Soooo he did that, and then started taking 2 or 3 steps at a time. He DELIGHTED in practising it between Neil and I, over and over and OVER again. Or from the sofa to me, a couple of feet away. He beams soooo sweetly, and looks around for his audience (there's never a shortage of encouragers at our house!) before beginning. That's how we know he's about to attempt it - the beaming look as he searches us out with great excitement. So we give him our attention, and off he goes!
Yesterday, all of a sudden, he began walking more than 3 steps. He was having fun walking from me to Arthur, and back again. He would fall forwards on his third or fourth step as usual, into our arms. Then one time, Arthur sat that bit further away from him, and he kept going! Then back to me - 6 steps! He practised more after we finished the game, between furniture. I noticed he was able to stop after 3 steps in the middle of the floor, look around for a bit or even try to pick up a toy, and then carry on several more steps to the next piece of furniture! By the end of the day he was walking across the room, steadying himself (most of the time) when he started to lose his balance halfway there, taking 10+ steps without trouble, and stooping very carefully and slowly to pick up a toy before straightening back up with it, in the middle of the floor. He also started to work on getting up from sitting/crawling to standing in the middle of the floor. He would get on all fours, then to hands and feet, then push with his hands so he was just on his feet. As he CAREFULLY straightened up (he fell on his bottom pretty hard every time for a while at first), he said, "UT!" (up) :) And if he succeeded, he set off walking from there! Clever boy! :)
He is 13 months and 2 weeks old - similar age to Benjamin I think. The others before them were all 11 months - they were all walking by their first birthdays, so Samuel and Benjamin are later than average in our house. I presumed Benjamin was later because he was talking so much earlier than the others, but Samuel isn't talking like Benji was at this age. Benji had TONS of words by 13 months!
Samuel is saying, "Ut" (up), "Det-dahn" (get down, for when he wants to get down from the table after meals), "Dat!" (that - this accompanies a graspy out-stretched hand action at pretty much anything and everything!), "Buh" (birds - he says this when looking up at the birds flying over our house from the window), "Nah-nahhh" (night night, when waving at the boys and about to be carried in my arms up to bed for nap or at bedtime - they all call out "Night niiiiight!" to him when he's about to go up), "Dah" or "Dada" for Daddy, "Mummummmumm" or something along those lines for Mummy, lol! Mostly a long mmmm sounds broken here and there by a tight little 'u' sound. He doesn't use it for me at all really, but will say it when Neil's cuddling him and asks him, "Where's Mummy?!" or "Do you see Mummy?" He sometimes says, "Buh" for bye-bye, and waves so sweetly. Love him so much!
I can't think of any more words. Oh he just started to say, "Nuh" for no, with a very clear shaking of his head (he's been doing the shaking head for no for several weeks now), notably when he doesn't want any more milky, or food, or in answer to a question (Do you want any more?). He does a precious little bob for yes, but with his whole body and his neck all squished into his shoulders to tense it up, hehe! I love that - he'll grow out of it way too soon! It's the joyous look on his face and his eyes all shiny that goes with it which makes it so lovely to behold :)
I am not really making much milk any more, now that I'm 25 weeks pregnant. Benjamin and Samuel still breastfeed - Benji usually once or twice as he asks to, during the day, and always at bedtime. Benji doesn't nap any more, so he doesn't have any "before nap" milky. I haven't nursed Benjamin at night for a very long time, except if he has a particularly bad dream and wants the comfort to settle down again, but that's rare. Or if he's ill. Samuel nurses before his only nap (which he takes during the latter part of the morning before lunch, also - not coincidentally - our homeschool time). He sleeps right by my side and sometimes breastfeeds on waking, but more often than not he is eager to get up and go downstairs instead. He tells me during the day if he wants milk by climbing onto my lap (or crying with outstretched arms to be picked up) and once there, immediately sucking his thumb whilst "twiddling" at me with his other hand! ;) That's been his sign for many months, and at least it's a good clear one! Might bother me more if we did more stuff in public, but we don't, so that's fine. The "public" we do see are extended-breastfeeding-friendly and think it's very sweet! :) I do too!
So he nurses maybe a couple of times during the day. I actually find I miss it if he hasn't reminded me (if he's being particularly busy) by late afternoon, and scoop him up for a cuddle on the sofa and that usually triggers his little sign and a breastfeed. Otherwise I offer it to him anyway, and he usually goes for it. He doesn't nurse for long (a few minutes at most) and then pulls my top back down whilst shaking his head. He's nothing if not clear! ;)
He nurses on demand after he goes to bed, all through the night. I haven't done anything about night-weaning him yet, and it's much easier not to, but it WON'T be easier when Elijah arrives, so I will get to that sometime. Probably should think about that soonish, as there are only 3 months to go! :S Right now Samuel probably breastfeeds once or so in the evenings, although he often sleeps through the evening now. He usually wakes between 11 and 11.30 and Neil is still up at that time and rocks him back to sleep. He loves doing it, and comes downstairs again saying, "Aw, he's so sweet when he's just gone to sleep in my arms!" :) Yes, yes, we're not exactly helping him be independent at sleeping, but he does resettle himself countless times over the evening and night-time, as well as the odd breastfeed once I'm in bed next to him, and that evening cuddle with Neil. Also, he's our FIFTH. They've all been the same, and we've learned to give up the whole DRIVE to get them sleeping, and just enjoy the genuinely lovely aspects of a waking toddler/baby - sleepy cuddles, getting to see their cute little faces as they're asleep again, night time tummy-to-tummy breastfeeding. I would love a full night's sleep every night, but we never managed to get there even with a TON of effort and basically every method I'd read about trying, and lots and lots of stress over it all. So we're much much happier now, just going with it - it does help that we've seen that they eventually do sleep through the night consistently, lol! For our children that starts anywhere from age 2.5ish, but is already happening 50% of the time after age 2. So three of our children sleep through every night, predictably. One rarely wakes, but still does sometimes for a drink (with some fussing), or from a bad dream, etc. Sometimes Benji can be quite wakeful for no apparent reason, and get annoyed and noisy about wanting to go downstairs in the middle of the night, which is difficult with a bunch of sleeping children in the same bedroom! But they rarely get woken by anyone else awake, even if they are SCREAMING their heads off! Amazing for my babies who once woke at the slightest tread from socked feet on carpet, lol!
