Its less than two months before our baby turns two years old. I’ve been thinking back a lot to two years ago when I was pregnant in my 3rd trimester and excitedly awaiting the birth of our baby. But somehow, I often think that it was only a year ago… I think I’m starting to miss being pregnant again, and miss having a tiny little baby. I guess that shows it’s time for number 2 ;)!
Measurements on 31/10/2013:
Weight: 11.085 kg
Height: 85 cm
Head circumference: 48.5 cm
Our little guy is growing up so quick! He is at a really cute stage, especially with the way he talks, we often have to chuckle at the stuff he says. He tries to copy everything we say and he says new words daily and we often wonder, “where did he hear that?” I can definitely notice that they teach him a lot at the crèche that we probably would not have taught him by now. He can show us most of his body parts, like eyes, ears, nose etc, but even things like hair, fingers, toes, tummy. He can also make a lot of animal sounds, like if you ask what sound does a cow, chicken, dog, cat, sheep, etc make he will make the right sound. He also recognizes the animals in picture books, on TV or if we show him toy animals. A few nights ago he showed me the little monkeys on his pajama bottoms and said, “apie” (monkey). I did not even notice them until he showed them to me.
DH and I were talking and I said to DH that he will get into trouble with his mom over something and baby G chirped “moeilikheid” (trouble). We couldn’t believe he could say that word. Yesterday afternoon I took my laundry basket outside to take the laundry off the line and baby G asked me, “buite bad?” (bathe outside?), because he used to bathe in that laundry basket in the shower while DH took a shower (months ago, because he now only wants to bathe in the bath). Last weekend baby G also told his daddy, “Pappa buite, nou!” (Daddy outside, now!”)
Baby G is also learning some English words, and it’s so cute he prefers to say “no” now and he likes to tell the dogs to “move”, because DH says that to them quite often. He’s also started to tell us to “move” and that is not always funny. Now we have to teach him about respect for other people!
Baby G also loves to help around the house, much to our dismay. We cannot vacuum at all, because he wants to vacuum. The same with the broom and the mop, the moment he sees it he wants to use it himself. He also helps to pick up stuff, and put it in containers. So he is starting to help us to put his toys away, but often he will unpack it again only moments later. The latest is that he wants to inject his medicine into his own mouth!
Reading books is his favourite activity at home these days and he loves to point to pictures and say what they are. A few days ago he pointed to pictures of a table and chair in the book and then he touched our coffee table and said “tafel” (table) and he did the same with his little chair.
We really want to put some effort into teaching baby G to swim, because it looks like he is swimming in the bath already. My MIL has a heated indoor pool and we’ve taken him once to swim in it already since spring started and he naturally wants to doggy paddle. He also tried to push DH’s hands away, because like many things he wants to do this on his own as well (he cannot off course, but he doesn’t understand that). The only problem is that we must make the time over weekends, and consistently take him swimming, and so far we haven’t managed that.
Teeth: Baby G’s bottom incisors cut through recently, so I think he has all the teeth he is supposed to have for now. From now on it is only molars that need to come out, and we will see when that will happen.
Eating: Baby G eats well, he eats what we eat most of the time, but I have found that at the times when he is teething he still prefers pureed food. At those times he will get some off our freezer stash, but he is quickly eating it all up, so I’ll have to make some more soon.
I’ve noticed that Baby G is ravenous when I pick him up at the crèche in the afternoons, so I always have a snack for him to eat, which is usually a fruit like a banana, pieces of apple that I’ve cut up for him, a pear, a plum or whatever fruits looks nice in the shops.
I’m still nursing, but I’m getting tired of it by now, and I must admit I have no idea how to stop. I had baby G at the clinic yesterday and the sister there said I must put some plasters on my nipples and pretend that they are sore. She also said that putting lemon juice, vinegar or anything similarly bad tasting on does not really help – she’s seen little one’s persisting and drinking even though the nipple tastes vile. It seems that we will have a bit of a battle on our hands, because I’ve told baby G that the milk is finished a couple of times and he was not impressed, and we’ve even had mini tantrums and a lot of pulling on my clothes. I know I will miss nursing, but right now I’m just tired of it all. DH’s grandma said that in her day they sent the kids to family for a couple of days, but baby G hasn’t slept away from us yet – he has gone for a visit to his grandparents for the day, but a few days sounds too long for me! Any advice will surely be appreciated!
I must admit I feel a bit guilty too, because he absolutely adores to nurse and I feel selfish for wanting to stop, when he clearly doesn’t want to stop…
Sleeping: Baby G is sleeping better again. Baby G either wakes once or sleeps through to about 5h00, and he will fall asleep again afterwards. We have noticed that when he wakes often, that it’s best to give him teething meds, and then he usually sleeps through after that. I know the teething medication I use doesn’t make him drowsy, so I’m convinced that a lot of his waking is due to teething. The other night he called out to me and said “eina” a lot, so I knew he had pain.
Potty training: We are still taking it slow, not really forcing the issue, because at the crèche they don’t potty train in the class baby G is in at all. They only start doing that from the next class, and he will have to be 2 before he can go to that class (so from next year only). I have noticed that baby G can now stop and start to urinate at will, and he sits on the potty at home twice a day. Most of the time he will urinate and he’s even made a poo in the potty twice. This past Saturday he came to me about 20 minutes after I changed his nappy and told me he needed to wee (he had that worried look, and was dancing around a bit obviously trying to hold it in). So I took him to his potty and let him sit on it and he made a wee. I checked his nappy and it was still completely dry. So far it’s only happened once, not again, but it looks like he is getting the idea. I’m thinking of trying in earnest in December when the crèche is closed, because there is no use trying if the crèche is not 100% on board as well (I know they are not because I’ve discussed it with his teacher already).
Firsts: Last week was our baby’s first school concert. They sent the clothes home 2 days before the concert and when I took it out baby G immediately wanted to wear it. It seems it’s not only little girls that like to play dress up. So I dressed him in it and wondered aloud, “What are you supposed to be?” Baby G told me he is a “woef”, (woof – dog) and I thought, “yeah right!” Well when it was his class’ turn they started to play the song, “who let the dogs out,” and it I realised that he answered my question correctly. Weird thing is that we don’t call our dogs “woef” but we call them “honde” which is the correct Afrikaans word for dogs, and baby G also calls them “honne”, so I should have realised that he must have heard it somewhere else. The concert was really cute, but baby G was on the stage for about 2 minutes maximum, and most of that time he was in the back somewhere until one of the staff members at the school picked him up and brought him to the front. He also did not do much; she clapped his hands for him and waved them around in tune to the music.
I guess one should not expect much for a 22 month old, but I once walked into their class where all the little ones were dancing a choreographed dance, and I thought that might be what they were doing for the concert. It wasn’t, because it was to a DVD they were watching, completely different music, and it was so cute to see these little ones dancing so enthusiastically. I had hoped to see something similar at the concert, but it was nothing like that. I think the poor little kids did not know what was going on, and it was really close to their bedtime too, I must say… Baby G did look really cute though and he wanted to dress up again in his concert clothes over the weekend.
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