The boy's 3 now! Here's ( some pics )

Last night Graham was reading Ciaran his bedtime story. They were looking at Goodnight Moon and (my exceedingly brilliant and obviously genius-level) son covered up the "M-O" and said, "That spells 'On'". "On" is the first word he has learned to recognize consistently, other than his name. I believe "Pooh" is also a familiar one.

He then moved to "Goodnight" and begins, "G-O-O...that's a LOT of letters!"

Yes, yes it is.

Graham says he managed to spell the whole thing out, however.

Because, you know, he's a genius (of course!).

-Heidi (who may be biased just the tiniest of teensy tads)

From Ciaran this morning, as he balanced on the top of his Sit 'n Spin, precariously holding on to the back of a kitchen chair for security.

"Look! Look how high I am! Look how WONDERFUL I am!"

It's pretty unbelievable that we've got a Big Kid [tm] on our hands more than we have a toddler these days. He's learned to "read" (or at least recognize) his first word, "on", and loves to point it out in just about any situation, including his In 'n Out Burger shirt, which reads, "Put the smile on the burger!"

Perhaps the most startling aspect of his development is his verbal ability. He is constantly talking; he thinks out loud and he thinks a lot. He's fleshing out his basic language structure with little exclamations - he'll ask me where something is, I'll remind him that it's in his bedroom, and he'll say, "Oh! It IS!" or "Oh, yes!" in an "Of course it is, silly me for forgetting!" way.

He also has Moods [tm]. This morning he woke up on the WRONG side of the bed, which is potentially because he was shouting for Daddy beginning at 5:20 AM. NO! was the word of the day. I finally asked him if he liked saying no and his emphatic response was, "No, *I* DON'T!" Graham asked him in the car if the only word he could say was "No," and, predictably, Ciaran's reply was, "NO!"

So.

He loves playing the piano and singing - he knows a lot of songs and will happily sing along (assuming he's not in a "NO!" mood). "There was an old woman..." is a current favorite, although I can't cope with singing it as frequently as he'd like to hear it. He's also constantly "reading," which means that my bookshelves live with an ever-present threat of being torn apart. As I rather compulsively organize my books, this means that Mummy has gotten upset with Ciaran several times for randomly pulling books off my shelves (or shoving them down the back of our double-sided set). He's mostly leaving them alone now but I still have to straighten on a fairly regular basis. His own books are also much-beloved, although his tastes are evolving. I'd almost decided to give away his cloth books when he pulled out one of them yesterday at bedtime and asked me to read it to him. I guess they'll stay there a little while longer.

I keep meaning to take him for a well-child visit but haven't gotten around to picking a doctor yet. He hasn't had any real health issues since getting to Seattle, other than the odd cold, so I haven't been in much of a hurry. What he does do is grow, grow, grow and his appetite tells me when he's about to have another growth spurt. One of the absolute joys of having him as a child is that he's so easy to feed! He's discovered fruit since imitation of Baba led him to discover how delicious things like oranges really are. I'm hoping this means he'll eat lots of fruit this summer - since I've never been able to get him to eat berries, peaches, and so forth before, if Baba is the inspiration, hopefully this year will be a good change for us.

If I could change anything about Ciaran, it would be to make him a little more affectionate toward me - he loves to cuddle Baba and Noni, and even Daddy, but cuddling Mummy is one of his least favorite things to do. Considering how non-clingy I am, if you'd told me three years ago that I'd want a child to cuddle me MORE, I'd have thought you were loony. I take my cuddles where I can get them...but if he ever decides to be just a tad clingier than he is, I could go with that.

It's hard to believe he'll be turning three in June. I frequently wonder how we survived that first year! I love my little-big son more than I could have imagined then - I just wish that I could have told myself then what I know now, the "terrible twos" sounds bad but even on the worst days is better than a colicky newborn!

"Ciaran go Afshan's with Baba in his big red truck."

We were reading Wheels before bed tonight, and spent a little time looking at the various elements of a picture of a clown on a unicycle (carrying sausages, chased by a dog). On the next page was a picture of a bicycle, which he recognises easily, but opposite that was a drawing of an astronaut on a moon buggy. I asked him what it was, and he looked at it for a couple of moments trying to remember, then informed me that it was a "moonicycle".

And almost 4 months, and 9000 miles, since the last update.

Ciaran's settled in pretty well since we arrived in Seattle. That wasn't the only big change for him: we'd already decided to switch him to a bed when we got here, and not a moment too soon, as he had learnt to climb out of a cot within a week of the move. He now has his own room and his own bed, built for him by his grandad, and he already doesn't need the sides up any more (although I think he fell out of bed once the other week...) Unfortunately he's not been able to put himself to sleep since we moved and wants someone there with him again, but apart from a few bad nights he does usually sleep through. This makes mum and dad happy.

He's also upgraded his balcony for not one deck but two, which has occasioned much in the way of entertainment. There are big boxes to hide in, for example, and saunas to stand on. His favourite at the moment, though, is his tricycle, which he rides around on several times a day (the big deck is off limits currently, mind, and he's finding the little deck rather less exciting). And while he's not nearly so fastidious about not getting dirty as he was just a few months ago, his activities have not gone without the usual array of accompanying injuries: falling off chairs has happened more than once (landing on his nose on one occasion last week, which he was understandably somewhat aggrieved about), and stubbing his toe on the ground while running down the concrete drive, breaking his toenail and necessitating a couple of weeks treatment with plasters (don't worry American readers, I mean band aids...)

