Last month Adrian learned to walk. Now he’s already doing his best to run. Waddle waddle toddle toddle, faster!

He’s starting to talk more. Often he says long streams of sounds that are totally meaningless to us but the intonation is such that it sounds like sentences. I don’t know if it means something to him or whether he is just mimicking the sound of speech.

But he’s also saying actual words now. He has däddä and mämmä for daddy and mommy – and he shouts for däddä when he’s at home with Eric, and for mämmä when it’s night. There’s titta (“look”), deddä for det där (“this”) and lampa. He has some approximate version of kinni (“closed” in Estonian) which is what he says when he opens and closes my fleece during nursing. Babba means banana (his favourite food) but he also uses it for other fruit. He is pleased when he manages to make himself understood.

He so wants to be a part of our life, to join in all our activities, to help, to do like we do.

It’s particularly visible in the kitchen. In the morning when we go downstairs he goes to the pantry and takes out the porridge oats. He brings them to the kitchen counter and then opens the cupboard and takes out the saucepan I usually use for porridge. (Not just any saucepan but the right one.) Then he stretches up his arms and shouts, to tell me that he now wants to be up on the counter to help me make porridge.

I lift him up and open the bag of oats. I get out two measuring cups, one for each of us. He puts his hand in the bag, takes out some oats, puts them in the cup, empties the cup in the saucepan, and repeats this as long as I am also measuring the oats.

Then I turn on the tap and he does the same with water. Sometimes he misses. In fact he misses pretty often – if he pours 8 dashes of water, one of them will probably end up on the counter or on himself, because he gets distracted. But most of it goes in the saucepan. With the oats I do most of the measuring because his method is too slow for my taste, just a tiny handful of oats every time. But with water he can do the work and I focus on counting. Half a decilitre… another half… a dash… almost full, so we’re now at about two… two and a half…

When I cook dinner (which I don’t do very often, as this has been Eric’s responsibility on weekdays) he picks and inspects the veggies, hands me potatoes from the bag, tastes the sweetcorn, etc. Adrian sitting on the kitchen counter is now a most natural part of the cooking process for me.

His absolute favourite in the kitchen is the microwave oven. It beeps! It has lights and buttons! The insides rotate! You can make things happen! The moment I turn it on, he rushes to the step stool and starts pushing it towards the microwave, almost crying with frustration at the lost seconds.

We have a very simple, child-friendly microwave, with just two knobs to turn: one for power, one for time. I tell him not to touch the power knob but I’m not too strict about the time knob – especially since he almost always turns it towards zero, so the oven stops too early rather than overheating the food. It’s like with him measuring the water: he randomizes it, and I keep track of a rough total in my head, and adjust. And of course there’s the door which is pure magic. Close it, and the light goes on and the plate starts rotating. Open it, and the oven goes off.

When the microwave oven is empty and I’m not using it, he is not interested in it.

Other buttons and machines are also interesting, especially when they make sounds or lights. The toaster, lamps, phones, heaters, the clock radio, the baby monitor, the stereo… One afternoon I thought the house felt cold, and upon inspecting the heaters, discovered that he had turned off three of the four heaters he can reach.

He likes opening and closing my computer, to hear it whirr to life and see the screen light up, and to yank out the power cord. He never puts it back in, and often gets upset when I do so. I think he actively dislikes that little indicator light. The keyboard doesn’t interest him much; he hasn’t yet understood that what he does affects things on the screen.

He is helpful and co-operative outside the kitchen, too. He wants to do right. He pushes the safety gate closed when we go upstairs. He pulls down the toilet paper for me. He puts his arms in the sleeves of the pyjamas when I hold them open for him, and tries to brush his hair.

The one thing he doesn’t often co-operate with is nappy changes. Those he hates, and I often have to hold him down while he screams and writhes. But recently he’s actually voluntarily walked to the changing mat and sat down on it when he’s had a dirty nappy, so it may be that we will have less screaming in the future.

In general he’s pretty well aware of the signals of his body. If he doesn’t want clothes, I let him be naked – and when he gets cold, he takes his trousers and tries to put them on (around his neck) or hands us his socks. He refuses mittens when going out, but then reaches for them when his hands get cold. If he is hungry he goes to the pantry or the fruit bowl and demands food. If he isn’t tired in the evening, I prep him (night nappy, pyjamas, toothbrush) and let him potter around. When he feels tired he will go to the staircase (the bedroom is upstairs) or wave good night to us, and then happily walk upstairs to go to bed. Unlike Ingrid, who will claim that she is not at all tired! even though she is falling over from tiredness.

He still eats unevenly throughout the day. Usually he barely touches his breakfast. Lunch and afternoon meal are usually his largest, although sometimes he skips lunch too and then eats throughout the afternoon. It used to be that he’d try almost everything we served, but now his diet has become pretty limited. Bread of all kinds, fruit – especially banana but also other kinds – and occasionally lots of meatballs.

