Will is nearly 1

William is nearly a year old. A lot of people have been telling me how fast time has gone and how they feel as if only 5 minutes ago I was still hugely pregnant. But for us, well, the first 7-8 months were forever and so tough with the lack of sleep and the stress. Since January things have improved immensely and - truth be told, although we loved him since day one, we do like him and enjoy him a lot more now!

So what is William up to on the eve of his first birthday?

Communication

• He is now reaching out his hand to show he wants (to see/touch) something or wants us to go there (if I am carrying him)
• He goes "bye bye" with his hand. It's not exactly a wave as he scrunches his fingers up and opens his hand again but the meaning is definitely there. We do this to say bye to Daddy and Emma as they leave for kindergarden in the mornings.
• Still no real words. More like "bah" "stah" "ahh" "mam-am-am" "bah-ba-bah" "bdaaaah!" "duh, duh, doy" "bbbbrrr" (he blows bubbles) and a lot of grunting and banging his arms to show frustration. He is very expressive with sounds and facial expressions.

Physical & mobility

• Weighs 10,6kg! Wearing 86cm clothes.
• He is crawling faster and faster, still not walking alone but pulls himself up as soon as he can using me, a table, a pram, a chair, shelves, etc.
• LOVES playing and climbing outside!
  

Favorites:

• He likes having his teeth brushed.
• Pulls the grass out of the ground in the garden.
• Likes playing with balloons.
• Stays still when having his finger nails cut (this is amazing to me as he is very rarely still!)
• Crawls off to see other kids and adults at play-dates or when picking Emma up from kindergarden.
• Loves dogs!
• Loves discovering and trying things (even putting his hand in the toilet & going for the toilet brush yuck!)
• Enjoys being carried and being high up.
• Loves playing with doors, banging on the washing machine door when it's washing, opening boxes and spilling and pulling out all of the contents - noisily if possible
• likes it when you stroke his head with one finger when he is tired/falling asleep
  

Character

• Doesn't cry much when he hurts himself.
• Is stubborn/determined as can be.
• Laughs easily and loudly. So lovely!
• Seems very independent yet likes to be in the midst of things and does not like being left alone much.
  
• Absolutely hates it when you walk past him as he crawls towards you!
• always wants to climb out of his high-chair - even as he is eating
• Is constantly arching his neck to see what else is going on
  

Sleep

• Sleeps nights from 7pm to 6 or 6h30 am.
  
• Naps were from 10am-11h20 in his bed (with a little help to extend after 30 minutes) and again at 14h40-15h20 (on bed or pram). Now that we are on summer time naps take place 11h-12h30am. Then just as Will wakes, it's just about time for Emma's nap around 1pm for about an hour. So we have 3 different nap times during the day! How fun are our week-ends?!!

William - 3 month update

A slightly late 3 month update:


Eating and sleeping

• During the day, he now roughly sleeps 1,5-2 hours hours and is awake about the same amount of time. At night he sleeps from 7h15 pm to about 6h30 am. Unfortunately he still wakes for a feed about 3 or 4 am and sometimes just wakes and needs a tap on the bum to fall back to sleep (on top of that he has a dream feed just before 11pm which means he has a total of 7 feeds in 24 hours! 5 in the day, a dream feed and one night feed).
• Thankfully, his naps are now better (less wakings) and he has started to sleep less fitfully in his pram (even when you stop walking).

• We've thankfully been able to get him to sleep without the swaddle a few times - it broke my heart to need to swaddle him up in this terrible heat! Hopefully this trend will continue.
  
• He is now mostly able to burp on his own (without being burped) but when he has trapped air, he let's you know! and hiccups seem to occur less frequently.
• He eats loads as long as he is not distracted by noise, people interacting with him or new places. Sometimes, I cover his face (and my breast) up so he can focus on eating and then we can play. He eats best in the quiet of his room.

Communicating

• When he screams, he seems to be even louder than before if that is even possible!
• His smiles are getting bigger and his "talking" louder and more varied with sounds like "aiii" "eiii" "whaiii" "wééé" "huh" and "gré"
• He is increasingly able to communicate feed-back and to interact more with the world around him.