For a while we had no child care, and the need to stay at home so much clearly grated on him, with tantrums coming a couple or more times a day, especially when he was tired. He's been going to a small daycare for nearly a month now, however, and he's once again a lot mellower at home. No doubt the fact he got pretty much no change out of throwing a hissy fit also helped him get over those fairly quickly. He can be a little bit bossy ("Daddy put it back", "Ciaran have torch"), but he's not aggressive with it and if he gets told no he usually isn't unduly bothered. He also seems to be enjoying spending time with mummy more than he did when they were both at home together for much of the week, although Noni (grandma) and especially Baba (grandad) are still firm favourites, and daddy's star is a little on the wane for now.

He's still picking up words like nobody's business ("arm-dillo" and "comp-i-cated" being two recent ones, and if someone could tell us where he learnt what a skateboard is, answers on a postcard please), and after sticking with 2-4 word sentences for most of the time since the last update he's now working on longer sentences. "I" has started making an appearance instead of "Ciaran" - which he can now pronounce almost perfectly - in combination with gerunds, and we've had some very occasional attempts at past tenses by using "is having" instead of "has". Some of the things he says, meanwhile, reveal how his awareness and thought processes are expanding: coming up with "just a floater plane", for example, when he realised what he saw was not a helicopter, and an unbidden "Wrong street noni" when his gran took a wrong turning by accident, while on one occasion he also told me, context appropriately, "Don't worry about it". On the flipside he doesn't seem interested in counting at all any more, and just counts up to random numbers when he's asked how many of something there is, but some of the books he liked and went off have come back into favour once more, and while he's not reading he does flick through them and say the bits he knows out loud.

Playgrounds: very popular

He doesn't get to watch much TV, but he's a big, big fan of In The Night Garden..., which he gets to watch before bedtime, and on the few occasions when Thomas and Friends is on telly he really enjoys that as well. And while he still loves music of pretty much any sort (I had him moshing to Skyclad the other week), he has somewhat tragically become a fan of Abba and asks for it to be played on the stereo on a daily basis. My parents, who introduced him to it, have much to answer for.

"Change nappy peas! Ay down! Beebies on! Meemote! Ank oo! Beebies on!"*

That was the stream of consciousness that poured out of Ciaran's mouth in mum's direction this morning when he had a dirty nappy. His talking's come on massively in the last couple of months, and stringing words together is old hat - especially when it involves saying "Daddy get up" of a morning - but even if he's said the various things individually it's the first time he's put so many things together like that. "Beebies on" is a clear favourite that normally meets with a curt "No", which for some reason makes him laugh so he says it again, even if he knows he's not going to get to watch "Beebies". Another phrase he's been fond of recently is "chockit cake", which he's learnt at some point whilst at his gran and grandad's; the other day he was asked if he wanted a yogurt or a banana and "chockit cake" was his response. Apparently he actually means a Jaffa cake, though it's not like he gets those much either.


This is not a Jaffa Cake! This is lunch, aka "Munch!"
For the longest time one of us has been staying with him until he fell sleep, because he found it hard to settle otherwise, and also got upset if we tried to leave him, which just prolonged matters. He'd got used to his bedtime routine, however ("bush teeth", "hot off" - turn the radiator off - "moosic on", "story", "dink"), and was starting to try and prolong it by constantly asking for cuddles (and for "ast cuddo" when I started telling him that) and "daddy ay down too", so I decided to nip that in the bud and tell him "night night" straight after tucking him in instead. Surprisingly although he did try out his usual "ay down too" he wasn't upset at all when I left, and for the last couple of weeks he's gone to bed without a peep, and slept through all but one night. On a related note, he was only nursing at naptimes - a blessing, as it stopped tiredness tantrums - but it became clear at about the same time that he didn't really want to nurse any more. We were a bit concerned that it was going to make naptimes a pain, but he's happy to go to snuggle himself down then as well. Win!

Just to go back to the talking for a moment, his sleeping has led him to come up with another phrase himself: he's a bit particular about his cleanliness - if there's a tiny speck of muck on his hand he'll tell us so we can wash it ("dirty hands!") - so when he was going down for a nap one day he suddenly came out with "dirty eyes" because he was rubbing his eyes.


Keeping warm post-sleep by stealing dad's gown
Heidi's been working on clearing off the balcony, and we've been able to open it up so there's more space for him to play there. We have kept some plants, though, and Mr Prissy, it transpires, really enjoys gardening. When Heidi repotted the plants he went out afterwards and rearranged the pots to the order he wanted, and he also loves to go out with his little tortoise watering can and water the plants, albeit it turns out he has a particular penchant for watering one plant only and has to be encouraged to water the others.

Music is suddenly a big thing for him: the "moosic on" mentioned above is one of the first things he says in the morning and one of the last things at night. "Moosic" refers to his MP3 player, which is grandad's old play.com player, kindly donated after he upgraded to something posher. He has a self-set routine for the moosic as well: plug in the audio jack, switch it on, start the song and then put it down ("moosic down"). Currently we're listening to Party Playtime, Hem and Bedtime Favourites, but he's quite happy listening to anything, especially if it means he can play with daddy's earphones. Here we're checking out some Banco da Gaia:


His other new joy in life is swimming. We've been taking him on Sundays for the parent and toddler session for a couple of months now, which after initial wariness is now greeted with whoops of joy and lots of splashing, and Heidi also takes him to the aquacreche, which he absolutely loves because he gets to play in the pool at the same time as listening to music. He does spend a lot of time hanging out by the steps where he feels safe, but at aquacreche he's allowed to play with a ring, and he adores the independence that gives him to leave the steps and splash away from mum and dad.

