ninth month

and so, the marvellous Harrington has reached his ninth month and gone beyond (yes, mummy knows that she is ridiculously tardy but there has been so much going on!), which means he has now been outside mummy's belly longer than he was in it. A strange thought...

...anyway, I digress. Several friends have mentioned to me that the ninth month contains more changes and milestones when it comes to children and they are definitely right. My small, English toad is changing daily at the moment and is showing many signs of how he is going to be as a toddler and beyond...an even more scary thought!

this month's fabulous new things from the House of Moose are:-

* food - the mooseling continues to develop his tastes by the day and seems to like some really strong flavours such as wholegrain mustard, ginger and several other things that he probably shouldn't like if you read books about such things. Not sure whether it's to do with the tegglepegs or not, but there are now days of fussiness when it comes to filling the toady tum. On these such occasions, mummy brings out the steamed mixed vegetables that she prepares and stores in the freezer until a certain someone realises that they rather love solids afterall. Bread is still ranking up there with minski as a Favourite Foodstuff and the toasted version with marmite is even better! The Harrington now takes it upon himself to stare at anyone who is eating whilst trying to charm the food away from them. He also reaches to other people's plates to steal food and much prefers a selection of things to limiting one's palate. Cheese is now something we are considering but are not entirely sure, thank you very much, but fromage frais is now considered as angel food and one has been found crying when the pot is finished. Fruit, nabanas and pears in particular, is still loved but not stoned fruit such as plums and nectarines. Small ricecakes are also good, especially when used as ammunition, and breadsticks are pure heaven! All of this teaches mummy not to be complacent as a toad's tastes change on a daily basis and she therefore has to keep many types of everything in the house, just in case

* snoozing - the toad's sleeping patterns have changed drastically over the last month or so, another thing I think has a lot to do with tegglepegs and the constant bugs that seem to be around over the Winter period. The poor boy is exhausted about half an hour after he has got up and so goes back to bed for a wee while, which seems to work really well and he doesn't really fight it at all. However, subsequent sleeps throughout the day are fought ridiculously by either talking to oneself or kicking so much that we end up being at complete opposite ends of the cot to where we first started. This has now got to such a ridiculous point that mummy went out and purchased another sleeping bag today so that it can be worn for daytime naps and shall hopefully stop all this nonsense!

* playing - Harrington continues to play with many things but in a different way to the way he used to. He still loves his cups, things that rattle, shine and make noise, but has also discovered that he can pick up a separate toy in each hand and bang them together. He also loves to pick up toys and put them inside objects, especially mummy's make-up bag which we will travel great distances to get! All of the items are taken out and then either strewn across the bed or put back in the bag. Genius, but not terribly helpful when mummy is desperately trying not to be late in the mornings...books are still loved but the toad seems to prefer playing with them on his own at the moment and loves to turn the pages and chew them, of course

* moving - the toad continues to moooooooooooooooooove muchly and all the time! He has now learned to roll over from front to back and back again and to perform some sort of crawl. His determination knows no bounds and, if he spies something that he absolutely must make the acquaintance of, he will stop at nothing to reach it, however he has to move to get there. The mooseling can also support his weight on his legs now but still requires the support of someone else for balancing. It very seriously will not be long until mummy has to make the house safe and purchase stairgates, etc. Especially as, this evening, he was found trying to get off the changing table which is a first for him. Cannot be left for even a second, that one...arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh

so, there were the main things...apart from that, my darling boy continues to change in pretty much every way from day-to-day, and becomes more of a little boy and far less of a baby by the second. He continues to become more gorgeous, stunning, charming, funny (his laugh is tremendous and pure bliss :) and cheeky by the day, as well as increasing his fan-base!

love him to Reece's Pieces :)