* For those of our readers who do not know us in real life, this is funny because sleeping is not, shall we say, Arlo’s best skill.
(Mind you, his daytime sleeps are fine - right this very moment he has been asleep for over two and half hours. We’re a bit sad though that he is insistent on having a one sleep day - it was halcyon days when Huey went to two sleeps and Arlo was still on two as well. He’s young for a one sleep day, and we have done our darndest to keep him on two sleeps, but he just will not go down until 10 or 11am now, and is sleeping for over two hours, so won’t go down for an afternoon nap either. Now we’re never going to be able to do anything as a family because at any given time during the day one of them will be sleeping. What a pain.)
Our wee Huey is six months old! We’ve always thought he was laid back, but the older he gets, the more we are surprised by our shmall shoft Hute. Things we think we know:
• Underneath his mild exterior he has a will of iron. It scares us a little.
• When he’s cranky about something, he blows raspberries. It’s hard to take him seriously, but it is a true expression of annoyance and so we try not to laugh.
• His head is still smaller than our breasts, and he has movie star hair - thick, blonde, and luxuriously wavy.
• He is mostly delighted, occasionally alarmed by Arlo’s attempts at sociability. Actually - they adore each other. There are big smiles and happy flaps on both sides when they see each other, and the other day Arlo gave Huey a big sloppy kiss and a cuddle (we were little puddles of love on the floor afterwards). The alarm only creeps in when Huey has been crawled over or had his toy taken away one too many times that day.
• He and Arlo also chat to each other, by mimicking each other’s sounds. Usually we get a symphony of squealing, but one memorable night recently they had a 3am conversation in muffled grunts as they fed back to sleep.
• Sitting is still fraught with danger, as he throws himself backwards as soon as he is happy/excited/alarmed. He has skipped rolling and having barely managed crawling, is now trying to pull himself to standing (with limited success at this stage), but if propped up he can stand quite well (for long enough to take a good photo).
• He still gets the joke, every time. (Note careful placement of foot to catch the perilous backwards swing.)
• His lips feel better when sucked in.
• He still loves a good double arm flap, although the frantic thigh slapping days seem to be numbered.
• Eating is becoming an obsession, but he still gets very cranky with food if it does not behave. He is especially unimpressed with pureed food. The high chair is barely coping with the enthusiastic horse-riding that accompanies the approach of food or spoon.
• He loves books (and still finds them tasty).
• He can play by himself for ages, just pottering around the living room checking stuff out. He is particularly in love with the indoor clothes rack that is living permanently in the living room now that cooler weather is upon us - he crawls over the struts and helpfully pulls down the clothes.
• He loves singing in the garden (just like his brother did at six months).
• He has no teeth, nor any signs of teething. It seems he is a late teether too - which just means more time for us to appreciate his gummy smiles!
• He may soon be the only member of the family able to wolf whistle.
Taking photos of my son dressed up like an extra from FAME!:**
* At least we didn’t give him the matches. He wandered off by himself, went ominously quiet, and was found engrossed in match play. I am, however, responsible for leaving them too close to the edge of the desk.
** The headband is because Huey’s hair is now so long it gets in his eyes, but I can’t bear to cut it. The stripy leggings are to keep his legs warm while allowing him maximum mobility to practice his new, wobbly, all fours crawling. The skivvy is to keep his top warm. There is a reason for everything, but the total outfit went way beyond the sum of the parts.
Tonight, after scooting about on his tummy for weeks, Huey finally did his first wobbly all-fours crawling (at five and a half months). He’s such a funny little bug. With Loey, the progression to crawling seemed so smooth. He was in the brace, and then he wasn’t, and then suddenly he was crawling. Huey seems to be doing it the hard way, skipping the milestones that he is supposed to be working on (like rolling) and grunting and yelling his way to the big ones. Another example - we’ve noticed lately that he seems to be trying to pull up on furniture. He can’t even sit up with complete confidence yet (though he’s not bad), but is scooting up to furniture, putting his hands up, and hauling (and getting nowhere - yet).
Five months seems to be so hard. He wants to do so many things, like eat, manipulate objects to his satisfaction, and move around independently, but his desires exceed his abilities and so life is full of frustration. Thankfully he seems to have kept his sense of humour, and now that he is well again his smiles are as ready and delightful as ever.
