OCTOBER 2004
Well, there goes October… the end of Callum’s first year! I can’t believe he’s been with us that long!
Callum’s continued to come on in leaps and bounds this month. It’s also been a very busy month… mind you, aren’t they all these days? It can be a struggle finding time to update this website!!
At the beginning of the month, Callum joined in the Birthday celebrations for his cousin Luke, who was 9 on 2nd October. The three of us joined Luke, his Dad and my Mum & Dad for a few games of ten pin bowling and a trip to Pizza Hut.
Although Callum had been to the Bowling Alley before, he had never actually had a go. So, we let him have a bash. Ok, so the gutter-rails were up and the ball was on a ramp, but we did let Callum push the ball down himself… he soon got the hang of it, and it didn’t take him long to realise who he followed in the running order and he would get excited once he knew his turn was coming up! He played in the first and third game, but he slept for most of the second game… well it is hard work you know!
After the bowling we all went to Pizza Hut – we had a great time, Callum is always happy when presented with garlic bread!
A few days later, Callum helped celebrate his Great Gran’s birthday – she was 82 on the 7th October. We just had a quiet tea-party at my Mum & Dad’s house… my Gran enjoyed watching Callum play.
Callum has really built up speed with his crawling… but he’s also mastered climbing – he is in to everything! When you are not looking he will go get something to stand on to try to climb to the top of the safety-guard around the fireplace!
His walking has really come on too. He will quite happily walk at the side of you just holding one hand – he is so steady on his feet that you’d be forgiven for thinking that he could walk miles! He started getting more brave and later in the month he took his first few unaided steps. Sometimes he needs encouragement to walk alone; other times he just takes himself off from A to B (as long as ‘B’ isn’t any further away than 8 steps or so).
Callum is still learning his sign language. He will still sometimes use a recognisable sign to ask us to change his nappy. However, we decided to change our technique and started showing him signs for the things he is particularly interested in… the first sign we used in this way was ‘light’ – it was only a matter of days before he picked it up – now when we put him to bed he sometimes asks us to put the light back on! He also asks for it on in the morning when he wakes up – he then spends the rest of the day repeatedly pointing out every ‘light’ that he sees – enthusiastic is not the word! We’ve used one or two other signs, and he is showing interest, but we know it can take time… we are surprised at the results we have already seen.
As for the spoken word… Callum is making more and more recognisable sounds… although towards the end of the month we have found that he has now realised the true value of the word ‘that’… all day we here “a dat?”, “a dat?”, “a dat?” – at least he’s showing interest in his surroundings! Anyway, I’m sure it will be worse when he learns the “why?” word!!
We’ve not seen any new teeth this month – although you can see some of them under the gum. They’ll come when they are ready.
Something that is really cute is Callum’s new found love of cushions. We don’t know how it started, but he has decided that when he comes across a cushion he must throw himself down on it and snuggle up as if he was going to go to sleep (if only!). We’ve had hours of fun just throwing cushions on to the floor and watching him crawl up to it at full speed and throw himself down – of course there has been the odd tearful moment when he’s missed the cushion! Poor kid!
Towards the end of the month we decided to make a concerted effort not to let Callum fall asleep when breastfeeding at suppertime. We wanted him to start to put himself to sleep in his cot at night – in the hope that he will put himself back to sleep more often when he wakes up during the night.
It was hard at first, he was devastated – but we stuck with it, and within a few days we found that if we stayed in the room and just sung to him for 10-15 minutes he would drift of to sleep nicely.
We’ve also had quite a few good nights’ sleep in the last week or so of the month. Ranging from 5 hours to 8½ hours without waking – fantastic! We can’t put it all down to the new routine – after all, he did give us 7 hours 45 minutes on his last night before we changed things. However, I’m sure the new routine is helping. It’s just a shame that the first week of November is going to be filled with parties and fireworks… we have to accept that things may go awry, but at least we know that we should be able to get things back on track afterwards.
Sorry that I’m not so ‘on the ball’ lately when it comes to updating the site, it’s hard getting the time now that Callum is more and more active and playful (and mischievous!)… I try to do it at the beginning of every month, but it does always work out that way! At least this time I’ve managed to put a few new photo’s up, so visit the ‘Just Us’ and the ‘With Family’ galleries. Hopefully we will be able to add to the ‘With Friends’ gallery next month.
Well, better go… a mother’s work is never done!
See ya!
Amanda xXx
