Monday 2 January 2012

Sprout's Christmas

Happy New Year, one and all!

The Sproutling is now nine months old and has been out longer than he was in. He's growing up so fast and getting better at things each day - it seems like just yesterday he was tiny little helpless creature, but now he's a real little person!

The last two months has seen a big change around here. Not long after posting at the start of November, Sprout learned to crawl properly and shortly afterwards to pull himself up to standing. Thus began the Big Babyproofing of 2011.

The weeks around Christmas was a whirlwind of family activities and parties of every type. Meeting so many new faces was rather overwhelming for the little guy, and for a few weeks there his sleep routine was rather disrupted by late nights and unusual activities. I am very relived that he seems to be settling back into sleeping through most nights - I would rather not be up all night once I'm working again.

Sproutling now has a list of things he likes to play with if they are not locked down. If the wooden door on the TV cabinet is not closed, he will head straight for the stereo inside it. He also loves, in no particular order: The TV remotes, iPhones, paper (especially advertising junk mail), cat toys, opening drawers in the kitchen, standing up at the screen door and banging and/or licking it, and climbing the stairs (a gate came out pretty fast) - in fact pretty much anything that isn't actually one of his toys. He also loves to play at the cat door, although he hasn't quite worked out how to get through it yet.

Watch out, Bluey!
One of our cats runs away if he comes near her, but our ginger one is very patient with the fur-pulling and tail-munching. I am trying to teach Sprout to play gently with him but he just doesn't understand just yet. Poor Bluey.

On the language front we are now hearing all sorts of different sounds, but no real words yet. At home, he keeps up a pretty much constant stream of babble. He can be quite shy around other people.

Sproutling will eat pretty much anything we give him these days, although I don't trust him with a bowl and spoon just yet. Finger foods are the way to go, with fruit and chicken being firm favourites. I'm still mostly breastfeeding him and will try to pump some milk when I go back to work so that we can keep that going as long as possible.

The next month will be an interesting one as I am about to go back to work five days a week. Mr Ang is still on holidays for a couple of weeks but once he starts classes again, the Sproutling will be looked after by his Nanna on two days.  The third day will (hopefully) be at childcare. We're still trying to organise this, but if all else fails we have back ups.

Please, wish us luck on the next phase of the journey!