latest sweetest things

The other night, as I gave him his final feed, he struggled up (against my attempts to shush/restrain him) and grabbed my face and kissed me, twice. The fact that his kisses are still open mouthed kisses made it even sweeter.

The love affair with himself continues. If being held in parental arms, and he catches sight of himself in the mirror, he jiggles and thrashes his whole body in delight. One night in Spain, when it was clear that he was wide awake, after half an hour of trying to calm him down with the lights off, after many failed shushes and rockings, I turned on the light. There was a mirror by the bed and when he saw himself, he flung out his arms in delight.

He says 'mama'. Sadly, he thinks 'mama' means 'I'm frustrated, I'm bored, I'm just not that happy'.

Stair climbing with toys in both hands.

In the bath with me, tries to climb out, eat soap, suck on shampoo bottles.

At a baby party the other day - where none of the other babies were mobile and a lovely ungated staircase beckoned - he tried to eat dog food, got the heating grates out of the floor, and headed for the stairs countless times. Needless to say I did not get to engage much with the other mums, who all sat and got to eat their lunch. I rather prefer baby parties for the mobile crowd.. I notice that the adults tend to sit around the edge and all collectively try to fend off disaster in a rather abstracted way, rather than the immobile baby crowd, where all sit at a table holding onto their respective babies.. How quickly things change, I wish Jack had not learned to crawl so early, but on the other hand it is very fun.

When with his friend Eliane - a day younger, and almost identical in weight/height/charm and ability, he laughs and laughs. The other day he was chasing her while crawling and they were both giggling.

Likes to clap hands, and then gets carried away and slaps himself on the sides of his head.

Starting to be constructive occasionally rather than solely destructive. Tries to stack things, or put things in a larger container - the operative word being 'tries'.

sleep glorious sleep

woah, woah, wooah... so much has changed in the last Freaking two months.. where has the time gone?? Actually I do know where the time went.. in travel, usual domestic mayhem, and (for the last three weeks) in delicious sleep..

Jack is now 8 months.. he's crawling and cruising and has been for most of the last two months.. also very jovial, very busy and a real handful.. into everything, especially Dangerous Things.

We were in England for a month, staying with family and friends (nine different houses in all) we had a great time hiking, drinking, eating and chatting. During this the spud ended up co-sleeping a lot, and for whatever reason (change of rooms, proximity to the milk-delight being the obvious top two) he started to wake a LOT, like six or seven times a night, and then I would nurse him to go back to sleep so that he would not wake our hosts. Needless to say I was a bit tired. Plus very few of our houses had 'baby proof' houses and Jack was very mobile, so a lot of active baby-care was needed to save their houses from chaos, and to save Jack from burning, electrocution, falling, pulling priceless vases onto his priceless head, and other dangers. (Even with all our vigilance, he usually has a row of bruises across his poor little forehead.)

That said, it was fun to see people, and we would have been doing the babyminding anyway, so it was fun to do it with new conversation, great food, and the usual English diligence in wine consumption. The spud even made it to Spain, where he was very much a cafe baby,lying back in his stroller in the sun, indulging in crispy bread, and being cossetted by the waiters. So all in all a good trip.

On our return, however, I decided that sleep training was in order, egged on by two friends who had successfully done it, and who kept counselling 'short term pain, long term gain'. Well, after three days of stoking up our energy to do it, and then choking at the last minute, we finally Implemented the Plan -the plan being letting him cry for progressively longer intervals, but going in to remind him that we were there, and check on him. The first cry came at 1:00, and I had to go in about 4 or 5 times over the next 45 minutes, to confront his accusing, sobbing little face clearly asking (ok, yelling) 'what have you done to me, why don't you love me?? why have you abandoned me, you evil excuse of a mother'. I would mutter some vague platitudes like 'I love you, you're fine, really, you just have to 'learn' to go to sleep, you'll be fine, you'd thank me in the morning if you were capable of remembering this', and lie him down, and stroke his little head, and then I would leave, hearing him struggling back to his feet, grabbing the bars and screaming even louder.

After 10 minutes of hearing the crying (but not even having seen the angry, heartmelting face) Martin knuckled under and wanted to stop. I, being the parental tough-ass, refused, and we made it through the long, looong 45 minutes of crying.. but, dear reader, the spud did fall asleep at long (did I mention loooong) last, and woke the next time for only 8 minutes, and basically since then he has been happily sleeping at least 10 hours a night ever since. The knock-on effect is that I have been happily sleeping at least 7 hours a night (in a ROW) ever since, the first time in a full freaking year. Yes, I do look fabulously youthful and glamorous, thanks for asking.

In other news, it's fall, we have been walking a lot of course, even hiking with Baby-in-the-Backpack, but it's getting cold and I'm getting worried about winter - how warm are these baby snowsuits? is it fair to drag the poor kid around in the minus-20s?

Lots else to stay but the spud is stirring, so I'd best go.