The Voice of Today's Apathetic Youth

2012-01-14T23:56:00.000+10:00

Another quirky thing Setri has been doing over the past few days... I told him that something he did (or was about to do) was silly. "Silly Billy bohy!", said Setri. Ever since then it has been 'Silly Billy do this/that'- "Silly Billy dep in 'ole" was one. The weird thing is we have no idea where he got the phrase. Gam and I have never used it in our lives. My mum didn't use it, or at least in all the time that Gam and I were around she didn't. That leaves TV and books, I guess? Over the last week or so, Setri has started responding 'Nah' instead of 'no' or 'no thank you', and we attribute that to a kids' book called 'On Your Potty' that mum picked up at the op-shop while she was living here. One of the main characters says 'nah' instead of no. Setri of course didn't heed the potty-training message.

When Setri isn't talking about Silly Billy, it's cookie monster. "Cookie Mommoh eat caper" (said while eating capers by the spoonful), "Cookie Mommoh eat bibbit (biscuits)", "Cookie Mommoh dink baybeh-chee-no" etc etc. He does a world-class Cookie Monster impression (minus the mess, thankfully- just pretend) too. I'd love to get that on video!

Just a further couple examples of things that typify Setri's language development lately:

- When watching a video on YouTube he will say "Don't like this lown (one). Dop this lown".

- Pointing to a fan on our bedroom ceiling, he said "Fan like at Gan-dad 'ouse. Got fan at our 'ouse".

Tonight's the first night we have ever attempted to put Setri to sleep in a room other than ours. He asked to "leep in Mam-ma bed", so I put him down to sleep there. He still hasn't woken and I'm about to go to bed and it feels really weird, and not at all good :( Even though I'm sure he will sleep better without us! We are both expecting to have to bring him in here at some stage when he wakes up though. It just seems unlikely that he would sleep through in a strange bed (he is clothed in a singlet and not covered at all because it's a hot night, but bound to cool down). (Update: ultimately he woke up very shortly after I fell asleep, and before Gam went to bed). Despite my sleep ultimately being crappier than it would have otherwise have been, and despite looking forward to cuddling Gam while sleeping (which we haven't really done since our last night in hospital after Setri's birth), I was so happy/relieved to have Setri in bed with us. When he does finally grow up and move into his own room I will miss him. Despite the lengthier-than-planned co-sleeping I don't regret doing it. These are hours of Setri's life that we wouldn't have got to share otherwise, and interactions with him that we wouldn't have had. Gam may not be overjoyed at being woken and asked for daddy cuddles or pats at 3am, but there is still something really special about cuddling up to our sleepy little monster. He will only be little for a little while longer. I am so glad we didn't go down the path of regimented self-settling etc. I think I would hate myself a little bit if we had. I still can't help but be conscious of the fact that Setri may be our only child. I would rather err on the side of giving him too much of my time and physical affection than the other way around.

Setri finally has a molar tooth! Or a pre-molar?

Re toilet training, I would say Setri is dry at night more than 95% of the time. It is really only paranoia that keeps me putting nappies on him at night. I don't have to worry about what type of cloth nappy to put him in, or whether it can hold a big wee, which is nice. We had a weird blip in the TT while visiting my parents, where Setri weed in his nappy more often than usual, and weed on our bed once (which he had never done before). I put it down to us telling him he had to either hold it or wee in his nappy on the car trip down. Most times he would hold it, so who knows why he chose to wee in his nappy more once we returned home to Brisbane (he asks to wear nappies when he wants to ride his trike, presumably because it's more comfortable). We solved it by putting him in undies and putting up with a couple of wees on the floor... And lots of praise from Gam when there was wee done in the toilet.

Just thought I would put in another sentence that Setri has been saying rather frequently lately: "Like go there lown(one) day". Often in reference to wanting to go somewhere he sees on TV. If it's someplace he knows he will say the place (e.g. 'that' beach, pool, zoo) instead of 'there'. He still does not differentiate between fictional settings (e.g. an animated TV show) and real ones. In fact he is more likely to say he would "Like to go there one day" about an animated environment than a real one, I think.

This evening, walking home from the park, we were discussing Setri's command of language, and for some reason his use of the phrase 'calm down' to Gam was brought up.

Sarah (to Setri): Daddy got OWNED! (Partly a reference to Setri's own use of the phrase the other day).

Setri: *grinning* Lol.

Yes, he said 'Lol'. Yes, Gam and I do say 'Lol' occasionally. Usually in a sarcastic or mocking context. Setri just nailed it, like he does every time. He almost never uses words in an inappropriate context. The only two I have picked up on is 'going' (Setri pronounces it 'gogo'), where he occasionally says something like "Lets gogo mark (Let's going [to the] park)" and 'have be' instead of 'have to'. E.g. when he finds an empty bottle or jar in the kitchen he will often say "Haf be buy more" instead of 'have to buy more'.

Pretty sure a jubilant cry of "Maint! Do by lelf!" has to be right up in the invokes-horrible-sinking-feeling stakes with Setri's chirpy "Oh-lake! Get up, Mumma". But he had actually managed ok... Actually, knowing Setri, if he had made a mess with the paint I would have heard a distressed cry of "Mess... Lipe it up..."

Setri's latest joke is a fairly simple one: when asked what he would like to eat, he replies "Nuts", and then grins or sniggers. He's aware that he's not allowed to have them (he has tried them, in small pieces, but didn't manage to chew them- we have explained to him why he is not allowed whole nuts, hence the joke).

Another sentence of 7-words: "Go outlide tek bar mat off loathe-line (go outside and take the bath mat off the clothesline)". He wanted to ride his trike over it and I told him I had put it in the wash and it was now hanging on the clothesline...

This morning's examples of Setri's response to Feifei's arrival on our bed show how he is using words like 'very' and 'really' lately:

Setri: (more joyously than he would ever greet Gam or I) Feifei! Feifei nice cat. Feifei vehveh nice cat.

Sarah: Aww. We love Feifei, don't we?

Setri: *Really* love Feifei!

Just thought of something that I don't think I've mentioned before: quite a few months ago I let Setri have a lick of a piece of chewing gum to taste it. Ever since then, everything minty that he's tasted has been assessed as "tate like chewju gome".

Gam was rousing on Setri for raiding the recycle bin in the kitchen. "If you do that again you'll have to go out!", he said. So Setri did it again. "That's it! Out of the kitchen!", Gam said sternly, raising his voice slightly. "Garm down!" said Setri, with a smirk. "Garm down!". Seriously, I know something like that would bother my own Dad and he would probably mutter things about being smacked by his own mother if he said something like that, but what are you supposed to do in response to a *20-month-old* who is not just smart but a complete smart-arse? Setri says these things in a very good-humoured way. Is it better to respond with laughter or to punish him for being too clever? It's not like he kept raiding the bin after this- it's not the bin that interests him so much as our response to his actions.

Setri used a 7-word sentence this morning but I've forgotten what it was! Grrr.

Setri has been telling us stories about that mysterious character, 'Really Happy Man'. He already told us that Really Happy Man goes shopping at Woolworths to buy bacon and eggs, and to the 'black fan shop' to buy plantains and biltong. All fairly wholesome. Setri began today's story after referring to himself as 'really happa bor (boy)'. "Really Happa Man go Looll-ler, buy egg, baybay". "Does Really Happy Man go to the bakery too?", I asked, "to buy bread so he can have toast with his bacon and eggs?". "Yeah" replied Setri. "And what does Really Happy Man have to drink with his bacon and eggs?", I asked. "Awa-hole", said Setri with absolute certainty. "Yikes! Really?!", I said. "Um, can you tell me, does Really Happy Man eat his bacon and eggs for breakfast or for dinner?". "Dinner", said Setri. "Okay, I suppose that's slightly better than drinking at breakfast. What type of alcohol does Really Happy Man drink with his bacon and eggs", I asked, expecting beer or 'line' as an answer. "Voh-vod", came the reply. "Really Happa Man dink voh-vod". Just :-o at Setri's stories! (Update: after lunch, Setri enjoyed drinking some of my beautiful Mariage Freres tea, whereupon he announced "Really Happa Man dink dee". Obviously the guy isn't all bad!).

Setri picked up a shiny pink mini-USB off our desk in the study and pointed to it. "That", he said, obviously wanting me to name it for him. "That's a mini-USB", I told him. Setri clutched the newly-identified object to his chest. "Bo-long do Leh-li (belongs to Setri)", he announced. He has also started saying 'bo-nana' for 'banana'. Another (mis)pronunciation I love is "Oh-lake!" for 'awake'. I still groan when I hear his cheery "Oh-lake!" at a pre-6am time as occurred this morning (after going to sleep at 9.15pm).