By and large he's trying really hard. Naturally we do all butt heads over what he wants to do (today we absolutely had to bring garden canes into the lounge however many times we were told they were for outside only), but even then he's seldom angry for long at the moment, and usually holding him close and talking to him calms him down. Of course, that's not always what happens - but we're trying, too.

*Translation: Change nappy please! Lie down! C-Beebies (BBC's toddler channel) on! Remote! Thank you!

His nappy-changing routine, you see, is lying down while Mummy uses the remote to flip over to CBeebies to distract him, so he came into the room asking to have his dirty nappy changed, asked Mummy to change his nappy, then handed her the remote to change the channel to CBeebies and thanked her while he did it!

My tiny baby is growing into a Big Boy (Bi' Boy!).

I missed last month's entry, so I suppose this one has to be extra-detailed!

Last night, Graham was boggling at how much of a little person Ciaran has become. He has always had his very own little personality but we see that personality manifest in more ways every day.

Yesterday I took Ciaran to the park with my friend M and her son G, who is about a week older than Ciaran. Whether subconsciously or otherwise, Ciaran was intent on being the "good child" to G's "bad child," a bizarre reversal of roles considering that I used to be the one walking along in the park with the screaming baby in a stroller! G was not in an amenable mood and, as he threw his third or fourth tantrum in fifteen minutes, necessitating M's cramming him into his stroller, Ciaran looked at him, looked at me, and angelically reached up to hold my hand while he walked. I could almost hear him saying, "Look at ME! I'm the GOOD BABY!"

Overall, he really is the good baby (or good "Bi' Boy!"). Graham and I often say that he just tries so very hard to do what he knows he's supposed to do, even at 21 months. His tantrums are rare and generally reserved for times when he's hungry, tired, or both. I would very much like this to continue to be the trend, as I am absolutely loving being his Mummy right now, even if I still sometimes get far more impatient with him than I should, especially when he's fighting napping or bedtime.

In the park yesterday it was as clear as day what he's like as a little individual. In the under-fives' play area, there's a little play structure has a cargo net on the far side, a slide going down the right, a set of steps that are almost a ladder up to the slide facing you as you come in, and a small "ship's wheel" on the left of the raised platform. Ciaran can climb up the stepladder alone, a new development in the last couple of months as his feet used to be too small to fit well on the rungs and would slide between them. Normally, once he's climbed up to the raised platform, he sticks to the ship's wheel, as he seems to really love being up high and surveying the world around him.

As G was there, things turned out a little differently this time. Ciaran climbed up to the platform and stood at the wheel while G flung himself up the steps, flipped over onto his stomach, and started going down the slide. Ciaran wasn't particularly interested at first but after three or four slides by G, he clearly figured that the slide was a Good Thing [tm] and that he wanted to go on it too. Having fully assessed the situation and knowing that G's method (belly down, feet first) was unconventional, he clearly decided that HE was going to go down feet-first, sitting on his bum, and that's what he did. But...he wanted to hold my hand.

After a couple of slides, he'd figured this whole sliding thing out and didn't need my hand anymore. Then he got REALLY cocky and scaled the cargo net on the other side of the play structure. So far as I know, he's never been up it before and must have gotten the idea from a little girl of 4 or so who was also playing on the structure. He accepted my help on the first climb but on his second go he managed it all by himself, quickly realising that he had to be careful how far over he went on the net. It's all Ciaran to a T (or is that a C?). He likes to study a situation before leaping in. If something is new, he will eventually try it but he likes to look at it from all angles first. Once he's made up his mind, he does it his way and it makes me so incredibly proud of him to see his sense of accomplishment when he masters something new.

Right now we're working on counting. I'm not sure exactly when it started but Graham's always been good at counting each step on the three flights up to our flat when Ciaran's going up or down them. A few weeks ago, he started echoing "un...too...free...four..." and it's rapidly gone from there. He loves to count things, although occasionally seven and eight are forgotten in favour of his real favourites, "nine and TENNNNN!"

Graham also made the mistake of pointing out some letters, so now we are constantly treated to "EM! EM EM EM!" He knows "Muh for Mummy", "Duh for Daddy" and "Cuh for Ciaran". Also, funnily enough, T for Toast. He recognizes all the vowels except for U and is making massive inroads on the rest of the consonants. While I don't expect him to be reading Shakespeare by age two, the way all the Mothering.com gifted children seem to, what I do see in him is the constant curiosity to know and learn more.

There are a lot of things I'm not proud of in the way that I parent but if there is one thing I do absolutely feel that I've done right, it's encourage my little boy to investigate his world and learn about it. There is a quietness, an intent quality in him that I absolutely love. He was never a "quiet alert" baby - he constantly was moving and squirming, looking around him and trying to interact with his environment. I used to worry that he had no attention span and that he couldn't focus on things but in the last few months he has really astonished me with how carefully he can study the world around him and with how much patience he does it!

