baybeasts

Yesterday we realised that Loey understands more than we think. If we ask him where Huey, mummy, or the cat is he looks in the appropriate direction. Wow. It’s time to start watching our words!

Five days is all it took.

The brace came off on a Friday. First came pulling up to standing, on Saturday. Monday saw the first tentative cruising steps. Then the following Wednesday Loey blessed his great-grandmother’s floor with his very first four-limbed crawl (and it is a joy to behold - his hands slap the floor and each step is accompanied by a little excited pant). With the crawl came pushing back to sitting. Five days without the brace and Loey is on the move.

Huey, not to be outdone, is now so strong in the legs that he can stand by himself (hanging onto a handy support, of course).

To wit:

Huey is our little ray of sunshine, our lemon butter baby, our piece of fairy bread, our numbat, our chilled out surfer dude, our schmall schoft boy.* At three months, Huey:

- will tell you his life story if you give him the chance. It’s a tragicomedy, sometimes calling for raucous laughter, sometimes for serious frowns, and is always told with great animation.
- also talks to his toys with a similarly wide vocabulary.
- is a fluff-magnet. Every day we pick small accretions of blue fluff (always blue) from between his fingers and toes.
- is getting little fuzzy baby dreads on the back of his head.
- has been examining his fist and then gravely putting it in his mouth.
- chews on the straps of the sling, just like Loey did.
- cracks a huge smile when he sees any of us, especially Loey, and especially just after he has woken up.
- is ramrod straight. Loves to stand but only bends in the middle under duress.
- has wide, aware, amazing cornflower blue eyes.
- kicks excitedly at the sight of the mobile over the change table.
- still smiles around the nipple when feeding. Also has a very cute head wobble when the feed feels particularly nice.
- does tummy time best when Loey is also on the floor providing entertainment.
- can put himself to sleep (it’s his party trick).
- sleeps overnight like a dream baby: 7 to 7 with only 2 or 3 short feeds.
- has masses of fluffy blonde hair that goes positively curly when the air is humid, and always has at least one little ringlet over his ear.
- smiles when we kiss him.
- often has a bit of cheeky tongue sticking out the side of his mouth, especially when he is smiling (which, as you have probably gathered by now, is often!).
- wees every ten minutes or so when his nappy is off.
- looks almost unbearably cute when held in the ‘elimination’ pose.
- still does a very extravagant stretch when he wakes up. It involves his entire body, including his face.
- had his first night in the family bed last night. It was not exactly a success and he ended up back in the baby hammock. But we hope that he will get the hang of sleeping on a still surface soon.
- has started to hold on when he feeds.
- raises his eyebrows when he sees something he likes. He can be playing seriously with a toy, and if one of us comes into his field of vision he pauses, raises his eyebrows, and then his whole face lights up with a wide, gummy, tongue-poky smile.
- fell asleep today in the car holding onto his rings.
- loves to look at books.
- has utterly and irrevocably captured our hearts.

* Loey on the other hand is our dark and twisty boy, our nutella baby, our chocolate crackle, our wombat, our intense poet, our big bouncing bruno.

We went to see the orthopaedic doctor today and things are going well with their hips. Our work with Huey over the last 6 weeks (massive cloth nappies and sling time) has paid off and he doesn’t need a brace, and Loey just needs another 6 weeks of night time wear. We are very relieved. Loey seems very relieved too - he won’t go down for his afternoon nap today because there is just too much work to do now that the brace is off (crawling on the bed without the brace is Loey’s idea of heaven). Huey is chilled out about the whole thing, as usual.

Brace-free bottoms galore!

Things have been very cute in the baybeasts household lately, and today was no exception. It was one of those glorious baby days, where they both were in lovely moods for the whole day. Arlo has rediscovered the babble - it had gone missing for a little while and we were very sad. But today he was delightfully chatting to himself all day - “oh BWAH! geh” as he concentrates hard on pulling himself up or trying to get from lying to sitting. The weather was warm and humid, and though the thunderstorms that were predicted did not eventuate, the extra moisture in the air sent Huey’s hair even more wild than usual. He was particularly chatty today too. Actually, he is always chatty, but today there was something about the wild conversation and the wild blue eyes and the wild curly hair that was even more divine than usual.

In the evening, the moist clouds got together with the sun and did something amazing with the light. I was settling Huey when bean insisted that I go outside to see the garden - she doesn’t usually get excited about sunsets and the like so I hoisted him onto my shoulder and followed her out. The garden was like a fairyland - the pink light made everything, even the weeds, shine with clarity and beauty, and the red bricks of the barbecue glowed. It was an amazing end to a gorgeous day.