7 months

So, Arlo celebrated his seven-month birthday, and valentines day (okay, technically it was his birthday plus one day) by cutting his first tooth.  What an odd phrasing – perhaps I should say, by cutting his gum for the first time.  Strictly, that’s not correct either since he cut it once with his fingernail.  I digress!

We’ve been looking for evidence of teeth for weeks.  Any time he was fussy, or not sleeping properly, or extra chewy, or crying for seemingly no reason, I checked for teeth, but no dice.  He’s been his usual happy, calm self this week, so imagine my surprise when he grabbed my finger to chew, and I realised there was a sharp edge to his gum!  He finds it amusing, in fact, when I run my finger back and forth across his emerging tooth.

Today his highchair arrived, and he just had his first meal in it.  It’s an imitaiton Stokke Tripp Trapp – all the same features, for a third of the price.  Which is good, since in recent weeks we’ve ordered a not-imitation Quinny Buzz, a not-imitation leather carry-all, and a certainly-not-imitation Peugeot (see below post).  Oh, and this weekend I’m going on a not-imitation holiday for a week.

Anyway, enough about my poor skinny bank account, which has anorexia (or perhaps bulimia) only by proxy.

Instead, here’s a series of photos, most taken on his month-birthdays, or a day either side.

Birth:

One month:

2 months:

Three months:

Four months:

Five months:

Six months:

And 7 months:

Le brum brum

Or some such made up French.

Pictures, as requested by keda and others (btw, keda, did I read correctly that we both got new cars on the same day?  Yay!)

Pug was lovingly washed by Mark yesterday.  Not vacuumed though.  We had the roof racks put on yesterday and one set of foot pads so we can take the kayaks whenever we want, as if I’m ever ever going to ever get to go kayaking ever again…o play golf, for that matter.

Second try

So.  I’ll probably be distracted and not put as much detail into this post as I did the first time around, before George’s internets ate it.

He’s really accurate with his movements now (that’s Arlo, not George Bush; he’s hardly accurate with anything).  With that goes grabby, especially for cups of coffee and newspapers, which tend to be torn and then eaten.  Attempted murder by mastication is the most commonly committed crime in this house.

He also has object permanence now, so angry, frustrated crying abounds.  Today Mark dared take a strap from him (did I mention straps are his favourite toy?) and Arlo screamed.  And as Mark walked away, Arlo on hip, Arlo turned turned to stare at the strap in my lap.

Straps.  The love-affair began in his pram, in which the arm harness has just enough length for him to grab the end and feed it into his mouth.  He concentrates so hard on aiming for his mouth that he’s often cross-eyed in the attempt, and when you laugh his concentratio isso disturbed he sticks the strap too far in and gags.  It’s quite amusing.

He always feeds to sleep, so I am the go-to for feeding and sleeping times.  Lately, if he’s with Mark and no food or sleep or mama are forthcoming, his cries have an added sound of ‘mum mum mum mum’.  We also play a little game called "Where’s dadda? Where’s mama?" (the entirety of which is contained there between those inverted comms) and only several occasions he has turned in the direction of the subject rather than towards the source of the voice.

He knows.  He seems to know things now.  You can see the cogs turning -he’s aware of the process of movements.  He knows that when he tips his head, he can lift his right arm, lift his hip then his legs and he will roll over.  He knows that he has to remove his fingers from his mouth before I can put the spoon full of pumpkin in.  It’s amazing to watch this little human going from a reactive, basic-needs entity to being a little human with the beginnings of cognitive skills.  It’s totally cliched and and corny but it truly is a priviledge.  Mark’s also lucky that, apart from the travel, he has the opportunity to work from home for a portion of the week so he is here for some of the ‘moments’.

Thursday we went to one of those huge kiddy play centres, to meet with some of Arlo’s cousins and aunts.  one of the attractions was an enormous inflatable slide, like a jumping castle.  Metres tall, big enough to be enjoyable for adults.  So, of course, even though he couldn’t have cared less, I climbed it several times (no mean feat with a squirmy baby in hand and socks on one’s feet) and we wooshed down.  The are several very unflattering photos floating around somewhere of the event but they’re pretty hideous.  And he was bemused rather than amused.  He found the other children far more interesting.

Damned wireless

Just wrote a huge post about Arlo’s recent developments, only to have the stupid wireless connection fail me at my hour of need.

Perhaps it was a sign that I was wibbling too much.  Never mind, I may find time and energy to update again next year.

Our driveway’s so hot right now…

Cos we picked up our car yesterday.  Whee!  No more odd knocking sounds or shurddering steering wheel when you brake!

And whern I sit in the back with the baby, my hips don’t hurt because unlike in the camry, the seat is flat.  What a strange concept!  The only thing I’d change is the cupholder – they got a lot of things right, including the rear passenger cupholders, but front passenger cupholder are wedged by the handbrake.  I guess maybe it’s a salvo in the War on Obesity?  As in, you can only fit a small-sized thickshake in them. 

Poor Mark – he went outside this afternoon and noted, with sadness, that there were already squished bugs on the bumper.  Somehow I can see this car being washed more frequently than the once-a-week we’d agreed upon – and it won’t just be Mark obsessing about it. *blush*