In the park the daffodils and crocuses are out. Ciaran loves nothing better than to run through the grass and then pause at the flowers. I am told quite firmly that these are "owers! Owers!" as he observes them. In typical English fashion the lawns in the park are full of tiny daisy-like flowers and there's not much cuter than watching my little boy bend over as far as he can to pluck one single, wee daisy, a little like in this photo from a few months ago. He looks so intently at the flower in his hand once he's plucked it. It never ceases to amaze me how interested he is in nature and how much he loves to walk in the park.

He's also terribly funny at times. When we took our walk on Monday, he had just approached a muddy patch when I hollered "CIARAN!! NOT IN THE MUD-" and like a comedy sketch he immediately tripped and fell flat on his face. He just lay there, as if completely shocked and surprised at what had happened, until I came to rescue him from the puddle. I wiped his hands as clean as I could with the shreds of tissue I had, laughing at how incredibly muddy he was. He kept saying "Issue! Issue!" (tissue) and pointing out that his hands were "DIRTY! DIRTY!" for the rest of the way home.

I worry about when we're in Seattle and likely to need to put him in daycare full time. Although my days home with him during the week can be exercises in frustration, I am terribly reluctant to give them up and I worry that he really is still so small and needs me. I hope that we're able to find a good solution.

Other things he says that are worth noting:

* "Geen Man! Geen Man!" - This accompanies the little green walking man signal at crosswalks. Is adapted to "Me Man! Me Man!" (Mini-Man?) whenever he sees any other stylized image of a person, as in exit signs, restroom signs, etc.

* "Neh-Nut" - His version of "chestnut," which he says whenever he sees one of the trees in our neighbourhood that has round seed-pods that do, in all fairness, resemble chestnuts. He's obsessed with the things and we're constantly picking up any dry ones we can find so that he can hold and examine it.

There are more. I'll try to remember to update as he says them ;)

This is thirteen days late but I solemnly swear by the adage that it is better late than never, so here goes.

19 months is a pretty grand age, when all is said and done. Ciaran's a little bundle of happiness most of the time, unless he's been sternly told "NO!" or is tired. He loves singing and dancing and can manage the first two lines of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" in a recognizable fashion (we think this means he is a performing genius and will soon be making us a fortune).

Sleep? Still problematic. Very problematic. Two nights ago he was up around 11 and then up again three or four times in the brief three hours between 1.30 and 4.30. I would love someone to be able to explain why it is that he cannot manage to sleep through the night at our house at the moment but sleeps through every time he visits Gran and Grandad. We can cope with one waking in a night but when that stretches to multiple wakings, it just leaves us both absolutely exhausted. I so wish he could tell us why it's so hard for him to sleep, so that we could fix it.

At nursery, Ciaran's the "parrot" of the Toddler 1 room, constantly repeating everything that the nursery staff members say. He's about to be moved up to Toddler 2 and we hope that this is an easier move for him than the move from Infants to Toddler 1, as I think he was quite intimidated by suddenly being with bigger kids. Now the difference shouldn't be as great, since he's not that far behind even the biggest kids in the room developmentally, so we're keeping our fingers crossed that everything will be okay.

This month, Ciaran's figured out that if he takes Mummy or Daddy's hand and PULLS, he can sometimes get them to go where he wants them to go! We may not always understand quite what he wants when he gets there but it's very sweet to see how insistent he can get when he's in pursuit of something. It's a good thing he's easily distracted still, or he'd get really frustrated with us when we can't figure out what he's asking for.

Words pour forth: some intelligible, some not. He misses the Christmas "tee" that we finally took down a couple of days ago, but the "tar!" from the top has taken up residence on top of our CD rack so that he can still see and point at it. He likes to accompany Mummy and Daddy on visits to the "toyet," where big people go "peepeeps" but still shows no sign whatsoever of being aware of when he has gone or needs to go. I suppose this means we wait on the potty training.

This month, things are stable and we like that. No dramatic teething (so far) and no great issues aside from the continuing sleep woes. I am liking being the parent of a toddler much better than being the parent of a newborn!

We're a bit behind - here's Graham's update!

***

Ciaran's 18-month mark passed in a distinctly average way: he is now 81.25cms tall, which is almost bang on the 50th centile. We haven't weighed him, but judging by the little belly he's now sporting I imagine that's increased up towards the 50th as well.

He's had an extra day in nursery for the last month while his gran and grandad were off on holiday in New Zealand. The nursery staff have said he's now much more self-confident, which I suspect may have something to do with growing more comfortable with that environment - for the first 2-3 months after moving up from baby class to toddler class he would cry when we got there and have to be comforted by one of the carers there, but now he's happy to go off and play. He loves to read, and last week he spent most of one of the mornings sat in the book corner going through their book collection. Hopefully his confidence won't take a dip again when he moves up to upper toddlers, which we've been told could happen in January.

Singing and music continues to be a favourite, and also dancing. Strictly Come Dancing (the progenitor of Dancing with the Stars) has been on in recent weeks, and when the theme music starts he runs over to the telly and starts dancing and laughing. We took a short film of it to send to his grandparents, and during the intro he stands for about 10 seconds with his leg lifted off the ground waiting for the music to start so he can dance. Most recently he's been singing "three blind mice" to himself (presumably one he's learnt off gran and grandad, because it's not one we've taught him), and before that it was Old McDonald Had a Farm. Heidi took him to baby sign with her friend M and her son G, and just as everyone had quietened down to start singing it he piped up with "Ee-I-O?"

