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2005-08-05 - 10.25am previous entry next entry
Updatey stuff and photos
Over a week since the last entry!! That is soooo not good. I have had no time at all to update, and the only times I have been online, I haven't had long enough to attempt a diary entry (which usually takes me the best part of an hour I suppose). I am super behind on emails (Megan, I will reply to your lovely email soon!) and even a little behind on reading my favourite diaries!!! But not sooo far behind that I missed Hailey's safe arrival (Yay! Congratulations Robbi!!) or Jaya's first birthday!
Yesterday I used Arthur's nap times to write a huge update. I didn't quite get finished by the time he woke, so I just left the browser open till after his bedtime so I could finish it then. Note to self: Never, and I mean NEVER, write a diary entry in the little darn box at Diaryland, thinking it would be quicker than opening Word up. Tsk. I came back after Arthur went to bed, and I had only been on here a little while when this error occurred and closed all my little browser screens. My diary entry disappeared just like that, and I didn't have the heart or energy to write a new one. Of course, here I sit in front of the lil Diaryland box. Tsk. I never learn.
Okay, I have almost exactly 25 minutes (if Arthur is as predictable with his morning naps as always!) to write as much as I can, but THIS time I am posting whatever I get done! I have way way way too much to write in one diary entry anyway, not to mention the photos! So I will have to write another entry later too.
Soooo, we are doing well. I will start with some photos, since I have so many! I took a ton of photos almost a week ago, right after the last diary entry, of Arthur being active! He is such a busy boy these days. Here he is last week, exploring a bit:
There was so much clutter on that little table, and he wanted to grab it all, so I pushed the rest back out of reach and gave him one of the items - a baby hairbrush. He was less than impressed, hehe!
He discovered how to wave later that same day. He would pull himself to kneeling against something all the time, and let go with one hand to see me. I started waving at him when he did this, and he finally got the picture and started waving back! It was so sweet though, because he was so fascinated by what his own hand was doing that he stared and stared at it for a while as he waved, hehe! Cutie :)Here he is a few hours after the previous photos, kneeling on the bed and discovering how to wave at Mummy!...
I love the one where he had a blurry hand in front of his face! He was grinning sooo big behind that hand! :)
Right after that, he took a nap, and then when he got up we went downstairs. This is where I discovered a new issue. How on earth do I go to the loo if I suddenly need to go, with an un-baby-proofed bathroom the size of a postage stamp and Arthur being such a mobile boy these days?! On this occasion, I put him on the living room floor, and surrounded him with a thick ring of his wooden bricks. I gave him some toys to play with, and I scattered random noisy toys at various corners of the room. Then I rushed off to the loo, and called down to him the whole time, asking how he was doing and what he could see, etc. My plan almost worked! First I heard him playing with his toys. Then, silence. I called down, "What are you doing Arthur?" Then I heard "clinkle clinkle" which told me he was crawling through the ring of bricks! A-ha! But in which direction?! After the bricks, it was all quiet and I was wondering where he was, until he pressed the button on his musical toy and I relaxed again to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, because then I knew he was over by the big merchant's chest and the toy basket. When the tune died out, I strained my ears to listen for what he was up to next, but I heard nothing. And then I heard lots of effort sounds, like grunts and heavy breathing! So I had to come back downstairs to see where he was at. Here is what I found:
Monkey!
Since then he has been even more active! He crawls very well and quickly now, and pulls up to standing in an instant on the sofas and stuff. He is currently getting very frustrated with the fact that he can't climb up onto the sofas! He is climbing climbing everywhere now! He climbs the stairs easily (with me right behind him) and automatically goes to put his knee up on something if he wants to climb up. He reeeally wants to be on the sofa, but he can't get his knee that high! He tries though, and then gets mad and bangs his hands on the seat with his face all red and angry! It's terribly serious for him but I can't help smiling because he looks so funny, hehe! Once or twice I have given him a shove on the bum as he tries to put his knee up, and up he goes. He immediately crawls to the back, and pulls himself up on it, then stands there beaming around the room! He is always so proud of his new achievements, it's so cute! :)
He is cruising a lot, still in tiny steps and a bit wobbly, but he's getting more confident. He tries to cruise gaps, like from the edge of the sofa to the entertainment unit. There's a gap of maybe a foot there, and both surfaces are at just the right height for him to cruise on, so he likes to try to go from one to the other. He can make it too, but I always have my hand on him incase. The entertainment unit is hard and has a sharp corner edge, and he sometimes wobbles and falls as he's cruising, so I protect him a little over that.
He is letting go when standing more and more now. He usually stands with one hand holding onto something, and the other exploring or waving at me, or just standing at an angle to something so that he holds on with one hand out to the side of him. He has tried letting go completely several times now. The other day he tried it twice when standing at his toy basket. Both times he lasted a second and then keeled into the basket before righting himself again. It looked like he must have hurt his ribs but he didn't seem bothered. He is just so keen to try things! Yesterday he let go of the sofa and stood for only a second before bumping down on his butt. And also yesterday he was pulling up to standing on me in the kitchen, and he was bent over at the waist. He suddenly let go and straightened up all by himself, without any support! He stood for maybe a second or two, then suddenly realised he wasn't being supported, and did this panicked thing with arms flailing for me! I had my arms right there for him so he grabbed me pretty quick.
