What David does while I do the washing up .....

What David does while I am doing the washing up... He had gone very quiet, and when I looked around the corner, I understood why. He has climbed up to look at the Christmas music box, which shows a family of teddy bears around a Christmas tree. He usually only sees it under supervision - but he was being very gentle, and was very well balanced!

He is just getting more advanced all the time. The other morning he was standing on his plastic toy box to reach higher. Erin said that he and Katie were trying to push the toy box over to the sideboard, presumably to be able to stand on it, but were stopped by the carpet runner (they couldn't quite work out how to get the box wheels over the runner).

The next photos are also from this morning. Quite happy and proud of himself. You can see the soft lock that we have been using to close off the cupboard. It was off this morning and as there is nothing breakable in this cupboard, I let him loose, while I watched. First he unpacked the saucepans, metal bowls and colanders. I repacked, and then he unpacked them again. Then he climbed in! I tried to play peek a boo with him, but he was more interested in climbing up to the top shelf, and playing with the gas stove fittings (as you can see). It is all about exploring and climbing.

Generally, he gets upset when you stop him doing something (eg, take him out of the garage, try to put him back in the pram after letting him out for a walk in the park or the playground etc) particularly if he is tired or hungry. Mini tantrums. He is still great, but stronger, more determined and as a result, harder work. He is also lightening fast, so we have to be really careful to watch him when we are not at home.

Erin took David to be weighed on Tuesday 19 December. The result was that he is 12gk DWT, 79cms long (or tall) with a 49.5 head circ. So, in the three months since his first birthday he has gained 1kg, grown 3cms and his head has grown 2 cms. Doing well.

Words

This is a photo of David engaged in one of his favourite pastimes - opening & closing the sliding door. It was a humid day and he is only wearing a singlet!

Erin and Cathy tell me that I should be keeping track of David's words. When I say words, some require a little interpretation, but I am listing the words he uses consistently and with meaning, often asking for something. These are in addition to Mama, Dada and David.

Here are a few in no particular order - some will be repeats of words I have already recorded in some of the blogs.

More and "No more" (with hand movement), no, bottle, mango, banana, sultana, nanna, door, shower, flower, down, up, foot, hair, lion, bird, ta (for thanks), please, bath, bed, pear, milk, kookaburra, bear, plane, plug, book, dog, duck, garage, bite, nose, ear, two (he says it after you say "one"), toast, biccy, water, shoe, "nigh nigh" (for nighty night), bye bye, open, drawer, close, mess, warm, hot, cold, belt, nappy, ca ca (used when he has a dirty nappy), car, bus, truck, Maisie, grape, medicine, mine, me, bag, bibby (for his bibs), plover, "diddle diddle" for his Hey Diddle Diddle book, bubble, burp, brush, stairs, ball
and something that doesn't really sound like avocado, but I know means avocado.

There are also a lot of quite complex mysterious sounds - like "Beckarr" "Bikkar" (I originally thought it was "big car" because he was using it in the garage but now I think it is Bike, with emphasis on the "k" - he uses it when he plays with the bicycles in the garage and particularly when playing with the pedals) and Paul swears that he said Mudjahadeen the other day. I think that he said "you're back" to me on the morning after my trip to Melbourne. He also may be saying "Here we go" which is something I say everytime the traffic lights change and we start to cross the road.

He didn't want to have his photo taken with Santa today, so he told Erin "Santa bye bye" which seems pretty clear, along with the crying.

He also makes animal noises - there is a roar for a lion, a woof for a dog, a moo for a cow, the kookaburra noise, a bit of a meow for a cat and a "ee ee" noise for monkey or chimp.

He is now using No and don't - apparently he tells Katie not to do certain things (copying us when we tell him not to do things - so he obviously listens, he just doesn't always obey).

He also imitates words that we say, including names. I haven't included them here as I can't remember them all, and sometimes we are not sure if he understands them. He definitely understands a lot more - on Wednesday night he was trying to lift the wheelie bag with one hand and it was too bulky. Paul said to him twice that he would have to "use both hands", so he did and lifted it up.

I will update this more later.

Weather and catch up

Well, yesterday it was 32C and today has an official maximum of 21C (reached overnight, before the southerly change came through) with most of the day 18C or below, with drizzle. Tomorrow, when David is supposed to be swimming, it will be a maximum of 19C and drizzle or scattered showers. A hypothetical question - why, in the midst of the hottest Spring on record, a long drought, global warming etc, have three (four, if we count tomorrow) of six (or seven) swimming classes involved drizzly rain and cold winds? We didn't make one of the warm classes because we were in Melbourne. An enigma. However, the upside is that he hasn't been sunburnt and that he doesn't have to keep his hat on (always a struggle) when it is raining.

