Well it seems that next week we will be making our first big car trip with Christopher. My grandad died last week, he was in his 90s, suffering with dementia, along with trips in and out of hospital due to his unexplained falls and subsequent injuries. His funeral is next Wednesday, so we will be making the journey with Christopher to London to attend. We're hoping maybe to leave Robert with my in-laws. Christopher will be fine, either asleep, feeding, or happy looking around while having cuddles. And if for some reason he does get inconsolable, Jonathan can take him out.
Anyway...
Christopher is still 100% breastfed. By this point in time, Robert had already had mashed banana and baby rice, before we decided it'd be easier to keep him on BM for a while longer. Christopher has had nothing but milk, but he seems more than happy with that arrangement. Unlike Robert, who was given a bottle of expressed milk daily from around 5 weeks old, Christopher was given his first bottle maybe at 6 or 7 weeks old, and only one other bottle since then, both by his grandma. We tried him on a bottle of expressed a couple of weeks ago, while I was cooking, but he wasn't having any of it! For now, that arrangement suits me fine, I'm not desperate to give him a bottle, and I'm not desperate for a night out, or anything like that. Breastfeeding Christopher has gone like a dream. It really has! After the early struggles with Robert, I didn't think I'd be lucky to have an easy experience of breastfeeding right from the start. The main issues right now are sucking on fingers WHILE nursing (ouchhhh!) and him grabbing a handful of breast, and yanking it away from his mouth while still oh so very much latched on! (double ouch!)
He is becoming more needy as time goes on, he wants more and more attention understandably, and as such I am beginning to feel a bit more pulled in 3 directions (juggling Robert's needs, Christopher's increasing needs, and household needs - bare essentials such as washing up, laundry, and vacuuming once the floor is under a thin sheet of cat hair and crumbs!). He is still a very content baby generally though, and loves his play mat, both on his back and tummy time.
He has started to give us the biggest chuckles over the last few weeks, which is just so so cute! He laughs at a few things. Tickling his chest sometimes works, as does making funny noises to him, tickling his mouth and chin with a cloth, and also his grandad has made him laugh singing Ralph McTell songs :)
He is becoming more and more interested in his big brother, and loves watching his big brother playing. If Robert is doing a table top activity, I prop him up on the sofa looking over the arm so he can watch Robert.
That last photo was taken over 6 weeks ago now. I can hardly believe that my little boy is coming up for 5 months old already, he will turn 5 months on the 25th February!
His head control is very good now. He sleeps on his front, and has done since he was tiny, because he slept better like that. So when he wakes, he will lift his head up as high as it will go, and look around for a while! He gets plenty of tummy time! ;) We've started putting him in the door bouncer, and just like his big brother, he LOVES it! He really enjoys the feeling of the floor under his feet, and he gets such a look of excitement and glee on his face when he is in there!
I just love this little boy so much, he lights up my day, and even if I am tired from the early wake up calls, if I have the little man on my chest, and he looks straight into my eyes and BEAMS at me with that gorgeous dimpled grin of his, how can I not smile back? He is just so precious, and I am incredibly lucky to have him in my life.
Right now, he is on the cusp of rolling over. He is trying desperately to do it, he arches his back and looks up above his head, and rocks. He did at first roll over to his left, now I see him do it more to his right. I can't believe my baby boy is beginning to get mobile! I know it's still a way off crawling, but still, rolling! My baby! You cannot grow up, I forbid it! ;) I find myself excited yet a little sad with each new milestone my baby boy reaches. I know in my heart I can persuade Jonathan he wants a third, yet he is still quietly protesting expanding our family, and pointing out all the "bad" bits of having a baby, in an attempt to make me see that I really don't want another child, that 2 is enough, but it's not working sorry Jonathan! ;)
Right... Robert!
Robert is now 26 months old, or 2 years 2 months ;) He is learning more about his individuality every day, and learning new things all the time. My heart just squishes with love for him. He is now stringing together more and more complex sentences, although without words like "the", "a", "and" and so on. And all verbs in the present tense.
Yesterday I went out into the kitchen to start his dinner, he ran after me, calling loudly "Mama! Mama! Mamaaaa!" when I answered him, he sauntered into the kitchen with a huge grin on his face, and said "Robert do two trumps!" lol!
His pronounciation is still very baby-ish with the vast majority of consonant sounds at the beginning of words missed off, but more and more words are becoming recognisable (not just to us), and his vocabulary is really quite astounding! I really would not know where to start making a list on the words he knows, I would estimate in the hundreds.
He is also showing more and more understanding of our speech to him, and is clearly thinking more about what we are saying. We can ask him a series of questions with yes/no answers, and ask a few for which the answer is yes, then throw in one which isn't the case, for example we will ask him things like "is Robert wearing blue trousers?" "is teddy sitting on the table?" "is Mummy wearing glasses?" to which the answer is all "yes", and then throw in "is daddy wearing a hat?" which he wouldn't be, and he'd look at Jonathan, pause for a brief second, and then say "No!" in a funny lilting tone of voice.
He rarely asks to hold Christopher anymore. He prefers to show him his toys, and watch him, and sometimes when playing his favourite game (bringing a toy up, and speaking as the toy, saying hello to me) he will "make" Christopher say hello back. He used to do this by grabbing his head and wiggling it about as though he was talking (like he does with his toys) but I have since persuaded him a much better way is to wave his hand instead ;)
He has started to show a bit of toddler boistrousness lately too, in throwing and banging his toys. When we went over to the in-laws this weekend, he started doing it with the brick trolley there, banging it into the door purposefully, and I was SO impressed with how my mother-in-law handled it. She took the brick trolley away, and went into the hallway with it, Robert followed her, tugging at the trolley while screaming. Then she got down, and said to Robert something along the lines of "I am taking this away because you were banging it into the door. I don't want my door to get broken, but if you are careful with the trolley and do not bang it anymore, you can carry on playing with it." And when Robert whimpered "yeah" she gave it back to him, and he was SO careful with it bless him :)
I think it doesn't help that as Christopher is getting bigger and needing more attention, Robert isn't getting as much attention as he needs. It is something I am going to have to focus on presently, to make sure things don't get out of hand. Nip it in the bud so to speak. Something I do want to try and do is to start planning a proper activity with Robert every day, something for him to look forward to, something to keep his mind active. Tomorrow, I think we will make biscuits. He loves his playdough, so I'm sure he will love rolling out and cutting biscuits with his playdough cutters!
Sometimes I look at him and he seems so grown up and big, and when I think he's 2, part of me thinks that's really old (comparing it to his 4 month old baby brother!) and then I think actually that's still really little! When he is nursing he definitely appears on the older side, because I am more used to seeing a baby there! But I am still content to continue for the time being. Jonathan did ask me a while ago when I was planning on stopping feeding Robert. I didn't have an answer for him then, and still don't. As long as it feels "right" I suppose. He is still gaining from the closeness it provides, as am I. In some ways, I do see it as a healthy snack for him! Sometimes I panic and think "oh my goodness, I've not offered Robert some water all morning!!" and then realise that he's actually nursed twice in that time so he has had a drink! ;) Plus there is the more selfish weight-loss issue too. ;)
But anyway, back on topic, it's photos like this that make me realise just how little he still is.
I love them both so much it hurts sometimes. :)