Mobility

• He rolled from his tummy onto his back all by himself 3 times! but since that one time - nothing.
• It sometimes seems as if he wants to stand/sit up by himself
  
• He is chewing on his hands a lot - could he be preparing his gums for teething?
  
• He is now able to grasp toys and towels by himself and he is very strong (but he doesn't hang on to them for very long except if he is clutching my necklace or t-shirt)
  

Physical attributes

• His size of clothing is already 74cm-86cm depending on the brand and he is really quite a big boy!
• At his 3 month check-up he weighed 7,340gr!!!
• Apparently he has ears like mine (the tips stick out a bit) and we yawn in the same way.

• William is losing his hair like Emma did. Soon he will only have the little collar at the back that makes babies look like monks.

• He sometimes looks exceedingly wise for his age.

Other stuff

• We tried giving him a bottle of milk (both mine and formula) but he vehemently refused!
• He is gradually getting used to noise (Emma's and other) and wind and light so that he jumps a bit less and cries a bit less frequently. Phew!
• Generally Will can be very sensitive to the environment (positive and negative) and I hesitate in between sheltering him as much as I can and wanting him to adapt to it. I guess he will adapt when he feels more secure and as he grows.
  

He's a nice guy and we love him to bits!

Roll William, roll!

William has been lifting and turning his head for a while now and has recently also started to lift his torso off the ground really high (leaning on his forearms) and his bum into the air (leaning on his legs).

Then yesterday, he actually rolled!

It all started while he was on his tummy on his mat. He had lifted his head was looking side to side. At one point I stood up next to him and as he lifted and angled his head further to follow my movement, his shoulder and rib cage followed making balance difficult. However, he didn't seem to mind this at all, so next time we were on the mat, I rolled him from tummy to side a couple of times, there and back.

Then last evening, as I was fitting together another play mat with dangling bits to lie under, hop there went Will all on his own, off the mat and onto the parquet. At first I thought it might have been accidental, but a second after I had put him back on the mat he did it again. And then again in the other direction!

Unfortunately I haven't yet managed to get this on film!

Emma update

After a week of asking to be pushed in her buggy instead of walking - sigh, bad timing!- and wanting to climb into the infant car seat now installed next to hers in my car, Emma has finally started to show signs of wanting to do things on her own again. Phew!

It has taken a LOT of patience (tons!) and even more "bravos" and "well dones" but finally Emma seems to be wanting to do things by herself on her own initiative - which, let's be frank, is the ONLY way it's actually ever going to happen. You can't coerce a child into peeing in the toilet, brushing her teeth or removing her own shoes if she has set her mind on not doing it. Sometimes, she even quotes us: "Emma est une grande fille" (Emma is a big girl).


So, last night after we returned from the sandpit, Emma removed her own shoes, her own fireman pants and only requested some help with removing her fleece jacket. She didn't want to put her slippers on, but so be it. No resistance to hand washing either. Then after dinner and before her bath, she actually decided she wanted to pee on the toilet and undressed herself completely, sat herself on the toilet equipped with a Mr. Man book.

I ran the bath and left her to it while I put a load of laundry in (mainly from the sandpit). I must admit I was skeptical.

After five minutes or so I told her reading time was up and we needed to bath before the water was cold. Getting the book from her took some doing, but then she said she wasn't done - and that's when I heard a trickle. Yes! She was peeing! And peeing and peeing! I congratulated her and got the toilet paper ready. She said she wasn't done. More trickling. She then got down from the toilet and got her own toilet paper, wiped and tossed it in the toilet. Then walked around and flushed.

She then decided she wanted to climb into the bath on her own and moved her little stepping stool next to the bath thereby sparing my back and the baby. Yippeee Yay! And she climbed out on her own too, only holding my hand for support. I am sure you didn't require quite so much detail, but this is a BIG deal for me and her - Yay! Yay! especially as we await the arrival of her little Bruder.