Words have come more slowly this month, but he's getting a bit better at letting us know what he wants. "Deek" is still drink, though these days it more often than not means "I want to drink out of your glass". The Christmas tree (tee!) went up quite early, and he knows the difference between a bauble (bo-bo), lights (he loves to have the tree lights on, and "DIGHTS!" is often the first thing he asks for of a morning) and a star (dar!). He's more technically adept as well, calling both the laptop and the desktop "teeter" - usually just before he turns them off - and similarly referring to the digital camera, which he REALLY REALLY wants to play with, as "meemer". He's started to put some words together ("bye bye mommy/daddy/cat"), and some of his new words include "bippo" (hippo) and "bra" (err... bra. Go figure).

Talking of hippos, incidentally, we took him to Chester Zoo with his auntie Hev the other weekend. He wasn't especially interested in most of the animals, except for one: Sabrina the singing Snow Dragon. Figures that we take him to see real animals and the one he likes best is the mythical one. Our favourite trick when we're out is to pull his shoes and socks off, which after repeated attempts to replace them led to his being pushed around the Christmas market this weekend in near-freezing temperatures with bare feet, something people were ready to let us know would cause him to "get cold" - thank you Messrs. Sherlock.

Sleep is, no pun intended, up and down. The week before last he only woke up twice during the night in the whole week, whereas this week has been a bit of a nightmare as he seems to be having trouble settling. We're not sure why; certainly the back room can get cold later in the night, but he that doesn't seem to be what's bothering him, as he never feels cold and doesn't seem to struggle to go back down because of it. Part of the problem, though, is that when he's waking up he tries to climb out of his cot, which inevitably causes his leg to get stuck between the bars, prompting a bout of loud crying. His right knee is currently quite bruised on both sides as a result of trying to slide his leg back in, which looks nasty, but there's not a great deal we can do about it because there's no real way of stopping him.

He's also got rid of one bad habit - spitting out his food - and replaced it with another, which is hitting people (us, mostly). We're not sure where he's learnt this from (our default suspect for bad habits is other kids at nursery, since it's the only time he's away from us), and he currently gets a stern admonishment and then taken out of the room for a short period if he continues, which has already reduced it quite a lot, though when he's tired of an evening he does still occasionally do it if he's not getting his own way. Hopefully in short order he'll work himself out of this particular habit.

When he is awake, though, he remains quite cheerful and inquisitive (nosey may be more accurate!) and is quite fun to be with. He always wants to join in with what you're doing and will often point things out to you, and if he sees mum and dad sat together on the sofa he'll run over for cuddles, which is nice as otherwise when he wants to be held (up!) it's only for the purpose of getting a better view!

Trick of the week: sucking in his aforementioned belly is apparently hilarious!

It's a day early for this update but since I missed last month and we're planning a trip to Tatton Park tomorrow, I thought I'd better get a move on and post anyway.

17 months is a strangely liminal age. People talk a lot about 18-month-old children (toys are labeled for 12+ months and 18+ months but never 17+ months!) and sizes go from 12-18 and 18-24 but never 17-24. He's at the very end of the 12-18 month development bracket and has pretty much mastered everything on the list, although in the last couple of weeks the language switch has obviously been flipped and he's picking up new words like crazy. Roughly speaking, the words he can say that are recognisable to us, anyway, are:

Animals & animal sounds

moo
titty (kitty, oh dear)
"ooowww" (meow)
orsss (horse)
ee-awwww (hee-haw)
goggy (doggy)
cocadoo (roughly, anyway - cockadoodledoo)
baaa (what sheep say, obviously)
beet (bleat, what goats say!)
du-ck
ca-ca (quack)
bees ("beefs" - well it's sort of an animal)

In and around the home:

soo - shoe
gogh - sock
OTT! OTT! (hot - while pointing to the radiator, oven, or other supposedly "hot" item, including, weirdly, the Game Cube)
dite (light)
ba (ball)
mummy
daddy
bappy (nappy)
baff (bath - only said at Gran's house. Here he does the sign for "wash")
beeb (bin)
booby (self-explanatory but not always linked to the obvious!)

Body parts:

ear
beep (nose - we say "beep" when we touch his nose!)
teef (teeth)

Other, miscellaneous:
ba (bus - he sometimes adds an "s" to the end)
ca (car)
eat
more
yesssss! (not always in correct context!)
UP! UP (his favourite)
boppy (Poppy, our in-laws' eldest dog)
deek (drink)
dihdah (digger)
bapple (apple)
nana (banana)

There are more but I'm not thinking of them at the moment. I think that's all right for a kid his age, anyway! I just wish he'd learn a few more consonants, so that he'd be more understandable to the general public (not to mention to us).

He has also discovered that Sitting On Things is cool and fun. When I go to the bathroom he almost always toddles after and frequently has to keep me company by sitting on the plastic box of bath supplies that we keep in the bathroom. If there's any sort of box on the floor, he'll try to sit on it and just happily look at the world around him, which absolutely cracks me up as he frequently ends up looking like a little prince surveying his realm. It made me laugh when he was sitting on one of the upturned flowerpots on our balcony and looking around the carpark when I went out to see what he was up to. I said, "Hello!" and he startled, as if he'd been deep in contemplation and I'd disturbed his reverie. He almost fell off the flowerpot!

