One afternoon last week Adrian’s group at nursery played with water: buckets and bowls and tubs of it. He must have loved it. Now whenever he has a container of water within reach, he turns whatever he was doing into water play.

He is thirsty. He takes his glass of water, drinks a few mouthfuls, and then with care and deliberation pours the rest on his chest.

He pours it on the kitchen counter, on himself, in a bowl of nuts, on the floor, in the utensil jar, on the windowsill… pretty much everywhere but the sink.

It does sort of complicate our meal preparations, but the kitchen counter and the floor in front of it get very clean.

This month’s big new thing is nursery, of course. Adrian is at nursery 5 days a week. Eric drops him of about a quarter past 8, and I pick him up shortly before 3. He has acclimatized well by now – I wouldn’t say he loves it but he is not unhappy. He has his favourite teacher but now accepts the others as well if she isn’t available. Often he “attaches” for the day to whoever receives him in the morning. And while he goes off and plays on his own, he likes to return frequently to the teacher during the day to confirm that she, his trusted, safe person, is still there.

He takes nice long naps at nursery, often an hour and a half, which is about the same as he does at home. And he now actually eats as well. Most of the time he keeps the same limited diet that he has done for the past two months or so, both at home and at nursery: bread, plus breadlike substances such as pasta or rice or pancakes; bananas, and occasionally other fruit; meatballs.

Oh, and breast milk of course. Most afternoons he starts pulling at my coat buttons as soon as I meet him at nursery, and we nurse a bit before we even go home. Then more nursing throughout the afternoon and evening, once or twice during the night, and then more in the early morning hours when he starts to become really hungry again.

I think of it as his B diet: Bread and Butter, Bananas, meatBalls and Breast milk. I think he’d be perfectly happy as long as he just got those four. Bananas in particular he’s almost obsessed with. We can’t even walk past the bananas at our local supermarket without him shouting to get one – sometimes even when he isn’t hungry. (The supermarket is kind enough to offer a free fruit to each kid, and he knows that drill very well.)

In the last few day’s he’s let himself be inspired by the other kids at nursery and actually tried some of the cooked food they serve. It remains to be seen whether this actually leads to him eating other food. When I put food in front of him or offer him something on a spoon, he either ignores it, or looks at it askance as if he suspected us of trying to poison him. The only time he is interested in tasting new food is when he grabs some ingredient while we’re cooking. And unfortunately neither raw potatoes nor raw garlic is particularly tasty.

Somewhere Adrian has also picked up the idea of dipping. (This may well come from Ingrid, who likes to do the same.) He dips or drops a piece of food in his glass of water and then tries to fish it out again. When the food is a piece of biscuit the result is pretty soggy.

His main area of development right now is language. It is not going fast; I think he is pretty baffled by the whole bilingual issue. He has a handful of sound combinations that are recognizable words, but just in general he is more and more able to vocalize when he wants to communicate something, and better able to understand us when we talk to him.

The range of sounds he uses is rather limited. Of consonants the only really productive ones are B and P. He makes other sounds as well, of course, but he uses those in most words. He also has a funny screechy sound that combines K and L – try saying “clock” but skipping the O in the middle, and then make it really explosive and forceful. He likes the sound it makes, but he’s also used it to actually say kl’a, meaning clock.

Vocabulary (as far as I can remember):
babaa for banana, böö for bread (“bröd” in Swedish), appa/bappa for daddy, aba for navel (“naba”), appe for paper (“papper”) for when he wants something wiped clean, bäpää for dummy/pacifier, bää bää for “Baa baa white sheep” (his favourite book).
mämmä for mommy, ampa for lamp, u’a (“uggla”) for owl, yy’pa (“flygplan”) for airplane, i’-u’ (“tittut”) for peekaboo, ack-ack for thank you (“tack-tack”).
hejaa for good-bye (“hej då”); this also doubles for good night, which he says when he wants to go to bed.
Something like idde for Ingrid if I recall correctly.

As you may have noticed his current vocabulary is clearly veering towards Swedish rather than Estonian.

Favourite activities: like last month, he is still very fond of helping us cook, and the microwave is a particular favourite. If anyone tries to do either of these without him, he will run there and cry and stretch his arms up and generally use all of his being to tell us that he really, really wants to watch and help.

When I cook he inspects all the ingredients of course, and likes to “help” me pour the water or add the flour or salt. (I don’t let him salt the food, of course, since he does it by the handful, but he can salt the pasta water.) Usually most of it ends up beside the pot he aims for.

He now also wants to see what is going on in the pots and pans, and asks me to lift the lid (and lift him closer when needed) so he can see inside. And he likes to watch me stir and whisk and flip pancakes and such, and hands me utensils when he thinks I’m doing too little of that kind of stuff.

He likes drumming and banging on things. Hands on toilet lid, cooking utensils on lamp shade or window, wooden puzzle pieces against each other.

He likes peekaboo: he hides his face in his hands, I ask “where is Adrian?” and then he looks out happily. This can also be played with my woolly hat. He likes woolly hats, and mine is slightly felted and thus a bit stiff, so it is easier for him to put on than his own one.