I can't help feeling that our weekly gym classes have contributed to Emma's increased confidence in her body. She is now braver at the park, trying out bigger slides, going down on her tummy without being persuaded and climbing up more complex structures. From the start, Emma was really good with her hands and brain (from opening bottles to fitting in shapes and doing puzzles and repeating words and expressions) but has always been a bit slow in the "moving her whole body" department (sometimes quite handily so if I am totally honest staying put while I was in the shower or cooking when she could have been up to mischief), and I am SO happy to see her feel more confident in herself and agile.


Other than that Emma:

• recently stepped in dog poo and is since readily pointing to any brownish thing on the ground telling me it's "caca" even if it's earth or something
  
• often asks me if I am her friend (bist du meine Freundin, Mummy?) - so cute!
  
• is still telling everybody and anybody who will listen that I am her Mum (das ist meine Mama!) and although she is used to kindergarden teachers joking and saying I am their Mummy or me saying she is "meine Emma" back to her and that everybody has a Mama, she got really upset when Deda told her I was his. I think it might be due to the scarier deep voice and fact that they don't spend that much time together.
  
• still often insists it's all for her; "c'est tout pour Emma, pas partager" (it's all for Emma, not share), although she does with friends so it's mainly a power thing with us parents, so I always ask her very politely if I can have one of her almonds or raisins or carrots and she makes a fuss "okay Mummy, only one"
  
• and I have been doing the head, shoulders, knees and toes together and she loves it!
  
• has just taught me a new song rhyme called Round and round the garden (will try to get that on film soon)

Emma update: two and a half

Emma is 2 1/2 today. Here are some facts and figures about Emma:

Physically:

• measures about 94cm but wears clothes for 3-4 year olds as she is wide around the shoulders and hips
  
• shoes size 26
• still not a vast amount of hair but we have it trimmed every 2 months or so - it looks neater and it might just help it thicken
  
• cute as a button - but hey, I'm her Mum, what do you expect?!
  

Speech:

We're not in the "Why?" stage yet but Emma is asking LOTS of questions quite relentlessly such as:

• Qu'est-ce c'est?/c'est quoi? or What's this? when she sees something she cannot identify or wants to know what the word for it is in another language
  
• Qu'est-ce que tu fais? (what are you doing?) when she enters a room and finds you actually doing something or wants to know the word to whatever action you are carrying out
  
• Je peux voir?/Emma voir (can I see?) most often when we tell her she has had enough of something (three servings of soup/pasta/apfel mus is surely enough!) she wants to see if there is any left. I actually now stress using "ça suffit" (that's enough) or "c'est le dernier/la dernière" (it's the last one) as opposed to "il n'y a plus de..." (there is/are no more ...) because Emma almost always asks to see the pot or pan or packet of biscuits.
• Tu veux lequel? (which one do you want?) when presenting us with a choice of toys or colors or books (mimic us).
• T'as fini? (are you finished?) at the dinner table
  

It's great for vocabulary building and quite cute actually, except when you are driving around looking for a parking spot and she is relentlessly repeating "what is that?" without giving you any indication of what the "that" might be!
It seems that mainly sticking to one language over the holidays helped things organize themselves in Emma's brain as far as languages are concerned and she seems to have made a leap forward with her French. However now she is actually mixing languages within words - not just sentences - a recent example "Liren, bitte?" (lire = read in French & lesen = read in German)

• Currently, her favorite question in German is "ist es lustig?" (is it funny?) which she asks after jumping, falling down on purpose or whenever she thinks she's done something funny.
  
• She still mainly speaks of herself and others using the third person singular (as in Emma tired) except in specifically learned expressions like "t'as fini?" (are you/have you finished?) or "on y va" (let's go!)
• Emma doesn't currently distinguish "who" from "what" (or "qui" from "quoi") but I figure that's in line with talking to inanimate objects such as teddies and toys...
• She is starting to make more complex sentences and state things like "this is little Emma" (ça c'est petite Emma) when pointing a pic of herself as a baby, or "ça c'est a Maman/Papa" (this is Mummy's/Daddy's) or "ça c'est pour Emma" (this is for Emma) c'est pas pour toi (it's not for you).

