Bath time in the (now defunct) darkroom at my parents' place in Kempsey, at Christmas time.
This month has been really interesting. Setri didn't really hit any big developmental milestones that I can think of, but we still saw a lot of changes. Setri got sick for the first time but it wasn't bad, just a mild tummy bug that saw him vomit a bit (only once a day) and have some abdominal pain over a couple of days. As I write this, Setri being just over a week off 9 months, Setri is sick for the second time, having picked up the family cold at Christmas :(
Setri with Gam in Kempsey at Christmas
Physical:
We popped Setri on the scales at the counter of Superior Fruit a few weeks ago, just before Christmas, just after he was recovering from his 'bug', and he was only 10.2kg. My suspicions that he'd lost a bit of weight since we last weighed him around 5 months (11kg) proved correct (even discounting the tummy bug, I think). He's definitely taller than he was then, though, which means that when he stands up he can use the extra reach to steal more things off lounges, shelves and coffee tables! Reassuringly, we looked at an old video of Setri when he was about 4 months old, and he was a bit of a michelin man. Now he is still chubby enough that pretty much everyone who meets him comments on it, so even though he's lost a little weight over the last 3 months or so it's hardly a concern even though I'm sure he would have gone down a percentile or two by now. I'm not sure how tall he is, not having had him measured for the last 3 months, but he'd probably be going on for 80cm, not quite there yet though I'd say.
Getting around:
In the last week of Setri being aged 7 months, he started doing proper crawling more frequently than 'the worm'. Now he nearly always does proper crawling, only doing 'the worm' if he's really excited about something (or there's something he wants to get to that he's been told 'no' for). He explores the whole house now. Somehow it's ok for him to leave us but if we leave him he is likely to throw a 'devo' and come galumphing after us. He seems less excited about going from place to place, I guess now it's not so new to him he feels like he can take his time.
It's hard to say if Setri's cruising has improved, because he was so proficient at it before. He can now stand up without needing to actually grab onto something but he isn't confident enough to stand up without touching something, even if it's a flat surface. He is able to stand without actually needing the support of a solid structure, but he seems to need it psychologically, even if it's just his fingers touching. He's still a way off walking, I'd say.
Setri kinda-sorta enjoying his very first beach visit at South West Rocks
Social:
Christmas probably should have been overwhelming for Setri, with up to 14 people staying at my parents' house at any one time. But he loved it! He had a momentary bout of mild wariness when an extra 6 people showed up in the space of half an hour, but he didn't give anyone sadface, wasn't particularly clingy, and interacted really well. He was especially good at showing off his waving, dancing and clapping skills, because of the immense, gushing praise heaped on him by multitudes of people every time he did so.
My Grandma, Setri's Great Grandma. His other Great Grandma lives in Ghana.
Setri met and charmed my 94yo grandma, one of his two great-grandmothers. I think she would have loved to cuddle and dote on him even more than she did, the problem being her semi-nocturnal hours meaning she would often come in when Setri was at the point where if we handed him over to anyone else for cuddles he would just be cranky. She left everyone agape when she came in to my parents' bedroom one morning, where my mum was recuperating after hurting her back, and swept Setri up into her arms from where he was standing on the bed! This is a frail (good shape for 94, but still bloody frail!) old woman who sometimes claims to have trouble lifting a cup of tea! My goodness she loved him to bits...
Setri with 'Grumpa', aka my Dad. He said he didn't mind the name (bestowed a while back courtesy of Mum), and I think it's cute, so it sticks!
And now we're home I do so miss having people around to hold/entertain/restrain Setri while I *do* stuff. Mostly though, I think that the stimulation that a big family environment provided was really good for him. He just seemed to respond really, really well to it, both Gam and I were happy that we made it down to NSW for our first big family Christmas in 3 years for that reason alone. Setri never once seemed bored, as he frequently does at home. Even the fact that there were so many rooms, each with different light fittings and ceiling fans (Setri doesn't just know what a fan is, he loves them!) seemed to entertain him. Every time we carried him from one room to another, Setri would look up at the ceilings, eyes wide, mouth agape, and make noises of awe: "Wowww"... "Whoa.."
My Uncle James took a few stealthy photos of Gam with Setri. Gam still shirks being photographed, so I was really pleased to have some more of him with Setri. I know 'Grandma B' (Gam's mum) will be pleased too.
Setri now takes a very obvious and active interest in other children- even photos of other children. He waves, calls them in the same cajoling way he does to the cats, and tries to impress them by showing off (e.g. by clapping). Come to think of it he reacts to small children in very much the same way he reacts to Feifei and Xiaoxiao! One thing that hasn't changed is his obvious love of himself. He still waves, poses and talks to himself in the mirror, and loves to lean forward and kiss his reflection, an act which is simultaneously cute, funny and completely gross (there's often tongue involved...). When we visited the beach at South West Rocks for the first time over Christmas, Setri was extremely nervous of the large body of moving water, but he could see lots of children laughing and having fun, and that obviously piqued his interest.
Setri waving to Gam on his first beach visit (he may have been hoping for rescue from the scary water!).
Communication:
I have to give the little guy credit, Setri understands an awful lot of what's said to him. Quite often I won't bother to simplify what I'm saying, and I'll say it in a sentence, and he'll be able to get the gist of it by picking out the words he understands and doing what I've asked him to do. I still try and simplify a lot of things by repeating single words, mostly because I'm hoping he'll soon start saying them back to me!