So it's just Samuel, and he's definitely not the worst of our babies for night wakings. He wakes to nurse once perhaps between 11pm or so and 6ish in the morning when he's up for the day. Sometimes I think he wakes more than once (or even twice?) but co-sleeping allows me to know very little about it as he nurses right back to sleep while I barely come round :)
Samuel has 6 teeth still - it has been months since he last got a tooth! He has four at the top, and two sweet little bottom ones, like all his brothers before him. Going by their patterns, I am pretty sure he's due his first molars next (they seem to get those at the same time as the RIGHT tooth next to the bottom middle two, so that should come soon too. The LEFT tooth down there doesn't come through in my children until about 18 months old!! Strange but true!). He seems a bit teethy-looking in the cheeks this week, and is drooling lots, but no sign of anything in his mouth yet. Benjamin's teeth didn't come in until around his first birthday, like Nathan's, so he is later than the "schedule" for teeth. He's 2 years and 7 months old, and I have been keeping an eagle eye out for his 2-year-old molars for some months now. Yesterday at bedtime when I had cleaned his teeth, I asked him to look up and open his mouth (mine tend to get top teeth before bottom teeth), and was surprised to see the first corner of his top right molar already through! No others looked ready to come through, and he said it wasn't hurting him. So Benjamin has started cutting his 2-year-old molars - hopefully they'll be easy enough, and we won't end up with 4 molars coming through for two children at the same time! :S
What else about Samuel? I wish I'd kept up with the "part two" post I started in draft, about Samuel, from months ago. I did part one, from 3 months old, but had to stop before I'd got to his second 6 months I think. Now there's a bit gaping hole in my blog records, photos and everything, of Samuel during that time. I still want to go back and finish it, but I can't keep putting off getting new stuff about him here while I wait to "get around to it" - I might never make it!
He's so precious! Every mother says it, I know! ;) And all my children are so precious to me! But awwww my baby! He's GORGEOUS!!! He is truly a blonde blonde baby - the first I've had, and his hair is curly! He is currently blue-eyed, and has such a lovely shaped smile, very much like Arthur's actually, now I think of it. He's so soft and cuddly and sweet-natured, and has a smile on his face almost all of the time. He is soft-voiced as well, a bit like Matthew, but less husky. He sucks his thumb a lot when he's sleepy or wanting a calm time. I ADORE him, seriously ADORE him. It doesn't matter what else is happening or what my mood is like, just to look at him melts me and fills me with joy and love all over again. Love that baby! All the boys love him so much. They all give him so much attention and desire his attention back for their entertaining antics that they put on for him. They love his funny sweet things he does, that all little ones do. They get so much enjoyment out of their baby brother, especially Arthur and Matthew, who are quite funny themselves now with their "grown up" fondness of him and the things they find funny just like Neil and I do!
Anyway! I meant to just quickly come here to post a little video clip I took yesterday of Samuel walking. I took several, but only edited one to put here. I used the longest one because it's of him walking the furthest, but Neil pointed out to me that I should have shared some of the shorter ones because he's so eager and excited and smiley in those. In this clip, he looks kind of forlorn and sad at one point in the middle, and doesn't beam and squeal with glee when he arrives at me like in the other ones. But I haven't got those ones edited and uploaded, so this one will have to do! Just imagine that he's usually way more smiley and excited than you see in this video!
Samuel's hair gets SO curly after it's washed, and the curls go sort of limp by several days later (they don't get hairwashes more often than once a week usually, unless there's mega food in there!). After I washed his hair one evening in the bath, it went curly as usual after it had dried, and I took some photos, mainly to send to my parents (my father's gene is responsible for his beautiful curls!). These were taken during "teeth time" and are not very recent. He was 12 and a half months old here, so just over a month ago.
His hair has grown quite a bit longer than this now, so much so that I am able to do this, in my less sane moments, haha!...
Cute though he is, I probably won't do that again. Probably. ;) When I put bunches in their hair, Neil usually insists that I give them The First Haircut the very next day, lol! But he hasn't done that yet. I can't bear to cut his hair because I'm scared his curls will all go away when I do! :S Nathan had some sweet curls before his first haircut, though just at the ends, not like Samuel's curls, and they went away after I cut his hair and never came back! :( I'm hoping Samuel's will be permanent curls (Arthur's hair is wavy and Benjamin's is somewhat as well, but none of the boys have had curly hair like Samuel's as a baby/toddler). When the curls go limp, his hair looks long enough to need a cut to tidy it up, but when it's freshly washed and curly, it looks PERFECT and I can't bear to cut it! It's short enough when it's curly. *sigh* I love every tiny thing about that sweetie pie!
And on that note, he's starting to fuss a bit in the living room where they are all playing pretty well with toys and stuff ALL over the floor, so methinks it's time to snuggle him on the sofa for a breastfeed, and then get the living room tidy and start some sort of activities with them for a change of pace before dinner.
I'm glad to be blogging again! :)
1 comment:
And it's good to be reading you! Samuel is edible :) XXXXX
Post a Comment