Mike gets his Clause into xmas

Ok, we was wrong.

Yes, Mike did indeed love the wrapping paper, but he did actually enjoy the pressies too, and appeared to realise something was going on and hence was on his best behaviour all day. Which is more than can be said for everyone at xmas! He also enjoyed lots of roast chicken, a lick of beer off the rim of his uncle J's stubbie, and enough roast veges (inc. lots of pumpkin - his long time fave vege) to last the rest of the week.


And as per usual he's been advancing in leaps and bounds. Or at least in the most recent case, tiny steps sideways. He's perfected the art of pulling himself to upright clinging to tables, couches, crockery cupboards, bookshelves and dad's legs (by dragging himself up on dad's leg hairs; you can tell from the other end of the house by the cries of pain - from dad). But he has now also learnt to creep along... slowly but shirley... along the edge of whatever he has clung onto.

Hence nothing on the coffee table is safe, and various objects need to be constantly moved as he tracks them down. His current favourite appears to be the Freedom furniture catalogue. Which at first glance may appear a random act, but in actual fact is clearly the sign of an intelligent life form who realises that such catalogues contain new furniture with doors, that can be closed and made kiddie safe/remove access to all sorts of contraband.

Told you he was smart.

Thankfully, as well as the creeping, he's also learnt how to get down - and not by bouncing either. A long reach down with one hand in some sort of half-moon yoga pose, a knee on the ground, and we're back in the floor business and off to new troubles.

Even works in the bath, where the lad has taken to 1) attacking the taps and, 2) pulling the plug out. All fun and games, but, when dad let him have his wish and hence his plug, the boy actually realised what he had done and, as the tide went out around him and it dawned on the boy that may well signal the end of bathtime... he tried to put the plug back in.

Ahhh... we'll make a hydrologist out of him yet.

A dancing one it would seem. Having learnt to clap and wave in recent weeks, he's now realised that he can add this to his love of the music and dance.

Ohhh yeah... get down boy!

Lemon

Time flies when you're having fun.

Or in this case, when mum and dad are constantly that little bit sleep deprived.

Yes, Master M has clocked up the (Chinese lucky) 8 months and he's officially firing on all cylinders. Vital stats include:

Weight: 8.405kg (bit below 50th percentile)
Length: 71.5cm (just above 50th percentile)
Head circumference: 45.5cm (just above 50th percentile)
and err....
Testes: Descended.

He's also managed to pop out his 6th tooth (and 4th on the top) without us really noticing. (Well, if you don't count that one night when we missed 2.5 hours sleep from 2am onwards...) Which just means that... he's getting better and better at eating.

And boy, does he luurve eating. Don't worry, he isn't turning into Fat Albert (or at least, not yet), more a Gordon Ramsey; he has a definite array of foodie likes and dislikes, but will also have a chomp on anything not nailed down or able to fight back. His taste though, must be questioned.

Case in point. Mum and Dad, after a weekend of running about and generally being overly active and sociable, (hey, it is almost Xmas - but we'll get to that later), were knacker-bagged come Sunday night. Hence they threw in the culinary towel and bought fish and chips.

MMMMMMmmmmm..... f.i.s.h....a.n.d....c.h.i.p.s.....

They offered Mike a little grilled fish.
Look, smell, slight screw up of face....Chomp chomp chomp.
They offered Mike a chip.
Look, smell, slightly less quizzical look... Chomp, chomp, chomp.
They watched as Mike saw the lemon.
He lunged, grabbed, smiled, and chowed on down on the flesh and peel like some crazed lemon-loving version of the cookie monster.
Pulling it off him only had him screaming...
"GIMME GIMME GIMME!!!!" (or the 8 month old equivalent).

Go figure. (At least we know chippy night will stay cheap.)

Slightly more worrying was the trip to the beach to watch the big windsurf race of the season. Mike was less interested in watching the action than eating the sand. Dad just pondered if next day the boy'd be pooping glass... (he didnt).