Ciaran is a climber. He climbs everything. He can now climb up on the couch, on our bed, on our glider-rocker (where he then sits and rocks himself back and forth), on his bead-maze and up onto the plastic boxes next to him that are intended to keep him away from the TV buttons, and, in short, on everything that he possibly CAN climb, including a few things that he shouldn't. He is absolutely fearless when it comes to climbing, dogs, loud noises, or just about anything else that occasionally might frighten about any other child. I'm glad that he's so willing and enthusiastic but I do wish that this didn't translate into running a block ahead of me when we're at the park without bothering to look back.

For the most part he sleeps well but still can be relied on to have bad nights. He shrieks. Doesn't like something? Shrieks. Can't manage to do something that he wants to do? Shrieks. It grates on the nerves and is officially the ONE thing I was dreading about having a child more than any other. I've shouted at him more in the last couple of weeks, since he started on his latest shrieking jag, than I have since starting post-natal depression medications. This is something I need to work on...but if his shrieking doesn't taper off soon, I may go off the deep end.

He loves the rain, a good thing for a Mancunian child. It makes him giggle to stand out in it without a hood and he doesn't understand why we try to discourage it! This autumn he has also discovered the great joys of splashing in puddles (this kept him busy for about fifteen minutes on a walk around the block last week) and stomping through leaves.

We constantly read books and a vital part of our daily routine is going through his "First Colours" and "First ABC" books and pointing out all the little objects. "Ciaran, where's the helicopter?" Points at helicopter. "Where are the tomatoes?" Points at potatoes. "Yes, that's close. Those are potatoes. Po. Ta. Toes. Ciaran, where are the carrots?" And on, ad infinitum.

We also do a lot of singing. Ciaran's key worker at nursery told us that of all the kids, he seems to be the one who loves singing the most. He comes running when he's told that it's time for singing and he sits happily on the floor while the other babies each need to be collected and brought over. This is the one realm where Baby Signing has actually paid off. He signs (and tries to sing) along with "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" ("deego deego deego...da"), "Wind the Bobbin Up," and "If You're Happy and You Know It." "Ring Around the Roses" prompts turning in circles and just about any music with a beat calls for dancing (otherwise known as stomping around the room maniacally). He likes musical instruments but really loves singing and dancing, so perhaps we have a little lead singer on our hands!

A favourite game is pulling a piece of toilet paper off the roll, solemnly wiping his nose and/or mouth, and trundling over to the bin to drop it in. We hope that encouraging him to throw approved items in the trash will fend off QUITE as many non-approved item disposals as might otherwise happen!

All in all he's such a funny little guy with an incredibly curious personality. I won't claim a genius IQ for him but I love that he wants to learn about the world and is so aware of what happens around him. He isn't cuddly and doesn't love to play with other kids the way some toddlers do but on his own terms he likes to get (and give) hugs and kisses and after an initial settling-in period, he's almost unfailingly friendly and good-natured when with new people. I love being his mum, although many days I feel he deserves one who's just a bit more patient with him, and I'm looking forward to seeing what he learns in the next month.

So far, we are not loving fifteen months.

Ciaran is teething. I can feel one tiny sharp edge of his first molar coming through and boy, it feels AWFULLY small for the LARGE! fuss that is being made about it. We have even more shrieking than usual, complete meltdowns when anything ever goes wrong (even when Mummy and Daddy have no idea what it is), and general misery when nothing Mummy and Daddy can think of makes the world right. Oh, and Mummy is mostly persona non grata when Daddy is around…and the second Daddy comes in the door, Mummy is forgotten like yesterday’s news.

Whew.

This month, we are learning Many New Words. Our vocabulary now includes:

kitty (tsiti)

quack-quack/duck (CA!CA!)

dada - dada

bye-bye - babye

hiya - eye-ah (usually with some random toy/object pressed to his ear like a phone

food?mummy? - mummm

car - ca!

bus - ba

doggy - gohgoh (sometimes do-do, if he’s being careful)

Stomping feet, clapping hands, and dancing, especially, are the movements du jour and, crazily enough, when Mummy shouts “OCTOPUS!!”, Ciaran will wave his arms around in the air to imitate Mummy’s bad imitation of tentacles. He loves most things that push and pull, although pushing cars along the ground isn’t quite as fun as it was last month because, presumably, it doesn’t involve standing up and running pell-mell down the hallway. Nothing beats running. Nothing. Especially when said running is on the giant grassy area at the park, when we don’t have to pick him up as he refuses to listen to “Stop!” or “Hold Mummy/Daddy’s hand!”

We do NOT like holding hands, it would seem. Ciaran is stubborn, stubborn, stubborn when it comes to going where HE wants to go as and when HE wants. We’ve resorted to a harness and baby reins but our first trial effort was not a great hit, as any impediment to his path to where he wants to go is met with screaming and throwing himself on the floor. Lungs are a magnificent thing - shrieking and screaming, especially when he does not get his way are driving Mummy and Daddy absolutely bonkers. We love him to bits but selling him to the gypsies is really, really tempting when it’s 6.30 pm, he’s not quite ready to go to bed but nothing is making him happy, so he’s SHRIEKING! SHRIEKING! and tantruming at anything and everything. Ugh.