Other food we put in front of him he mostly ignores. If we actively offer it to him – whether on a spoon or in our fingers – he recoils, peeks suspiciously at the food and then looks as if we were trying to poison him.

For some reason it’s different with drinks. He has been very interested in trying the stuff we drink, rather than just his plain water. He’s tried diluted apple juice (our usual mealtime drink) and oat milk, and liked both.

With this diet he has pretty much gone back to eating with his hands only and ignores spoons and forks. On the other hand he has now learned to drink from normal glasses and two-handled cups. The sippy cup still comes in handy at night or when we’re out and about, though.

Other stuff:
He’s jealous. When Ingrid is sitting in my lap he butts in and tries to push her out of the way.
He likes fridge magnets. For some reason he often puts them in the dishwasher.
He likes it when we mimic him – when he gets us to laugh, to clap our hands, or to put our arms up.

He started nursery a few days ago. We’re still in the schooling in period, but from next week he’ll be there for real. Eric’s been taking care of the schooling-in so I don’t have much to say about this.

Adrian now walks. From not walking at all to pretty competent walking took less than a week. All he needed was an insight into why walking might be useful and preferable to crawling.

He could crawl fast and efficiently and with little effort. But on a few occasions I saw him struggle to crawl with a book in his hand. He sometimes tried just simply holding the book while crawling, and sometimes shuffled along on his bottom instead. One day I lifted him up to standing, put the book in his right hand and held onto his left hand – and didn’t let him sit down. Then I tugged him forward just a tiny bit.

He took a step or two but didn’t start walking straight away, but he did take a few steps on his own later that day. And after that there was no going back. First it was short stretches of just a few steps. Then quickly his confidence increased, and within a week he could walk from one end of a room to the other. At first he’d still revert to crawling when he wanted to go far, but by now (about two or three weeks after he started walking) walking is the default.

At first when he was still a bit unstable he’d walk a bit like a crab, sort of sideways, usually leading with his right foot I think.

He doesn’t usually look where he puts his feet. It could be because he doesn’t see the point – or it could be that he actually cannot look at his toes. (There is a big round tummy in the way, after all.) But he knows where the thresholds and floor edges are, and stops and carefully steps across. I think he avoids the door from the kitchen to the hallway because there is both a threshold and a gap in the floor there, wider than he can comfortably cross.

Of course he is his usual confident self and overreaches his ability. He constantly has a gash or a bump somewhere. Currently there is an almost-healed gash underneath his lower lip (where he probably bit himself when he landed face-first on the floor), a larger scabbed-over but not-yet-healed scratch under his left eye (where he hit the kitchen stool) and a similar one on his tummy (acquired at the same time, against the lower step of the stool).

He has not yet tried walking outside. He has, however, tried walking with shoes – with Ingrid’s black patent leather party shoes, which he saw and took a liking to yesterday. He put his feet in, Eric buckled them up, and he actually managed to walk in them, although they’re about 6 sizes too large. It worked because he doesn’t actually roll his foot through a step, from heel to toe. Instead he pretty much just lifts his foot straight up and puts it back down further ahead. And that, of course, can be done regardless of shoes, as long as they stay on your feet and don’t flop.

A book was what got him started walking, and that’s because books have been his great love this month. He can sometimes look at them himself, but what he really likes is sitting with one of us and listening to us “read” for him. He takes a book and comes to us, climbs up onto the sofa and onto our lap, and gives us the book. If I’m already reading for Ingrid, he’ll butt in and push her book aside.

Adrian’s greatest favourites are books with animals – because of the sounds. We have a couple of books with photos or simple pictures of common animals. “This is a cow. Do you know what the cow says? The cow says moo.” Except that we don’t say “moo” but try to imitate a cow as closely as we can, and all the others as well. (Except for the fish, which according to the book says “blubb blubb” but which we read as “mull mull”, meaning bubble bubble in Estonian. It’s as good a sound for a fish as any.) He seems to like the wolf and the owl sounds best, and takes a stab at them (and the dog) himself when we get to those pages, close enough that it’s clear to us what he’s trying to do.

He is also fond of books with songs. There is a lovely series of cardboard books with common Swedish children’s songs, Ellen och Olle sjunger. One song per book, with nice illustrations. En sockerbagare is the current favourite.

We read some very simple stories, too. We began with the Max books (Max bil and Max dockvagn); now those are less interesting and Knacka på is the favourite. These have paper pages and they get crumpled a lot and I’ve taped up a few tears, but it looks like they’ll survive Adrian at least.

He clearly understands a fair amount of what we say, not only when reading books. He’s understood “no” for a while although you could argue that it’s just the tone of voice he reacts to. One day when I was busy and he wanted to play, I told him to “go to daddy in the kitchen” (where Eric was cooking dinner, and Adrian is usually happy to watch). He stood and thought for a while and then went to the kitchen.

