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.

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 mimic 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.

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.

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.

The stairs that were of so little interest to Adrian last month are now very interesting. One day he discovered that he could go up the stairs and he immediately proceeded to climb all the way up (with me just behind him). No practice needed.

Now we have barred the bottom of the stairs, using a stylish solution consisting of one chinup bar and one shower curtain bar. I don’t really worry about him losing his balance or not being able to climb – but he hasn’t yet learned that the floor is not always there behind him, so he could decide halfway up that it’s time to sit down, and sit down on thin air.

He’s also already found the ladder up to Ingrid’s play house and tried climbing that. I wish the surroundings were safer and softer for any falls – I don’t mind him climbing, but I do mind him climbing in a place where a fall could lead to a concussion or a cracked skull.

Other fun stuff includes kitchen drawers and cabinets. He knows very well how they open, but has some trouble making it actually happen on his own: the drawers glide too easily for him, while the cabinet doors require a bit more balance than he has. So I usually help him a little bit. It’s a good way to keep him occupied while I’m busy in the kitchen. The best cabinet is the one with all our (empty) food containers and picknick bottles; the one with pots and pans is the least interesting one.

The kitchen is also good for baths. The sink works so well for bathing him that we haven’t even tried the tub again. He’s at a convenient height for us, the sink is easy to fill and empty, the worktop is great for bath toys etc, and Ingrid can sit in the other sink right next to him.

As for actually eating in the kitchen, well, he’s been so skilled at feeding himself for a while now that there’s not much new to say. He has now also mastered his sippy cup; water mostly ends up in his mouth and not on his tray. We haven’t tried introducing plates or bowls or cutlery yet, but I’m starting to think that perhaps we could/should try soon.

We still complement food with breastfeeding. He nursed a lot during our vacation. Then during my first week back at work his nursing was a bit erratic, while he got used to me being away during the day. Now we’re settling into a more predictable pattern again. Nurse in the morning as he wakes; get some expressed milk during the day; nurse frequently during the afternoon and evening; nurse a few times during the night.

He’s pretty distractible during the day and is completely unable or unwilling to staying still while nursing. He climbs around on the sofa and on myself, pulls at my clothes, looks around whenever someone passes. It’s like a gym session. For the last evening feed we go up to the bedroom: it is much easier for him to focus when we’re in a quiet, dark room.

At night he sleeps pretty much as he’s always done. He wakes for nursing once around 10 or 11 in the evening; nurses thirstily and efficiently for five minutes, and then immediately goes back to sleep. Usually he does the same once or twice more during the night. Then at some point between 6 and 7 he wakes for the day.

During the day he now takes two naps. A long one at around 9 or 9.30 in the morning, often lasting an hour and a half, and then a shorter one in the afternoon, around 2pm, maybe 40 minutes or so.

If he’s really tired, he sometimes rests in a sling for half an hour between 5 and 6pm. He likes that a lot; when I bring out a sling or baby carrier he gets all excited and makes happy noises at me.

He’s not averse to sitting in a stroller when we’re out, but when we’re someplace new or crowded, he often wants to be carried instead, so I always pack a baby carrier of some sort when we leave home for more than a quick trip to the supermarket. He likes front carries best, especially for sleeping, but back carries work OK as long as I move around with him. The ring sling he doesn’t like much at all.

When he’s tired, he often shows it by pulling at his hair and sort of slapping his head, or rubbing his eyes and face. As he is often tired towards the end of dinner, it’s not uncommon for dinner to end with him smearing food all over his face and hair. Another sign of tiredness is that he does not want to be on the floor at all and demands to be picked up immediately.

He hates having his hands and face wiped after eating, almost as badly as he hates nappy changes. And he’s not very fond of me brushing his teeth, either. Basically he dislikes most things that involves us doing stuff to his body.

The thing that best distracts him during these activities is making funny noises or funny faces at him. He likes looking at our mouths, and – given the chance – to put his fingers in them, pull at our tongues or lips, or poke at our teeth. He also likes making sounds with his own mouth and hands. (What do you call it when you make your lips flutter with your finger, like this? That’s not Adrian in the video, by the way.)

