Bug = 2 years 7 months
Bub = 9 months 10 days What was Linus up to at this age?

The other day I was driving along a busy main road and saw a little girl – probably less than 2 years old – standing on the footpath watching the traffic go past. No one else was in sight. I thought about stopping to check that she was alright, but I’d already driven past and it was awkward to do a U-turn and I had my own children to get home to and it was none of my business and I didn’t know exactly what I would do anyway and she was probably fine and I didn’t want to feel silly and… the moment was gone.

But I thought about if it were Linus standing unaccompanied at the side of a busy road because of a newly developed lock-opening or gate-climbing skill or a moment’s inattention from me on a busy day. What would I want someone else to do in that situation? I’d want them to stop, talk to Linus, ask around nearby houses to find out where he belonged, and return him safely to me.

My excuses suddenly sounded hollow, selfish, and cowardly, so I did an awkward u-turn and drove back a few blocks to where the little girl was still standing. I watched her for half a minute and still saw no sign of a caregiver, but just as I was about to get out of the car to investigate further, I saw a parent come out from under a porch and call the little girl inside.

And I wondered if the little girl was called in because of a creepy stranger lurking in their car watching her.

Bug = 2 years 7 months
Bub = 9 months 8 days What was Linus up to at this age?

There are some unexciting things that we grown-ups do that we don’t think of as “skills”. When you spend a lot of time with small children, however, you realise that many of these things aren’t innate and have to be learned. I’ve discovered that these abilities include blowing bubbles, winking, and closing one eye while using the other to look through a viewfinder.

A couple of months ago I decided that I needed to take active measures to teach Linus to spit out toothpaste when brushing his teeth. He had the idea right, but he tended to swallow what was in his mouth then make the spitting noise over the basin. But over the past month, Linus seems to have mastered this all by himself – before I even had a chance to instigate my gruelling training regimen! How rude!

Bug = 2 years 7 months
Bub = 9 months 8 days What was Linus up to at this age?

Ada must have read her Daddy’s blog and worked out from his rant that he was well and truly ready to chuck her in the bin.

In the FOUR evenings since he wrote that post, Ada has slept like an angel. She has slept for 3-4 hours, waking only twice (total across the four nights, not twice each night) and being easily settled by her super Dad. We’re enjoying having the evenings back, and hope it lasts at least until… well, forever!!

Lately it seems that Ada has lost the knack of staying asleep, much to the detriment of our sanity in the evenings.  I seemed to posses a fleeting power of bringing sleep that could last for a couple of hours, plenty of time to relax and get our energy stores up to face another day, but over the past couple of weeks the hours have diminished to minutes.  It is now unusual for Ada to sleep more than a 20 minute stretch in the evenings, which is broken by half hour bouts of inconsiderate screaming, kicking, punching, slight settling, silence of sleep (normally for about one to two minutes), followed by a frantic restart.  It is a sure recipe to brew anger and depression.

It is pretty likely that this is having an impact on Linus as well as his sleep routine seems to have settled down into not wanting to go to bed in the evenings, probably because one of us – me normally – is trying to put Ada to sleep and the screaming is a little distracting.  In the mornings he normally comes through to our room at about 5:30am, proclaiming that he wants mummy milk “please” (you see, if you say please it’s your right to claim what you wish without protest) and when denied that pretty much instantly gets a wail which wakes Ada.  At that time of the morning he sometimes can be taken back to his bed with one of us, but normally he ends up playing in the hallway with his toys and coming back into our room until he’s annoyed us enough that we have to get up.

The only solution I can see to this is for us to give up our evenings and go to bed at about 9pm, maybe our whole family is sleep deprived and we’re fighting too hard to get sleep.

On the plus side, the kids are so cute when they play together.  That’s got to be worth something.

We’ll see how it goes.

- Tired Daddy.

Bug = 2 years 7 months
Bub = 9 months 2 days What was Linus up to at this age?

Clap Hands

For the past few weeks, Ada has found it very funny when I clap, and she has enjoyed holding my hands and “making” me clap.

But today she finally managed to clap by herself, possibly due to her big brother’s influence (he’s been able to clap for a while now!). Our first sight of Ada clapping was when Daddy found the two kids clapping together in the lounge.

She’s enjoying the clapping, and seems proud of her new skill.

Moving Around

Ada is really enjoying trying out all her movement skills.

The whole family is enjoying her ability to crawl… it means she is capable of entertaining herself for longer periods, plus she can play games with Linus. (They’re not complicated games, I admit, but the two of them are playing together now!)

She’s also loving experimenting once she’s pulled herself up beside a table or couch. She tries taking one hand off at a time, then she takes both hands off and falls to the ground, only to be up again a few seconds later. When people have said recently “She looks strong in the legs!” or “She’ll be walking soon!“, I’ve been doubtful up until now, replying that she still looks very wobbly to me, and seems to stand on tip-toe an awful lot. But today I’ve noticed some real strength, and once saw a decent few milliseconds between her letting go of a chair and falling to the ground – it bore a remarkable resemblance to independent standing. I’m not saying that she will be walking soon, but I’m now more confident that it will happen eventually.

To complete her mobility arsenal, she finally seems to be able to roll off her back (she’s been rolling from her front for over a month). It’s not at 100% proficiency yet – she often gets her arm stuck underneath her and ends up tipping back to where she started. But nappy-changing time is now a lot more challenging for Mum and Dad!

The Sitting

One distinctive thing about Ada is that sitting has always been her favourite position, so much so that whenever I try to place her on the ground on all fours, within half a second she’s “tipped” back up to sitting (like a Weeble!).

A funny effect of this now that Ada’s crawling is that, when she arrives at the toy she was after, she doesn’t grab it – she has to sit up first. Unfortunately changing her position from crawling to sitting up means that she’s half a metre back from where she had arrived, and the toy is perplexingly out of her reach again!

Tragic Child

When Ada is sitting on the floor crying, she is heartbreaking! She sobs and sobs, but the tragic and pathetic touch is when she leans all the way forwards so that her forehead is touching the ground while she cries. Of course we feel her pain… but we can’t help forming sad little half-smiles on our faces at such a masterfully pitiful display!