But he doesn’t say many words himself yet. “Titta” (look) is a very clear one. There is a “dadda” sound that seems to mean ‘pappa’ (daddy). There are other sounds that clearly mean things but that I haven’t learned to understand yet. He is pretty good at communicating without words, though. When he wants to be picked up, he tugs at our trouser legs. When he wants down, he shows it. When he wants his water cup refilled, he holds out the cup. When he wants to know whether something is permitted as a toy or not, he holds up his finger the way we do when we warn him to not touch something. He is usually very clear about wanting something, and then he WANTS with his whole body, screaming and tensing his whole body and arching his back.

He likes bouncing/riding games: Prästens lilla kråka with Eric, Sõit, sõit linna with me. He is too ticklish to enjoy Baka, baka liten kaka but we do play Kuts läks karja. I’ve tried games involving counting fingers and toes but he doesn’t appreciate those much yet.

He rarely plays with any toys. The one thing he likes is Ingrid’s little toy phone, which beeps and sings when you press its buttons. Just like last month he likes playing with containers and lids. Any time I open a jar or a bottle near him, he wants to try the lid, on and off a couple of times, before I’m allowed to put it away.

He had a period of separation anxiety when he absolutely had to be within a few steps of us. Or was that last month, perhaps? In any case that has now passed, and he can wander off to another room when it is clear that we are doing boring stuff and aren’t willing to play with him. But he is very upset in the mornings when I leave for work. He used to happily wave good-bye but now he holds onto my legs and tries to follow me out through the door. I try to prepare everything and spend the minimum amount of time in the hallway, throw on my coat, grab my hat and gloves and bag, and leave as quickly as I can.

Conversely he is very happy when I get back home. I usually sneak in quietly, then sneak upstairs and change out of my work clothes into a nursing top. Then I show myself, he drops whatever he is doing and comes to me, and we sit somewhere and nurse. These afternoon nursings are now clearly mostly for cuddles and comfort, he takes a lot less milk than he used to. And he no longer nurses off and on throughout the evening. He does like to nurse thoroughly just before going to sleep, and then twice more during the night (on normal nights), and maybe in the morning.

Now he wants to sleep with a dummy again. Since a dummy no longer means that he wakes once an hour, he gets it. Sometimes we hear him wake and cry out but then he seems to find the dummy on his own and goes back to sleep again. He sometimes also clearly wants the dummy during the day, but not often. When he’s done with it, we put it away and he doesn’t miss it.

He’s had a couple of colds and that always messes up the nights. And the days, too, usually. A runny nose is almost the rule here during the winter season. When he’s got a real cold he usually has a slight fever, is tired during the day, and coughs a lot during the night. He can actually sleep while coughing about once a minute, but that keeps me awake, and he wants to nurse more than usual. And it is not unusual for him to cough so hard at night that he actually throws up all the milk he’s just drunk. So the standard procedure when he has a cold is to cover his part of the bed with a thick bath towel folded in two, and keep another towel plus spare pyjamas close by so I can change quickly.

In the beginning of the month he got his first molars, all four of them almost at the same time.

He eats unevenly, usually one large meal a day and otherwise just nibbles. A large meal can be one banana, six meatballs and a slice of bread, or equivalent. When he’s hungry he eats fast and doesn’t get distracted much. Other times he joins us at the table but only takes a few bites now and again.

Quite often he eats standing up. We’ve now swapped chairs: he got the higher-backed one from Ingrid, so he can lean his bottom against the backrest when he stands on it, and he can no longer sit on the top of the backrest.

He is very fond of majskrokar, and usually likes bananas, too. Meatballs, bread, and kiwi are also safe bets. When he eats food he likes, he tries to stuff it all in his mouth at the same time so he can barely chew. He likes nibbling on almonds and cashews but cannot really chew them, despite the molars, so he drools like a maniac and spreads small partly-chewed pieces of nuts around him.

I’ve now sometimes let him taste small amounts of sweet treats: a sip of diluted apple juice (which is the standard mealtime drink for the rest of the family), a gingerbread cookie, a small chunk of saffron bun. The first one was a little piece of meringue that Eric had made. He did as he always does with new stuff: takes a small, cautious bite first. And then he laughed with delight, and wanted more more more.

He is usually not very interested in trying foodstuff that we hand to him, or put on his plate. But he almost always tries to bite things that he sees me use when I’m cooking, as well as fruit from the fruit bowl. Whenever the thing he tries tastes particularly sharp or pungent (such as an unpeeled tangerine) he looks at us and loudly says “eeeh!”

We’ve started to let him practice a bit with a normal lidless mug. Thus far it’s led to a lot of spills: he shakes it up and down, tips it too far when drinking, puts it down with a bang, and generally treats it like his sippy cup.

Sorry for the few and dark photos. Adrian still loves the camera and I rarely get a chance to take a decent photo of him. This is what I mostly get: nose to camera.

One major theme of this month for Adrian has been “using things”. He understands that certain items have certain uses, and he uses them himself.