He continues to make varied speech-like sounds, but nothing that I would call word-like. He obviously understands both words and the few signs we use, but doesn’t respond in kind. Or if he does, it is so indistinct that we miss it.

He likes books even better than last month, especially a touchy-feely one with textured patches. I’ve tried reading some very short baby books for him but he will not look at the pictures. He grabs the book from me and turns the pages instead.

He also likes handling DVD cases (grabbing them from the shelf, turning them around, dropping them on the floor) and pens and pencils. Mobile phones are also fun.

There are now palpable 9 teeth: four incisors at the top, four at the bottom (the two new ones barely visible) and the eye tooth that appeared early on but hasn’t progressed much since then.

Favourite foods: meatballs, puffed rice cakes, nectarines, gooseberries.

In just one month Adrian has gone from almost-crawling-but-not-quite-there-yet to very competent, pretty effortless crawling. He’s not quite racing across the floor but he has no trouble going from the hall through the old living room to the new living room. He can even crawl from the wooden deck into the living room, which requires crossing three steps and a threshold. That took some effort to learn; he was practicing hard for several days.

Because of all the thresholds and steps around the house, he’s modified his crawling style. Instead of the usual hands-and-knees, he usually goes around on his hands and feet, or perhaps hands and one foot and the other knee. I think he started doing it this way when he first learned to crawl in & up from the wooden deck. We have sliding doors there, and those slide along a rail on the floor, a sharpish strip of plastic. Going over that on your knees is not comfortable at all, I’m sure.

He has not yet shown any real interest in the stairs going up to the first floor – mostly because he has no reason to. We’re all always down here. Eric installed a gate at the top of the stairs; we’ll see whether we need one at the bottom as well.

He’s also very good at standing. He can pull himself to standing holding on with just one hand, to just about anything, even something as wobbly as my trousers. Occasionally he grabs onto something really unsuitable (such as a blanket lying on the sofa) and falls on his bottom but otherwise he rarely has accidents. Once he is up and standing he can look around, shift his feet, grab stuff, and shuffle along his support (sofa, step stool, myself etc.). This afternoon he actually let go with both hands to hold on to some toy. And he can carefully bend his knees and sit down again in a controlled manner, rather than fall.

And all of a sudden he is OK with being left on his own. He no longer needs to be within a few metres of someone. I wonder if it’s because he now knows that he can follow us when he needs to? Or has he simply understood that we do not disapper when we leave the room (object permanence)? On a few mornings when he’s woken me particularly early I have gone downstairs with him, changed his nappy and then put him down among his toys on the living room carpet, and then dozed on the sofa. He’s crawled around, explored the toys, then crawled into the hall or the adjacent room and looked through the stuff there, and only after 10 minutes or so does he call for my attention.

Adrian has now also reached the stage where every item is interesting and works as a toy – as long as it is new to him. Kitchen utensils, Ingrid’s toys (ranging from princess tiaras to toy stethoscopes), bike helmets, pencils, keys, you name it. This combined with crawling means that we need to be careful about what we leave on the floor or otherwise within his reach. Books in particular are very attractive. He sees me and Ingrid play around with them all the time and he really wants to try them, too. Right now there are still safe places in the living room, and he is not so fast a crawler that we can rescue the things he’s heading for. But I foresee a period of some destruction ahead.

We’ve introduced the concept of No, for pulling at people’s hair or Eric’s glasses, or chewing power cords, or trying to crawl from the bed to the bedside table (with its water glass, clock, lamp and other off-limits items).

He eats happily and a lot. He still likes starchy stuff like bread and pasta and cereal, but also meatballs, broccoli, and butternut squash. Most fruit is good, too: recently he’s eaten a lot of apricots and grapes, and some cherries. He now happily eats banana which he used to spit out in disgust. He’s just getting the pincer grip to work and can pick up sweetcorn kernels. Rice grains are still too fiddly for him.

