Setri at 13 months

No time to organise post this month, it's more a collection of notes I made in my BlackBerry throughout the month and then posted here unedited. Will edit for photos later
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Still so cute but a lot more grown-up looking in last 3 month. And some funny/quirky aspects to his appearance- esp his wonky, sticking-out ears and baby-fro :) He still has only 6 teeth. He still only just weighs 12kg, too. From being a ginormous nearly-10-kg 4-5 month-old, he's now probably a pretty average 13-month-old, I'm guessing. He still looks solid and healthy, so nothing to worry about.

He 'helps' put on/take off clothes, and has finally learned to put up with wearing shoes or socks (he used to yell 'Stuck! Stuck' whenever we'd attempt to put some on him. He still does a bit, but can then be distracted into walking around and forgetting he has them on.

Can crawl backwards down stairs, walk sideways downstairs if holding onto rail, and walk down stairs holding our hands.

Gam has been working on the concept of sharing. Long ago, when asked to hand something over, Setri would duly hand it over and take it back in less than a second, wailing if it were removed from his reach. Then he learned that he could say 'no', which he routinely did, clutching the now even more precious object to his chest so the asker could not get at it. Now he can run, he will not only clutch the object to his chest, he will often run if he feels it is particularly precious or in significant danger of being removed from his custody. Gam has been utilising an ingenious strategy of asking for something that Setri is holding, cajoling him if he says no, and either holding it and looking it over for the briefest of moments before handing it back, or doing something funny or interesting with it so that when the object is handed back to Setri he will thrust it at Gam and say 'more!'. Sometimes Setri will even say 'share' to Gam (rather, something that rhymes with 'air', seeing as he can't yet make a 'sh' sound), and hold out an object in the expectation that Gam will do something amusing for him.

As a segue from the 'sh' sound, Setri made a pretty good attempt at the word 'sushi' this month- something along the lines of 'zhuzhi'. He loves nori rolls, something he obviously did not inherit from Gam.

Can understand reasonably complex instruction, eg to pick something up and take it to a specific room and put it in a specific cupboard

Attempts colours and numbers. He only knows 2 colours, blue and yellow, and probably only gets it right about 60-70% of the time when presented with a yellow or blue object and asked 'what colour is that, Setri?'. But, when he sees an unfamiliar object, or one whose name he can't say, that is either blue or yellow in colour, he will point at the object and say 'boooo' or 'lello' to indicate what it is that he wants, and does this with (as far as I'm aware) 100% accuracy.

The numbers thing he has been doing since 12 months, and frankly I'm pretty sure he doesn't have a clue. BUT it is so cute when we ask him (for example), 'how many birds are there, Setri?', and he holds up his little hand, fingers outstretched and slightly contorted, and enthusiastically says 'Ree!'. Three seems to be his 'default number', much as 'dog' used to be his default animal. If corrected that there are in fact only two, four, five or just one bird, he will generally attempt to copy what we have just said, and hold up his hand with fingers outstretched to try and match our number signs. But if asked the same 'how many?' question again, he will reply again 'Ree!'. I generally don't go beyond 5, I figure we are probably confusing him enough already!

Anticipates things. Eg can tell that a certain object is about to appear on a TV show by the presence of certain music that generally precedes its presence. Or that a certain object is about to appear on the next page of a book, based on the pictures or sounds that precede it (e.g. he always says 'bowl!' after I read the page of his 'Old King Cole' book that contains the line about the king's pipe. Also he seems to have a great internal clock/calendar and says 'Bin!' every thursday afternoon (bin night). He usually reminds me, as I'm always forgetting. Sees that one of us (esp Mum) has sunglasses on, and knows that it is likely that he will be taken outside... Alternatively he may demand that one of us puts glasses on, because wearing glasses means one has to leave the house!

Can run, but falls over frequently when going flat out.

Often says 'boob' to me to express that he is hungry and wants food, not boob.

Setri experimenting with expressiveness/tone in the way he says things (e.g Mama, no). He can whisper now, too.

Says 'bin!' when he takes an item of food out of his mouth or finds a piece of rubbish, then holds the item in the air until we take it from him.

Says 'ow' when he's hurt (whether a little or a lot).

Has learned to growl and yell and make loud, unpleasant noises of displeasure when he doesn't get his way. He's grown out of his cute little non-tanty tanties. They weren't working, so for a little while we pretty much didn't get tanties. Then in the last few days he's started this growling [edit: it didn't last long, just a couple of days, thankfully].

Much more social. Still likes to sit and observe people for a couple of mins, but then warms up and starts acting smiley and playful.

His language is not a whole lot more comprehensible, and the rate at which he picks up words has plateaued a bit (still increasing, just not exponentially). He now often says 'bye bye' when waving goodbye, or when he wants to indicate that he wishes to leave us behind and go to the park with Grandma.

If he wants us to repeat sing something that he doesn't know the word or sign for, an unfamiliar song, he will ask for 'more la la la'. If I ask him to sing, he will say 'la la la' in a sing-song voice. He's been doing that since about 11 months. This month, however, he started singing 'baaa baaa' when we ask him to sing 'baa baa black sheep'.