This evening was funny: Setri saw a picture of an emu in his alphabet book...
Setri: Emoo. Fye! *flaps arms*
Sarah: No, actually emus can't fly because they are too big *dreads soon having to explain why aeroplanes can fly*
Setri: *wide eyed* Juh lork (just walk).
Sarah: Yes! Very good! They can only walk.
Setri: *gets up and starts walking across the room with weird high-stepping gait*
Sarah: Where are you going?
Setri: Juh like emoo!
Getting him off to sleep was not so funny. He had a massive massive tanty and it took first me, then Gam ages to get him off to sleep. His premolars look like they are about to burst through the gums so perhaps it's that, but I asked if he was having any ouchies and he said no.

Gam mowed the lawn today. Same response from Setri as last time I mowed it. Endless wails of "Me mow lawn! ME MOW LAWWWN *wail*"

Had our lovely neighbours over for waffles breakfast this morning. After eating we were outside and Setri decided he'd had enough and wanted to go in. After a few episodes back and forth of "Go inlide now" vs. my "We'll go inside soon", spanning 20min or so, Setri started to cry (approaching nap time). "Go inlide RIGHT now!". Funny about waffles- often we have 'Auntie Nicole' and 'Uncle Dave' over when Gam makes waffles. Last night I told Setri that Daddy was going to cook waffles tomorrow, he piped up "Awah Nick-lole".

Last night, NYE/NYD when Gam was coming to bed, Setri woke up and bossily instructed "No Daddy, move over. No leep 'ere. Leh-li leep 'ere, juh' like Daddy", and smugly plumped Gam's pillow before plonking himself on top of it. "Leep Daddy lillow, juh' like Daddy". Gam and I ignored him at first, thinking it was one of his usual sleepy jokes, and Gam just hopped into bed as usual, but Setri kicked up a stink. Gam asked where he should sleep, and Setri refused to answer, instead happily announcing he would "Leep right there, juh' like Daddy". In the end Gam climbed in next to me and I shuffled Setri over to gam's side. Think this has prompted us to get our arses into gear and get him his own bed. My mum has moved home now so hopefully he will soon have his own room too!

Can no longer pretend that Setri isn't really interested in a particular TV channel and switch channels without asking him. He sees the menu screen come up and hastily points and instructs "Watch that lown".

"Jus' looh-look" and "Jus' meh-mell" = 'just looking' and 'just smelling'. We hear those a lot lately, whether it's part of an entreaty to hand him something from the cupboard, or a reassurance that he's not about to pick someone's flowers. Also 'lurlur' (furry), as opposed to 'fur', and a few similar grammatical constructs.

Haven't mentioned the godawful jokes Setri makes when he's pooed in his nappy. He threatens to sit down or to ride his trike. He wouldn't of course- a constant refrain is "Don't like mess", and we try to make a point of not laughing because we really want to encourage him to poo in the toilet. But just take this morning's example. After having pooed in his nappy and begun the bow-legged waddle to the bathroom to say 'goodbye poo', Setri wisecracked: "Lit down, 'quash loo on bum"

Yesterday and today used 'and' for the first time. "Mum and Dad at lolloh lop (coffee shop)", and "Mumma, Daddy and Lulu", and "Mumma and Daddy and Lulu"- almost like he was testing it out. Using 'very' and 'really' a lot.

"Workman doesn't raid his Mummy's makeup". "Leh-li do!"

"Happa 'bout YOO, Mumma!"

"Leep on floor with Daddy"

Putting Setri's night nappy on, Setri started wincing and groaning, while smiling ever so slightly. "Are you faking an injury, Setri?", I asked. "Yeah", he grinned. "Mumma got OWNED". Of course Gam thought that was very funny. Until we were lying in bed together and Setri said "Daddy, move down". Gam moved over a bit, and Setri said again "Daddy, move down". So Gam moved right to the edge until he was precariously balanced right on the edge. Setri rolled right over until he was pressed right up against Gam's back, practically pushing Gam off the bed. "Heyyy!!! said Gam. "What just happened there?""Did Daddy just get owned?", I suggested. "Daddy got OWNED!", scoffed Setri. In bed tonight he also deliberately pulled funny/ugly faces for the first time.

Setri got a big tonka truck for Xmas from his Auntie Cil and Uncle Richard. With it was a little plastic hard-hat, spade and rake. I told him he looked like a little workman in his hat. Today Setri took the spade and rake in the bath, along with 2 plastic cups to play with. He was about to drink some of the bath water from the spade when I noticed and said "Setri don't do that. You know not to drink that". Setri's comeback? "Workman drink that"

'Grandad's House' has many fans. Setri has an obsessional interest in fans. "That fan on, leeez. That fan on too" is a constant refrain- one fan is never enough. After an adequate number of fans is switched on, Setri pipes up with "Happa about faaans", with an adorable smile on his face. I nearly died of cute overload the first time I heard that. This morning he said it about lights when I switched on a bunch of them in the darkroom. "Happa about lights" *swoon*.

Trip to Kempsey in the car was not the hell-ride we expected. Even though we had to turn back around Springfield because we had forgotten to put the kitty litter trays on the floor and Setri had a good old complain about getting back in the car, he went to sleep within an hour after chatting fairly happily with us, slept for an hour and a half, and when he woke up he spent considerable time treating us to adorable renditions of Hickory Dickory Dock, Incy Wincy Spider, Galumph Went the Little Green Frog, and Baa Baa Black Sheep (the former three he had never sung to us before).

Have mentioned some of Setri's strange utterances previously but I think I forgot this one. Every now and then he will say "Really happa man" (really happy man) out of the blue.

Setri came to work with me today, Gam took us both in (I'm officially on holidays). Was reasonably sociable. On the way home he was sleepy but it was pre 11am and nowhere near nap-time, so I suggested we visit the coffee shop. "Go 'ome", Setri pleaded. "You don't want coffee?", I asked. "No. Go 'ome", he replied. "No coffee? Saaad!", I said. "Kai kai leep leep leep", said Setri in an overtly sarcastic tone, then scoffed. Gam laughed. "Setri, did you just say 'cry cry, weep weep weep'?", I asked, incredulous at what I thought I'd just heard. "YEAH!" said Setri in a big voice, then cackled "Ahahahaha!!". At that, Gam cracked up laughing, and I asked Gam if he'd just said that, thinking it was *exactly* something like he would say, and that it was more likely Setri had parroted him and I had somehow not heard. "No", said Gam. "Kai kai leep leep leep! Ahahahaha!" scoffed Setri. I was pretty much left with my jaw on the floor, but could not help laughing. Setri was so pleased with his efforts he kept repeating the line the whole way home...

Also, this morning Setri woke up at 6.20am and after having got me up and subsequently returned to bed to play while Gam was sleeping, Setri pulled a trick on me. I'm sure I mentioned a month or two ago that Gam taught Setri to fake an injury? Well, while mucking around climbing on top of Gam (I was reading on my BlackBerry), Setri toppled off and started groaning "Ooooh... Ow-ow... Aaargh". When I popped my head up I could see nothing wrong but Setri was still lying down, wincing. I could see a glint in his eye and sure enough when I asked if he was okay or had had an ouchie he just laughed, climbed astride Gam and repeated the whole performance! Later today we had him pretending to be sad, happy (both convincing!) and angry (not so convincing). Funny little guy. Ooh I just remembered something else he did- he was toddling around singing to himself and I heard him sing pretty much all the words to Baa Baa Black Sheep! With the way he pronounces things it went something like this:

Baa baa back leep av any lool
Yeh lir yeh lir ree bag lool
Lown lor Mahma, dame, lilli bor lih down down lane

I carefully shut up and said nothing because he is a touch shy about singing, but he went on and on and repeated it a couple more times, so Gam actually came into the kitchen and got to hear it too! I told Mum about it (she left today, this happened just before she left) and she asked if he was singing in tune. Well... Not really! Not like the way he's been singing Wheels on the Bus recently. But a great effort anyway, for such a little kid.

Still frequently left bewildered by how little sleep Setri seems to need. I'm exhausted from a stream of late nights, it's 9pm, and Setri is still awake. His usual bedtime is 8.30pm (we get him into bed at 8pm but he is almost never asleep before 8.30pm). He wakes these days between 6.30am and 7am. Never in the middle of the night nowadays, thank god for small mercies. Max. 1hr nap in the middle of the day.

Gam bought a massage table and was putting it together in our bedroom at Setri's bedtime. "How 'bout that!" Setri said, pointing at the massage table. Wondering where he copied the expression, we asked him "Who says 'how 'bout that'?". "Leh-li", Setri replied, pointing to his chest. O-kaaay then!

