We have all recovered from another bout of sickness. Really, really hope this is the end of the bad run!! Jack has also been breastfeeding constantly in past couple days, which is often part his of teething process.

Was good to get back into our normal activities this week. Jack was clingy at the start of swimming class after a couple weeks off, but soon relaxed into it and enjoyed himself. There were floating balls in the water for the kids to 'swim' to on their fronts, and then hold onto while 'floating' on their backs. Jack of course preferred throwing his ball all the way back down the pool, with me trying to keep track of it.

He was really animated at music class (for the first time at this new class - he had been rather quiet and overwhelmed the previous term with all the kids being older). I think it added to his enjoyment that I could 'walk' him around for the activities (holding my hands) rather than having to be carried.

At Gymbaroo there was a new activity to throw beanbags into a basketball hoop. Jack loved throwing the beanbags in the hoop then bending down and picking them up and throwing in again and again.

Another play centre visit on Friday (back to our monthly routine with Damon, Dominic and Isabel). Jack loves climbing in and out of the cars, and also pushing them around. It was a mostly quiet weekend for us all. We did enjoy catching up with my brother (visiting again from WA on business).

Summary of Jack's latest activities for his 15-month milestone:

- Learning new words regularly. He now has about 25 words. New animal noises for the month are 'woof' and 'miaow' (pronounced more like 'maow'). His favourite word is 'more' and used for everything he wants accompanied by pointing (whether drink, food, toy to be picked up, more of a certain type of play, etc)

- Can now get himself up onto the upstairs couches, as well as off all the couches and beds.

- He starts his day by pointing at the light switch saying 'more' for me to turn on the light for him. He then climbs out of bed and edges himself around to the door, and looks expectantly at me to get up and start my day with him.

- He loves climbing up onto all the chairs in the house (with assistance). He has discovered that the chair in our bedroom rocks back and forth (which he can get going himself with vigorous rocking motion) and swings around (which he loves being turned so he can peer around the side or over the top and saying 'peeka' to us). He also loves climbing up onto my study chair and banging away on my keyboards (which is only allowed when the computers are not turned on, much to his frustration!)

- Loves using his walker in his play area. He races from one side of the room to the other, than announces 'bang' as he hits the couch or wall. He then looks up and says 'more, more' to be turned around and race back across the room again. He is now able to walk holding onto our hands, and has a huge happy grin on his face as he walks along.

- Likes getting Doug out of his study and involved in his play. He will drag his balls into the study and look up at Dad as if to say 'play with me'. He loves playing with his cars and balls in the front entrance hall, where they roll well on the tiles. He is enjoying spending time in his main downstairs play area again for short periods, but now sees the entire house as his play area. We now have little buckets of toys in every room for him.

- His tantrums have calmed down. While he can still throw tantrums when he gets pulled away from things or doesn't get exactly what he wants when he wants it, they rarely are the full 'head banging' variety (thank goodness) and he mostly doesn't lose control and can pull himself out of them.

Posted by Al at 12:01 PM

It has been the return of mostly happy Jack again this week, although he was a little out of sorts yesterday and coughing and upset overnight. Once again has gone happily off to childcare each day.

Had a happy time at swimming (apart from crying on the mat again). They had little ducks and frogs to collect at the end of the pool, but he spotted them right at the start of the lesson and kept pointing at them saying 'duck duck'. Then for the mat activity they had musical instruments set up around the edge of pool that he kept pointing at. Funny little fellow!

Had a 'first' yesterday at playgroup. Glenda put out her arms and said 'Jack, come give me a hug'. Jack looked at her then at me, then crawl over to Glenda and gave her a hug, looking back at me with a big happy grin. He then crawled over to me to give me a hug, pointing at Glenda and chatting excitedly to me as if wanting to tell me all about it. It is the first time I have seen him crawl to someone to give them a hug. Glenda was really touched (she has always had a soft spot for Jack, and her son Lachie isn't a very 'huggy' baby).