Setri's first beach visit- much happier once he was out of the water.
Towards the end of 7 months I could have sworn I was suffering deranged parent syndrome and imagining that Setri was saying 'dah dah' for 'dance dance'. So much so that I didn't even consider reporting it in the last post of this kind. Then one day shortly after he'd hit 8 months I turned on Sesame Street as a distraction for Setri while I snuck off to the laundry to load some nappies into the washing machine. TV isn't a reliable distraction for Setri- he just ignores it most of the time. So when he went quiet I tiptoed back from the laundry to find out why. Setri had sat down on the floor, looking up at the TV, which I had never seen him do. It was very cute. Just then, the Sesame Street credits rolled. Still looking at the screen, in his adorable, husky little voice, Setri said "Dah dah" and held up his hands and did a cute little sitting down dance as the credits (featuring footage of children dancing) rolled. Since then he has used it in such an appropriate context so many times that even Gam, the eternal cynic, agrees that Setri clearly refers to the act of dancing when he says 'dah dah'. If we say 'dah dah' he just looks at us funny, but if we say 'dance dance' he will sometimes respond with 'dah dah' as he begins to dance... clearly he thinks he is saying 'dance', not 'dah'!
In recent weeks he has also been saying 'dow' to refer to 'drop' (the game where he throws himself backwards onto the bed from sitting, standing or elevated sitting position). I think that is because when I lay him prone on the change table, bed or wherever, I have always said 'down down' to let him know what I'm doing. Plus he is probably incapable of saying 'drop', and 'dow' would be much easier. A couple of days ago he was on the bed 'talking' to Feifei and I was horrified to see Setri try and impress Feifei by saying 'dow!' and throwing himself backward from his sitting position, narrowly missing cracking his head on the foot of the bed. Once or twice I think I have heard him say 'dow' as he struggled to escape from my arms and force me to put him on the floor, but that could be just deranged parent syndrome. Or not.
Despite Setri's obviously decent grasp of language, his production of meaningful sounds is still very limited. He doesn't consistently call me anything at all, despite having called Gam 'Dad dad' for a couple of months. Most of his practice babble consists of 'd' sounds, even though he regularly and capably produces other vowel-consonant sound combinations. He still attempts to say 'hello' as 'Eh-oh' and 'Ah-oh'- only to Gam, the cats and his own mirror image, mind (and once a small child whose attention he was trying to attract). He sometimes says 'awah' for 'water' and often yells 'UH!' when he wants to be picked up, but the only sounds really approaching words are 'd' sounds. Oh, he has also started producing what we think is an attempt at Feifei's name- he calls out 'yay yay' to Feifei. [Edit: I forgot to mention the 'Nunununununun!' that occurs during the dreaded nappy changes and also when we try and inspect his gums (or do anything else that Setri particularly doesn't like). We think it's probably a precursor of 'no no no no no!'
Sometimes Setri communicates by grabbing...
I don't know that it's even worth cataloguing all the words Setri understands at this point, I think it's starting to get to be a few too many to be worth my bothering. I'm being surprised on almost a daily basis by Setri recognising and responding to words I didn't think he really had a clue about. He even understands the word 'gummy', and I can get him to do his cute gummy smile and lip-smacking whenever I want! Not just when I want, but also when he is trying to be cute in order to distract me (if I'm trying to get him to go to sleep, or if I've used a scolding tone...). I think a lot of the general parent-info literature on babies must be designed to create low expectations so parents don't panic about their child's development, because Setri is way more switched on to what we are saying than I had been led to expect from these things.
Update 09/01/2011: Not quite 9 months old and he made his first attempt at a sign language word today! This morning he told me he had 'finished' eating something by making a motion of his hand that looked like he was waving, but with a little side-to-side tilt as well. "Finished?" I asked him, and he repeated the motion. I went and told Gam, who took it with a grain of salt, but this evening he did the same thing when he had had enough dinner. So Gam has actually conceded that this is a real attempt by Setri to sign a word!
Washing trolley thingummies have wheels. Setri loves wheels!
Play:
Setri's latest obsession is with wheels. He loves to find anything with wheels- toys, prams, chairs, whatever, and roll it back and forth, and poke at the wheels. He has also taken to using ordinary dining chairs as a walker, pushing them around the room and using them for support while he 'walks'. He seems to be more interested in not just what things do, but how they work. And he will often just take himself off to whatever area of the house he fancies playing in, and play by himself there... that's not to say that we are allowed to leave him whenever we fancy, mind.
Toilet training:
We managed to find a smaller potty in Kempsey, of all places, but we didn't even think about trying to start toilet training while staying away from home. And since we got back we haven't given it much thought either. Setri has progressed somewhat, though. On several occasions he has taken himself to the bathroom for no discernible reason other than to poo! It makes complete sense, given that that's where I've taken him every time he poos ever since he was a newborn (to wash his bottom in the sink, or give him a shower), but it still impresses me that he's 8 months old and knows to go to the bathroom to do a poo! Other times he isn't near the bathroom he will just do the usual 'find a quiet corner' method, but I'm going to have to make a point of trying to create an association between pooing and potty... if I'd known how early a baby could catch on to this sort of thing I would have been much more conscientious about toilet training.
More photos: I have enough time to upload a bunch more photos even though they don't really fit in anywhere. We have next to none of Gam, Setri and I together, so I was happy that there were 2 in amongst the photos on the DVD my Uncle James gave us.