Just saw a photo on FB of the daughter of an acquaintance; little girl is the same age as Setri. One of those classic 'kid with face covered in food' shots (kind of like the ones we took after Setri's first ever chocolate biscuit). These days Setri would *never* allow himself to get messy like that. He hates mess.

Don't know if I mentioned on my birthday last month that Gam bought me a Hello Kitty cake from a Japanese bakery? Well, I opened up the box to show Setri, and he thought it was a toy. Within a split second he had reached in to pick it up with both hands. There was soft white icing all over his hands. "Meh! Meh! (Mess)" he wailed, holding his hands away from his body in distress. "Losh 'aand! (Wash hands)". I tried to reassure Setri that it was just yummy icing and that he should have a taste, but he refused. He just wanted his hands washed. Even after his hands were nice and clean he would not taste the cake.

Another funny thing he does re mess... You know the way some dolls and toys and cartoons have round pink dots on their cheeks? Setri sees that and points at the spots and says "Memmy (messy)". He pointed at the little red 'cheek' dots on his toy, Mamai, when he got it a few months ago and told me "Mamai memmy".

This afternoon Setri made up another verse of Wheels on the Bus. The second one he's made for mum. This one was "Mam-ma buh, Don' tuh light" (The grandma on the bus says "don't touch the light")

As a treat for Setri, Gam let him come in the car to drop me off at work, with the intention of dropping Setri at the childcare centre, where Mum would be waiting to mind him. Setri got so incredibly upset when Gam went to leave that Gam actually stayed for quite a while to hold his hand. After he left, Setri was apparently upset for a while longer but settled down and did really well. In the afternoon, he asked if we could go back there! Poor Gam had been upset all day about Setri's distress, and then Setri asked to go back!

Went over to our neighbours' house tonight to give them a little Christmas gift and wish them happy christmas (and thank them for all they've done for us this year... We have the BEST neighbours). Setri was actually more charming than shy for a change, though he didn't talk much (lots of cute cheeky smiles and showing off though). He held Kahrin's hand when she took him into their garden to show him the agapanthus (another flower he knows), then he cutely told me when he came back that he "Old aand" with Kahrin. When we finally said goodbye I asked Setri if he would say 'happy christmas' to Kahrin and Simon. Setri immediately went all coy and bashful and protested "Lyyyye" (shy), giving a cute bashful look while backing away. Awww.

"Daddy come back on bed". "Don' like let garse (wet grass)". "Lit go out there mell maimai (let's go out there and smell spices)". "Lit go tuhduh, lot buh vihvih-yo (let's go to the study, watch bus videos)" . All typical Setri-sentences of late. Especially the one about spices. Setri and his obsessive-bordering-on-pathological interest in things.

Singing "Leew buh, rau rau rau" and "Lee bine mye, lee bine mye. Lee 'ow lown (lown = run)"

Today Gam was reading a Diggers magazine with Setri before heading off to work. They identified a flower that Setri had picked on one of our walks over the weekend as a white peacock flower, or something like that. It was depicted alongside a 'yellow peacock flower'. This afternoon on the way home we stopped at the park where Mum had taken Setri to play. On the way back to the car, Setri pointed across the road and said "Yellow lea-loc lauer. Mam-ma". Presumably mum pointed them out to him when they were walking to the park.

All weekend long, Setri claimed to be 'laad'. When we asked him why, the reply was the same "Back lan/back lan lop" = he was sad because we had not taken him to the 'black fan shop'. We walked past it on the Sunday, when it's always closed, and he spread his hands and begged "Ope! Ope?".

Remembered one of the things I meant to write down yesterday. We needed to go to Bunnings, and asked Setri if he wanted to go. He said "Buh-buh. Vroom! Daddy make vroom!". Hmmmm.

Re toilet training, I realised today that I can't remember the last time Setri didn't have a dry nappy when he woke up in the morning. He always asks to go to the toilet within a minute or 2 of waking. Weird thing is though, mum says his nappy is frequently a bit wet after his daytime nap- typically less than 1 hour long. I forgot to put him in a nappy for his daytime nap today, but thankfully he didn't wet the bed.

This evening we took a walk and a car with an obnoxiously loud exhaust roared past. Setri said "that noisy car". There were a bunch of other things I meant to write down over the last few days but I keep forgetting. I've had a few late night 'episodes' of doing dumb stuff lately. Last night I put Gam's sticky date pudding into the cupboard where we keep cooking bowls and storage containers; other nights I have left fridge stuff in the pantry, or the next day's lunch on the lounge instead of the fridge :( I hope it's just that I'm really tired. Setri certainly didn't get that fabulous little brain from me.

Today Setri figured out on his own that 'mum' rhymes with 'bum'. And subsequently had great fun with the two words. That didn't take long...

This morning, saturday, Setri spent a good half an hour repeating the phrase "Mumma Daddy 'ome" and looking very happy about the fact we weren't heading off to work. We both hate leaving him :(

Instead of saying 'like Daddy' when we make a comment about some ability or physical characteristic of Setri's, Setri has taken to saying 'jus like Daddy'.

We copped some teenage attitude from our 20-month-old today. We were about to head off to 'Auntie' Erin's birthday evening at indooroopilly bowls club and needed to change Setri's shorts (elastic-waisted ones are easier to pull up and down going to the toilet). Setri threw a tanty and wouldn't cooperate. "We can always leave you at home," Gam said. "Do you want to come with us or stay home with Grandma?". "I don' care!", Setri yelled. But he did wind up cooperating in short order, giggling at our surprise and saying "I don' care" again and again... Gam and I were wracking our brains trying to work out if one of us had just said "I don't care" without realising it, thinking that surely Setri had been parroting one of us rather than coming out with that line on his own, but neither of us had said it recently!

Big red car... Setri is familiar with, although not an obsessive fan of, the Wiggles' song Big Red Car. There's an older version of it on YouTube that he is fond of that is musically superior to the more recent ones. Anyway, for some reason just in the last few days he started riding his little plastic trike and telling us it was a Big Red Car.

Mum has been taking Setri to the childcare centre every day to introduce him to the place. The first couple of days he seemed ok- a bit overwhelmed the first time because he was outside with bigger kids. Then yesterday he saw a little boy a bit older than him get dropped off and start screaming and carrying on. Mum said "It was like something clicked in [Setri's] head". He got really upset and didn't want to stay and play, and today he started to cry even

Ahahahaha I was finally let in on the secret bus story last night! So happy! Gam said to Setri that Setri could tell me the bus's name if he wanted to, and Setri got the most adorable shy look on his face as he quietly told me the name of the bus in the story: "Ber". It's not pronounced like the ber in 'Bert', apparently (we did ask), but more like the 'ber' in Camembert. So cute! Setri also told me that Ber has a friend who is a bus name Buhbar, and that Buhbar is a girl bus. *dies of cuteness*. I wound up floundering my way through this story, awkwardly making things up as I went along. Very functional rather than imaginative story, just like me, really. Setri must have liked it because the first thing he said after waking up this morning was "Mumma, more Ber". Awwww :)

Something else I forgot to mention last month (maybe accidentally-on-purpose, seeing as it's a bit shameful) is Setri's use of what I suppose is profanity. He has a knack for picking up on and parroting words like 'Gee/jeez', 'gawd' and 'good grief'. More interesting (worrying?), though, is that he occasionally drops these into conversation, always in an entirely appropriate context. It's not common, thank god (there I go again...) but when he does it he always nails it. Mostly though he just giggles and parrots the word in question when one of us makes an exclamation. Thankfully neither Gam nor I are particularly prone to use stronger cuss-words, but it will happen soon enough, whether it's us who he copies or a bigger kid at daycare...

2nd day of being 20 months old. This sentence he used this morning illustrates the new and improved communications from Setri. "Mumma get up. Lit (let's) go out there". He is basically fully conversational all of a sudden. It's not like we didn't have quite good conversations before, but he is communicating in what seems to be a really mature form of the language. Of course there is still the fact that he only occasionally manages 'p' and 't' sounds, never manages 's' sounds (he says 'S for Setri' as "Eh for Leh-li" if asked to read an 'S'). And I didn't get called 'Mum' once this morning! Last night was a different matter, but Gam put him up to it and Setri *loves* to collude with Gam in teasing me!