He likes songs and rhymes, especially those that come with movement. Eensy weensy spider, Põdra maja/I ett hus vid skogens slut… His absolute favourite is Kuts läks karja, a traditional Estonian rhyme, where he lies on his back and I make walking and running movements etc with his legs. He often asks for it (äta-äta) when I’m changing his nappy.

For a while he really liked playing with a book about birds and their sounds. It has a little media player attached, and he pushed the buttons again and again to hear the birds. In the same vein he likes his and Ingrid’s toy phones. And the real thing as well, especially when someone is at the other end, but he doesn’t understand what is going on, he just likes the fact that it makes sound and light.

Favourite things to spot: dogs and air planes. He points out every plane (“yy’pa!”) that flies past, and those are numerous here since Bromma airport is about 3 km away from here. And every time we see a dog he points and stares.

He usually likes going out. He now has no objections to putting on clothes, and tries to put on his woolly hat on his own, and to put his feet in the boots. When he fights clothes, it is not because of the clothes themselves but because he doesn’t want to go out just then.

He has a whole lot of teeth: all 8 front teeth, at least 4 molars, and all 4 canines are out as well.

I’d written off today before it even began, when I woke at 6.30 and realized that Adrian the Master Boob Sucker hadn’t nursed since midnight, had a totally dry nappy, and was even then uninterested in drinking more than a few sips of water. I roused him again at 7 for a few more sips. When he was no more willing to drink at 7.30 I started worrying for real and seriously thinking about hospitalization. I forced him awake and gave him an hour to make up his mind. Luckily he was now willing to drink and gradually perked up, and even ate some breakfast.

I can’t remember having been so relieved to see an ordinary wet nappy as I was today at 10.30.

And by the afternoon he was… well, not his usual self, but normally unwell rather worryingly so. Ingrid and I even went out skating. So the day wasn’t a total loss after all.

Adrian has contracted a rotavirus infection and has been sick since Wednesday afternoon. Very little sleep for either of us, and lots of cleaning up (of Adrian, us, his clothes, our clothes, the floor, the furniture, the bedclothes etc.) He’s improving but still unwell. Hence, no blogging.

Rotavirus

This was Adrian’s first full week at nursery. It is going better and better: he has found a carer that he trusts and has bonded with, takes proper naps, is pretty happy during the day, and usually eats at least a sandwich or two. But his mood starts veering towards unhappy after their mid-afternoon snack, which takes place at about 2 o’clock, so I’ve been picking him up before 3.

Ingrid on the other hand is not interested in going home at 3 o’clock: all her friends are still there and she’s always in the middle of something important. So I can either: (a) take Adrian home, nurse and cuddle for a short while, and then get us bundled up again to return to nursery, (b) argue with Ingrid to make her go home with me, or (c) let Ingrid take her time and just hang around for an hour or so. None of the alternatives is much fun.

And since I leave work so early, and have totally unproductive afternoons that revolve around nursery pickups, I’m struggling to get things done both at work and at home. I’ve been getting in to the office extra early on some days, and occasionally catching up in the evenings, too, but stuff is still piling up.

Yay for weekends, when I can catch up on sleep (because of those early mornings) and make a dent in the piles waiting for my attention on my desk at home.

Adrian is starting at nursery. It’s going so-so.

The schooling in started two weeks ago. He liked the nursery but only as long as Eric was with him. They kept at it, then lost a few days to illness last week, and continued this week.

Most of this week was a mess. Adrian refused to eat lunch at nursery. He has been sort of picky recently but now he refused all food, even bread and bananas and other things that he normally loves. Naturally he was ravenous during the afternoons and evenings – and nights, too, so he’d wake hungry at around 5 in the morning, and have trouble going back to sleep.

So he was tired before the day even started. And he barely slept at nursery – woke from his naps after 40 minutes, instead of the hour and a half he’d normally sleep. He woke crying and tired and unhappy, but wouldn’t even consider going back to sleep. Eric would put him down for a second nap when they got home from nursery, but even so he was really tired by 7 and was out like a light the moment he finished nursing in bed.

Just as I was starting to wonder what we’d do next, he/they/we seem to have turned a corner. Today he was at nursery without Eric, for over 5 hours. He both ate and slept properly while he was there. He’d woken too early from his nap but actually gone back to sleep – and then woken contentedly some time later.

The staff at the nursery have been absolutely lovely, doing their best to make him feel happy and secure there. When they saw the meals were a struggle, they let him be: they opened the door to the lunch room but didn’t try to bring him to the table. Today he wandered in and out and finally found some toys to play with on the lunch room floor. When he was happy there, they brought him a bowl with some pasta and sweetcorn. If Adrian won’t come to the food, the food will come to Adrian… even if it is in the middle of the floor. And he actually ate some. When it was time for the mid-afternoon snack he went to sit with the rest of the kids at the table and ate one whole banana and two large sandwiches.

Fingers crossed for Monday.

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.