Happy 7th month Birthday Nico!

Nicolas is 7 months and 1 day old today.

He's grown to be a lot more interactive and fun to be with, but I still miss my 8 hour-long sleeps.

Bath times with Daddy can get really noisy between playful screams and giggles.

He's taken to waking up twice a night now, once at around midnight when we go to bed, and once again at around 4 or 5am. Apparently it's a normal thing at 7 months old, but there's a risk that he'll grow used to waking at these times so Daddy's mission over the long week-end is to settle him to sleep. While I'd love to (really I would, honest!) , I can't because he might smell the milk on me.

So what's he doing now?

• Mastered skills at 7 months:
  - Sits without support. Sort of; after a few seconds he will still go sideways like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Hopefully he'll get there in the next couple of weeks but I'm not holding my breath, seen his track record.
  - Drags objects towards himself. Check. He's shown a clear preference for his activity triangle, and seems to enjoy pulling my plates when he sits on my lap during meal times. That's just a carpet stain waiting to happen.



• Emerging skills:
  - Lunges forward or starts crawling. He does rock forward and backwards when on all a crawling position, but his hands and knees seem glued to the floor/cot/quilt.
  
  
  
  
  - Jabbers or combines syllables. Well the range of vocalisations has extended beyond the raspberry. We've heard ear-ringing screams as well as endless strings of ba-ba-ba and its variations. The change table seems to be his favourite place to talk; maybe there's a correlation between the fresh air on his butt and the use of his vocal chords?
  




• Advanced skills:
  - Bangs objects together. Yes, if you consider banging his hand against the table. He likes to bang on my laptop's touchpad and make me click on things I really didn't want to click.
  - Begins to understand object permanence. The understanding of the concept is demonstrated when a baby clearly enjoys playing peek-a-boo, which Nico loves.

Melanocytic nevi

At 6 months, 4 weeks and 1 day old, Nicolas has shown further signs of having Melanocytic Nevi, which are skin lesions with the potential to turn into skin cancer.

He's got a Compound nevus on the inside of his right forearm, about 1mm in diameter.

Put plainly, Nico's just had his first beauty mark.

Note to self

Do not reply to Katja's e-mail while feeding a baby.

Nico is 6 months, 3 weeks and 2 days old today.

I have finally figured out how to produce movie clips of a quality good enough to see what is going on, but light enough to be uploaded to websites, e-mailed to family etc. By now we have oodles of footage, the latest one filmed yesterday:

Sitting and babbling

Nicolas is 6 months, 3 weeks and 2 days old today.

Since Lele's visit, I have been trying every day to sit Nico between my legs to provide him support while he tries to grab his toys slightly out of his reach. I felt a bit mean teasing him at such a young age, but 10 days later, he can now sit for a grand total of two seconds unaided. Holding on to his activity triangle and he can sit on his own for quite some time, though he reminds me of these old people on the street who walk while leaning these walking frames.

He's also started babbling, saying fascinating things like 'Ba', 'Va' and 'Uh'. And to think one day he will manage to mutter things about Brontosoruses and Pterodactyls without even stammering or blinking.

So as of today, he can sit and babble. As soon as he learns to drink beer he'll be ready to go fishing with Daddy.

Preview into the future

Nico is 6 months, 2 weeks and 3 days old today.

The past two weeks have been rather interesting, with Ba Ngoai visiting from New Caledonia. We looked after Kulani (3 1/2 y.o.) and Taaroa (1 1/2 y.o.) who came over with their parents.


Because Mana and Lola are social butterflies, we had both kids staying over at our place for full days and/or nights. These episodes were really insightful, as I was given the opportunity to observe for a full 48 hours how kids behave, and how to interact (or not) with them. It was like fast forwarding our lives to one year and three years later to see what life with toddlers would be. Daddy had cowardly ran away to Australia for the week. Though I got mouth-watering chocolates from Australia for my first Mother's Day so he can do it again.

It certainly struck me as to how much work three kids are. I don't know how Brent & Karen do it with six of them.

When we got home the first evening, all three were sleeping in the cars. Then my first moment of panic struck when I found that all three were crying. Kulani wanted to see her little brother, Taaroa wanted to see my mum, and Nico wanted to see a boob. That was easy enough to deal with.

I couldn't believe how hard, yet how easy it is to keep a child entertained. Whoever created Dora and Limewire, I am so thankful for them. And for playdough. And pens and papers. And spare computer keyboards. And beanbags. And bubble solution and dalmatian puppies.

At the end of it all, I have taken out one valuable lesson: bribery, distraction, coercion, negotiation and white lies are all necessary parenting tools and techniques. And I am so glad for the parenting articles I've been reading and keeping aside in a folder.

Going to the zoo or the aquarium, or doing simple things all take a different meaning when seen from the fresh eyes of a toddler though, I guess as adults we don't really appreciate fun as much any more.


Nico is also slowly learning to sit. He's leaning over to reach toys, or to watch them fall on the floor. Lele from PAFT came to visit, and it looks as if he's not lagging behind. Although I'm slowly starting to adopt the point of view that it's not a race. Nico came out ahead of a million others in a previous race, so I guess he deserves a break now.










Bas got me a fancy Panasonic HDC-SD9 camcorder for my birthday. Like he said, we lived for ages without one, and all of a sudden everything is being filmed. Now if only I could figure out how to decrease the file size so I can put some of the footage on here.