Tonight Setri woke up around 11pm as I was about to get ready for bed, so Gam sat with Setri and told him the 'bus story'. It's a special story about a bus... I have only overheard brief snippets, but it's usually the sight of Setri resting his cute little head on Gam's chest while Gam tells him the story that melts my heart. Every now and then, Setri will talk to me about something from the story, e.g. "Dark. Buh light off, go 'leep". Gam, seeing how "googly-eyed and silly" (as he put it) I went upon seeing and briefly overhearing him telling Setri the story, has insisted on secrecy ever since. Mostly to provoke me. Anyway, after shutting the bedroom door so I couldn't overhear while I was in the bathroom, Gam swore Setri to secrecy, then taunted me when I got back, telling me Setri had given the bus a name. Setri was so groggy and sleepy that I felt sure he would tell me, but he held off my sneaky efforts with amazing resolve. "No", he replied sleepily to my final effort at extracting even the tiniest detail. "Shot down!", Gam hooted. Setri perked up and immediately parroted Gam. "Shut DOWN!", he crowed. "Shut DOWN!", and he made a forceful 'shut' gesture with his hands (I think it's a sign he invented, but he uses it all the time to talk about shops being closed etc). Then he laughed and laughed, Gam's evil baby henchman. Boy do those two make such a great team. Setri has never really been a mummy's boy despite his clinginess, but even though I bear the brunt of their shared provocative sense of humour, I loooove the way Gam and Setri team up like that. When they laugh with glee at their dreadful jokes at my expense they just look so alike it's uncanny. And I love them both SO much <3

Setri over the last week or so (I.e. Since 19m) has started playing a little game where he walks or rides out of sight briefly before reappearing and announcing 'back again!'. Interestingly, he pronounces it 'uh-GAYN', not 'uh-GENN' like Gam and I do. Another recent development (first noticed when Dad was here a couple of weeks ago, I think) is Setri using the word 'number' (he says 'nunna') before saying the name of a number. E.g. 'Nunna eight!'. He is doing the same thing with letters but less consistently, e.g. he will often say either 'D. Daddy!' while holding up a letter D from his playdough cookie cutters, or 'Lella D Daddy' (letter D for Daddy). Oh and one more thing, he uses the word 'that' a lot. 'That big one', 'that big round light' (I was impressed with that one!), 'that red bus', all sentences he has used in the last few days.

Setri has started calling me 'Mum'. He first tried it out experimentally last night and I thought little of it. Today, exactly 20 months since he was born, he started using it consistently (except when he got upset, then I was 'Mumma' again). He pronounces it 'Mowm', using a vowel that sounds like a hybrid 'oh/ow' (like a cross between 'mow' and 'now') that he replaces an 'uh' with in most words with that vowel sound (e.g. bum = 'bowm'). "No ahnk-oo Mowm", he chirped when I offered him some breakfast. "Did you just call me Mum?", I asked him. "Yeah", he said, as if he'd achieved something noteworthy. "NO Mowm!" when I made a similar offer a little later. And "No mowm!" again when I asked him to practice his 'p' sound so he could say 'APPLE lider vih-neh-gar' instead of "Aawuh lider vih-ne-gar". Of course when Gam woke up a little later he thought this was hilarious. "You can still call me Mumma, you know", I offered to Setri. "Mowm!" he said with a big mischievous grin, shooting a sideways glance at Gam for approval. Sigh. I really hope this new name doesn't stick, I was hoping to be 'Mumma' until at least primary school!

Setri at 19 months

2011-12-08T11:52:00.004+10:00

Work Xmas party today at my supervisors house. Setri was pretty much mute, as usual at such gatherings. Though when it came time to say goodbye he enthusiastically did so, knowing it meant he could leave...

3-5 word sentences are the norm all of a sudden. Occasional 6-word sentence, even. Today he told a joking lie. I asked whether it was the truth or a lie, and he said truth... Then caught my eye as a mischievous grin spread over his face. "Was *that* the truth or a lie?", I asked. "Lie!", he said, triumphantly.

Told Setri he looked very cute. "Gorgor", he replied, preening and grinning. "Moh-moh". "Modest *some* of the time, maybe", I told him. "ALL time", Setri shot back, grinning.

Yesterday after getting home I asked Setri if I could have a kiss. "No! Runna way!" he shouted, and ran off down the hallway at high speed. How Gam laughed! This morning I asked Setri for a kiss and he sweetly obliged, but afterwards giggled "Runna way!", and grinned when egged on by Gam. "Setri do you like Mummy to be happy?", I asked. "Laad!", he replied, grinning at Gam.

This morning Setri threw a tanty for no apparent reason (his premolars *still* haven't emerged from his bulging red gums, we don't have to look far for a reason, I think). After he calmed down I gave him a breastfeed and afterwards he seemed much happier. He said 'take Mamai lork (walk)' and fetched his toy named Mamai and wheeled it around the house to look at fans. When it looked like he was running out of things to do, I suggested he take Mamai to say hello to Dayday (toy plastic turtle). He took Mamai over, crouched down and held Mamai's face up to Dayday's face. He said "Hi-lo Dayday", then put his hand on Dayday and said "Hi-lo Mamai"! Awww :)

This afternoon we worked on Setri's dreadlocks a little bit, trying to encourage more along. Setri kept saying "annor (annoy)" and trying to wriggle away, but we bribed him with bus videos.

Just looked at the WHO child growth charts today, and with Setri's estimated height he is not far above the 50th centile and for weight just below 85th! How the mighty fall, given his enormous size at birth and growth rate up until about 5 months of age :)

He must be a pretty dense little guy, physically speaking, because he is looking fairly lean compared with how he used to look. His little coconut-shaped butt-cheeks are now perfectly normal-sized and his arm rolls, along with the pale-stripe tan line in the middle, are pretty much completely gone, with only a slight chubby bulge in the forearm as testament to Setri's former plumpness. He still fits in size 1 pants, although the legs on these are no longer comically over-long thanks to the steady elongation of Setri's short little pins. His hair, which we have not cut for 5 months, is starting to form little dreadlocks at the back. I was sad to cut these off last time, and this time I am hoping to cultivate them if Gam will let me get away with it. Who would have thought that tiny dreadlocks could be cute? Certainly not me! Probably he'll get lice at childcare and we'll have to shave him... D'oh!

I'm not too worried about Setri's apparent increasingly relatively small size, as Gam says that despite his enormous size at birth he was actually a fairly small and skinny kid until puberty. I was also short as a kid- second-shortest in my class right until highschool when I had a growth spurt and grew to the ever-so-slightly above-average height of 172cm. My mum's father was a tiny man, only 5'4 (or something like that) and Gam's father only the same height as me, so there are small genes lurking on both sides but hopefully Setri will be 6-foot-plus like Gam and his two siblings, or at least 6-ish-foot like my brother (I don't know how tall Richard is, just that he is taller than my 5'10 or 11 father?). Eh, it's not something anyone can control anyway so certainly no point worrying!

"Daddy pick me up" (past tense). Setri said that on the way home from the park. We hadn't taken Setri to the park for ages. A couple of months. He does go with mum very regularly, but for us there was a noticeable difference in Setri's strength, skill and independence compared with when we last went. After playing in the park he played at an exercise station, and impressed the father of a 3yo boy and 11-14mo-ish girl by pointing and reading aloud unprompted some of the numbers at the different exercise spots. "Eight! Len! Lie! Looo!". He still doesn't interact much with other kids, but he did make some attempt to interact with the little girl. Afterwards a bunch of bigger boys- siblings and a friend, I'd say- showed up. The youngest would have been going on 3, the oldest maybe 7. "Babies!", Setri announced, before reading the number '3' out loud and talking about his 'led bobboh-buh lauer' (red bottle-brush flower), possibly in an attempt to impress them. After that he found a new and beautiful variety of deep pink frangipani and insisted we pick one up to take home and show mum. Was a really nice way to spend the afternoon after leaving work early. When we got home, Setri obliged when mum asked him to show us how he can now say 'vinegar' properly... some of the time! Still reverts to 'vihivih' at other times. He also says 'bobo-vivih' for 'bouganvillea' (told you he was quite the baby botanist... It's a shame that I am so ignorant about different plants and flowers or he'd know many more!).

