sixteenth and seventeenth month
mummy is so very bad for not having updated her toadling's blog recently. Things are so manic most of the time and, since he has been going to nursery, there has been illness after illness and milestone after milestone. So, mummy has decided to combine the last two months as they really have rolled into one. And then another soon, she promises!
so, here's a stunning picture taken this morning - mummy found the toadling standing up in his cot and loving looking out of the window. Stunningness and cheekiness personified :)
so, what has the gorgeous-est boy been up to of late? Well... :-
* eating - this small, English toad is increasing in weight faster than you can say "please sir, can I have some more?". You never know from one day to the next what he may wish to consume (mummy keeps trying to feed him "poison", apparently - especially if it is a raisin. When we are forced to try one, we remember just how much we like them!) and sometimes we like to feed ourselves and sometimes we don't. But the hearty traditionals of meals cooked in pots (bolognese, chilli, casseroles and beany veg soups) are our favourites. As well as tuna-ry jacket potatoes and also as well as anything made of bread, chocolatl, yoghurt, bisque-wits and fruit. Lots of fruit. Preferably for every meal. He is particularly loving grapes, satsumas (or equivalent small orange-type thing) and NABANAS - still his favourite foodstuff. People are always commenting on his appetite for them; he likes to take a huge bite and fill his hamster cheeks with them. Far too cute to function :)
* mobilising - well, this has come on in leaps and bounds. We are still crawling for the majority of time, but in such a varied and fast way, with complete control. I mean, why would a boy wish to walk, when they can get pretty much everywhere they want and reach anything they want by standing and getting ourself into some random position to obtain something shiny or fruit-related. However, mummy's darling boy is now standing for the majority of the time when playing and has even STARTED TO WALK!! With a walker of course but he actually asks to do it now he knows it's not a trick. This, of course, happens a lot more at nursery as one likes to show off to one's public and cannot possibly be outdone, dontcha know! Now, the mooselet will walk up and down the bath, round the toy chest and mummy's bedside table (our favourite place for Shiny Things) and along her bed and his. And, speaking of baths, mummy is no longer able to have one on her own, for the toad stands and watches her, pushes her legs in the water and throws his toys back in there. Basically, anything to sabotage!
* playing - the Harrington continues to develop his playing on a daily basis. Our New Favourite Things are drawing (mummy and Harriphant made a sign for his bedroom door and everytime it is passed, we point out said sign and grin at it!) - he also has one of those things you pull across and erase the picture, which he is very good at doing - balls (a long-term favourite - we love playing catch with mummy and laughing when she throws and bounces the ball), cars (which makes mummy wonder how boys grow up to like cars and girls dolls for he has never been particularly persuaded to like them and has access to a while range of toys), his wooden train, things that make noise (such fun says the mummy. Or not) and BOOKS! However, we love books in a slightly different way now; Harrington still likes to read on his own, often removing certain things off the page, but now loves reading longer books with mummy and Granddad - especially 'Our Jungle' and 'Monkey See, Monkey Do' (for we have a thing for monkeys). He points out the animals he knows (birds, spiders, monkeys, elephants, giraffes, pussykittens - one often chases Pteppic whilst laughing and strokes Eskarina - dogs, snakes, butterflies, sheep and creepy crawlies) and helps the story along.
One of our also Very Much The Favourite Things is our keyboard - mummy found a children's keyboard in a charity shop and, she can tell you, it was the best (or possibly worst - six and two threes n' all that!) £3 she has ever spent! Very quickly, the cleverest toadling learnt what all the buttons do and can scroll through to his favourite demo tune or beat, playing the keys with his feet and hands like something out of a Prog Rock band. Thankfully, the toadling appears to be very musical like his mummy and loves listening to it, dancing away and grinning, even when he's the only one in the room :) He likes mummy to sing to him on the way home from work and nursery and tells her if it's the wrong song and also loves dancing with her and Granddad to classical lullabies when it's bedtime; in fact, he even forces their hands into the correct ballroom dancing position!
But, more importantly, we like to play with things we shouldn't, such as mummy's make-up bag (we even get out the things for her that she uses most regularly and pass them to her, throwing the rest - and anything else we can throw - away, nail varnish, REMOTE CONTROLS, pens (but we do only draw on the paper, after asking mummy to draw something first, and not the surrounding area which mummy is very appreciative of), mummy's shoes (often liking to put them on her) and our toothbrush, which we are very good at using twice a day. The bath is still fabulous and has incredible un-grouchifying qualities.
* speaking - the mooseling's speech has come on in leaps and bounds; he is now saying a variety of sounds, such as boo-jar, mum-meh (mummy or when we want something that mummy can give or indeed get), a-gah (often meaning Granddad or something else that has excited us), gaa-gee, da-da (meaning 'ta-da', as mummy has decided) and a favourite, aah-oo (with the 'oo' quieter and at a different tone). He can often be found babbling away to himself and has now developed intonation in the sense that he phrase things like questions or statements. Often, he will come up to mummy, say a load of stuff, wait for an answer and then go away again, only to come back a short while later and repeat the process. He really is trying to communicate his thoughts and mummy finds it so very fascinatingly interesting. Bizarrely, she tends to know exactly what he's trying to say with his movements and gestures, but is still getting used to the verbal commands, often getting them wrong. For one is now a very definite toad and if things don't go quite one's way, a small tempter tantrum is held where one can cry, arch their back and sometimes put their head on the floor. Oh, what fun...but the talking means that when we are out and about, we have conversations about what we see; the birds (his favourite ever thing and he can spot them even when they are a dot on the horizon), leaves (especially when mummy kicks through them and gives him one to watch fall to the ground), the moon, streetlights, Our Public and anything else that takes our fancy.
* sleeping - the whole routine that mummy dared to get used to is now out of the window, never to be seen again. We used to go to bed at about 9am for an hour or so and then at about 1pm for the same amount of time. However, it seems to have been decided by a certain someone that morning sleeps are now a no-go area but that afternoon sleeps are the way forward (we went off these for a bit, but as long as we had had a morning snoozle, it wasn't so bad). The time in the morning was mummy's precious time to get things done or just relax for a wee while. Ho hum.
well, I have now probably bored you all into submission so I should probably disappear for now! Harrington has really come into his own and his personality shines through; he is a loving, warm, affectionate and happy child with the ability to charm anything from anyone (trust me, it works!). He and I continue to get even closer and, as he grows up and explores the world around him, comes back to mummy more and more for comfort and affection. The time at the end of the evening (when Granddad has left, following their male bonding time :) is wonderful. Many snuggles, much laughter and smiles makes everything better as does the first snuggle and five minutes of the day. B.E.A.utiful. Gotta love him, there's no other way :)