Naturally he especially likes using things that he sees us using, too. He likes mimicking us and doing things the way we do them, and helping us.

When I cook porridge in the morning, he tries to help me by grabbing a wooden spoon and trying to stir. When I peel potatoes or chop veggies, he likes “using” our little food compost bin by throwing everything he can reach in that bin, especially the potatoes and veggies. Then I fish them out again. (The bin normally doesn’t have anything particularly icky in there, so it’s easy to rinse off the potatoes again.)

Sometimes when he sees me put something in my mouth, something that he can reach, he helps me by feeding me. He doesn’t do this at the dinner table, but if I pop a cooked bean in my mouth while making dinner, or a grape, he’ll feed me more. And he is good at it: since he’s used to eating with his hands he knows how to hold the grape in his fingers and how to hold his fingers to my mouth to make it easy for me.

In the mornings when I brush my hair he borrows Ingrid’s hairbrush and tries to brush either his own hair or mine.

Other things he clearly does for his own sake, not to help us. He has learned to use the Stokke highchairs, and to some extent the step stool as well, as his personal portable ladders. When stuff is going on in the kitchen, when someone appears to be doing something interesting on the kitchen counter, or when he is simply done eating and is looking for something else to do in the kitchen, he will grab one of the highchairs, push it to where he wants it, and climb up on top. The highchairs work better because he can grab hold of the back for climbing up and especially for climbing down – with the step stool he can’t get down on his own and will whine until someone lifts him down.

He has had a few falls but most of the time he manages it pretty well, even when he crowds in on the step stool while Ingrid is already standing there, or leans far out from the chair to reach something. He also climbs on everything even remotely climbable when he’s at playgroup. When someone stands in his way, he pushes onwards, not with aggression but with determination. He likes Ingrid’s Stokke better than our spare, because it’s got a higher back, so if Ingrid leaves it unattended (when running to the loo in the middle of dinner) or even just stands up to get the milk, he will immediately try to grab her chair and push it away.

This chair trick means that he can now reach all the kitchen counters as well as the top boxes of our “pantry”, so all these need to be kept mostly clear of dangerous or fragile things. Kitchen knives have to be dried and put away rather than left on the drying rack; no open containers of e.g. flour or sugar or cooking oil can be left on the kitchen counters while preparing food. In the pantry we’ve simply moved the boxes around so that the ones he can reach are safe (for both him and the food inside): the topmost boxes now contain baking goods, root vegetables, and nuts and seeds, rather than opened boxes with pasta.

This also means that he can reach the tap. For a while he liked that a great deal, and spent a lot of time turning the tap on, touching the water, poking at it with spoons and so on. He would always turn it on at full blast and get himself thoroughly wet, and everything around him, too.

Adrian likes things with lids and caps, that he can open and close. He can open the Lock’n’Lock boxes we use for snacks and leftover foods. One particular favourite is a little jar of beeswax salve which is satisfyingly heavy and stable, and where the lid fits precisely in place with a click. Whenever I bring it out to rub some salve onto some dry patches on his back, we share it: he puts the lid on and takes it off again and again, and occasionally lets me put my fingers in there.

Another capped favourite is felt-tip pens. He has tried drawing (with felt-tip pens and crayons). But pulling off the caps (and occasionally putting them back on) was even more fun than drawing, so we in order to protect the walls, floors, furniture and clothes, we had to put the pens away and only let him use them under very close supervision. Pencils and crayons were not at all as interesting. At first it was interesting to make marks and dots on a paper but the novelty quickly wore off.

In general we haven’t had to child-proof much at all. He is, on the whole, co-operative and sensible. He knows that the knife block is forbidden, and that he is not allowed to touch pots and pans on the stove. He knows the meaning of “no” and of the index finger held up in warning, and listens to them – and confirms his understanding by holding up his own index finger. When he is unsure about whether an object is safe/allowed or not, he looks questioningly at us. Other times he doesn’t, and we take away the forbidden object, and he cries and sounds heart-broken and lies down and rests his head on his floor in dejection.

He points at things a lot and says “tääh” just like Ingrid did at this age, which we again interpret as asking for their names. I have not yet noticed him using any other “word”.

Adrian has started making the sign for “nurse” but he’s redefined it to mean “pick me up”. Now I’m thinking that I should find a new sign for “nurse”, and perhaps try to reintroduce signs for a few other things as well.

One day I thoughtlessly showed him that there are pictures inside my camera and now I can hardly take a photo of him, because as soon as I get the camera he races towards me and starts pulling at it and poking at the screen to see the little pictures of himself.

Among actual toys, his favourites have been stacking cups and his stacking-ring penguin: putting them together and taking apart again. In the last few days he’s also been quite interested in looking at books, especially one with animals.

Eric reports that he likes going out, whether it’s to the supermarket or to preschool to pick up Ingrid. He knows that clothes on means going out, and tries to climb into the stroller. He says hi to the cashiers at Coop that he recognizes, and at other random folk, too, but then turns shy when they respond.

