Age = 8 months 12 days

Linus has managed to get himself a couple of injuries in the past month.

Firstly, Mummy managed to snip his thumb while cutting his nails, but luckily he seemed oblivious to this injury.

Next Daddy gave him a good scrape (complete with with blood and bruise!) on the top of the head while getting him out of the car at Granny and Pop-pop’s. This accident caused a bit of a scream on Linus’s part, although he was in such a bad mood that day that we barely noticed.

And finally he managed to injure himself by falling over onto one of his toys (we suspect the recorder) while sitting playing in the lounge, giving himself a beautiful long blue bruise on his left cheek in the process.

Age = 8 months 12 days

Linus’s main party trick that he’s done for the past month or two is to make a noise while one of us flaps his lips with a finger. (That description doesn’t do it justice, but if you’ve seen it you understand what I mean!) A slight variation is him making a noise while we shake his tummy.

To accompany this vocal skill, he also has developed some musical talent – he plays the recorder! His fingering is lousy, but whenever he gets the recorder in his mouth he starts making a vigourous noise that has the effect of blowing music (or rather, “music”) out of the recorder.

A new motion that he’s currently working on is moving from sitting upright to lying down. Sitting is the way he gets a good view of the world, but lying is the way he can move about (by swivelling on his groin, shuffling, and rolling), so I think he’s starting to see the benefits of changing between these positions. RM helped last week when we visited her in Napier by putting an enticing array of toys just out of Linus’s reach. He has managed to make the transition a couple of times accidently, so hopefully they’ll get a bit more deliberate as he gets braver.

And finally, Linus has discovered in the past couple of weeks that he gets wonderful reactions from people if he tilts his head to one side and grins at them. He’s such a little flirt!

Age = 8 months 12 days

Linus and I returned last night from our four day holiday staying with the Ms in Napier, and we had a fantastic time! The Hawke’s Bay weather was awesome, and we spent a very pleasant few days seeing the Ms’ new house and getting to know their very mellow new daughter CM.

What We Did

• Went swimming with the M girls at Ocean Spa, the (relatively) new pool on Marine Parade (this was C’s first ever swim!)
• Visited my old office to show Linus off to my former colleagues and catch up on the office goss
• Had a meal from my favourite cheap restaurant in the world, Antonio’s
• Enjoyed brunch with the Ms and the newly-engaged DK and KA
• Caught up with the L-L tribe (Ma, Pa, and the four kids) and with DC

The Flights

Linus did very well on his first-ever plane trips, and even slept through the third of the four flights. I don’t think the pressure changes bothered him (as they apparently do some babies), and whenever he got a little bit fractious it wasn’t too much trouble to feed him. I’m very glad that on all four flights I was given an empty seat next to me.

Moving around the airports was pretty easy as well, thanks to my ever-handy sling which I use to carry Linus while leaving my hands mostly free.

I also had some firsts – my first visits to airport Parents’ Rooms. For the most part they were great, but their differences were quite interesting. The Christchurch room was the only one with a cot and nice rocking chairs for breastfeeding, but it was also by far the tiniest of the three. The Dunedin and Wellington rooms were larger with more seating, but the Dunedin one boasted a microwave, while the (well-hidden!) Wellington one had both tiles and carpet, which made it feel a little more friendly.

Age = 8 months 12 days

After a few days of absolutely no teething signs, Linus managed to pop out one of his bottom teeth while we were up in Napier on holiday. According to my Plunket book my first tooth didn’t arrive until I was ten and a half months old, but his other little “friends” his age both got their first teeth months ago, so there’s a huge variation in when the milk teeth start to come in. (Some babies are even born with teeth!)

I haven’t seen the tooth yet, I’ve only felt it with my finger. It may not be visible through the gum yet, or it may just be difficult to see because of the big ol’ tongue that Bug sticks out whenever we try to look at his lower gums.

Age = 7 months 23 days

Linus has a toy box, and now that he’s sitting unsupported (along with rolling and groin-pivoting all over the room!) he’s really enjoying playing with the contents (and of course, being a child, with the box itself).

I’m not against plastic toys, but I do think it would be shame for a child to have nothing but complex, colourful, plastic, music-making toys that all feel and look and sound the same and provide limited opportunity for using the imagination. I prefer items that make their own noise (e.g. musical instruments) or have a distinctive texture or move in an interesting way.

So I’ve tried to fill the box with a variety of items. The current contents are:

• an empty paper towel roll
• an empty sellotape roll
• four rectangles of felt (yellow; white with ladybirds; purple with white spots; orange with glitter)
• two striped woollen balls (one large; one small; both made by Nana of course)
• a plastic rattle
• a plastic keyring and keys
• a plastic recorder
• a plain, flat flower-shaped wooden coaster
• two painted wooden castanets
• a cloth chicken facemask
• a fluffy lion rattly, crinkly soft toy (from Aunty Claire)
• a pink fabric cube
• a rubber torch (he loves sucking on it)
• two used biscuit packets (they make a great crackling sound)
• a Daffy Duck soft toy
• a bug soft toy (from TJ)
• a few columns of colourful Duplo
• a piece of egg carton.

And in case you hadn’t worked it out, one of the best things about most of these toys is that they’re cheap!