy inserts on my right leg. Quite out of the blue the other day, Arthur seemed to figure out that one pile was specifically for cloth wipes, and proceeded to fish all the cloth wipes out from amongst the laundry in the tumble dryer, and pile each one on the wipes pile on my lap as he found it! I was so amazed. Today he did the same thing when I asked him to find the wipes for Mummy, and then started on the nappy inserts pile! He is such a tidy boy :)
Arthur communicates a LOT now with his own sort of signs. He does double signs that he made up himself, which involve him pointing to himself if the thing he's trying to communicate involves him. If he wants a drink of his water, he points at it and then immediately to himself. If I ask him if he wants a drink of water then he smiles and looks all shy, which is his way of telling me I understood him correctly! If I get it wrong then he just tries again with more earnest expression and noises and pointing! He is pretty easy to understand with his signs though, he is very clear with his pointing and stuff now. If he wants to go upstairs he points at the stairs and then in to his chest with both pointy fingers at once.
He cut his lip yesterday, poor baby. He had wedged a jigsaw board into his bricks bucket and was tugging and tugging to get it out. Of course it came out suddenly and banged him in the mouth as it did so :( He cried but he never really has hysterics over hurting himself, even when he hurts himself quite badly. He is quickly consoled by me cuddling him and offering him the breast, even with a sore lip to suck with, poor Boo! His lip was bleeding on the inside and it swelled up SO much, I was surprised! He looked so different for a while last night, but it's less swollen today.
He is teething like crazy at the moment, but no visible action. He has had two bouts of "teething" since he got his last tooth, but I haven't seen any changes in his gums at all, and now we're on the third bout, and I'm wondering if anything will happen at all this time! He hasn't had a new tooth in what feels like AGES. I think he got his last one at 10 months, so it's been 3 months now, which is a while! He still has 2 at the bottom and four at the top. My mum said I had the same six teeth at one year old, and at 13 months I got my TOP two molars, while still only having two middle teeth at the bottom! Of course they all filled in fast at the bottom after that. I wonder if Arthur's teeth will follow the same pattern that mine did? Anyway I hope this bout of teething actually PRODUCES something. I hate seeing him teethe but not seem to get anything out of it.
What else? I'm sure there were other things! Arthur is trying to put some pieces in his jigsaw but I haven't seen him manage to get them in properly. Neil said he got a piece in properly yesterday when I was taking a nap.
Slightly dreading the trip to Neil's family this week. I can't believe Christmas is this weekend coming!!!! That sneaked up so suddenly! Next year we'll actually bother with Christmas decorations. It's such a faff and the house is so messy that it seems kind of pointless. Next year Arthur will be more interested in Christmas so it will be worth doing properly. We didn't have any decorations last year either, but then we were illlllllll. Although we STILL have the decorations up from Arthur's birthday party!!! That feels naughty somehow, but he loves the balloons - which are taking for EVER to go down! - and the fairy lights are festive anyways.
So we leave for Yorkshire on Thursday. It will take us 5-6 hours to drive there, which I am dreading. Ugh! I am quite sure Arthur will not be thrilled after about hour ONE. There seems to be so much to plan when travelling with a little one! It was so much easier the last time we went, as he was only 11 weeks old and just slept the whole way there and back, and we stopped once each journey for me to pop him on the breast and then he was back to sleep again! This time we need to take his lunch, entertainment, changes of clothes/nappies, drinks, snacks, etc, etc. And in any case, he is sure to be very very cross for a good part of the journey! He doesn't sleep in cars at all any more, unless he has missed a nap and is wiped out. And even then it's only 30 minutes at best. Urrrgh. I hope it isn't going to be too awful.
When we're at Neil's parents, we will have to put Arthur to sleep in the pack and play travel cot. This he will NOT like. I put him in that a week or so ago for his afternoon nap at Granny and Grandoug's when we went there for lunch, and he screamed for ages until I got him up. He looked so scared in there actually, even though I lay right next to it where he could see me. He isn't used to being seperated from me in any way, or restricted in a box, since he has never had to be either of those things. Which I am PROUD of! But it makes it hard for him/us when we have no other choice. Poor lovey. He shouldn't have to be seperate from me if he doesn't want to be, at his age. And I would hate to sleep in a box with walls when I'm used to a large bed without walls, so I don't blame him for feeling that way either. I hate that I can't lie with him as he dozes off, or lie with him to nurse him. But their beds are tiiiny and not safe for Arthur now he's launching himself about everywhere! We'd never all fit in the bed anyway. Poo. So I hope that doesn't go toooo awfully as well.
Okay Arthur is waking, and I think I have written pretty much what I came to say (I'm sure I've still forgotten something though!) so I'll post this now. Hopefully I'll write again before we go, but if I don't then I won't get to use a computer till I get back (sometime on the 26th I think). So I will update after Christmas. And I hope everyone has a LOVELY Christmas!!! :)
(urgh, not posted till almost MIDNIGHT because Arthur switched the computer off by the power button and then there was no time until now (desperately trying to finish the Christmas cards all evening!)! Thank goodness I had saved it to Word!)
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