Expressing feelings:

• Emma is also very good at telling us when she is tired "Emma dodo maintenant" (Emma sleep now) or hungry ("Emma faim" - Emma hungry) and becoming increasingly eloquent at naming basic emotions such as "grumpy" or "angry" (fachée), "triste" (sad) or "contente" (happy) and will sometimes tell us we are being "böse" (bad, mean) when we insist on her doing something she does not want to do.
• She'll also enquire: "maman fatiguée?" when she sees me yawn.

Eating and sleeping:

• Now days, Emma eats practically everything (although she has totally gone of eggs and doesn't really like mushrooms nor pumpkin and will occasionally be choosy about things in her plate) making the little list in the sidebar quite irrelevant...
  

• She sleeps through nights 99,9% of the time except if she is ill or has not had enough to drink during the day. Emma slept in her "big girl bed" for the first time on January 17th but we are still using a grow bag rather than a proper duvet because she is rather restless in her sleep (as anyone who has shared a bed with her knows!) She loves her bed so much she now climbs into it to read her books during the day time and we often find her peacefully "reading" in the morning with her bedside light on.
  

I still have to move the wall stickers which were placed to be
around the top of her cot and look a bit funny now in the middle of the wall.

Toilet training & dummy:

• No visible progress on the toilet/potty training front - we just occasionally ask her if she wishes to use the toilet like Maman and Papa but haven't really gone further with that one and watching kindergarden friends hasn't inspired her immensely.
• Emma still sleeps with her "lola" (dummy/pacifier) at home but no longer uses it at naps in kindergarden. Unfortunately, our attempt at giving it to Santa Claus was pretty disastrous (not least of all as she was coming down with a cold) as she cried for her "lola" every time her cough woke her up. Maybe the Easter bunny could take it?

Chores, agility and mobility:

• Taking her shopping without a buggy can be hit or miss; sometimes easy as pie, sometimes her running off and playing "catch me" (and running with a belly is hard!).
• She still dawdles and this means a 5 minute walk from the kindergarden to the car can actually take 30 minutes - Patience, patience....
  
• She is generally very careful when taking things to and from the table and loves throwing things away in the garbage.
• Now days, Emma loves jumping (now with both feet) from the sidewalk and runs anywhere she can
  
• She'll gladly help with cleaning the snow off the car, setting the table and the laundry, pushing the laundry basket from the bathroom to the laundry room then pulling out the laundry and placing it in the machine and most of all closing the door and pressing the START button.
  

Playing:

• She definitely plays a lot more independently sometimes telling us she is going to her room with teddy or to play lego and loves reading and being read to (you can read the same book to her a zillion times - it's no problem at all for her!).
• She often mimics us with her teddy and "nounours" (there are two!) telling them she will be back when we leave them in the car or wishing them "goodnight" when putting them to sleep.
• LOVES reading! enjoys playing with Lego and doing the occasional puzzle and is still totally smitten by Peppa Pig and her family and friends. In the car she loves listening to her music and sometimes dancing at home but her favorite things of all are BOOKS!
  
• She's not so much a "rough and tumble" girl - although she loves it when we tickle her in our bed or on the couch - and tends to need to be close to someone to accept physical exchange such as playful chasing/pulling/pushing/catching etc. (at kindergarden it took her a long time to cuddle up to a teacher)
• She hated our attempt at skating but like sleighing and making snowmen
  

Terrific twos and threes....

• She's definitely testing us; banging her feet against her chair at dinner time although we have told her not to a zillion times, deciding she wants to eat with her fingers instead of using a fork, saying "no" to whatever needs doing (getting out of bed, dressing/undressing, brushing teeth, dinner-time, clearing up toys, etc.), refusing to put her boots on alone although she is perfectly capable of doing so, grunting at us, putting herself in the corner in a joking fashion (a place we ask her to go for 2 minutes to calm down when she is getting a out of hand), walking in the opposite direction to the place we are going to, running away...
• "No" is unfortunately still a favorite word...
  

Other than all the above, she's just a little bundle of joy despite the occasional "revolver eyes" (as they say in French) when she disagrees or is "grumpy".