Had another first this morning...after feeding him he pointed at the change table and said 'more, more', and happily chatted while I changed his nappy. First time he has ever seemed to indicate that he wants his nappy changed!! Hopefully it is not just a 'once off'. So many big and little 'firsts' to experience with a baby.

He had his 15-month maternal health visit this morning. Height and head measures on the 50%. She said he put on reasonable amount of weight, particularly given he had been sick. Height is now 79.7 cm (up 4cm in 3 months). Head grown about 1cm in 3 month. Weight is now 9.9kg (up 1.1kg in 3 months). She said he is doing really well and seemed like a different little boy than what he had in the past - he was happy and chatting away and pointing to everything in the room. When she gave the blue book back he kept pushing it back on the bench towards her like a game, so he was having fun interacting with her (for probably the first time since she normally sees him crying and upset).

He had a happy music class also, and interacted well, and got excited by the puppets and played well with the instruments.

Posted by Al at 4:04 PM

I think we got through the last week without any noteworthy sickness, aside allergies and a cough. Jack was back to the normal schedule of three days of childcare and all his activities. He seemed to appreciate that.

Al dropped Jack off at the Thursday childcare centre, again with no tears from him. Back at the car she realised she had forgotten to leave his Ventolin, so back in she went. Jack was already in a high chair about to be served morning tea. He gave Al a surprised, “what are you doing back here?” look, then returned to interestingly looking around the room and at the approaching food.

It still amazes us how far he has come along.

Tonight Jack and Al were looking through picture books. Jack pointed to an image of a chair and said “chair”. We hadn’t realised he knew the word. Another page showed the features of a persons face. As Al was going through them Jack reached up and touched his ear, saying the word aloud. Another new word he has only just started using. Last of all he has started to string two words together, saying “Bye Dad” and “Bye Mum” at appropriate times.

I was feeding him earlier in the week when he started to animatedly point and say “more, more, more”. There were a mix of things in his vision that he might have been wanting, so I picked them up one at a time. He repeated “more, more, more”, getting louder as it became apparent I didn’t know exactly what he wanted. When I picked up his water he suddenly said a happy “Raaay”, lifted his arms, and said “Ta, Ta, Ta”.

He really seems to have gotten into this communication thing. If we stop, look directly at him, and repeat a word a number of times, he will now more often than not try to say it back to us. The whole thing has been rather cool.

Posted by Doug at 9:53 PM

It has been another mostly happy week with Jack. He was coughing overnight a bit at end of the week, and wheezing a bit on the weekend, but has not been overly bothered by it.

We made it out to another park on the weekend. We happened upon a mother duck with 10 baby ducklings swimming behind, so that excited Jack, as did all the other ducks and bird life.

Childcare reported back on Monday night that he had a great day and hadn't cried once (which of course did make us wonder how much he might cry at other times!) At playgroup, there is some new 'water play' equipment for outside, so he enjoyed splashing around in the water trough and with the little boats and fish toys in it. At music class there is a toy bee and mouse that comes around after a song to give all the kids a kiss on the cheek. Today, each time in anticipation, Jack made a 'MaaAA' sound (the sound he associates with lips smacking together for a kiss).

Earlier in the week I was reading Jack a book and Doug came up to watch. On one page were parts of the body. He pointed at his ear and said 'ear'. He then pointed at a picture of a chair on the next page and said 'chair'. When I point at a picture of a hat, and ask him where a hat goes, he pointed to his head. When I pointed to a picture of a hairbrush and ask him what you do with it, he made a brushing motion with his hair. When pointing at pictures of ambulances or fire engines (or when asked what noise they make) he makes an enthusiastic 'ree-raa-ree-raa' sound. For trains he says 'toot, toot', often with an up and down hand motion of tooting a horn. It is a really lovely stage to be enjoying being able to communicate more and more with him, and seeing his continual development.