Adrian watches with great interest when we eat, and seems to be very aware that sometimes we eat different stuff than he. Food from my plate is better than food from his plate.

He is lazy when it comes to fruit peel and often spits out the peel with lots of edible bits still stuck to it. We actually peel his grapes for him, because if we do, he eats them, but otherwise he spits out most of each grape. But this also means that I am not afraid to give him a whole cherry: he will bite on it, spit it out, I pick out the stone, and he puts the rest back in his mouth. Quite a lot of the fruit he eats goes in and out a few times. It took him a few tries to figure out cherries. First I had to cut them in half because he didn’t understand they were worth biting into. Then he learned that they were good, and now he’ll crawl across the lawn to get one.

He has a weird relationship with the sippy cup. When we hand it to him, he never uses it for drinking. He turns it in his hands, bangs it against his tray, or turns it upside down and chews on its bottom. Which leads to water everywhere and a gooey mess on the tray, so we usually don’t give him the cup. When he drinks, we hold it for him. And he knows not to pull at it then.

Adrian has become much more varied and clear in communicating with us. It’s not just happy sounds and faces vs. unhappy sounds and faces. He can reach for the sippy cup to tell us he wants a drink. He can “tell” us that he is not happy with the food he is getting and wants something else – and that signal is different from when he is done eating. He understands very well when we sign and say “all done” and readies himself for being lifted out of the highchair. He can look questioning, interested, irritated, bored, joyful, mischievous… A sort of “mma” sound for “emme” might be emerging. And the other day I think he may have signed “nurse” to me.

He totally hates nappy changes and putting on clothes, and screams as if we were torturing him. I’ve tried to change him standing up, and tried finishing putting on his clothes while he’s sitting, thinking that he just doesn’t want to be flat on his back, but it makes no difference. And he fights me so much that I often end up putting him flat on his back anyway.

He likes his swing, but usually for short periods only.
He likes to fiddle with my bra strap while he’s nursing.
He likes playing with cardboard books, opening and closing and turning them in his hands. No interest in looking at pictures yet.

This month’s big news is, of course, that I have gone back to work and Adrian is at home with Eric instead. After a rocky start (in part because he was ill the first few days) they settled into a routine and now it’s all going swimmingly. I express milk at work, and he gets it in his sippy cup. (Blue cup for breast milk, yellow cup for water.)

He is happy to see me and wants to nurse first thing when I get home – I usually run upstairs to change out of work clothes and into a nursing top, and then settle down with him in the sofa. He nurses frequently in the evenings but no longer stuffs himself until he throws up.

During the day he usually eats happily and well. Bread and cereal remain his favourites. Broccoli is no longer interesting at all; instead he eats black pudding and apricots and grapes.

Adrian is very very close to crawling but not quite there yet. First he learned to rotate in place and move backwards on his tummy by pushing off with his hands. He still does that at night – I wall him in with pillows and rolled-up blankets to keep him from falling off the bed. When I go to the bedroom I never find him sleeping where I left him. I’ve started teaching him how to get down from the sofa feet first – on his own he heads for the edge head first.

A few weeks ago he learned to keep his knees fixed while pushing, so he got up on all fours instead of moving backwards. Then he learned to get up on all fours by pulling in his knees under him rather than by pushing back with his hands, so he stays in place rather than inexorably moving away from where he wants to go. But he once he was up on all fours he couldn’t move, he just rocked back and forth.

Now he’s learned to reach and lunge forward from there, but as he does that he flops back onto his tummy so he can only do it once. But it is enough to get him marginally closer to the thing he wants. Sometimes, if the thing is close enough, he can do a few lunges and actually get there in the end.

He’s got a love/hate thing with crawling. When I put him down sitting he often turns and gets on his tummy immediately, but a second later he starts complaining loudly because he can’t get further.

Standing is much more fun. Give Adrian two fingers to hold on to, and he will pull himself up to standing straight away. A pair of hands is the best support for getting up, but if that isn’t available, he sometimes manages with a chair or a step stool. That way is harder because he needs to untangle his legs (whereas when he holds on to my fingers he can go straight forward from sitting so the legs aren’t in the way). He can reliably get onto his knees that way, but in the last few days he’s gone all the way to standing a few times.