On the developmental side the boy's had two steps forward. The biggest, clearly, is that he now, officially, knows his own name. Yes, 8 months in and the boy spins his head around when he hears "Michael" (or even "Mike") and sometimes even comes a running. (Or at least a bellyflop sliding.) Mum tested it numerous times by saying, in the same tone of voice "giraffe" or "bessa brick" or "speleotherm" and yes, indeed, he just didn't respond the same.

Housten, we have contact.

The other development is clapping, and to a lesser extent, waving. Much as he had already learned that those long fleshy things attached to his body could drag his body across the floor, cling to things when standing and grasp food (and in actual fact, theres been an advance there too; he's learned that if you open your fist when eating... THERES OFTEN MORE FOOD IN THERE!! ...amazing), he's suddenly decided that these things can also be used for fun. Like clapping along to the crocodile song, and, if the recipient is really really lucky.... waving and/or high-fiving on cue.

Given all the chrissy do's he'll be attending soon we expect him to be putting the fleshy things attached to his body to good use doing all of the above. Which brings us to the topic of an 8-month olds Xmas.

If one more person comes up and says "ohhh.... Mikes first Xmas... he'll be so excited/how wonderful/you must be so happy"...
!!POW!!! Right in the kisser.

He is 8 months old. He doesn't know his bottom from a hole in the ground and yet people think he'll understand what Santa, pine trees, tinsel (ok, yes, it does distract him somewhat during feed time), mince tarts, snow-in-summer, some religious dude and Myrrh (who the hell knows what Myrrh is anyway?) is all on about. Yes, we'll give him a pressie or three, but I'll bet you a Tosca he'll take one look at the pressie, one look at the wrapping paper,... and go the paper.

Well, only if there isn't any lemon lying about.




Postscript: Its bloody hard for a child to sleep (and person to write blog) if there's thunder right over your house. It was so much easier when he'd only experienced drought. I blame La Nina. Bah Humbug ...and Merry Xmas.

The war against terror

He's up.
He's down.
He's here.
He's there.
Lil' Mike's bloody everywhere.
(But above all he's a cheeky lil terror.)

Ay Kurumba... this is going to be tiring.

The lad has not only mastered the art of the bellyflop/butterfly propulsion method to shoot him from one end of the house to the other in no time flat, but has also mastered the art of climbing up onto his feet and clinging onto stuff.

Arguably the most impressive is his overhang rock climbing technique for getting to upright from under the coffee table. Hillary like, while partly under the table itself, he flings a hand up and onto the table-edge, and swings his body out and upright from below. I'm sure he'll have a step named after him in no time.

This is all well and good but...
Unfortunately he has not yet mastered any form of the art of getting down.

Hence once standing upright and clinging to something for a while, of course having dragged the biscuit tin/mixing bowl/full cup of water onto the floor for good measure, (or, in the case of pulling himself up on the dishwasher door, vomiting a milk feed straight into said dishwasher) he decides its time to move on.

He then realises that he cant. Cos the floor is down there and he is up here and never the twain shall meet.

Or rather, will only meet via a fall. Of which he is now doing several a day, often involving what, for an adult, would be bloody painful. (Dad knows... as he fell off his bike while clipped in - in the backyard - only yesterday, and has the bruises to prove it.)

For a kiddie though, the pain only seems momentary. And amazingly, that moment seems to be perfectly correlated with the amount of time it takes to get a cuddle from mum or dad.

Added effect can be made, if mum and dad don't leap to their feet instantly, by, rather than bellyflopping across the room in a split second, dragging yourself onto all fours and doing the slowest, most pathetic and woefully agonising looking, crawl across the room. (While sobbing and batting the eyelids.)

Yes, crawl.

Much as we thought he couldn't, he can indeed crawl perfectly well, but was saving it up for moments of dramatic effect. (Just don't tell him till he's 21 that its actually hilarious!) Personally, he prefers the flop for its speed.