Quite unlike Ingrid, Adrian is apparently not hot-blooded. He willingly lets us dress him and co-operates when it’s time to put his arms in sleeves. He even likes putting on a coat, hat and mittens when going out, and will signal when he is cold by pulling his coat closer. On colder days we’ve started putting two layers on him at home, with a long-sleeved t-shirt over his body, and we’ve switched to a warmer blanket at night. He seems to like both of these. He is not very fond of socks, though, and pulls them off as soon as we put them on, so we don’t usually bother.

His eating and nursing habits are about the same as last month. He now mostly takes a single long nap in the middle of the day, but reverts to two if he’s unwell or has simply slept badly at night.

Adrian may be a master climber but he isn’t particularly close to walking. He can stand without support, and even stand up from sitting without holding on to anything. He is totally uninterested in walking. He can cruise along furniture, maybe even let go to cross the two-step gap between two chairs, but no more. He can walk if I hold both his hands but he can’t see the point and when given the choice he would rather drop on all fours and crawl.

Adrian is well over a year old, and it’s been a long time since I last tested dairy products other than butter (since spring, actually). I thought I’d try and see how his milk protein allergy is doing. Perhaps I can go back to a more varied diet?

By now I don’t miss milk products much, but it does complicate cooking, and eating out is a serious challenge. I’m glad if I find one milk-free meat-free option on the menu, and often have to ask the kitchen to skip the sauce, give me boiled potatoes instead of mashed potatoes etc. I’ve been eating a lot of sushi and pizza without cheese. (Which is a pretty poor alternative to real pizza.)

What I know and don’t know

I know that there are two types of milk protein allergy. One is a true allergy, “IgE-mediated”, with a fast reaction and more classical allergy symtoms – hives, itching, vomiting. The other is an intolerance, still an immunological reaction but “non-IgE-mediated”, with a delayed reaction and more gastrointestinal symtoms – reflux, abdominal pain, abnormal stools. All signs point towards Adrian having the latter. (Which is great, because this non-IgE-mediated version is much more likely to disappear, and much less likely to widen to cross-reactions to other allergens.)

I also know that non-IgE-mediated CMPI often disappears on its own in kids and around 90% are allergy-free by age three. But I realized I have no idea how it actually disappears. Does it happen fast or gradually over many months? Do the kids tolerate larger and larger amounts, or do their symptoms just become weaker? Do the symptoms change? – because obviously Adrian’s gastrointestinal system is much more mature now than a year ago.

I now also know that there are four main types of protein in milk that kids can be allergic to. I’ve learned from the internet that they may react to one or several of those, and there’s no real correlation between the different types. But I have no idea which one(s) Adrian might react to.

How to test?

When we first tested for CMPI we did an eliminiation/challenge test. I ate no dairy products for three weeks, and then ate normal amounts of milk again for one day. The result was unequivocal.

But I’m not so sure that this would be the right thing to test now. I could do a challenge, but if Adrian reacts, all it would tell me is that he reacts if I consume a lot of milk. But I don’t necessarily need or want to consume a lot of milk. If I can put parmesan on my pasta and cheese on my pizza every now and again, I’d be pretty happy.

So the alternative is to try with just a little bit. But that might also not be the right thing to test. Adrian might react, but not so much that it would be a clear signal. He might not scream with pain like he used to, just feel slightly sick and fuss a bit more than usual. We may just interpret that as ordinary fussing and I’d continue with milk, making him live with constant low-level stomach pain (for example) which I obviously don’t want.

Can I? Can’t I? Confusion.

A couple of weeks ago I had pizza for lunch. That seemed to go well. Then a cheese sandwich. That seemed to go less well – he slept like crap. Another week or so later I tried grilled cheese sandwiches, and he didn’t seem to react.

Around the same time we had him tested for milk protein allergy (skin prick test) and the test was a clear negative. Great, we thought, finally a clear answer! Let’s go!

So I ate home-made pizza on Saturday and pasta with feta cheese on Sunday. Adrian slept like crap again last night, and was crazy all day today. Hyperactive, racing around, unable to concentrate on anything, throwing things; grabs for food and then refuses to eat it; grabs for breast and then pushes it away… “crazy” is the best way I can describe it. What’s up?

Facts: a skin test is useless for this

What’s up is that the doctor needs to go back to school, it seems. I went back to the internet to learn more and immediately found out that skin prick tests are worthless in the case of non-IgE-mediated CMPI. They do not detect that type of reaction, they only work for IgE-mediated cow’s milk allergy.

The internet was less helpful in coming up with a plan for testing to see whether Adrian’s outgrown his CMPI. So it’s back to our own homebrew method, slow and steady. I will try a bit, wait a few days, try the same again and wait again. If everything is OK, I try with the next type of dairy product.