Can you see it? Can you see it? At nine and a half months, complete with drooly, rashy face, our biggest beast is cutting his first tooth. There is more than a little grief about the impending loss of his gummy grin, but we are excited to see what toothiness will do to his eating style…
And in baking news… I am back on the horse and getting the hang of sourdough. After a couple of shaky moments making the starter, I finally made a 100% sourdough loaf that rose beautifully. No commercial yeast added. Today - sourdough muffins. Tomorrow - I’m thinking sourdough pancakes. It’s very addictive setting out the sponge to proof overnight and seeing it all bubbly and risen and yoghurty smelling in the morning. I feel very protective of my ‘mother starter’. It’s my new little pet who happens to live in the fridge.
We seem to have had more than our fair share of respiratory disease in this house for babies that aren’t in childcare and are copiously breastfed. Loey’s had three colds, one hideous (couldn’t even feed because he couldn’t breathe through his nose). Huey’s caught two of these colds and last week he came down with something like croup. It was an upper respiratory tract infection that left him almost unable to breathe one night (the scariest night of my life), with a temperature for two days, and a horrible, painful, rattly cough. Worst of all it’s made him miserable - it’s been so strange and sad to see our normally cheerful smallest beast be sad and grizzly. (Although, the grizzly thing may also be something to do with being five months old, when one’s desires are thwarted by one’s lack of motor skills. I remember Loey going through the same stage - we googled ‘grizzly baby’ and the number one hit? ‘My five month old baby is so grizzly.’)
We can’t help but wonder if living on a main road has something to do with it. Bean googled ‘main road children respiratory disease’ and it was so scary that she told me not to look. But we’re kind of stuck here - the joy of having our two children close together is that we can stay home together, but the drawback is that our financial position is precarious to say the least. Moving would be a serious stretch and require some creative thinking. It would also be sad to leave this house. Despite the awful location there are things about it we love - north sun through the living room windows on cold days, a big garden full of fruit trees and herbs, proximity to an amazing support network of friends.
Do any of you more experienced parents than us know whether this is a normal amount of sickness for babies like ours? Are we worrying for no reason? Or do we need to urgently protect their health and find a way out of here?
Today, Loey has been nine months in and nine months out.
In celebration, I went on a photo taking spree (and also today Melbourne put on Autumn mystical magical hazy light that I wanted to try to capture). But it’s pretty hard to get a decent photo of a small person who moves incessantly - it reminded me a bit of trying to draw an amoeba wiggling around under a microscope.
But I caught him; our pensive, busy, beautiful baby boy.
It’s 10.15am and I have been trying to write this post for days. The boys are both in bed for their morning nap, bean is having a well-deserved shower, and I am researching broccoli and blue cheese recipes so that we can use up the enormous amount of broccoli that we got in our weekly vege box (next up: what to do with one and a half red cabbages?). The kitchen is still full of breakfast mess, there are nappies to hang out, toys and dirty nappies all over the loungeroom floor, the laundry hamper is full, and I am still in my pyjamas. In three minutes I have to go and watch Huey just in case he needs resettling (we’re worried that he’s lost the knack of the longer morning nap). The chances that I will get this post finished today? Almost zero.
Nine months and five months sure is hectic. But, in line with the paradoxical nature of parenting, we also feel like we finally have our heads above water and can see the horizon (even though we are frantically paddling to stay there). I was saying to bean the other day that this is my favourite age so far - both boys are past that precious-but-overwhelming newborn stage, and their personalities are blossoming before our very eyes. Every day we comment to each other a bazillion times about how gorgeous they are, or how much we love them, or how lucky we are. Every day we are thankful again for the twisted welfare loophole that means that we are both here together to enjoy our boys’ every smile and fart and milestone.
But it’s not all bread and roses. I’ve been thinking about how much this blog glosses over the hard things (I know this is not a novel thought). We don’t really write about our broken nights, the days we sit on the floor glassy eyed wondering how we will make it to bedtime, the tiredness-induced bickering, the sore nipples, the comfort eating, the anxiety (about their health, their personalities, our parenting decisions), the never-ending relentless list of chores, the sheer hard work of looking after every single need of two other people. This is probably a good thing - you know, accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative and all that, but it does feel a teensy bit dishonest somehow. But I wanted to mention it because as they get older, it is getting easier. The work is no less hard, but the rewards are bigger and bigger every day.