(Ok, he was a little more inclined to use the crawl when we put his carpet-layer knee pads on him, which is kinda understandable as the polished floorboards are a knee killer - at least for dad when he gave Mike a hallway drag race. )

The week itself has again seen Mike partying hard. Well it is xmas after all.

There's been mothers group (where he went a bit shy and generally stuck with mum and dad) and mum's work xmas do in Batman Park, soon to be followed by the steet party (held in a park) and an early family get together.

It enough to drive a man to porridge - his new favourite food.

(Well, a blokes gotta build up those muscles for the next bout of terrorising.)


Video 1: The Hillary Step


Video 2: The (happy/what does that camera taste like?) crawl...

Get up, Stand up,..

Oh no... not only is the wee lad now mobile and taking a penchant to raping, burning and pillaging all he can lay his hands on, he' now standing upright whenever he has something to cling on to.

Fair enough... thats all fine. But he also yet to fully grasp the duel concepts of a) gravity, b) pain. The end result being that he's taken more hits than Rob from Shitscared (maybe we'll have to put a helmet on him like sidekick Mick's).

Still, he kinda bounces ok, and mum and dad are on constant Mike-watch, so hopefully he'll survive this stage without losing too many neurons.

That said, its all kinda impressive for one so young. So far this week he's managed to

• drag himself to upright using the wires surrounding the deck. (Yes, a worry, given 2ft drop below...)
  
• clamber up so he can reach into the fridge (appears impervious to the cold, not that we're going to test it by closing the door on him mind you)
• stand bolt upright in his cot, necessitating a lowering of the base and hence future back incapacitation for mum and dad from having to lift him from so far down. (Spare block and tackle engine hoist, anyone?)
• climb into the crockery cupboard, thus requiring the better and breakable crockery to be moved to parts unknown where dad is, arguably by definition, still unable to find them...
  
• clamber up the stereo cabinet... and turn on the radio; mum found him dancing - she swears - standing up and hanging on with one hand, to the "La Porchetta" pizza restaurant jingle...
• pull himself up and then hang off the edges of the coffee table. Then try to eat/lick it. (Note to self; improve wipe up of milo spills/cookie crumbs.)
• grasp the side of the bath and peer over looking for toys. (On a serious note, about 6 kiddies a year drown in Aussie baths, so from now on, 1) no toys left in bath, and 2) bath always drained immediately after use.)
• finally managed to get himself high enough so he can stare into the rainguage and wonder what all the fuss is about each morning. Cos, not surprisingly, theres nothing there...

But we mostly just love that he dances. Indeed he appears to have taken quite a liking to music in the past few weeks (well, above his long held passion for the "Crocodile smile" song) and doesn't mind a bit of a boogie. Add to that the blue eyes, the blonde hair the svelt waistline and winning grin, its a wonder he's not in the worlds sexiest men list already...

"Give it time." says dad "Took me at least a decade."

However the waistline may be in for an expansion if current tastes hold out. The lad has decided that dinners of mush (i.e., pumpkin mush, zucchini mush, cauliflower mush, broccoli mush etc ) are - and understandably - boring.

He wants mum and dads food.

Which in the past week means he's tasted his first dinkum Aussie meat pie, as well as some home-made pizza. Goodbye waistline...

Ok, he's also had some bolognese sauce and a little pasta, as well as lotsa steamed veges (he's yet to cotton on that the steamed veges are identical to the mushed veges - wonder what that says about his sense of taste?) and a little pita bread, so it hasn't all been bad news.

Well, unless you are his clothes or the floor. Eating "real" food means he also wants to feed himself a little more, which also means that he wears about 20% of it, with a further 30% reaching the floor. Which inevitably, being barefoot summer time now, mum and dad stand in when they stretch out the legs under the dinner table.

Something, lets be honest, they didn't actually miss when he was babysat in the evening for the first time (thanks Nana and Grandad!) and they went out for their fifth wedding anniversary dinner... alone.

Get up, stand up. Does anything ever stay the same?