He is learning to get down from standing too. Whether he can do it depends on what he is standing against. The sofa seats are quite low so he can sit down again from standing against those. But I put him in the cot yesterday when he would not sleep for like 45 minutes - I thought I would try putting him down in the cot to see if it was magic (?!) or something. He was in there about an hour, but he spent the whole time pulling up on the sides and holding the rails. They were so tall that although he could stand there, he had nothing to take hold of lower down to get himself back to sitting again. He eventually whacked his head in there and cried his heart out, so I took him out of there and nursed him better, and he fell asleep in the big bed :)
We are soooo taking that darn thing apart and storing it in the loft. It converts to a lovely little bed so we may still use it for that when he's older. But I can't believe I bought into the whole "have baby - need cot" idea. Ugh. Because we are never using a cot for him again (and never have, come to think of it), we have been having long talks about making our family bed a permanent thing, and how to make it safe now that Arthur is getting so mobile. We have a plan! But it's going to take us all our spare time at the weekend and then some to implement. I can't wait till it's done though.
The plan is to put the cot in the loft - yay! I need to declutter the bedroom and clear the floor. It's really bad at the moment. There is an old makeshift mattress of blankets and sleeping bags covering the entire floor for when Neil used to sleep there! Loads of clothes everywhere, clean and dirty. Stuff that Arthur grew out of months ago and needs putting in the loft. Nappies that he has outgrown. Um. And lots of stuff. Yesterday I tackled the clothes and put lots of laundry loads on, and sorted and bagged the rest.
Then we need to clear out the under-bed drawers (they are full of books that won't fit on the bookshelves!) - methinks a trip to the charity shop will be in order, as I'm sure we have a TON of books that should be given away. The rest should go in the loft. Then we need to clear the under-bed drawers in the spare room - oh my gosh, there is soooo much junk in those! That could take a whole weekend in itself! Ugh. But anyway, it needs doing, because then THOSE drawers need taking apart and putting in the loft, and they will be replaced by OUR under-bed drawers (which don't take apart so we can't fit them through the loft hatch). Confused?!
THEN the best part!! We take down our huge kingsize bed! Bye-bye bed! The parts of the frame that can fit in the loft will go up there, and the rest, I don't know.... maybe we'll have to stash them in the spare room for now, but I hate that idea. Anyway, then we move a wardrobe out of our room to the spare room, and a chest of drawers if it will fit (the poor spare room, it is soooo chock full of furniture!).
And finally we are left with a kingsize mattress on the bedroom floor. And a triple wardrobe which we'll swap positions with the mattress. Then there will be space next to the mattress for a single mattress to go right up against it. And thus we have our permanent, safe, fit-five-kids-in-if-you-have-to family bed!! Yay! I feel such a sense of RELIEF just thinking of it. It's what I have been wanting since Arthur was born and I knew we would be sticking with co-sleeping.
All that the room will contain will be just that wardrobe, a bedside table at the side of the wardrobe for the lamp (which we need to anchor somehow!), and a MASSIVE floor-bed that nobody can hurt themselves by falling from. Then we buy a stair-gate and that will go on the bedroom door. After that I know I can safely put Arthur to bed in the daytime for naps without a worry in the world, and for his evening sleep time too. Even when he's walking or waking without sounds that could alert us to his awake state, I know I don't need to worry. I can happily put him in that room with some toys while I shower or go to the loo (neither of which I can safely do these days), and it avoids the need for a playpen, which I completely loathe! Neil suggested one, but I refused. I would rather save all my pee up and never take a shower than put Arthur in a playpen! I know I'm silly, but I just feel strongly about those things, sort of like I do a cot. Babies and barred pens.... I don't like the two together. Also I just know Arthur would hate being confined in a small space like that. He has never known anything like it and I would hate it, so I'm sure he would too. Soooo I'm really happy with the plan we have!! I can't wait to get it done! But it will be a lot of work.
This weekend I'm not sure how much we'll get done, because we have a busy Sunday. We have church in the morning, then HOPEFULLY Arthur will take a huge nap over the whole of lunchtime, because then we are going to Jaya's birthday party/naming ceremony!! It's about 30 minutes drive to Jemma's house I think, and the party is mid-afternoon, so I hope Arthur will take all the napping he needs before we go. Otherwise we will have a tired and potentially cranky boy for the party.
Eh-up! I've just noticed that I've been bashing away at this keyboard for almost an hour and Arthur is still asleep! Yay! He did stir after half an hour, but he went back to sleep. I will keep going till he wakes and then post what I've written.
Arthur is teething pretty badly at the moment. He has red swollen cheeks in the evenings and he is very whiney and clingy, which isn't like him at all. Poor baby. The gum over his right top middle tooth is white with that little eroded dent in it, the same one that was over his new teeth 3 days before they came through. It has been there for 2 days now, so I am expecting to see the corner of that new toothie either today or tomorrow. It's a BIG tooth, that top middle one! I don't know why, but I sort of expected the left one to come through first. I guess that's the usual order or something, that I read about a while back. Funnily enough, the left middle one is showing no signs of doing anything at the moment. The tooth to the RIGHT of his right middle tooth is starting to look active though, so I think that might be his next tooth after this one. His two bottom teeth are doing well. I think they are at least halfway out now and they look nice and clear and toothy - you can't miss them! They are so cute! I love that look of babies with just a couple of new teeth in their mouths!
Here is Arthur the other day, making a particularly silly face for the camera when I tried to take a photo of his teeth! He spends a lot of time with his bottom jaw jutting out, making an underbite (or should that be overbite??) so that he can feel his little teeth against the front of his top gum. He does this like a habit, absentmindedly, and I LOVE how his lil cheeks pooch out when he does it. He is such a cutie! I want to eat him all up! Anyway, here is my silly boy!...
I think I will stop now and post this. Arthur has been asleep for an hour and I'm sure he'll wake soon, plus I need the loo now, so it would be a good time to go! But I have a TON more to write so I'll do another entry later if I can :)
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