First Tantrum

I guess this goes with the walking? Yesterday we had a quick preview of one: overtired, didn't want a bath, wanted to go right to bed. Mr. Punch is working overtime and we kept him up too late (nearly 7pm). Tonight, we made the same mistake: but this time it was real. He turned hot and red and twisty and *nothing* helped. Not distraction, not the cave-man ambassador thing, not moving back and forth between his evil parents who wouldn't let him eat dirt. It lasted about 3-4 minutes but it felt like FOREVER. Eventually I opened the freezer and stood there with him. That seemed to work. Then he ate a huge pile of rice and beans and went to sleep.

**Caveman ambassador thing is "Happiest Toddler on the Block" advice: you show the kid you understand him by mirroring his emotion back to him, and then try to distract/calm him. It worked the day before, but not today.

Can't believe it's been a year.

We made it through the birthday party, my birthday and the ensuing unwrapping and assembling of loot. We've had to put a lot of it into the archive, to be brought out later. The mighty mite is cruising around on his push-walker in the shape of a car, and seems to be seconds from running around on his own. He figured out he can fit under the bed if he tilts his head today, much to my horror. He's totally going to get stuck. I just know it.

I keep meaning to a)write him a letter for his book, b)book a portrait commemorating his first year, and also c)go through his clothes yet again and get rid of all the too short stuff.

I have six weeks left to hang out with him before classes start. It's both eternally long and scarily short.

Quick!

This kid is doomed to wear pants that are always either too long or too short. He's growing so fast I can't keep up with what fits. We have two plastic bins: one filled with things that are too small, and one filled with things that are too big. Inevitably, I keep missing the window on the upcoming clothes. Also: he's between shoe sizes: medium pinches his chubby feet and large looks like clown shoes that flop right off.

He's just learned to wave. It's bye bye and its also random. His English grandparents are visiting, Nain and Taid (Welsh for Grandma and Grandpa) and he's having a grand time playing with them and being taken out on very long walks where he gets to see flowers and the world.

I've just put together invitations for his first birthday party at the end of this month, and I cannot believe it's already been so long. This time last year I was very pregnant, and wrecked from not sleeping and anxiety. Against all expectation, I'm more relaxed than I've been in a long, long, time. This time two years ago I was reeling from jetlag in India and being a corporate wife for the summer, and the year before that we had just bought our house and moved in.

It was Baby Day at the hospital where he was born; we got an invitation to come take a group photo, so we went. They had invited all babies and their families born from 2006-2009, and took a group photo for each year. It made me feel almost giddy, happy to be there. As we left I teared up. It snuck up on me, the momentousness of the occasion. This was Alexander's generation, his cohort. And also, this was a thing that was only us, not our families of origin, but something else, new and exciting. The future seems full of the thrill of the unknown for the first time in a long time. Funny, that. I mean going to India was exciting, but in a very different way. I'll have to think more about how.

Dinner!

The great thing about watching the wee one eat is his crazy exuberance. He will mix things all together and attack with great aplomb. Tonight's menu: noodles, tofu, and pear.

I have to figure out how to put up digital footage of him attacking that pear at the end of the meal. Nose wrinkled, eyes squeezed shut, growls emanating from his tiny throat.

Snot, Snot, Snot.

All the time. For the past four days. Him and me both. We have a cold. I cannot describe the painintheassness of being sick with a sick baby. Correction, being sick, home alone, with a sick babyNever, never, never could I have imagined it. But this weekend, his dad did all the wrangling and I made guest appearances, to which responded with the biggest smiles ever. So, almost worth it.

It's not serious, in case you're worried. No fever. Smiling and responsive and playful when he's not tired/about to nap. Just buckets of snot and drool, and the most pissed-off response to having his nose cleaned.

He's zooming towards eight months. Still the same habits of cuteness: biting fingers, trying to crawl. Now he can sit up, unassisted for minutes. He's working on grabbing anything that is within reach and stuffing it in his mouth.

We're so cooked once he works out crawling.

Gurgling and Growling

And stalagtites of drool! Almost seven months old. Sitting up for seconds at a time! Growling at things, especially those things he's about to eat. Gargling when he's happy. Practicing his new shoutlike cry that says "hey, pay attention." Still finger biting, smiling, and in the habit of wrinkling his nose when he takes a particularly enthusiastic bite.

But still, no teeth. Lucky me.

He laughs the hardest when he's the most tired, so laughter is very close to crying. He's ticklish, and laughs lots when he can grab your hair on the top of your head and try to bite it.

Like this:





Here he is biting one of our poor unsuspecting chums while his dad giggles hysterically, and I take a picture.

Four months old!

Still smiley. Now drooly. Maybe teethy. Definitely finger eatey.

And the shirt says "Mummy loves me"

Only because his dad's English.

Three months old!

Ok, this is a little embarrassing; no posts for a month. In my defense it's been a house-guesty month, what with Mr. Punch's folks staying with us for the month. Not all at once, mind you, but a week here, then two weeks driving through the desert (mad dogs and Englishmen, you know) and then another week here, before going home to their new house in Liverpool to resume unpacking.

I did get around to finally writing to the wee one, the first of hopefully many monthly letters he'll read once he goes off to college. As predicted mine's all soppy, mixed in with a here's what you've been doing so far sort of updatey thing.

So far: he's holding his head up lots, has discovered his hands and tries to stuff both in his mouth at once. He's far more social than he was, not only will he smile if you smile at him, but today my brother Johnny made him cry by giving him the stink eye. It was a play stink eye; his defense was "he did it first, I didn't know it was going to make him cry." His wife is pregnant, so we got even by threatening their baby with the stink eye.

He's really so much fun to play with. He's aware of the camera, but this doens't mean he smiles for it; he's aware of the indicator light, so he'll get very serious and stare at it. You have to suprise him to catch a smile. The best thing is that he gets happy with his whole body: arms and legs kicking, the whole thing.

It really is amazing to watch him waking up more and more to the world. Lucky us.

Two Months Old!

A month ago, when Alex turned one month old, we decided that we should start writing little letters to him every month. Separately, because mine would be all corny, and his dad's would be more along the lines of "Dear Alex, By the time you read this, we might have sold you to the gypsies. The good kind that have adventures, not the bad ones who throw babies at you in Rome" (an actual quote, btw). Except of course that neither of us did, and now it's another month and we've still written nothing, and I really should dig out that super cute baby book that my sister in law made for me while I was pregnant. I should have been filling it out this whole time, but during the pregnancy the whole thing was too overwhelming and I just could not deal. Now of course, its all I think about and can't find the book.

Yesterday Alex got his first immunizations; three shots in his little legs. I nearly cried with him, and for the rest of the day I was all soppy about him. I'm *so* dead the first time he actually hurts himself, which he will very likely at some point. But I'm not thinking about it.

In the meantime, he's a super long string bean baby. Eating all the time. Me too. Poor thing has had crumbs dropped him many times. The worst was when I dropped sweet and sour sauce in his ear. Don't worry. My food is always cold.

Also, in exciting news: He's smiling and making eye contact now! And pooping makes him very happy. Very. Happy. So does being changed. And of course, eating. He's almost laughing, but for now, he really only giggles in his sleep.