This morning Setri had slept off his sleep-deprivation crankiness and was so good and lovely. Upon waking he repeatedly announced "Like Daddy" and "Luddle" and "Gish" and "Good day, Daddy". I asked Gam for a kiss too and Setri briefly misunderstood, leaning forward with his lips puckered to give me a kiss. I tried to take advantage and have a kiss from him too, but Setri realised his mistake and grabbed me by my shoulders then pushed me up towards Gam and made me kiss Gam instead like I had originally proposed! After Gam had left for work and I was walking with setri to the bus stop so I could go to work, Mum and I were talking about Gam and Setri piped up with "Like Gam. Like Gam"! In the evening he asked for something off the spice rack and I told him to "take it over there and sit down", and he parroted me, saying "Take ova there lit down", while toddling off to sit at his allotted spot next to the pantry. 5 word sentence! Not one he made up himself, but boy is he still ripping along with his language development. We handed in his enrolment form at childcare yesterday, and will have the opportunity to start taking him along for play visits from now on. Discussed what will happen with his toilet training there, bearing in mind he may initially be too shy to tell his carers when he needs to wee. While we were talking with the centre manager we saw a 3-4yo boy in a green shirt brandishing a plastic cricket bat over his head, chasing another boy. The manager went to investigate the ensuing wail, and the boy claimed that the other boy had either thrown the ball at him or wouldn't give him the ball (the other boy was cowering against the fence, clutching the ball and shaking his head, his language skills obviously not as good as the first boy). It could have been a one off, but I swear when we arrived at the childcare centre and got out of the car I had seen Green Shirt Boy at the other end of the playground, menacing a smaller child- looking like he was trying to take the toy ride-in car the child was in. I saw only perhaps 2 seconds of interaction as we crossed the road and didn't see any physical contact, so dismissed it from my mind until the cricket bat incident, but I have a horrible feeling my instincts for spotting a little thug are still good. Thankfully that particular kid looked old enough to perhaps not be there next year!

Today was a horrendous stream of constant tantrums. Setri cheerily stayed up until 9pm last night, only to wake at 6am and slide out of bed this morning. He insistently said "Get up!" over and over, throwing a tantrum when I didn't comply (I'd gone to bed after 11pm, just so I could have some time on my own with Gam). Worried about Setri unnecessarily waking everyone, I got him to settle down and then got out of bed. Was convinced he would later have a decent nap- how could he not? No such luck. He napped for half an hour and the latter half of the day was also filled with innumerable meltdowns (including during a bbq when 'Auntie Nicole', 'Uncle Dave' and 'Auntie Cass' were present. When my mum and dad arrived home from visiting a friend, Setri was so grumpy and anti-social that when he spotted them coming up the front path he shouted "No Mam-ma! NO Mam-ma!", and he has *never* done that before. Usually, as we like to say, Setri is quite a reasonable baby. But today he was just too tired to reason with. There was one lighter moment when Setri toddled off to feed some lucerne ('Lulu'- he is quite the botanist these days) to the chickens while Gam and I watched from afar. After he held out the lucerne to the wire he started walking backwards, holding his hand out in a 'stop' sign and saying "Stay back! No more beck!" to the chickens. It reminded me so much of what Bec told us last week that kids get taught at Xander's day care it just cracked me up. Poor Setri did get pecked twice on the bellybutton a couple of weeks ago, but this is the first time I have seen him do something like that.

That reminds me, we were offered a place for Setri Mon-Thurs at our preferred child care from mid-Jan. Time of upheaval for all of us, not looking forward to it. At the same time it's better than not getting a place and sending him somewhere we didn't like so much.

There are 2 weird utterances by Setri that have us puzzled, and I think he only continues with them because they confuse us and he enjoys leading us on. He's been doing them for months now. The first is "Ivy". He says "I-vee. I-vee", like he is calling out for someone named Ivy. We have asked what is Ivy and he replies "Ivy". We ask "Where is Ivy?" and he will point and say "Ova there". So we will walk in that direction and he will point somewhere else and say "Ova there!". If we are inside he will then usually say "Out-lide", and if we are outside he will usually point and say "In-lide". Then we give up and Ivy remains a mystery. The other thing he says is "Goo-goo. Ah-bah". He doesn't pretend that Goo-goo Ah-ba is some omnipotent being like Ivy, but it's a mystery also [UPDATE: I *think* it's kookaburra, mostly said when he wants us to sing the kookaburra song].

Today I made myself a glass of orange juice and added some iron supplement and the juice of a whole lemon. Setri asked to taste it, so I gave him a sip. He smacked his lips thoughtfully and didn't ask for more. He then pronounced his verdict: "Really big lauer (sour)"!!

--> Ok he is on some kind of linguistic growth spurt today. Tried to get some video of him saying stuff earlier and he stuck fairly strictly to 2 and 3-word utterances and some incomprehensible babble, which he almost never indulges in. After I turned off the camera he played with the (battery-less) lawn mower, pretending to mow the lawn. "Mow lawn. Mow lawn. Make lawn happa (happy)". I turned the camera back on and tried desperately to get him to repeat what he'd said, eventually resorting to saying "Setri, does mowing the lawn make the lawn happy or sad?". "Laad", said the cagey little monster. Later he said something similar while watering the garden with water from his 'splashy pool' using a jug from the kitchen: "Olp Mam-ma. Lorlor gargar. Make Mam-ma happa (Help Grandma. Water garden. Make Grandma happy) ". Prior to these he had come out with two other things. The first he started a couple of days ago using the word 'our' to describe 'our car' (previously 'Daddy car' or 'Daddy Mumma car'). Today it was "Our lawnmower". And when I tried to help Setri down the two stairs from the patio at the side of the house to the front path he brushed me aside, announcing "Do by lelf (self)"!! Oh and the alambic in the cupboard isn't plain old 'Lambic' any more. It's "Lambic dor" (the writing on the bottle says Alambic D'or. I've never said it, Gam doesn't participate much in 'Mell maimai' and says it wasn't him, Dad denies calling it that during his spice-smelling sessions with Setri, so I can only assume Mum must have said it at some point. I asked setri did he read the bottle or did Grandma tell him and he said "Lell me".

We dug out 2 old books from my childhood the yesterday. 'Go Dog Go' and 'Green Eggs and Ham'. Setri sat through one reading of Go Dog Go and appeared to like it. This morning he showed up on his push-trike at the bathroom door while I was doing my makeup. "Hi-lo", he said. "Hello Setri, what are you doing?", I asked. "Do not", said Setri. "Do not what?", I asked him. "Do not like 'at. GoodBYE!"... And having recited one of the classic lines from Go Dog Go, he scooted off down the hallway on his little trike.

Not so cute this afternoon... We got home and Gam inadvertently blocked Setri's path out of the kitchen (and hence to the bedroom for a breastfeed). Setri shouted "Get out! Stay out!!" and used both hands to push Gam backwards out of the kitchen. We were so shocked we just had to laugh.

This morning, Setri said to Gam as usual "Good day, Daddy", as Gam was about to leave for work. "Thank you, Setri. Goodbye", said Gam, leaning down for a cuddle. "Stay back", said Setri, pleading for Gam to stay home. Awww. I very nearly suggested to Gam that we simply chuck a sickie and stay home :)

Also this morning, Dad told Setri he shouldn't be playing on the black lounge (Gam and I don't mind) and Setri replied "Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah". I shouldn't laugh at that one, he'll be doing it to me soon. Later dad was talking him through some computer stuff and he parroted dad, saying "minimy that". ??Then he came and helped me with my makeup and asked to give me and mum a kiss (Gish Mam-ma... Gish Mumma), then said "like mumma" and when Mum and I went all clucky and said "awwwww" he started making this awful keening, groaning noise and told us that's what we sounded like, then scoffed at us!

Pronouns seem to have undergone a sudden improvement/extension: This morning he said "I get uvva one". Yesterday he said "I get in lauer (shower)", "lic (pick) me up", and "me gorgor (gorgeous)" while he was trying on my earrings.

Gam has got Setri practising 'p' and 't' sounds, and he can do them really well. He still hasn't really got the hang of using them in words out loud, though he can sometimes say the words properly in a whispery voice. For example, for 'tea' he will say 'teh teh teh LEE!'

Every afternoon lately, when I get home and take Setri to bed for boob, he gives me a series of big cuddles afterwards and says "Like Mumma". I just about die of happiness!

