Musings on Motherhood: My baby is One! (and a bit now...)

 

 So since there was never an eleven month post I will combine eleven and twelve months . Did you miss it dear readers or was that just my sister?

An example of his climbing abilities

Suffice to say its been non-stop with the house move, his birthday party, work and finding a new childminder. Yes folks the very day of the house move my amazing childminder handed her notice in. Devastated was not the word. We felt like she was irreplaceable as he was so happy there with his little playmates and she did such great activities with them and I really felt like we were on the same page in terms of our philosophies on raising kids. So its been a stressful, as well as lovely, few months.

So the achievements and moments that I want to remember for eleven and twelve months are :-

• saying 'Hiya' as he holds the remote control, my mobile phone, the landline, a mega block, or anything up to his ear
• Fifth of June he took six steps in a row
• 22nd June he stood up in the garden and just started taking some steps and there has been no stopping him since then. In a matter of weeks he went from crawling most of the time to walking all of the time.
• he is still putting everything in his mouth - stones, shoes, toys, a cigarette butt (just the once at the park - gross!) and sand
• he has finally started enjoying books - especially those with textures like the 'that's not my...' series
• he is still really smiley and in one of his birthday cards my teacher friend wrote that he has a 'smile to light up cities.' Top marks for that simile Martha!
• he has really good spacial awareness and can navigate different heights and surfaces expertly. He manages to climb down from sofas and beds with relative ease.

• his sleeping regressed during the move and he was back to waking at 2.30 - 3 and only going back down with a bottle and we had a few hairy nights, but glad to report we have had four nights of 11/12 hour stretches...amazing!
• he loves climbing up slides, onto sofas, the window sill, onto his sandpit, onto the telly and on top of boxes. We don't always like it so much.
• he is very chatty and when he is in his cot in the morning he babbles away to himself. He must be speaking Flemmish as I don't understand a word.

• he loves opening my kitchen cupboards and pulling all of my pans out. I don't love this one so much!
• we celebrated his first Father's Day and he made a cute card with his finger prints on and we treated The Belgian to some nice goodies and even made him a soft drink cake - inspired by a nappy cake at a recent baby shower I attended.

• he is such a character and we can already see how sociable and confident he will be. At the airport recently he just walked around from bench to bench stopping to chat to everyone, smile at them and touch their knees. He is very tactile and seems to have no sense of 'stranger danger' yet! 
• he loves being outside and going to the park. He loves going really high on the swings and going head first down the slide

• his eating habits can still be hit and miss as he is still wholly reliant on his milk. We have tried a few different things and have recently found yogurt drinks in his bottle a good way to get him eating more 'solids' whilst still having a suck! His fav foods are sausages, grapes, yogurt, crackers and raisins. He loves anything sweet like ice-cream, ice lollies and cake. Of course he only has these things as the occasional treat!
• he got very involved in supporting Belgium in the World Cup and would sit in the chair next to dad swigging on his bottle and babbling about the off side rule and it was a really sweet snapshot of the future. 

We never fail to be thankful for the blessing that Ellis is in our lives and we cannot wait to see what the next year will hold for him. No doubt lots more action!