Things are fine and well here, just busy as per usual. This weekend Greg didn’t have to work so we slept late this morning (and Jay accompanied us – now that it’s cold he sleeps so well when he is with me. I wish I could say he slept well in his crib, but I’d by lying). Anyway, we slept in, had breakfast, worked a bit on Jay’s birth DVD and then took a walk to Park Lane. We went to Starbucks and got some cake and coffee and had a little picnic in the park. Jay stayed awake the whole time and it was actually so nice because he is at the age where he is interested in everything so we sat him up and he looked all around and was fascinated by all the new sights and sounds. On the way back we stopped at the baby store to pick up some new teats for the bottles because he is getting bigger now and soon we’ll need to upgrade to the 6-12 month group. We also got some more cereal for him and when we paid they gave us a free CD. It has English songs on it, but to be honest it’s really quite awful. All the people singing have such strong Chinese accents and it’s so high pitched. I hope we can get some decent CDs at the shop soon or I’m going to have to ask you to send some.
As I was saying, although he doesn’t sleep well in his crib, he sleeps so well with me! Last night he slept for 8 hours in a row! I think he gets too cold in his crib, but I’m too nervous to add too many blankets in case he pulls them over his head. He actually loves doing that. Any towel or blanket or bib, he immediately pulls it over his head and starts freaking out. It’s weird because he can actually remove something that’s on his face, but he just doesn’t want to or something. He waits a while and then does and then immediately pulls it back over his face again! At least now when he wakes up in the morning I feel like he is okay to just play for a while in his crib on his own. I usually change his diaper and then pop him in the crib for a while so I can make myself a cup of tea, make the bed, wash dishes and so on. He doesn’t mind, though. I check on him all the time, but he is quite happy to play with his toys for a while and I don’t leave anything dangerous in the crib or anything that can be pulled over his head. He wants to shake everything at the moment. Even if it’s not a rattle, he has to shake it and shake it. It’s rather cute to watch, though. He also likes to roll all over the place and laugh all day long. He cries when he is tired, though.
His appetite has been really good this week. I’m not sure if it’s due to the cold, a growth spurt or simply from messing half of his food onto his bib, face and clothing when he does eat. We hope to get him a high chair soon because at the moment he uses his walker and although you can put that thing on at the bottom that stops him from moving away, it’s kind of a mission so we usually just end up taking the console off and feeding him while he can walk. Of course that means that he likes to zoot off between bites and now he is spreading his mess around because he’ll put his hands in his mouth and then those cereal hands touch the fridge, books, wall and so on. He just loves touching the AC remote control, the one that is in the living room and hangs down against the wall. He loves to grab it and press the buttons (and get cereal all over it). Now and then he gets frustrated, though, when he can’t get a good hold of it or when he can’t take it with him and then he starts crying. Actually, he is so focused on things now. He loves the fridge magnets and sometimes we’ll put some of the bigger ones on his little table and he’ll spend ages playing with them. If you look quickly, it looks like he is shuffling cards!
So this week he started creeping backwards. He kind of gets up on all fours, but not too high off the ground and then pushes himself backwards and flops down. He grunts and strains a lot while he does it, though. Then he starts all over again and before you know it he has gone from one side of the room to the other! He is also sitting so beautifully now and I just have to put something behind him. Then he plays with his toys and can even reach quite far in front of him and return to a sitting position. My little boy sure is growing up so fast! Just the other day Greg and I were in the baby room and he was having tummy time. He was shaking something whilst having tummy time and I said that I couldn’t believe that just a short while back he didn't have enough strength to push his head an inch off the ground and even a little after that it took so much work for him to just move his head from one side to the other. Now he can look all around and push himself way up with such ease. It’s really amazing. He loves to play with his toys and he can push himself up so high and even onto all fours. He also often moves in a circle so I can put toys all around him and know that he’ll get to them all eventually.
This week he discovered his tongue and the wonderful noises it can help create and has also started trying to make some other sounds. He also just sticks it out as far as he can and it looks so funny! We always make sure he wears socks when he is in his walker and the other day I took out these ones we got from Greg’s colleague. They were in the first bag of clothing he gave us and I’d forgotten about them. They have these cows sewn on at the toes and they look funny and make this noise like there are beads inside or something. At first Jay wasn’t sure what to make of them and so he kept shaking his feet. I took a video of him “tap dancing” although Greg said it looked like he was doing some sort of jig.
It was Stella’s birthday the other day. We bought her a very cute mug (she collects them) and also gave her a card with some money inside. She was really, really thankful and it felt good doing something nice. She sent me a message after opening it and said she was really blessed and that she loved taking care of Jay. For Christmas, Greg will have the day off but I won’t so he will watch Jay from 6-9pm for me and we’ve given her the day off, but we’ll still pay her for it. That will be her “present”. She mentioned again to me how much she thinks Jay looks like me. She said he only has two things from Shaun – his eyes and his hairline! I laughed when I heard the latter. I must say Jay does look as though he already has a receding hairline so maybe Greg never actually lost any hair. Maybe his hair has always been like that! I know by the area near his ears where he has no hair and some people still ask him if he shaves it that way, but he doesn’t. The hair just doesn’t grow there. On Wednesday Greg spoke to his mom and she said that the bridge of Jay’s nose is exactly how she remembers Greg’s being when he was a baby.
Anyway, it’s getting late and Greg has to walk the dogs soon. When we got back from our outing, I made some dinner and then we watched Friends, had some wine and it was nice. Then I looked after Jay for a long time and now Greg is watching him so I can just finish up this email to you.
Lots of love
Em x
snippets from December 2009 (5 months)