Right now it looks like I can consume small amounts of cheese that has been strongly heated. Cheese straight from the fridge is not OK. Next I should probably test whey products that contain no casein (the protein in cheese) to see if Adrian also reacts to the other milk proteins.

Useful resources:
Food Allergy and Food Intolerance on Patient.co.uk
The diagnosis and management of cow milk protein intolerance in the primary care setting on PubMed – only an abstract is provided but a search for the exact title will likely turn up some unofficial copies of the article.

There is so much going on in Adrian’s life right now that I don’t know where to begin.

The most practically useful development is that he can now eat pretty well with a spoon. In the beginning of the month he liked forks best, but now he’s focused on spoons. He can dip his spoon in the food in his bowl so that food sticks to the spoon, and then put it in his mouth. Sometimes he even manages a scooping sort of movement. It only works with thick, sticky food – anything loose will fall off because he often turns the spoon this way and that, inspecting it before he puts it in his mouth. The oatmeal porridge I’ve been making for breakfast for myself and Ingrid has been a particular favourite, so now I make a little bit extra for him.

We’ve also started mashing our food for him, which we’ve never done before, just so he can eat it with a spoon. Sometimes mixing our food with some binding agent also works, e.g. some tomato paste to make the rice stick together better. He isn’t interested in eating squishy gooey food with his hands. And he is by now familiar with both spoons and bowls so he no longer turns the bowl upside down to look at it from all angles. On the whole both he and his surroundings are often surprisingly clean after a meal – except for the back of his head, because he often touches it with his hands.

While one of us is cooking, Adrian is now almost invariably sitting on the kitchen counter. He absolutely wants to be where the action is, and to do what I do. The kitchen cupboards and drawers have lost most of their charm. Instead he sits on the counter and plays with the utensils in the jar, or the dish cloths, or whatever ingredients I leave within his reach. Today, for example, he had three small chunks of pumpkin, two or three large spoons or spatulas, one small plastic wrapping, one large wooden jar, one cutlery holder, one tea sieve and probably other odds and ends.

He has learned that the knife block and the salt cellar are absolutely off limits, and that he isn’t allowed close to the stove.

The two most common activities – both during today’s dinner preparations and in general – are putting things inside other things and then tipping them out again, and dropping things on the floor. Spoon in jar. Pumpkin piece in cutlery holder. Turn cutlery holder upside down; pumpkin piece falls out. Spoon in compost bin. Spoon in sink. Cutlery holder in sink. The combinations are endless!

This is pretty much all that Adrian does with toys, too, so his favourite “toys” are things such as the chestnuts that Ingrid gathers, fridge magnets, and other smallish items that can be put inside things. For a while he also liked picking apart knob puzzles but I think that has lost its charm. He likes things with lids, too, such as the Lock N Lock food storage boxes we have everywhere in our kitchen, and the jar with beeswax salve I use. When he sees them with the lid off he grabs for the jar or box and tries to put the lid back on.

He also likes putting magnets and chestnuts in his mouth, so we’ve had to confiscate all the small ones.

Things that roll or spin are also fun, for example a plastic mug or a water bottle that rolls around on the floor, or a wooden disk from his stacking tower that I set spinning on the floor.

When he drops things on the floor he does it with great attention. Takes spoon, holds it over the edge of the counter, drops it. Puts both hands down on the counter and peeks over the edge to look at the spoon on the floor. Points at the floor and says “päääh!”. Repeats this with two or three more utensils. I pick them all up, and we start all over again.

Adrian is using pointing very deliberately now in his communication. Sometimes he wants things. (Food, for example, that he cannot reach.) Sometimes I think he just wants to show us stuff – and then I usually say the name of what he’s pointing at, and say something more about it. He can also communicate by taking things in his own hands. When I’m holding him he sometimes takes hold of one of my hands and moves it away.

He understands waving and good-bye. I make a point of waving and saying good-bye when I leave in the morning, so he knows that I’m going. He doesn’t wave back immediately, but after considering the situation for a while he waves, too. Today he waved good-bye when our cleaner left, when the only clue was us shouting good-bye: none of us waved, and we weren’t even in the same room as her.

Adrian reacts very clearly to his name. Usually I have to repeat it a few times but then he turns towards me and looks at me.

He likes mimicking me, and finds it even more amusing when I mimick him. One day when I was scraping off old glue from the leg of chair, he grabbed a table knife of his own and poked at another leg of the same chair. He found it inordinately amusing when I once mimicked him by taking the other end of the wooden spoon he was chewing on, and putting it in my mouth. But then HE tried putting it in my mouth, which was not very comfortable, so I’m not doing that again. Sometimes he tries to put his dummy in my mouth, and he likes to play on my lips.

He has shown very little interest in walking or standing. When he is standing, holding on to my hand, and wants to go somewhere, he lets go of my hand, drops and crawls. But a few days ago he tried a baby cart walker at playgroup and since then he’s been slightly more likely to take a few steps while holding on to the side of a chair or a cupboard. He is most likely to try standing on his own when he is standing on a chair or a stool.

