16 Months is Delightful

I’m on the train heading into the city for my last commute for the year. Thank god. This commute is so tough. I only do it once a week, but the almost 6 hour return trip really knocks me out. I’m still working for the rest of the week, but just from home like I normally do.

Actually I just realised that this time next week it’ll be Christmas! We’ve been really enjoying the holidays season with Augie this year, though he doesn’t actually know (or care) what’s going on. We’ve done the Santa photos, Christmas light drive, Myer Christmas windows, baked Christmas cookies, listen to Christmas music all day and lots of local Christmas events. We stayed in the city for the night for my work Christmas party and did lots of Christmas activities so I think we’ll make that a yearly tradition. I can’t wait until next year when he might get more excited.

Augie is a very shy baby so we knew we’d need to get in the Santa photo with him. He’s still not feeling very happy about the situation!

I think I say this every month, but the changes over the past month in Augie have been unbelievable. It’s like he suddenly understands everything.

• Loves playing chasey and “I’m going to get you”. I say to him to “go get dad” and he’ll run and jump on AJ.

• Peekaboo never gets old around here. It’s all day, every day. We sneak up on AJ and play boo and he gets so excited that he lets out a little giggle and AJ has to pretend he doesn’t know we are there. It’s so cute.

• He does the actions to his favourite songs now and when I read his favourite books he’ll say the words I leave out on purpose.

With his grandparents

• He loves songs and games with suspense and will squeal and laugh uncontrollably when we are doing “this little piggy” and “incy wincy spider”. Then say “more” and we do it over and over again.

• His favourite game is counting. Loves to count to 5 and when I’m putting him to bed he likes me to just count over and over again as he finds it soothing. He grabs my hand and pulls down my fingers as I count. He has number magnets on the fridge and he carries them around all day. When he’s upset I just ask him to go get his number 2 (his favourite number) and it distracts him every time.
• He will be cheeky and delay bedtime by giving me lot of kisses and cuddles. He knows I love kisses and cuddles so he just keeps doing it to get out of going to bed.

• He won’t sit in his high chair much anymore. He wants to sit at his little play table or the big table. Actually I need to buy him a booster seat this week.

• Doesn’t say the word “no” but says “nah” instead. So I ask him if he wants more banana and he says “nah”. It’s very funny.

Honestly, he’s so much fun right now. He’d been a bit of hard work from around the 12 month mark, but he seems more independent again now. He’ll potter around the house entertaining himself (making mess and mischief) most of the time.

Speaking of mischief, he can almost open doors now, loves to get into the toilets (ahhhh) and is obsessed with electrical switches. He turns them on and off constantly and he has to turn the lights off when we leave a room. Actually, in the library the other day he turned an outlet switch off and it turned out it was for the computers people were sitting at doing work. OMG. I was so embarrassed, I just ran away.

Probably his favourite thing in the world is an overhead fan. He just screams “fan” if we go somewhere with a fan. I had to leave a shop a couple of days ago because it had two fans and he just went mental. Everyone thought it was funny, but it was a little embarrassing how much noise he was making. The funniest thing is if we go somewhere that has a fan but they aren’t switched on. He grabs my chin with his hands and points my face to the ceiling as if to say “sort this out mum”.

Bed time is an ongoing struggle. He’s been in a leap and hasn’t been going to bed until 10.30 pm!!! Then I have to get up for work at 5.00 am. Seriously FML. His little brain is in over-drive and he can’t wind down. Once he falls asleep he doesn’t ever wake up, but he just won’t fall asleep. Then I have to wake him at 8.30 am because he wants to sleep all day. Fighting sleep has always been his issue and it’s hard to find advice on this as most sleep information is about babies who wake in the night. Or advice centres around sleep training and that’s not for me (I can’t handle any level of crying it out to sleep train). Anyway, this is actually the last leap he’ll ever have, apparently after this one they stop, so maybe these sleep issues will improve. Or I could be delusional!

Augie has always been obsessed with his dad, but lately it’s even more extreme. He won’t let me hold him, he just screams “daddy” constantly. He cries when AJ leaves the room. He’s fine when I take him out and it’s just me and him, but if he knows AJ is in the house he goes nuts. It’s actually starting to get to me a little, but I’m sure it’s just a stage? Bloody AJ being the ‘fun’ parent…

All in all, I need to be super soppy and say that I’m just grateful for every single day with my little family. I feel so lucky to have them.