But I digress. Onto the real purpose of this post:
At nearly nine months, Loey:
- Crawls like a professional, pulls up and cruises around us and the furniture, climbs (can get onto the bed and can climb up a parent reclining on the bean bag), can save a fall by landing on his bum.
- Is a lot more confident with exploring the house independently (loves the bathroom!), but still sobs in an outraged way if we leave the room without his permission.
- Absolutely loves roughhousing on the bed and the beanbag. He smiles all the time, but rough play is one of the precious few things that can make him laugh.
- Does very cute heavy breathing, lips protruding slightly, when he is concentrating very hard on something.
- Often takes himself over to his little bookshelf, pulls out a pile of books and spends ages (up to twenty minutes, which is a long time for an active kid like Loey) leafing through them. Sometimes he’ll bring a book over to a parent for us to read to him, and sometimes he seems to be showing the book to Huey. It’s magic.
- Prefers yellow objects (blocks and balls and rubber ducks).
- Loves being carried on a hip so that he can really watch what we are doing (we’re trying to work out a good sling solution for this one).
- Is fascinated by Huey, and spends a lot of time trying to interact with him by taking Huey’s toys and then giving them back, patting him on the head and bum, sitting on him, crawling over him, blowing raspberries on him and pulling his hair.
- Hated the first swimming class with a passion. He just couldn’t understand why we were putting him under the water. Mind you, we’ve always bathed as a family and so he has never been in water not plastered to a parent.
- Is finally losing his obsession with rubber ducks, sadly. It was so cute.
- Understands heaps of words now: up, book, water, Huey, duck, chook, cat, ball, toybox, puppy, roll the ball, and probably more that we haven’t noticed. His number one favourite word is milk - as soon as we say it he gives a massive grin and crawls over.
- As per the previous point, is completely breast obsessed. They are easily his favourite object in the whole world, and the sight of one brings a smile of joy that has to be seen to be believed. His idea of heaven would be for us both to be topless all the time so he could just ramble over and have two sucks whenever he wants. We are dreading the day that he realises they are always there, underneath the clothes.
At five months, Huey:
- Is crawling!!! Well, it’s a caterpillar crawl, but it’s forward locomotion and he can get himself pretty much anywhere he wants to go on the lounge room floor. Today he was experimenting with lifting one hand while on all fours, so it won’t be long now until he is crawling proper.
- Can sit up unassisted fairly well (still needs a safety net of pillows or parent though because sometimes when he gets excited he forgets himself and throws his little body backwards).
- Is therefore also working on pushing himself back to sitting, by doing lots and lots of twisty downward facing dog. He can almost get his legs underneath him - today one of them got stuck and he was most unimpressed!
- Still isn’t rolling at all (except accidentally).
- Has really slowed down on the talking work, we think because he is working so hard on locomotion. He still giggles and laughs and is as responsive as ever though, and does some chatting with a finger in his mouth, so we are not worried.
- Is putting everything within reach into his mouth. We’ve started giving him carrot sticks and chunks of apple to suck on, which he loves. We don’t think he’s ready for true solids yet though - we’ll wait another month for that.
- Always has a smile unless he is really, really tired, and even then sometimes he can summon up a tiny grin.
- Has discovered tag love, just like his brother did before him.
- Has begun to interact with Loey, by reaching out to touch his head, or trying to eat random body parts if they stray nearby. He copes very well with Loey’s attempts to interact with him, tolerating all manner of patting and being crawled over, and only getting upset if there is vigorous hair pulling or a toy he was really into is snatched away.
- Pulls a funny little square face when he is sad.
- Also loves to look at books.
- Gets very excited about certain toys, shaking and frowning as he plays with them. Sometimes he gets frustrated and has a bit of a yell, presumably because they are not doing his bidding.
There are so many gorgeous things about them, and I am sure I have forgotten heaps in making these lists. But I did finish the post on the same day I started it, even if it is now 8.30pm and I am eating into the precious few hours between their bedtime and ours (for no matter how much we love them, it is still lovely to have a break). Oh yes, one more thing - they both love to suck in their bottom lip!
Loey’s latest favourite noise is usually made with his own hand, but can also be made using any available surface - chair arm, edge of bath, mother’s knee, mother’s hand:
We have always hoped that our boys would inherit our love of books. Since they were both tiny they have loved to look at them, and now Loey has really got it - many times a day he goes to the shelf where the board books are kept, gets a pile down and then looks at them for ages, turning the pages back and forth. Being read to is fun too, for a little while…