Anyway, I have attached two photos of David on a grey, cold and overcast day throughly enjoying swimming. This was taken on Saturday 2 December, before it rained - and he only got out of the pool three times. Luckily dad was there to field him, so I didn't have to leap out after him. As soon as David gets hold of the edge, the climbing leg goes up and he is out. When he gets too much salt in his eyes he reaches out for the edge too, but it is all good as one of the prime purposes of these lessons is for him to learn enough water safety to be able to get back to the edge and get out. The lesson ended a bit early as a few of the babies were looking blue. After this, we had a nice warm shower and a sing-song in the shower with another mother. Lots of fun. David generally is so tired afterwards that we give him lunch at the pool, he goes to sleep in the car on the way home and then sleeps for around three hours.

The conclusion is that I am not sure if we will go swimming tomorrow. David has been really tired after the trip to Melbourne, and getting over the hand foot and mouth virus. He may be finally cutting those molars. Erin thinks that she can feel bumps on his gums and he is certainly not 100% - not actually sick but not quite himself. We will wait and see how the weather is. We want David well and happy for Christmas.

We are aiming to get the Christmas tree up this weekend. I wrote a few Christmas cards last night, so we are starting to get there..... Lots to do, and lots of fun to come.

Our Pre-Christmas trip

Well, we have been to Melbourne for a long weekend to visit Paul's family - a sort of pre-Christmas gathering. We enjoyed catching up with everyone - including cousin Lizzy's new best friend, Devan. Devan became David's new best friend, who taught David how to poke out his tongue at the dinner table! We had a big family dinner on Saturday night, for ten adults and David (counting Devan as an adult). David suddenly started poking out his tongue - at Devan. Paul asked him and Devan said he "might have" poked his tongue out first.

We also survived "firestorm" and bushfires approaching natural disasters. Nothing close to the metropolitan area, but extremely bad in country Victoria, particularly Gippsland. Bad, out of control wild fires are raging across four States now (Tasmania, NSW and WA as well as Vic), with a long dry summer to come. In Melbourne on Saturday, it was hot (around 38C max) with visibility down to 800m at the airport, and less in the city, from the smoke. City buildings were sucking in so much smoke through their airconditioning that the fire alarms were going off. It was like a fog.

It was also my birthday. We went into Melbourne, caught up with Carolyn, who is heading back to Perth next week, apparently permanently, and went shopping. With David's help, Paul bought me a lovely new watch for my birthday.

Another lovely present was that David organised his dad to buy me long stemmed red roses (see photo). David then went to sleep beautifully at around 7.00pm so we could go out to dinner. We went to a local Japanese restaurant while David's grandparents baby sat. We got home around 10.00pm and David hadn't even stirred!

David enjoyed the trip a lot - despite the fact he came down with hand, foot and mouth disease, a virus that affects young children. He had been exposed when Katie came down with the disease but we thought he had missed it. However, as we didn't realise he had it until we were in Melbourne on Thursday, it was all too late to cancel the trip. David had a rash on his bottom, and little welts or blisters or pimples on his hands and feet. We don't think he developed many in his mouth - as he kept eating. Initially, we thought it was teething, particularly the rash and the grizzlyness and tiredness. It seems to have passed now after a week, with almost all the marks gone.

David travelled well on the way down, going to sleep for a large part of the flight. The strategy was that he had two sleeps during the day, but then we kept him up and he had a walk around the Qantas lounge (see photo of David in the lounge) until the flight boarded at about 8.00pm. it was a full plane, so we were glad he slept. We got him off to sleep in the car from the airport, with another bottle and took him in and put him straight to bed when we arrived at Paul's parent's home.

Coming back on the Sunday afternoon flight David didn't sleep - even though he was very tired. Luckily we had a spare seat for him to wriggle in on that flight. It would have been tough with only our laps. A short managable flight though. A good trip, and Nanna and Grandad really enjoyed seeing David and how much he had grown. David really loved seeing them and rampaging aroung the house. He seemed to recognise his bed and slept well the whole trip.

David enjoyed the travelling so much, that he has been very interested in the travel bags ever since - see the photo of him playing with the bags. Perhaps he wants to travel again. We have bought him some more toys for Melbourne and brought a couple back for Christmas. We have a few decorations up and we plan to put up a tree (in the playpen) this week.

Well that is all for now - we are really tired after the trip and looking forward to Christmas, at home.

more later!