On the weekend we went to a water park at Springfield Lakes and saw Bec and Xander and baby Joshua. Xander and Setri are still about the same size, though Xander is noticeably heavier. He still has just the same quirky personality as he did when we last saw him 10 months ago, only with more words. His 6mo brother Joshua is an astoundingly placid, good-natured little guy who didn't just tolerate being held by me (a complete stranger), he actually gave me cuddles! Such a beautiful chubby, smiley, cuddly baby. Bec said he makes a wonderful demo baby for practising baby-wearing with slings etc, and I couldn't help contrasting him with Setri at the same age- Setri would have given just about any stranger who attempted cuddles a massive dose of sadface accompanied by a barrage of wails! Gam was not-so-secretly hoping Joshua would give me a reason not to be clucky, perhaps an explosive poo or a good sized vomit while I was holding him, but Joshua is not a good baby for curing cluckiness. He saved his little spew for when he returned to Bec's waiting arms :) Xander and Setri didn't really play together (neither of them seemed particularly interested in each other, despite Setri's fondness for viewing pictures of Xander on facebook) but they gave each other a very cute cuddle goodbye. I was surprised that Setri wasn't more interested in Joshua, given Mum's reports of his avid interest in babies. The only time he seemed to have an opinion was when he made it clear that instead of cuddling Joshua I should be taking him back to the park to play. Gam was probably very relieved :)

Just realised this morning that at some point recently, Setri started using the word 'another'. So, to use this morning's example, if a book has a moon depicted on a scenario on one page and a different scenario with a different moon on another page, instead of saying "Uh-wun moon (other-one moon)" or a variation (e.g. "Uh-wun moon. Dihidin" -different), he now says "Anuhnuh moon", perhaps followed be a description of the moon's colour. I don't know that he uses the word if the moon is obviously meant to be the same, though.

Setri still refuses to say goodnight to people if he is not ready to go to bed. After a late evening (8pm) of running around like mad and showing everyone his 'big playdough', I asked him to say goodnight to mum and dad. Setri's reply: "No! *evil cackle* Runna laay!" (Followed by him taking off at speed and protesting when caught).

Just lately he has started exclaiming "NO!", rather than simply saying 'no' to simple questions (e.g. "Would you like a piece of toast, Setri?"). His previous nos were prim little pronouncements in the Queen's English (in stark contrast to his bogan 'Yeeh' for 'yeah'). I don't think it's him trying to be rude, but by golly it sounds rude! When prompted to say 'no thank you' instead of 'NO!' he will comply only to the letter, and out will come "NO! AHNK-OO!".

I just remembered something I meant to write about last month but didn't, but Setri has expanded the practice now so it's even funnier. He started out by finishing our sentences for us whenever we tried to counsel him to take care with his actions lest he be injured doing something. Any sentence staring with "Be careful...", "Setri put that down...", "Don't touch that..." etc. etc. would result in Setri chiming in with a sing-song "Ow-ow" in a 'heard it all before' kind of tone. Then in the last few weeks he started replying "Ow-ow. Waah-waah-waah". Then it progressed to more specific responses depending on situation. If I told Setri to be careful and he was in the shower at the time he would say “Lip ova. Ow-ow. Waah-waah-waah”. Or if I told him to be careful while walking down stairs by himself (holding on to side rails) the response would be “Lall down, ow-ow. Waah-waah-waah”. An instruction not to touch the barbeque because he never knows when it might be hot (he is really very good about this) would be met with “Might get burn. Waah-waah-waah”. Etc. etc.!

"Lit go lie down". 4 word sentences are a common part of Setri's communications with us these days. Not yet a majority, but frequent. "Go back back lan (go back to the black fan)" is perhaps the most over-used sentence- a repeated request to return to the 'black shop' (an African foods shop with a black-painted shop front) that contains many fans. Setri knows which of the shops on both sides of beaudesert road have ceiling fans, even the ones he has never been in.

So... How many 19mo have kecap manis, pimenton, malt vinegar, grape must and star anise in their vocabularies? Plus a host of others. Garam marsala, nutmeg, Setri's spice-smelling hobby is fast becoming another obsession, to the point where being told 'not now' leads to tantrums (first thing he's been doing upon hopping out of bed- if he isn't asking to walk to the shops to see various fans- is requesting to 'mell maimai'). While it seems quite a healthy hobby for a kid to have, like fans and WOB it appears to be growing almost pathological.

Setri was in the shower this afternoon and I was chatting to Gam when we noticed that Setri had gone quiet and was staring at something between his legs. "Is everything ok, Setri?", Gam asked. Setri was poking at his scrotum like he was trying to get something off it. "Is there something on your scrotum, Setri?", I asked. Setri was facing away, so we couldn't see very well. "Yeah", said Setri. "Uh-wun. That". He pointed to his scrotum again. "No, there's nothing there", I confirmed. "That's just your scrotum". "No, *that*", Setri insisted. He pulled at the ridge of skin running down the centre of his scrotum. Good god, that's a bit specific, isn't it? There probably is a name for it, but blowed if I know. I told Setri that when he can read he can look it up on Wikipedia.

Setri has laid off the beer jokes over the last month or so. Maybe he took my advice on wearing out a joke to heart. Since then, however, he has learned the words 'vodka' and 'whiskey'. We use a bit of whiskey in cooking (e.g. Gam's bbq sauce and chilli sauce) and had used vodka in a cocktail on a couple of recent occasions. It's one thing to be in a doctor's waiting room and have your 18mo toddler cheekily (and loudly)answer 'beer!' to a question as to what he would like for a treat following his needles. Probably even less favourably viewed would be a 19mo in a bottle shop pointing to bottles and asking to "mell whiskey" or "tate Voh-vod"... God forbid he ever uses those phrases outside our kitchen. And NO we did not allow him to taste the vodka! He didn't ask to taste the whiskey.

We went to buy fish and chips for dinner yesterday. We parked near some air-conditioning fans. When we re-entered the car park with our purchase, Setri pointed off into the distance (the car not being visible, at least not to me). "Car near lan (fan). Ovo there", he said. Giving directions! Clearly he got Gam's sense of direction and not mine.

My Dad has come to visit again. Setri has decided to call him Grandad (with prompting from my parents) because it's easier for him to say than 'Grandpa'... The way Setri said it previously, not having mastered the 'p' sound, it sounded almost exactly like the way he said Grandma (i.e. Something like 'mam-ma', though he said a perfect 'Grandma' twice yesterday). Dad brought a nice old-fashioned red rose (the nice-smelling kind) with him from his garden. When I got home Setri told me all about it. Setri can identify quite a few types of flowers now, so he told me the story of the rose's origins as follows: "Lauer. Led loh. Gandad lar (Flower. Red rose. Grandad car)".

This morning Setri asked to "Mell more maimai (smell more spices)" after I had given him a jar of ground coriander to open and smell , and I told him "Not now, Setri, we'll smell more spices this afternoon". He sat on the floor with his coriander after that, chanting "Not now Leh-li! Not now Leh-li!". Just goes to show how perfectly the little blighter skewered me in the Wheels on the Bus verse he made up for me when he was 18mo.

Setri asked to have his giant toy dog 'Lulu' on the bed. He stood up on the bed and held Lulu's head up, while pointing at the fan. "Lan (fan)", he said. "Lulu like lan".

Lorro. Think I have mentioned before that Setri now sometimes spontaneously says sorry for things? Anyway, he broke the foam covering the armrest of Gam's chair in the study the other day and Gam gave him a bit of a telling off for it, having previously told him not to tug on it. Setri said "Lorro Daddy", very contritely. Several times a day since then, mostly when we've been in the study but once in the car and a couple of other times, Setri says, just as contrite, "Lorro Daddy". When we ask him what he is sorry for, he says "Lair". We have told him it's ok and not to worry.

This morning, sitting in the pram on the way to the bus stop, Setri expressed distress that the sun was in his eyes. I pulled down the shade for him and Setri said, sounding rather satisfied, "in dark".

He is getting better and better at parroting us. Yesterday the standout was him saying "'Ere-yeg-go mate", after I helped him climb out of the vegie garden.

Setri has been telling me all day that he is gorgeous. I explained what the word 'modest' means, and told him that he was indeed gorgeous- and modest too! No surprises that a 19mo can't see the irony in a statement like that, so he ran around the rest of the day telling me he was 'gorgor' AND 'moh-moh'. Just now I asked him "and what other fantastic attributes do you have, Setri", and he replied with absolute certainty "Leh-leh". I wracked my brain trying to think of what it was, before coming up with the answer: clever. He usually says 'mart', which is why I didn't cotton on right away. I still don't think it's a bad thing for Setri to have an ego the size of a house, but I suppose I'd better hope he also develops enough charisma to pull it off!

Setri did really well in his interactions with people yesterday and today. Last night he said 'thank you' and 'good night' to a lady at Bunnings who gave him some pencils. This morning he said 'good morning' to Kerri-anne, the lady who co-runs our favourite coffee-shop. Then, this evening he interacted playfully, albeit shyly, with friends who came over for a bbq, AND agreed to go with our neighbours, 'Auntie' Kahrin and 'Uncle' Simon to their house without us (!!!). Admittedly Setri is obsessed with their cat, Crackers, which is a major incentive, but he hardly ever agrees to go anywhere without me if I am around, even with my Mum. Once the number of guests hit about 6 Setri became a little more withdrawn and kept wanting to play some distance away, but once half the people had left he said 'good night' to Auntie Nicole and Uncle Dave, and a slightly more formal 'bye bye' to Nicole's father, Chad, who Setri only sees infrequently. During the barbeque he was answering the odd yes/no question from other adults and not being completely mute, which can only be considered a good thing.

