A Quick Update!

It’s been a while, and I just haven’t had a lot of time recently to sit down and write much about anything, but I thought I’d post a quick update while I’ve got a moment and tell you what’s going on in the world of Summer Mama, The Hubby, The Boy & The Hairy Hounds of Hell!

Well for a start, I got some lovely new Flip It cups from Nuby UK for The Boy. They’re red with a race car design, which went down well as soon as he saw them, and they’re advertised from 12 months. They have a straw all the way down the length of the cup, a handy flip top to cover and protect the straw which means you can take it out and about with you, it’s specially insulated to keep the liquid inside cold (or warm) as required (though only for a limited time, it isn’t like a proper Thermos flask). The valve on the straw works by opening when the child uses the straw in the correct way, to encourage development for using straws rather than beakers or bottle teats, and so I filled one with water at lunchtime and gave it to The Boy.

As I’ve mentioned before, he is a creature of habit, and he wasn’t too impressed with the change in drinking method: He’s got the hang of tipping up a beaker or bottle to drink from, and he didn’t understand that with this style cup he just needed to suck the straw properly. For some time he was very amused with the way the straw pops up when you flip the top and spent quite a while giggling about that, but when he again tried to drink from it and couldn’t he became frustrated. I demonstrated for him how to work the cup and to be honest it is pretty precise the way you need to do it in order to get a mouthful of drink, but I guess that’s the point. After a few minutes of grumping, smacking his hands on the high chair tray and throwing the lovely red cup onto the floor several times, I handed him his familiar green Sport Sipper and he was content again.

Since then I start with the red cup, or have the red cup in the locality and give it to him when he wants a drink, but he still hasn’t really got the hang of it and prefers to use a normal beaker or his Sport Sipper still. It’s frustrating on one hand because the spout of the Sport Sipper needs replacing (I haven’t got round to ordering them, but I know they’re available on the Nuby UK site so I will do that!) but for now it means there’s no valve in the sipper so the water flows freely, which is annoying when your son likes to flood the tray of the highchair and smack his hands in the resulting puddle! I am sure we will get there eventually with the new cups, it’s just something new to learn, and there is so much else he is learning right now.

The Boy isn’t quite walking yet, but he’s doing well at furniture surfing and is standing up independently with the ability to lean down, pick something up and stand upright again. A couple of times he has done a couple of shuffle steps toward me, but only a couple and he either falls on his bottom when he realises what he’s just done, or else he quickly finds something to hold onto again. He has also discovered a passion for climbing, and will empty the big plastic boxes I use in his room as toy boxes, turn them onto their side and climb! As well as this when he is in the play pen he has discovered he has a Spiderman-like ability to climb up the mesh sides, holding onto the bar across the top and folding at the waist in an effort to escape. Lucky for me the play pen is actually a very solid Huack Baby Centre that I got an amazing deal on, and it is just as well I did as it has proved to be invaluable! (Highly recommended: Review to come soon!)

Although The Boy has been largely unimpressed with my efforts to get him to drink from a different type of cup, he has been very happy with my efforts to get him to eat. For a few weeks we have been struggling to feed a baby who doesn’t want you feeding him anymore, but who just likes to throw food on the floor if you allow him finger food to feed himself. It has been a bit of a nightmare as we’ve been going through so much wasted food as he decides he doesn’t want something after a single bite, so merrily throws the rest of it onto the floor. A while ago I stopped allowing the Hairy Hounds of Hell to roam free while The Boy was eating as dropping tit bits to them was too tempting and as a result our girl dog is now a fat girl dog! The Boy was, however, very impressed when I was sitting with him one lunchtime eating my lunch of scrambled egg on toast, and allowed him to sample some of the scrambled egg from my fork. He was thrilled by this development and as a result I managed to get him to eat two scrambled eggs and half a piece of toast, which was the largest meal I’d got down him in days (it was meant to be my lunch, but as other mums know when your child has shown interest in food after a while of not eating you’ll happily go hungry for them to have something!) Anyway I had overcooked as I was hoping that he’d want to share with me. The following day we went shopping and in Sainsburys I found a cute little cutlery set for a couple of pounds in blue with jungle animals on and brought it: Twenty minutes later in the Store 21 shop on the same retail park I found a plain blue fork and spoon set reduced to 99p, so I brought one of those, too, as I realised that an extra fork and spoon would be handy given The Boys history of throwing things onto the floor!

Back home, at dinnertime, we used the Sainsburys fork for the first time and The Boy ate more dinner than he had done in days. Since then he has not only been happier to eat with his new utensils, but he’s also become even more independent, and after you load the fork or the spoon up he’ll take it from you to feed himself (before clapping as if to congratulate himself for being so clever!) It’s a remarkable turn around and I’m so glad I thought of it. Rather than trying to take him back a step with his feeding and trying to feed him myself again, I should have been trying to encourage him forward as it is obviously what he was after!

The Hubby is taking advantage of having a couple of weeks off work to do some serious DIY. We have been building a collection of items over the last year or so for when we get round to decorating various rooms of the house and we never seem to have the time to do it, so he has been busy already this week shuffling around the kitchen set up and changing the crappy sinks in the utility room and the kitchen for decent ones, with nice new taps too! He’s planning on doing some tiling and some painting as well as having a thorough clear out and clean up of the entire space before he’s considering it finished, and he’s done very well already so far. One thing about The Hubby, he does tend to take his time to start on a project but once he starts he flies through getting it done and he doesn’t like leaving things half finished so I’ll have a new look kitchen by next week which is exciting. We’re not replacing the cupboards, or the worktop, but giving it a facelift which is a cheaper way of making it look better. A while ago The Hubby laid dark laminate floor in the kitchen and his plan is to continue that into the utility room as well, so it all flows nicely and looks good. I don’t know when he’s thinking of doing the hall/stairs and landing, or the spare bedroom, or our bedroom, but we’ll get round to them eventually I’m sure!

Ah well for now I’d better sign off … I’ve got a list of things as long as my arm that I really should be doing instead of sitting here drinking coffee and rambling on! Ho hum!