After a couple weeks of feeling better, and with my 2 big projects recently implemented successfully, there has been less work pressure. I am feeling much more on top of things again. It is such a fine line between going well and everything turning upside down and feeling difficult. I am just trying to enjoy this nice stage while it lasts, and hope that no new illnesses descend upon us anytime soon. I think that reducing my work hours and having the one full day off work a week has also made an immediate difference to how I am feeling, and definitely feels like the right decision was made.

Now that we have had his allergy testing out of the way, and confirmed his weight is doing ok from his 15 month check up, I have started the weaning process for Jack. I had hoped to breastfeed for 12 months, and was very happy to have achieved this milestone. With the constant illnesses, and wanting to wait until the allergy testing was out of the way, I have just continued with the feeding for past 3.5 months. This week I have cut out Jack's mid-day feed. It has gone ok, although there has been a few rounds of tears and tantrums when he wants a feed and I tell him no. At least during the day it is easier to be able to distract him from it with other food, or drinks of soymilk, or play.

Unfortunately though he has been feeding more overnight again this week. Whether this is directly related to the lack of daytime feed, or for some other reason (such as another top tooth coming through, or it has been hot so perhaps he is more dehydrated), it is hard to know. I intend to cut out his morning breastfeed next week, and then finally remove the evening and nighttime feeds over the next couple weeks. I anticipate the night feeds will be the hardest of all. There is never a good time, so now I have started, I just need to keep persevering through it.

It has become more painful to feed of late, since with extra teeth he has inflicted some bite marks that take awhile to heal when he is continually feeding. At the same time, it has always been a nice bonding time, and instantly calms him and makes him sleep or be happy, so I do feel a little sad that the breastfeeding is coming to an end. It will also be another sign that he is no longer a baby, but a toddler growing into a little boy.

Posted by Al at 12:08 PM

Death by a thousand paper cuts.

My car still looks nice inside and out, is packed with features, and is very quick. It has been a fun car to drive and soaks up long distances very comfortably. Jack finds its rocking motion at traffic lights particularly soothing.

It is however a little impractical, a little too low, a little too loud, a little too modified, and becoming a little too expensive to maintain. It was purchased 7 years ago – well before Jack arrived, and for a while now we have known we needed to replace it.

Two weeks ago I had work done on the front suspension – trying to alleviate a long-term issue with noise and looseness. Al and I both agreed that it would be the last time we spent any money on it before selling.

The repairs were botched, and the car left worse than before. I returned to the workshop but wasn’t satisfied by their response. I visited another workshop last week who rectified some of the mistakes, and confirmed the original work needed to be redone correctly. On Friday last week the transmission lost drive. We were fortunate to be able to get it repaired on Saturday for only $300 odd dollars. Today the car is going back in to redo the suspension work. It just never seems to end.

On Thursday we test drive a possible replacement car.

Jack is doing well at the moment - seemingly picking up a new word every day. He particularly likes B words - Bang, Bee, Bike, Bird and Bus. He has started to string "No Mum" and "Ta Mum" together, along with the "Hi Dad" and "Bye Dad" I mentioned previously.

Posted by Doug at 9:05 AM

Jack's control of his walker both astounds and scares us.

He can literally run with it - taking corners with a power slide and a cheeky grin. If he keeps that up he will never get behind the wheel of one of my cars! The noise the walker makes is horrendous, and reverberates through the entire house. It is not helped by the fact he likes to charge full pelt into objects with a cry of “bang”.

Posted by Doug at 8:54 PM

Thankfully we seem well over the run of illness, and Jack is back to being a happy little boy most of the time.

The weaning is going surprisingly well so far. Although he has the occasional tears and tantrums when asking for 'more', mostly he seems to have just taken it in his stride. (He has certainly accepted the lack of feeds during the day.) Last week the morning feed was cut out, and last night was the first night of cutting out the evening feed. He is still feeding 1 - 2 times overnight, so I will wait a week then cut down to one, then none - which I am anticipating will be the hardest part.