He’s started using his dummy at night again, sometimes: sucks on the breast but seems dissatisfied, and when I give him the dummy he turns the other side, snuggles up close to me and quiets down. In general he goes to sleep very easily. He may object while we’re on the way up the stairs with him (makes me think of Ingrid’s “I’m not tired at all!”) but once we’re in bed he is happy to go to sleep, and often does so very quickly.

It only takes long when he is too wound up, when there’s too much activity and excitement just before bedtime. Then he can spend 10 to 15 minutes just getting all the energy out: sits up, waves his arms, lies down, kicks his legs, and repeats that 25-second cycle again and again. Then he finally realizes he is tired, lies down, and is asleep within seconds. Motion is also his tiredness signal: when he starts crawling around, climbing up, climbing down, asking to be picked up, etc etc at an increasing pace, we know it is time to put him to bed.

We’ve turned his stroller to face forward because he very clearly prefers it this way.

He is one size ahead of Ingrid at this age: Ingrid’s first boots were too small for him and he is now wearing the shoes Ingrid wore at 18 months. And the jacket and hat that Ingrid had during her second winter (in London) are almost too small for him.

I think his first molar is on its way.

Today I ate my first cheese sandwich since I went milk-free last November. It was good.

Now Adrian is sleeping like crap, waking all the time. Either it’s because of the cheese, or it’s because of all the commotion here today because of Ingrid’s birthday party.

To be continued.

We celebrated Adrian’s birthday today.

Well, it wasn’t that much of a celebration really… he does like to have people around him but an actual birthday party with the whole extended family would be too much for him. And perhaps for the family, too, considering that they’d be invited back here for a second party a month from now. So we saved the partying for Ingrid’s birthday and just had some cake today, and invited my mum.

Except that we ate the cake after Adrian went to bed (which he did early because he had slept badly both last night and today during the day). And my mum mostly played with and read for Ingrid rather than Adrian, since Ingrid appreciates her company a lot more.

So really Adrian just had an ordinary Sunday, and the rest of us shamelessly used his birthday as an excuse to have fun. But I don’t think he minded.

Adrian’s current favourite game is increasing entropy. Nature abhors a vacuum; Adrian apparently abhors excessive order. When I stack three blocks on top of each other, he picks them down, one by one. He doesn’t just hit the stack to make it fall, no, he carefully picks it apart. When I put his 8 stacking cups inside each other, he picks them out, one by one. I line them up in two rows; he knocks each one over so it doesn’t stand straight any more.

He has also learned to bang things against each other. Sometimes he does this with toys, but it is even more fun to do this with cutlery. We have heavy cutlery with solid handles, and they make a lot of noise when banged against the table.

Until very recently he only used cutlery for banging, but now he suddenly developed an interest for using them for eating, too. This morning at breakfast he took the spoon I had handed to him and started poking at my food with it. When I loaded the spoon for him, he got it in his mouth and managed to lick off some food. (Oat porridge with blackcurrants. Yum.)

We’ve tried introducing a bowl and a spoon before, but they’re both tricky: he wants to investigate them from all angles, so the food falls out and little gets into the mouth. But perhaps this was the wrong end to begin from: spoons and bowls are for spoon-fed babies. For a BLW baby, forks may be easier to get started with. So for lunch today we gave him a fork for his food. He can’t yet spear any food on it, so we do that part for him, but he had no trouble putting the fork in his mouth or getting the food off – laughing all the way as if this was the best thing ever.

He still likes climbing. Most of the time, when I want to take him upstairs, I lift him over our jury-rigged “gate” and then he dives for the stairs, away from my arms, so he can climb up himself. In a new place with no toys or other objects to play with, he will immediately explore all climbing and standing opportunities. He will climb up on the step stool in our kitchen, and on our bed. In trains and buses he will fight with his whole being to be let out of the stroller or baby carrier so he can instead stand up on a seat. He will climb up into shop windows in shops, if given free rein, and stand up on park benches.

Up, up, and away!

With most of these, I let him climb, with various amounts of supervision. He is not overconfident (yet?) and won’t forget, for example, that he is on a stool and step sideways. And none of these places are so high that a fall would lead to serious damage ’ perhaps a banged head but no broken bones. The stairs is the only place where I am always right behind him and don’t let him climb on his own.

I’m less happy about his new ability to climb out of his highchair and onto the kitchen table, not so much because he will fall but because everything else would fall or be sat upon. So we can no longer leave him unattended there, and have to take him out of the chair as soon as he makes it clear he is done.

Climbing up is easier but he is also slowly learning to climb down from things. He can’t yet get down from step stools, but he can get down backwards from our bed and from the sofa.

He also climbs around when nursing. He sits, then kneels, then sits with one leg underneath him and one somewhere else, then stands up… The weirdest nursing position he has used was standing up and then bending forward from the waist – not quite 90 degrees but maybe 60, i.e. pretty far forward – staying upright by planting his face on my chest, and letting his arms dangle and wave around.