He is confident and stable enough on his feet that he can let go of his support with one hand (or even two, and just lean his upper arms on the sofa table) and grab a toy. He’s also stable enough that I now leave him standing there without sitting right behind him to catch him. When he tires, he can sit down rather than fall.

Sometimes he slowly shuffles sideways along the edge of the table, with very small and slow steps. I don’t think he knows what he’s doing – he wills himself towards something and his feet naturally but unconsciously move in that direction.

I’ve found him hard to “read” in the past. Now he’s communicating much more clearly. He reaches towards the person he wants to be with; he reaches for the sippy cup when he wants to drink. He lets go of my hands and leans towards me when he’s tired of standing and wants to be picked up. He waves his arms in a certain way when he’s done eating, or start slapping the tray on his highchair. At night he turns on his side, facing towards me, when he wants to nurse.

He uses his crying more to communicate and less to simply express frustration. One day when he was crying I picked him up and walked around with him. I went to the hall, and he stopped crying. I went back into the living room, and he started again. He was very clearly telling me he wanted to go out. He’s done the same with the bedroom to tell me he wants to sleep. If he wants to go from me to Eric he makes happy noises when he sees Eric, and switches to crying when Eric walks past us.

We’ve started using a few signs with him but not as consistently as I’d like. We sign for “all done” (after mealtimes), and I sign “nurse”. Sometimes we remember to sign “food”, too, but often not. He definitely understands “all done” and we think his arm-waving might be efforts to sign back. When we sign “all done” he knows that he will be lifted out of his highchair so he prepares by holding his arms out. He also helps when it’s time to put his fleece jacket on for going out.

He is attentive and observant. He follows us and our doings with a very focused gaze. Especially at mealtimes, when we all sit together, close to each other and at roughly the same height. He stares when Eric opens a can of beer for dinner, or when we make particularly happy noises about eating strawberries.

Random small stuff: we tried bathing him in the kitchen sink instead of the small bathtub, and it was a great success. Previously his baths have lasted a minute or two, just enough to get him sort of clean. Now he was so happy there that afterwards Ingrid insisted on trying, too – if Adrian enjoys it so much then it obviously must be great.

As before: he very much insists on company and won’t be left alone. Sometimes it’s enough to be in the same room with him, but more often he likes to be within a metre or two.

Topmost in my mind right now is the fact that Adrian now stays at home with Eric and not me. This means less breastfeeding, the introduction of a bottle, and a general disruption of “how life used to be”. He also has a bad cold, and the days before that he was teething. With all this going on it is hard to say how he is taking the change – we will see in a few days.

When I was at home with him, he’d always smile at Eric when he got home from work. It is pretty nice to be on the receiving end of that smile. It usually takes him a few moments: when I get in he doesn’t notice me at first, and then when I call his name he looks at me, thinks for a moment, and then smiles and leans and stretches himself towards me.

His favourite activity is watching people do stuff. The best thing we can do in the afternoon/evening (now that both Eric and I are at home at that time of the day) is for one of us to cook and the other to hold Adrian so he can watch. When I did it on my own, I’d often have him on my hip most of the time, and put him down only when he was obviously incompatible with the task at hand (such as pouring boiling water). Often he will try to lean far forward, to get closer to the action and to try and grab whatever I’m working with.

It is much less fun to be sitting in a highchair next to us, with some kitchen utensils to play with.

Toys are generally of little interest. He can spend a little time chewing on a wooden block, or fiddling with the tag on some soft toy, or banging a wooden spoon against the table. But he tires of that quite quickly. The only “toy” he likes is paper that he can chew on, but since that ends with me digging out a gooey lump of wet, chewed paper from his mouth, I don’t like that activity very much.