At the moment I do not feel like a good mother aside from the fact that I have yet to resort to physical violence when he takes off yet again at the park and I’m left to run after him and then carry him back to his pram in a screaming bundle of baby angst. Ugh.

It’s a good thing he is so cute and that he is consistently sleeping so much better at night. He hasn’t woken up more than once in a night, aside from brief restless periods before Graham goes to bed, in the last couple of weeks. This is a godsend because the combination of Mr Grumpypants and a sleep-deprived Mummy would really be miserable. As it is I can usually cope fairly well until Daddy gets home, at which time he can occupy Ciaran while I have a few moments of peace and solitude. I have had to retreat to our bedroom and shut the door for alone-time several times in the last week, just going to show how hard it has been to deal with teething boy without utterly losing patience.

We are getting by. Hopefully when the teeth have come through a cheerier Ciaran will emerge. Some tips on dealing with toddler tantrums at this age when he is completely oblivious to any sort of “if you do this, then THIS is going to happen that you won’ t like” would be helpful, however!

This month, with 400-plus days plus now behind us, has again been more a case of consolidation than progression.

Mobility-wise the main thing Ciaran's learnt is how to stand up without first shuffling over to a nearby prop on hands and knees and using it for support. That's still often the preferred option, but if need be he can gingerly get up under his own steam. Along with that has come the ability to bend down and pick things up off the floor - albeit only when not superseded by the option of kicking something instead, which is something he seems particularly good at.

In the meantime, his walking has not really brought with it as much trouble for us as everyone said it would, primarily because he'd already worked out how to reach most of the potential problem spots beforehand. For the most part it comes down to retrieving the various items he hares off down the corridor with. He has worked out that he can usually open doors himself if they're not fully closed, though he doesn't do that much, except if someone's in the bathroom, in which case the door has to be wide open and he has to be in there with you: showers and visits to the toilets are an unequivocally shared experience!

Talking still isn't a big thing, nor has he taken a liking to signing as yet, but his comprehension is definitely on the up. With reading being a popular pastime, for example, he now recognises some of his favourite book names and will go and retrieve them from his bookshelf, bringing them back and handing them over for reading; and he knows what's meant by "brush teeth": what was once a bone of contention is now something he absolutely has to do himself, so he spends a few minutes each evening wandering in and out of the bathroom brushing his teeth (though chewing would be a closer description). Similarly, he's started to get very good at bringing a spoon or fork full of food to his mouth, though getting it on there in the first place still needs assistance. He has picked up a couple of food-related habits that need nipping in the bud, however: raspberrying food back out of his mouth when he's had enough, for instance, or deliberately dropping it on the floor as he watches us while we tell him no. Boundaries are being given a definite push at the dinner table.

Ciaran's become more anxious about not being around us in the last month. When we're at home he's always shadowing us, which isn't that unsurprising given there are limited entertainment options otherwise, but when one of us leaves without him he will throw himself crying to the floor, except on the days when Gran's there, in which case he'll quite happily watch us both walk out the door without a fuss. It's perhaps related to changes at nursery, with his move up to the toddlers' room: whereas before he'd get there and happily head off to do his own thing, now he gets upset as soon as the nursery's front door opens. It's not that he doesn't seem to enjoy his time there, he just doesn't like being "abandoned".

Consolidation unfortunately also applies to sleep problems, which have been getting worse rather than better. Heidi takes the brunt of this, with his frequent nightly stirring, and our early morning playpen recourse is also now coming to an end - Adelheid walked in last week to find he'd not only thrown all of his toys out, he'd managed to strip off his sleeper and throw that out as well. Gran will be taking him one night a week from next week, which will at least give us one night's sleep, and we're still working towards moving him into the back room, but it's still not logistically feasible right now. Soon, though, soon!

Ciaran has suddenly become a person and I'm not entirely sure when it happened. The signs are clear to see...strongly-expressed opinions in the form of pointing at what he wants and mini temper tantrums when he doesn't get it. Toddling off and doing random little tasks, like putting my shoes on the (thankfully closed!) toilet lid. Bringing me gifts unprompted, like a roll of toilet paper from the bathroom.

Walking is now old hat and attempts to run are beginning in earnest, although they still frequently result in tumbles and screams, although fewer of the latter than I might expect. Ciaran loves to get around and can spend hours walking around our living room, stopping at station after station...first his books, then the couch, then the kitchen drawers, then his Fisher Price giraffe toy, then the laundry baskets and his clothes drawers, the laundry rack, the balcony door and television, then all over again. Sometimes a detour to the bathroom or our bedroom is necessary, both of which have had to be toddler-proofed, but inevitably he likes to return to wherever I am and check in before heading off again.

I worry sometimes that I don't interact with him enough but he's just so happy going from place to place that I almost feel as if I'm interrupting his own natural flow to try and get him to do what I want. Still, he's figured out in the last week or so that if he brings me a book I'll read it to him and I do try to keep up a running conversation, dull as it can be without any verbal returns from him!

Word-wise, he's not really progressed past where he was last month. He's gotten very good at pointing to what he wants, so he definitely has opinions, but it doesn't seem to have clicked that he can express himself vocally in more than babble-speak. He does do a LOT of that, though, so I imagine that once he catches on, we'll never be able to shut him up! I look at moms that have much more vocal babies and sometimes stress a bit that he doesn't have more than four or five recognizable-to-us words...but it'll come.

