Hamish has a new game. It started with accidentally throwing a ball from
his ball pit down the stairs. That was kind of cool. And another one. And
a third. Ok, how about pegs. Boring. Hmm, what else will go down the stairs?
He sorted through a pack of nappies, selected one and threw it with great
concentration down the stairs. Boring. How about this empty glass vodka
bottle. Ooo, that went down a long way making interesting noises. How about
his wiggles car? He didn't just push it down the stairs tho, he lifted it
up and flung it down all 5 stairs to see what would happen. This was a
surprise given I was at the bottom of the stairs. I dread the day when he
leads me over by the hand and shoves me down the stairs. I guess at least
I will have been protected. He's been doing a lot of experimentation and learning this month. He tries
to help with hanging out or collecting washing by taking things in and
out of the basket. The unpacking/packing thing crops up with emptying or
filling toy boxes and moving balls between buckets too. He's been demanding
to be the one that uses the spoon when food is there. Not to get food to
his mouth, but just to swish it around in the bowl for a while. I had him
on my shoulders one day while trying to drink coffee, and he kept trying to
shove a spoon into the cup - from my point of view, a spoon kept coming
down out of the top of my field of view to bang vaguely around on my
coffee cup. It was like a Terry Gilliam animation where god was trying
to knock my coffee out of my hand with a spoon.
Hamish's cunning seems to be increasing as well - above and beyond the normal
"look at you to see if you notice I'm about to do something you've told
me not to do" or "walk along towards a dangerous part of the house with a
toy as decoy, then drop the toy and lunge", he has been swapping screaming
tactics with other kids at mum's group. Sometimes you can watch him
practice - there's nothing wrong,
he's just seeing if he can make that noise. He also stole my parent's dog's
toy and wouldn't give it back until she came close enough to pat. The dog
obsession continues - he barks at our neighbour's gate as we walk past to
see if he can get a return bark from their german sheppard.
I am often bemused by his ability to be cute and infuriating in equal
measures at the same time. Stretching out deflated balloons and letting
them snap then giggling? Cute. Chewing on the balloons so they are coated
in spit, and then doing that, releasing a cloud of spit vapour like some
sort of breath weapon? Not so cute. Snuggling up to me in bed while
asleep? Cute. Pushing and pushing (still asleep) until I nearly
fall out trying not to crush him? Not so cute. Also, genetic from his mum.
Climbing up onto the couch, then putting his head down snuggling your leg?
Cute. Then headbutting repeatedly? Not so cute.
The walking powers continue to strengthen. He'll toddles around the house
getting into things he shouldn't, but much more interesting is escaping
to the outside world. If the back door is open, its straight out to the back
steps and crawling down - unless pulling my bike down onto his head
seems more fun. And if the front door is open, but the screen door is
shut, he'll try and go through it. Once he's out the front door, he
heads off as fast as possible for the street, or maybe picking begonia
flowers. We walked hand in hand down to the end of our street (about 200m)
the other day as Hamish stared about fascinated.
He's been a bit difficult to settle to sleep at night recently. I think the
late sunset makes things a bit harder sometimes, but there's been more
teeth sticking through, and random colds and other guff as well. I look
forward to being able to get him to say, or at least point at what's wrong.
There is a sound that he makes that might be "Hamish" (although its more
like 'deydis'), but its not a definiate word. There are a quite a few of
the random noises that might be words, but the ones he makes the most
also come with excitement so its really hard to be sure. He points at photos
of his cousins, for instance, and makes excited noises that could be names
or just gibbering. He then tries to pull the frames off the wall and eat
them, so what that means is anyone's guess but I'm not leaving him alone
with them at Christmas.
Photos from November as well as old photos from
October and
September from Liz's phone.