Eating has gone from play to serious work. He seems to get less enjoyment out of food, doesn’t explore it with as much interest as he used to, but on the other hand he is very interested in eating it. I used to have him join in our meals – now I join him in his. If he doesn’t get food, he complains, and then wolfs down the first few handfuls he is served. Bread, pasta and dry cereal are his favourites, and he will usually eat some veggies, too. Kiwi fruit, sweet potato, grilled bell peppers, courgette. Liver paté was rejected and meatballs are not of much interest, either. He can pick up small cubes of about a centimetre or so, but cannot manage peas or rice.

When done eating, he will start rocking his body and slapping the tray. He usually doesn’t like to be removed from the community around the dinner table so I take him on my lap. He then proceeds to try and grab my fork, the edge of my plate, my glass or my food, so I have to move it all and eat from a safe distance. His arms may be short but his reach is long, because he puts his whole body into it.

This is something I still forget sometimes, which makes things “fun” at the supermarket for example – I have to take care to park his stroller far away from anything grabbable. He also likes to grab people’s hair when he gets a chance (which Ingrid isn’t enjoying much). He likes touching and exploring my face and my ears, too. And my nipples: after nursing he will sometimes sit in my lap and look at my nipple, poking at it and trying to pick it up, all the while making very contented noises.

Breastfeeding has become somewhat less important but he still gets much of his nourishment from breast milk, and nurses regularly and thoroughly. At some point he pretty much stopped throwing up milk. We used to always have a washcloth at hand to wipe him clean, and never put him down directly on a carpet. Old habits die hard – I still have a blanket for him on the living room carpet.

Last month he was fond of sitting; now standing up (holding on to someone’s hands) is the new thing. It is hard to put him down sitting; he will land standing instead. Sometimes he accepts being put down on his tummy, but more often he will hold out his hands and legs so that he lands on all fours instead. He doesn’t really know what to do in that position and soon lets his legs slide out from under him, ending up on his tummy anyway. He then pushes with his arms so that he moves backwards, or turns in place like the hands of a clock. Usually he gets frustrated with this pretty quickly, although some corner of a blanket or a carpet may entertain him for a few moments, but for some reason he can be pretty happy on his tummy in bed, just after waking. It’s not because the floor is too hard – I’ve tried putting him on his tummy on the changing mat but that was no better than the floor.

He sleeps from roughly 7 in the evening to around 6, plus/minus 30 minutes, in the morning. If he wakes before 5:30 I refuse to get up and keep him in bed until he falls asleep again, otherwise his daily routine gets too messed up. During the day he sleeps pretty well in sling, stroller or bed. He falls asleep most easily in the stroller, but the longest naps usually happen in bed. Most days he still has three naps. When he sleeps in the stroller he will spend a good while taking out the dummy and then getting all upset about losing it. The way around it is to either hold his hand, or to put his hand on the bar of the stroller that he can then hold onto.

He now has four teeth fully out (top and bottom middle incisors) and three more visible and palpable (that eye tooth that made its appearance a month ago, unchanged, and the next two top incisors). He grinds his teeth; it sounds awful. We’ve started brushing his teeth. At first he had no objections, now I make some token brushing movements for a few seconds and then hand over the brush to him.

He does not like nappy changes. He is ticklish, especially around the neck. He does not like singing games where I tilt him backward, like “Prästens lilla kråka” – instead he struggles to remain upright. He did not like the door bouncer I bought for him. (And he barely fit inside, because of his cloth nappy.)

As of this morning, his measurements were 9.4 kg and 69.7 cm.

PS: I just realized when preparing this post that I have no photos of him smiling during this month. Intense focused stares: yes, yes, yes. Crying: yes. Smiling: no. It’s not that he never smiles but it is definitely not his default expression.

“I think I will have the fish”

This was the month of teething. Adrian’s first tooth appeared just about a month ago. Now both bottom incisors are out, as well as the tip of an eye tooth, and (as of today) the tips of the top incisors. As a side effect there has been a lot of drooling and quite a lot of crying, too. I don’t remember Ingrid crying so much about teething. And then he blows raspberries so there is bubbly spittle everywhere.