He can string 3 words together. For instance, he often likes to play with empty drink bottles. On one occasion, however, he was thirsty and wanted a drink and not just to be given the bottle to play with. So he said 'Bohboh, awah, ding' ('Bottle, water, drink). Another time, Gam did something amusing with Setri's sunglasses, and Setri immediately demanded that he repeat the action by grabbing the glasses, saying "Lah-le (miming putting them on his head), MORE!", then handing the glasses back to Gam (this sequence was repeated until Gam got tired of being bossed around).

Setri is fond of making 'jokes'. One recurring joke is after every breastfeed I give him in bed, Setri clambers into the cot, points at the glass on my bedside table and says 'Awah' (water). The first few times this happened, I would offer him some water (or refill the glass from the jug, if the glass was empty), and Setri would put his lips to the glass as if to take a sip, then grin broadly and turn his back on me. Then one day, having been tricked too many times, I played along and asked 'Do you want water, Setri?'. 'Yeah', he said. 'Awah'. 'I don't believe you!', I told him. 'You're telling baby lies again!'. Setri grinned mischievously and giggled. Now it's a ritual that he asks for water, I make no move to get it for him, and tell him he is a very funny boy for making baby-jokes, and he generally responds by giggling and giving me a kiss or a cuddle. He does seem to prefer it when I pretend to play along by asking if he wants water, not minding that I make no attempt to get the water, so he can pretend to turn his back on me.

He also messes with us by giving us wrong answers to questions we know he knows the answer to. For instance, he knows the answer to the question 'What does a sheep say, Setri?'. He can also tell us what a cow says, a cat says, and a few others as well, but 'baaa' is his default answer when he doesn't know (I'm pretty sure if we asked him 'What does Mummy say, Setri?', he would answer 'baaa!'). Once in a blue moon, more often than not when we are trying to showcase his language abilities to impress our friends, Setri will deliberately give the wrong answer (eg 'moo!' for the sheep) , cock his head with a mischievous look, and giggle.


I don't know if I've mentioned this one before, but from a very early age, before he learned to talk, Setri has been able to do a fake laugh. It sounds like he's scoffing, and he does it in response to Gam laughing at me. Generally he will also fix me with an appropriately scornful gaze. We joke that he's Gam's evil baby henchman. He will rarely do the laugh if I laugh, but he has been known to scoff when Gam's not there, uncannily at times when Gam would no doubt have been scoffing at me too.

He still loves to 'read' (mainly books with flowers or diggers), and surprised me the other day by recognising the word 'Roland' on a book of piano music... I had taught him that the word on the piano itself said 'Roland', but didn't know he had the ability to recognise it anywhere else. He asks for 'Rolan' as often as he asks for 'nano' these days, as if the piano's name is Roland! He also loves it when I write letters on the window or shower glass after a shower, and tell him what they are for, eg 'that's a D for 'daddy'). He always says 'more!', like he's absolutely fascinated.


Showed his first flash of selfishness, as opposed to self-centredness this month. He was sitting in a tray that originally formed the base of a large flower pot, and my mum had filled it with water. Setri was splashing in the shallow water and having a great time. Feifei approached. Feifei has a great nose for fresh water, and was keen for a drink. 'Setri will love this', I thought. It was pretty novel for him to have Feifei as a captive audience, and he would love the opportunity to give him pats as Feifei drank. But that didn't happen. Feifei stooped down to drink, and Setri grabbed Feifei's head with both hands and firmly pushed him away from the tray. Driven by the prospect of a novel fresh water source, Feifei tried again, only for Setri to repeat the action. He hasn't done anything like it since, but it was a little sad to see Setri acting like a mini human being instead of the loving little creature he normally is.


Practices sitting on his potty with his pants/nappy on. He can tell us when he wants to do a wee, but usually says 'no' when asked if he wants to do it in the potty (occasionally he will agree, but then not want to stay on the potty for more than a minute or so- he doesn't seem to find it particularly comfortable. On these occasions he will often agree to do his wee in the shower instead). Has not succeeded in pooing on potty.

Back to enjoying reasonably spicy food. Still having a go at most foods but doesn't reliably enjoy a single thing. Not even chocolate! Often it's quite a challenge to run through a list of foods til there is something Setri says he wants to eat. I always thought I would be in the 'eat this or you get nothing' camp, but he's not picky, he just doesn't feel like eating the same thing every day. And neither do Gam and I, so it would be kind of hypocritical to make him eat the first thing that was offered. Besides, being breastfed, I'm sure he would just make it up by feeding during the night, so it's me who would lose out in the end. Actually he does make it up by feeding during the night anyway, to some degree. He pretty much doesn't drink all day when I'm at work (he does eat, unless he's sick) and saves up for a big feed (and wee) after I get home.

On toilet training, he likes to practise sitting on his potty, and sometimes asks me to take off his nappy so he can sit on it and do a wee, only to tell me afterwards 'no', when he attempts to get up and I ask if he wants to do a wee like he said. On these occasions it usually appears that he has freshly weed in his nappy, so he possibly has things a little muddled, but it seems like progress. He always says 'no' when I ask him if he wants to do his poo on the potty. He routinely tries to wee in the sink or shower, I suppose because I've always praised him for doing it. The other day mum and I had him in the sink after he'd done a poo and he strained his lower abdominal muscles as he usually does when asked to wee. Nothing happened, and he shook his head and said, resignedly, 'no'!