Age = 10 months 18 days

Yesterday Bug spent most of the day trying out a new move: instead of crawling on hands and knees, he clambered about very well on hands and feet. Although he moved pretty quickly in this position, I think his final verdict was that it was too awkward – he hasn’t done it today.

Yesterday also saw the first really nice day in Dunedin since Christmas, so Bug got a chance to try out his new inflatable swimming pool. He spent well over half an hour in it, but apart from an initial speed lap on hands and knees, he stayed standing in the pool leaning on the side the whole time.

Age = 10 months 15 days

My Bug has a very serious, almost grumpy expression on his face a lot of the time – he takes after me in this respect! (Of course you won’t believe me if you know him mainly from photos, since the photos we publish are the ones of him smiling!)

However there are a few things that we can rely on to make him smile or even laugh:

Mum Ignoring Him

One of my most reliable tricks is to look away from Linus (or his wee friend SO) distractedly with little expression on my face and blab on dully about something, then very suddenly turn to the baby and look right at him (/her) with a big grin on my face. They love it, and I’m almost always rewarded with giggles!

Example: “[turn away] I’m just going to look over here at the wall, because I find walls much more interesting than [turn quickly and grin] BABIES!!”

Falling Down

This morning Bug was standing on the bed holding on to the railing at the bed-head. He kept “falling” down and landing firmly on his backside. He was pretty proud of himself.

Face Plant

When he’s in a good mood, Bug enjoys us throwing him down on a very soft surface like a duvet or a pillow. We can plop him down quite hard on his back, or even better, on his front, so his face is buried in the soft material.

In fact, the other morning (according to reports from Daddy), he was in bed with Daddy and threw himself face-first into the pillow. Then he gave a highly amused – but muffled – laugh. Then without changing position, he fell asleep. Just as well Daddy was there to move him to a safer sleeping position!

Daddy’s Faces

Daddy’s facial expressions are impossible to describe on a blog, or even to photograph, but he has a vast array of them and the majority are highly entertaining to his son.

Age = 10 months 15 days

I hate to sound materialistic, but here’s a list of what Bug received from whom on his first Christmas:

• brightly coloured wooden pew/toybox (Granny and Pop-pop);
• inflatable swimming pool (Mummy and Daddy);
• Hairy Maclary and Zachary Quack, a Lynley Dodd book (Nana) – this book is paper, so not good for Linus to get his hands on at this age, but superb to read to him, very rhythmic and rhyming and repetitive, without too much text on each page;
• outdoor dining set and umbrella (Nana, Claire, and Kyle) – this present was for the whole family;
• a wind-up wooden fire engine (the Cs);
• What’s In The Egg?, a pop-up cardboard book (the Cs);
• an handmade in-out-touch box, i.e. a shoebox covered in shiny duraseal with a hole in the top and a lot of different fabric pieces in it, e.g. lace, vinyl, wool, felt (RH);
• Who Is Hiding In The House?, a lift-the-flap cardboard book (Andi and Matt);
• a dark grey stuffed bug that giggles insanely when he’s touched (PR);
• a blue T-shirt and child’s spoon and fork set (ER and RR);
• a Winnie-the-Pooh toy that makes Pooh and bee and bird noises (Granny and Pop-pop);
• swanny whistle (Nana);
• baby whale bath book (Nana);
• “That’s it! I’m going to Nana’s!” feeder (Nana of course);
• “If you think I’m cute, you should see my Aunty!” feeder (Aunty Claire of course);
• brown polar fleece blanket with dog paw print pattern on it (Claire and Kyle);
• probably lots of other things that I’ll feel horrible when I realise I’ve forgotten them, but you know what Christmas is like and it definitely doesn’t mean that they weren’t appreciated!