Already he is learning to use those teeth on food. He can gnaw on a chunk of apple and scrape pieces off a bread stick. He is not very interested in the various teething rings and chewable toys. I think the only thing I’ve noticed him actually chewing on is his dummy. He has understood that our fingers are now off limits (he used to suck on them and chew them with his gums) and he’s not been biting my boobs either. He did it once, just to try I think, and didn’t like it when I cried OW.

While he was getting his latest teeth he completely lost interest in eating and has regained it only in the last few days. As a result I cannot really say what he likes to eat right now, apart from various kinds of bread (including home-made pie crust, and Havrefras). He really likes drinking water from his sippy cup, and will stretch towards him and make demanding noises until we help him drink.

He nurses often and happily. Usually he wants to nurse after waking (although not necessarily immediately) and again before going to sleep. Recently he’s been very distracted while nursing, so his most undisturbed meals are the ones before he goes to sleep in a dim quiet room, and those in the middle of the night. He likes to grip and hold my breast with both hands. When he doesn’t, his arms and hands flail around and look for something to grip. Most often they find my clothes.

“I think I will have the pink one”

He talks quite a lot more than he used to. It started with “bjäbb bjäbb”, then we had “höbba höbba”, then “däd däd däd” and now “mäm mäm mäm”. (Swedish/Estonian pronounciation for all the above.)

Mostly he talks when he is unhappy. Or perhaps all my mental images of him talking are with an unhappy tone because he is somewhat discontented much of the time. His is not a sunny disposition. He is bores quickly and loves company and new things to look at. (Sounds very much like a certain 4-year-old in this house, doesn’t it?) The absolute best way to make him happy is to either have guests, the more the merrier, or to go out. Just him and me in the house is a recipe for endless whining.

He very much likes to see what is going on. The hip seat I bought has been very useful, especially for when I’m preparing dinner.

He will not accept being left on his own for long – first there are mild complaints, then within a minute he will be crying, and soon all out screaming. It’s a good thing that he can now sit upright – I can just take him with me to whatever room I need to go to and plop him down on the floor. And really once he learned this skill, he was stable pretty much straight away: he may have fallen over maybe once a day in the beginning and very rarely now. We never had any need for pillows behind him or anything like that.

Now that he can sit, he will not accept lying down for more than brief moments, except when sleeping, or when he gets to be naked during a nappy change. He likes being naked. And the moment I take off his nappy, he will grip his genitals and pull at them. It looks like it should hurt but it obviously doesn’t.

He also likes standing. Often after a nappy change I pull him up to a seated position by letting him hold onto my fingers. Quite often he will keep holding so I can help pull him all the way up to standing. Other times he misjudges and lets go just a bit too early and falls back on his back, and we start over.

“I think I will have the pine cone”

Fine motor skills are not his forte. He can grip things and turn them in his hands and pass them from one hand to the other, but he quite often he drops them when he doesn’t want to. And he is not always able to let go when he does want to drop them. Still, he’s getting better: he can now get something like half a grape into his mouth, sometimes. He doesn’t quite seem to trust his hands/arms: sometimes he bends forwards with his body towards the toy he wants, rather than pull it towards him. He is becoming interested in smaller details like care labels on toys, but he cannot really manipulate them very well yet.

This month I also took away his dummy for nighttime sleep. He now falls asleep much more easily and sleeps so much better. It used to be that he had his best naps in the sling; now the bed is the best place. This is a very new experience for me! Usually we nurse, then I turn him over on his tummy (because he often needs to burp, still). Then he complains and refuses to lie down for maybe a minute or two (literally). Then he realizes that he is tired and sleepy, puts his head down, and I pat him for another minute or two. And then he’s asleep. When he wants to go to sleep and stops fighting it, he often makes a groaning/grunting/humming noise. At first I thought it was because he was somehow uncomfortable, but later I realized it’s his lullaby – often he will stop it when I sing for him or make a rhythmic shushing sound.

He wakes pretty regularly each night, two or maybe three times, nurses, and then goes back to sleep with no fuss. Except when he has a cold, or is teething, or in one of his must-poop-at-four-in-the-morning phases.