Last Saturday Auntie Lis came to visit, on another brief trip home to Australia. Jack was excited by the little Chinese drum she gave him. Last Saturday Doug and I also went out for dinner together for the first time since Jack was born, while Grandma Q babysat. It was an enjoyable evening with another 2 couples, and a lovely meal. With one of the couples due with their 2nd in a couple of weeks, we all figured we better take the opportunity for a dinner out together now as it may be quite some time again before we get another opportunity. It helps that we know Jack is happy and comfortable spending time with his Grandma Q, so we didn't need to spend the evening worrying about him. We also took Jack to a local festival on the Sunday. He had the opportunity to touch llamas, sheep, turtles and lizards, and see snakes, mice, and other animals.

Jack enjoyed having his Dad come to watch him swimming for the first time on Wednesday. He kept looking over at his dad with big smiles, and calling out 'hi dad' every now and again. We went to Kiara's house for playgroup on Wednesday, and Jack was excited by their dog, and kept pointing at it saying 'dog', and 'woof'. He also enjoyed using Kiara's 'magic doodle' to draw with.

At music class a couple weeks ago, one of the mothers had a pram with a younger baby in it, and Jack kept pointing saying 'baby'. When Doug picked up Jack from childcare on Thursday they showed him a painting Jack had done. While most of the other babies had just a few dots and strokes on their page, Jack had sweeping paint strokes covering the page. The childcare workers joked that he will be an artist! If so, he must get that from his Dad - since I am totally lacking in any artistic abilities. He does really enjoy doing his crayon drawings at the moment also.

Jack's words continue to grow on a regular basis. Some new ones include yum, yuk, doll, and 'neigh' for a horse. He absolutely loves his books to read at the moment, and continually points to all the books spread around the house with demands of 'book, book' for us to read them to him. He particularly likes his new 'truck' book. He says 'dig, dig' for all the digging type trucks.

Yesterday we gave Jack the first try of his walker on the downstairs tiles. He immediately loved it, and has since raced around back and forth all around the downstairs area, manoeuvring his way around the walls and furniture (or deliberately banging into them) and turning himself around. He also found it funny to go through out legs. We had been a bit worried about whether the walker would move too fast for him on the tiles, but he has surprisingly good control of it. He also appears to have good spatial awareness (again thankfully he must have got this from his Dad since I am lacking in that area).

Jack had his 3rd haircut yesterday. Again he was intrigued by the process, although looked a little worried. The salon was very noisy so perhaps it was the noise that was bothering him. He has lately developed a habit of doing a poo in the shower or on the bathroom floor each morning, so yesterday Doug took him shopping to buy his first potty. It is now situated beside the shower, and I will be endeavouring to encourage him to poo in there instead. Will wait and see how that goes over time!

I have been experienced intermittent pain with my tailbone for the past couple years. I had a fall in our kitchen where I slipped on the tiles and landed heavily on my backside. I was doing a lot of work travel at the time so didn't manage to go to a doctor, and after a few weeks the immediate pain went away. Since then, during the pregnancy, and increasingly so afterwards, I have been finding it really painful. It seems to have become particularly noticeable since being back at work and sitting on my office chair all day. I went to the doctors a couple months ago and they sent me off for scans that did not find anything. They indicated it could be from a few different causes, but aside from a major operation to remove part of my tailbone; there was little they could do about it.

With all the sickness we were experiencing at the time, I just tried to ignore it. Recently I went to see a physio, who found my pelvis was out by an inch - with the left side higher than the right side. He said this is common from both falls and pregnancy, so suspects the fall caused the problem, the pregnancy exasperated it, and all the lifting and carrying of Jack as he gets heavier has made it worse over time. He put aligned it again, but said it might take several visits or more to fix.

It was extra painful after the first manipulation (as warned), but wasn’t as bad after the second one. So I will continue to have visits and persevere until resolved. It was a relief to find a specific cause for the pain I have been experiencing, and to know that it is fixable. I just now wish I had gone to the physio a long time ago!

Posted by Al at 10:22 AM