Something else he's been doing lately is telling us he's 'gaired'. When Gam mucks around and pretends to be asleep before suddenly coming alive, Setri will put on a scared expression and whimper, saying 'gaired'... before demanding more! He also claims to be scared if something happens suddenly and noisily (e.g. Something unexpectedly falling to the floor). We can't figure out just how much he likes it, because we asked him if being scared was good or bad and he told us 'bad'! He has also woken up once or twice and told us he was 'gaired' and said 'yeah' when we asked if he'd had a bad dream... We're not sure he really knows what a dream is, but it makes sense that he would have them. One of my earliest memories is of a nightmare I used to have, and Gam occasionally still has them, so we don't want to discount the little guy's feelings. Another thing, tied to this, is that he has started requesting different facial expressions as a game. He will ask for 'hapba', then 'laad', 'gaired' and whatever it is he says for 'cranky' (a favourite- he finds it hilarious) and 'surprised' (another favourite... He can now frequently be observed toddling around the place, widening his eyes and pursing his mouth into an 'o' of surprise and squealing 'ooooh!').

Setri still does that pretending to do something naughty/dangerous in order to elicit a reaction. I wonder how old he was when I first mentioned that? His tricks are quite good. For example, if he pretends to drink something he knows we don't want him drinking because it's potentially dangerous/unpleasant, he will say 'drink', then mime drinking very realistically and follow it up with some wet-sounding lip-smacking noises. Or pretending to bite on a stone.

Watching Setri get older is kind of sad, knowing that one day he's going to be old enough that there will be more of a distance between us just because of the independence that comes with age. But really that thought is only ever fairly fleeting, because the rest of the time, ever since he was born, it has been like unwrapping the most fabulous present I have ever received. Every day we are excited to see a little bit more of Setri's personality, and the thoughts that come pouring out of that funny little head of his.

Today, while Gam and I were lying on the bed with Setri after Setri had a breastfeed, Setri gave me a big cuddle and said 'like Mumma'. It's not quite 'love' but it was spontaneous. It is hard to express just how lovely it is to receive that kind of uninhibited affection :)

Mum has been taking Setri to South Bank recently to play at the fake beach and visit the State Library. On the last visit there was a busload of Asian tourists visiting the place (mum didn't know where from). They got very excited to see Setri and wanted to take his photo. One lady attempted to pick him up and got as far as putting her arms around him before Setri broke out a massive sadface, Mum told me. He didn't cry, but she said the way they mobbed him she couldn't blame him for feeling overwhelmed!

Just remembered something Setri did a couple of days ago, as well as something he started doing last month that I forgot to include in the post... Yesterday Setri climbed into Gam's chair in the study and said "Olp Daddy. Yuyu (computer)". I asked him how he was going to help Daddy by touching his computer, and Setri replied "(P)Lay game"!

The thing I forgot to mention last month is that Setri has been giving his toys names. 'Dogdog' is now 'Lulu', a strange old-fashioned wooden wheelie toy that Mum bought from an op-shop has been named 'Mamai' (pronounced MAM-eye), and a green plastic turtle has been named 'Dayday'. 'Dayday' is also how Setri pronounces 'danger', so I asked if he had named his turtle 'Danger' (which would have been pretty badass), or Daisy (he used to watch In the Night Garden quite frequently) but no, it was just plain old Dayday. It's interesting to see the names he makes up. Only 'Lulu' bears any resemblance to a real name of a person we know (Lucy, pronounced 'Lulu' by Setri), and Setri denied that he had named his dog 'Lucy', even though he now says that Lulu the dog is a girl.

Something else worth mentioning is the shredder. We have a paper shredder, and we have only ever used it once, when Setri was not quite old enough to pull himself to standing- say, 5 months old, maybe early 6 months? We have needed to use it since then but haven't because it's kind of dangerous when he's up, and kind of noisy for when he's asleep. So Setri really shouldn't have a clue what the shredder is or what it does. Nevertheless, every now and then he approaches the shredder, mimes putting things in and makes a noise that is a pretty good mimic of the one that the shredder makes. How, unless he could actually remember?!

This morning Setri spied the nutella jar I had foolishly left in full view on the bench and asked to "tate nut-ella". I told him to wait and he could have some on toast, to which he replied plaintively "tate own?" (taste nutella on its own).

Playing with playdough and the letter-shaped cookie cutters we bought Setri last night, Setri attempted to make a letter 'S'. When it didn't go right I made one for him. When I handed it to him he said "Eh for Leh-li" (S for Setri)! It seems he knows just about all his letters now, from A-Z.

After telling Setri not to stand up in the shower because the shampoo he poured on the floor has made it slippery, Setri stood up and promptly slipped over (I caught him)...

Sarah: Do you know why you fell down (in the shower)?

Setri: 'Lip oh-wa

Sarah: Er, technically, yes...

Setri's latest obsession is 'helping'. We cannot go out in the garden without Setri announcing "Olp Mam-ma/Daddy/Mumma", while holding the hose or carrying a pot plant. He warbles "Olp chiki" as he does repeated trips from tomato plant to chook yard, clutching a single (frequently green) tomato to give to the chickens each time. Yesterday he 'olped' me get dressed, attempting to put my clothes on me in the same way I do for him, and then took my clothes to the dirty laundry basket for me. He is 99% angel, that boy. Unfortunately we still cannot visit Bunnings without a tantrum at not being allowed to stand and flap his hands 'round round' in front of the displays of fans, however.

I went out on Saturday night and Setri was so tired after accompanying Gam home that he went to bed without dinner. In the morning we got out of bed and as soon as we headed out to the kitchen Setri motioned to his mouth and said "eat". "Wow", I thought, "maybe I can get him to eat some breakfast for once!". "What would you like to eat, Setri?", I said. "Lolloh (coffee)", he replied, perfectly serious. Once we established that going to the coffee shop and having a coffee *and* some food was a good solution, Setri rattled off the names of the people who run it- 'Keh-keh-aaa' (kerri-anne), 'Jor' (John) and My-my (Michael), and announced that he was going to say hello to Kerri-anne and give her a kiss. I knew that wasn't true and at best she would get a coy smile and a little wave, but I was impressed that he remembered their names!

19m today. Setri was giving mum cheeky grins while he had a mouth full of boob, as he often does. "Are you trying to impress Grandma?" I asked him. "Yeah", Setri said. "Do you know why you are so impressive?" I asked him. "'Mart", he replied. THAT was an impressive answer. I tell him he's gorgeous/beautiful/funny easily as often as I tell him he's smart, probably more! I'm glad he knows I value him above all for his fantastic little brain and personality J

Setri at 18 months

2011-11-15T22:32:00.003+10:00

2 days until setri hits 19m. Yesterday we were outside and Setri again started talking about his friend 'Lee' (our friend's 8yo son, Liam). They were going to 'go Buh-bah' (Bunya mountains) and 'go up-dair. Look lan' (go upstairs to look at fans). Setri then proceeded to say 'Liz. Nic' (Liam's mother and almost-step-father), and when I asked him if he remembered who else went to the Bunya mountains he replied 'Jaye' (another of our friends). When I asked him if he remembered who else went to the Bunya mountains he paused and thought long and hard before coming up with 'Lulu' (Lucy). I was pretty impressed. Not only that he can talk about an event that occurred over 5 weeks in the past that was not mentioned until Setri brought it up a couple of nights ago, but that he could state the names of 5 people outside of the family who were there with us. It's no surprise that he remembered the names of the people who engaged with him the most, I suppose, but that is pretty amazing for an almost 19mo.

I've probably mentioned before that one of Setri's favourite pursuits is smelling -and sometimes tasting- spices and sauces and other condiments. He asks me to help him do it multiple times a day, although I usually only acquiesce once a day. These days if I tell him something is even a little bit spicy he will go right off the idea of tasting it, and need a lot of coaxing to do so, e.g. with sweet chilli sauce (which he loved, after I finally convinced him). He is really fond of fish sauce (!) and the different vinegars we keep in the cupboard. Not just balsamic, which just about anyone would like, but malt vinegar, apple cider vinegar and white wine vinegar too. He also enjoys tasting the rose water and orange blossom water, despite the fact I think they taste pretty awful on their own.

Just remembered another synonym he has been using frequently, 'close' for 'shut' (he says 'lut'), and vice-versa. He always signs it with his hands too. Don't know if I've mentioned that he these days always says 'fini' as well as signing 'finished'?