He wanders around in his sleep. When I go to the bedroom at night, he is never where I left him. Almost always I find him lying across the bed, with his head towards Eric’s side and his feet towards mine. Usually he sleeps on his tummy, either flat or with his bottom up in the air. Sometimes he then lists to one side and leans his bum onto a pillow or a warm body. When he’s napping with Eric he likes to burrow his head into Eric’s armpit. With me, especially when he wakes at night and has trouble going back to sleep, he likes to lie on his right side across the bed, with his bum and his feet against me, and his head away from me, sort of as if he was sitting on my chest.

He still likes being carried in a sling or baby carrier. When he is out with Eric, he is content to stay in the stroller, or so I’m told. With me, he sometimes accepts the stroller but more often he wants to sit in a baby carrier. I suppose he knows that with Eric, he doesn’t really have any choice, and he’s OK with that.

I carry Adrian for many reasons. Sometimes for the closeness: when I’ve been away from him all day, and then take him out for a quick trip to the supermarket I’d rather hold him close than at arm’s length. Sometimes for convenience, especially when there are stairs, hills, or narrow spaces to be navigated. Sometimes for the safety of things around him: on my back he is further away from stuff he shouldn’t touch (especially in small cramped shops) than when he’s in the stroller. Sometimes to keep him calm: when he wants out of the stroller, he often wriggles if I hold him in my arms, but is somewhat quieter on my back.

He hates lying down on his back for nappy changes. He screams as if he was tortured, and fights us and flees as soon as he can. I try to get as much as possible done without putting him down on his back: unsnapping the poppers on his clothes, taking off his trousers, even taking off the wet nappy. Sometimes I can entice him to stand still in one place long enough so I can actually put on a dry nappy with him standing up. But with dirty nappies there is no option; if I let him go he will sit down on the floor and there will be poop everywhere, so I have to put him down and listen to him scream. Toys, singing, silly faces, no distraction works.

To counterbalance this torture, I often let him loose without a nappy when I’ve cleaned him up. He loves that part. The moment I let him go, he usually laughs and crawls away from me. Then he makes a game out of crawling away when I call him back or follow him, looks over his shoulder and giggles at me and races away. We call it his chasing game. Unfortunately he often pees small puddles on the floor, so I can’t let him go free without constantly watching him.

He likes waving and smiling and babbling at people. He’s learned that this usually gets a pleasant response.

He likes my mouth. He pokes at my lips and my tongue, and hooks his fingers around my teeth. Sometimes he puts stuff in my mouth.

For a week or two he really liked playing with and chewing on Ingrid’s paint brushes, and my old toothbrush. That seems to have ended as suddenly as it came.

He likes pointing with his finger but I’m not sure if he actually points at any particular object, or just points. He likes holding out objects towards me and triumphantly announcing “täääh!”, but not giving them to me. He just likes to show them off I think.

Adrian’s favourite foods are puffed rice cakes and wafers. You can’t go wrong with these. Prunes and meatballs are also safe bets. With fruit his taste is unpredictable: some days he has no interest in bananas, other days he eats a whole banana in a single sitting.

By Mats Halldin [GFDL], via Wikimedia Commons

Yesterday the Estonian playgroup got started for this season. For Ingrid it clashed with a birthday party, so Adrian and I went on our own. As usual, Adrian loved the new environment and the crowds and the action. But afterwards when we got home he was pretty knackered.

This was also my first long outing with him without a stroller. I’ve been doing shorter trips with him on my back, especially to the supermarket, so by now I am pretty confident that it works well. He used to not like back carries when he was younger but now he has no objections. And he is tall enough to be able to almost look over my shoulder, or around me, which also means that I can reach him to give him the dummy when needed. For all the stuff we need to bring with us, I take our trusty IKEA shopping trolley.

This is a much more mobile setup than a stroller. Yes, I know, a stroller is a contraption on wheels that exists in order to provide mobility – but on steep hills, escalators, and cobblestoned streets, it can be suboptimal. (The photo here shows what our destination looks like – the entrance to the Estonian school is at the far end of the house on the left, almost at the top of the hill.) Without Ingrid and without the stroller, I think it took us 15 minutes to get from the train station to the playgroup, instead of the usual 25.

I let Ingrid paint my face again today, while Adrian and Eric had gone out for a walk. When they came back and Adrian saw me with my painted face, he was shocked into speechlessness. Rather than crawling or leaning towards me to be picked up, like he usually does, he sat quietly in Eric’s arms and just stared at me, without making a sound. Then he picked and poked and pulled at my face for a while. Then we nursed, after which he poked some more. When I washed off the paint after dinner, he was quite happy to see my real face again.

Admittedly Ingrid’s rough brushwork tends to lead to scary-looking results, even when she chooses a non-threatening design to imitate. This time the design she was guided by was a cute kitten. The outcome… more like a bloody ghost.