Sleep. Ah, sleep. We don't get that. Sleep is the enemy, the monster that still causes screaming, back-arching, and general misery for all in the flat. I begin to lose hope that he'll sleep through before the age of two...and maybe even before the age of three. CIO does not work. He has, and will, scream for an hour and a half whether in our arms or in his bed, so the experts have all failed us! I'm hoping that an eventual move to his own room will help but it is a truly faint hope.

It's the one thing that still makes me seriously doubt that we will ever have another child, even if finances allowed, which is hard because in all other ways I have such a delightful, wonderful little boy who makes me want to sweep him up in my arms and snuggle him at random moments!

sioneva and Ciaran haven't had a great day today, so here's a good Ciaran story to make up for it:

Ciaran goes to nursery two days a week, and most days currently I'm taking him there in the morning, with Heidi picking him up of an evening. On Thursday this particular walk involved 25 minutes in increasingly heavy rain, though Ciaran didn't mind, snug and warm as he was in his luxury wheeled palanquin. Negotiating the steps into the nursery (which are an irritant, but not as much as you might think), I pushed the chair in and pulled him out of his seat. He's just started walking a little on his own, but he's much better if he has someone's hand to hold, so I helped him walk towards the room where his group starts the day (the bigger room for the next group up). In he went through the door, and a couple of steps in I let his hand go, to see if he'd walk to the nursery nurse who was nearby, holding her hands out. But he didn't, he just stood there, blocking the doorway.

I had to get off to work, so I signed him in and went back out to put the pushchair somewhere where it wasn't blocking the corridor. When I came back past the room, he was still stood in the same place, though someone had given him a small toy to hold. As I watched, one of the young girls from the next class up toddled over to him and reached out to poke him in the chest with her finger. Then she leant over and kissed him on the cheek. And BOOM! Ciaran suddenly fell back down on his bum - floored by a kiss.

It made me laugh, anyhow.

Hi, Graham here. My sister sent on some pictures of Ciaran's birthday, and I couldn't resist.



(No more, I promise!)

I missed his eleven-month entry but couldn't miss his twelve-month update, even if I am a day late for his birthday! A more photo-heavy entry will follow soon but I wanted to get this written first.

( Dear Ciaran,... )

We have first-wordage!

Ciaran has taken to this whole talking thing very slowly, preferring doing to talking about it. I was starting to worry at one point that he would never babble, as it took him a very long time indeed before he got past the occasional "nnGUH!"

In the last few weeks, however, he's become quite the chatterbox but in an entirely meaningless-to-mummy-and-daddy sort of way. "BababaBABABABABA!!!!!" and "mamamMAMAMAMAMADADADADAD!" are frequently repeated, usually beginning in soft tones and crescendoing to near-shouting. Actually identifying anything or anyone with specific sounds hasn't happened, though, excepting only his hunger "cough", which is a whiny hackhackhackhack repeated over and over until I nurse him, with increasing frequency as I pull up my shirt and take out the breast (lest I decide to change my mind at the last minute, perhaps?)

Anyway, we suspected wordage on Friday and it was confirmed on Saturday...sounds that vaguely approximate words and which are directed at specific objects. The two words in question? Mummy and Daddy, you say?

No.

"Gca Gca" for his "Quack Quack" rubber duck and "Goh! Goh!" for Gran and Grandad's dogs.

The Quack-Quack is so sweet - he's very hesitant about saying it, as if he's really thinking the whole thing over. He looks at his duck and then, quietly, almost-whispers "Gca Gca." It's as if he's trying as hard as he can to get a "kwa" sound and hasn't quite figured it out yet!

Very sweet. And, I suppose, very appropriate for the season!

I'm a day late posting this but that's the way things go. Better late than never!

This has been a month of consolidating skills from last month rather than building lots of new ones. We can now crawl VERY quickly indeed, especially when making an escape bid down the hallway or into the kitchen when Mummy and Daddy aren't watching. Cruising is old-hat and he gets up and down very easily, rather than being hesitant the way he was a month ago when it was still a fairly new proposition.

No further efforts towards standing on his own, however. I suspect that in the greater scheme of things Ciaran sees motor skills as getting him around as fast as possible, so "still" skills like sitting and standing take a back seat to actual movement. In this case crawling gets him around a lot faster than trying to stand and walk would, so why bother? Once he figures out that walking would actually be more productive he'll work on it but as he'll have to get past the stationary standing skill, that could take quite a while. No worries, really. He causes enough trouble just crawling!

My baby is turning into the Big Bad Bully! Yesterday one of the nursery attendants told me that he'd been biting at the other babies...and lately he's developed a really nasty swipe-grab-pinch motion that is driving me CRAZY, especially with my eye still being a bit sensitive. He's not managed to actually get his fingers in it yet but has gotten my cheek and chin on numerous occasions, which hurts! Does anyone know a gentle way to discourage this sort of behavior? It mostly happens when he's getting tired but is by no means limited to the pre-bedtime frenzy. I also really can't have him biting people. I'm guessing that it's mostly teething, as he's loving his teethers more than usual, and it doesn't help that Graham's allowed Ciaran to chew his fingers a lot (that's not going to be allowed anymore) but if it doesn't stop I'm not sure what we'll do!

And that's ten months. Still not a good sleeper. Still into everything. Still loving books!