One more funny thing Setri has started doing in the past few weeks is tell us that he is drawing/writing an object, person or number/letter when he is scribbling. Before it was 'daw-daw' (draw-draw), now it's 'daw bus' or 'daw Mam-ma' or 'daw cat'. We always make sure to take Setri's efforts very seriously, while inside LOL :)

Setri hasn't yet (perhaps surprisingly) started asking 'why' questions, but he can answer them, which is pretty cool. Actually more than his verbal abilities, his comprehension of questions that are supposed to be completely beyond a kid his age is something I find really enthralling. Something might be answered with a one or two-word reply, but it could take a complex series of mental calculations to come up with it. I love finding out what's going on in the brain inside that curly little head.

This afternoon I also was awarded my very own verse in Setri's 'Wheels on the Bus!'. Setri has long asserted that the 'Daddy on the bus says "No! No! No!"' (Daddy buh. No! No! No!), and as mentioned this morning, the Grandma on the bus says "Don't do that!" Well, apparently 'Mumma buh. Not now!' (the Mummy on the bus says "not now, Setri!"). Worst of all it appears to be true- Gam pulled me up at least 3 times this evening for saying 'not now' to Setri!

Setri was wearing his hat when he and mum walked to meet me on the way home fro the bus. Sometimes he is good about wearing a hat, sometimes not. When I mentioned it today, he said "Mam-ma", in an ever-so-slightly accusatory tone. "Oh, grandma made you wear it, did she?" I asked. "Yeah", he said. He was probably just telling me that mum had helped him put it on, but that way was funnier. I told Setri I was going to buy a hat soon (I never wear one and really ought to set an example):

Sarah: Where do we go to buy a hat, Setri?

Setri: Lop

Sarah: Yes, a shop! Very good. What do we do to buy a hat when we go to the shop?

Setri: Man. Lady.

Sarah: Yes, we take the hat to the lady or the man at the counter. What do we give to the man or lady in order to buy the hat?

Setri: 'At.

Sarah: *pause to process unexpected answer* Yes! That's true! Can you tell me what we give to the man or lady in exchange for the hat?

Setri: Muh-muh (money).

This morning, after waking at the ungodly hour of 5-something-am, Setri ordered me to sing WOB. He made up some lyrics I don't think he's used before. He is very fond of making me sing "the daddy on the bus says No! No! No!"... The new verse Setri requested was "Mam-ma buh. Don' do dat" (= 'the Grandma on the bus says "don't do that!"). More good news- 2nd dry night in a row!

Tonight Setri asked for my BlackBerry. When I asked who he was going to call, he said "Man". Gam and I asked what the man's name was- this is a pretty routine conversation, and Setri usually says the name of one of our friends, tells us he is going to say hello and give the person a kiss. Tonight he said 'Lee', referring not to a man but to our friend's 8yo son Liam. Setri last saw Liam 5 weeks ago, when we all stayed in a house at the Bunya mountains. We asked Setri what he was going to say to Liam. "Go up-dair. Lan" (= go upstairs to look at fans, something he wanted to do with Liam). This is indeed something Setri spent a large proportion of his time on while at the Bunya Mountains, accompanied by Liam!

This is actually the second time Setri has done this, I didn't think to mention when he first did it a month or so ago. Mum frequently takes Setri to op-shops to buy him clothes and toys. She did it today, and when I got home and saw Setri's latest new toys I asked Setri "Did you say thank you to Grandma?". Setri said thank you. A few hours later, just before dinner, Setri brought another of the new toys into the kitchen. "Ahnk-oo", he said. Having no idea what he was saying thank you for (and knowing it just as often means "hand that over!"), I asked him. "Mam-ma ahnk-oo", he said. "Thank you for what, Setri?", I asked. Setri pointed to his new toy. After telling Setri what a lovely boy he was, Mum whispered "Did you tell him to say that?". Nope.

Today Setri started using the word nice. I often tell Setri he's nice/sweet/lovely etc, because he really is, but he has never used it himself. This afternoon, though, he told me that Feifei was a 'nice cat', before saying 'luddle', and giving Feifei a cuddle. That reminds me of something else Setri has being doing- using synonyms. The other day he lay his head on my lap and said 'ug'. Had no idea what he was on about, as dumb as that sounds now- we nearly always say 'cuddle', and he'd never said it before. I asked Setri if he'd said 'up', and a couple of other words, quickly running out of options. 'Ug!' he said, more and more insistently, ever-more exaggeratedly laying his head in my lap each time, until I finally got it. I remembered that in one of his recent favourite books, a 'Pip and Posy' book, the two main characters had given each other a hug. That wasn't his first use of synonyms though. A week or so ago, Setri sat on the kitchen floor with a large bowl, pretending to pour something from the bowl. Each time he tipped it he would say 'em' (empty), 'dip' (tip), or 'dump', evidently having sussed out at some point that in the context of tipping something from a bowl they meant very similar things. Just when I think I'm getting used to how clever he is, he comes up with something like that, and blows me away yet again. Oh and I think in some cases he has been trying to put an 'ing' on some of his verbs. One of his first words was 'dan-duh' (stand up) and he still says this. But lately he has occasionally said 'dan-duh' before he actually stands up, and once he is standing proudly states 'dan-dan-duh'. There have been a couple of similar instances, but this is the only specific one I can recall atm.

While outside gardening yesterday, Setri told me there was a "Mess in-lide (inside)". This was a bit unusual, normally he tells me about a mess 'out-lide', of which there has been quite a bit on and off with Gam's landscaping efforts. I asked Setri who made the mess, expecting him to say 'Daddy' or 'Mumma' or even 'Mam-ma', as white lies along these lines have been a feature of recent jokes of his. "Chiki", he replied. Oh! The chickens never go in the house, as much as they might wish that they could. "What kind of mess, Setri?", I asked. "Leelee. (F)loor", Setri replied. "Are you saying that the chickens did weewee on the floor inside the house?" I asked, pretty sure he must be making some new kind of joke. "Yeah", said Setri. "Did they do poo too?". "Yeah", he replied, straightfaced. "Setri," I said "Is that the truth or a lie?". Setri looked taken aback by my question. "Looth", he said, looking as if he felt slighted by the implication. "In 'owth". He gestured with his hand and looked in the direction of the chickens' yard. Suddenly I realised that he was talking about the (not inconsiderable) mess inside the chickens' little 'house', and no doubt their yard too!

Also while gardening outside yesterday, Setri planted his first seed, a zucchini seed. He looked very excited (it's one of his favourite vegies) and followed me up to the garden, but when I gave him the seed and told him to stick it in the hole in the dirt he refused. It was only after I explained that no zucchini plant would appear unless he put it in the hole that he agreed and popped it in. I helped him cover it up with dirt. Hopefully he will be patient enough for me to not have to explain why there is no green plant with yellow flowers and zucchinis on it by this afternoon.

Have taken a few videos of Setri just recently. I take them on Gam's BlackBerry because if I do it on the proper camera Setri thinks he has more of a right to use it than I do. We have been prompting him to talk about/to 'Grandma B', Gam's mother, who we primarily take the videos for. She has not yet met Setri and just about dies of happiness every time she gets one, and addresses most of her emails to Setri :) Most of the videos involve me asking Setri questions to prompt him to talk and are nothing spectacular, but I also really enjoy watching them again and again, and quite often Setri does too!

Setri had his first dry night last night. I got up at about 7, busting to wee, and I was on the toilet when Setri said "Mumma, leelee". He waited for me to finish, then did a massive wee in the toilet, whereupon I noticed that his night nappy was completely dry. Pretty impressed.

Setri will 'sing a song' about almost anything we ask him to, these days. It's never quite as tuneful as his previously-mentioned effort with 'write it down', but it is really cute. He has started replying to "What's your name" with "Leh-li" again, as opposed to "Me!" or "Loo (you)".

One week away from 19m. Said to me this morning when I gave him a shower, "Mumma, in lauer", then when I stepped fully clothed into the (large) shower cubicle, he said "Off". I asked him if he wanted the shower off, and he replied "Lort (shirt) off"- telling me to take my shirt off! Then he pulled up one of the non-stick pads from the shower floor and was counting the holes. He got as far as 5 and stopped. I asked him what comes after 5 and he replied 'lic' (six). What comes after 6- 'lehleh' (seven', what comes after 8? "Don' late", he replied- a reference to "One, two, buckle my shoe"! I kept going and asked him what came next. "Nine". "What comes after nine?""Len". "And what comes after that?" "Home, (s)leep". Not quite 'home again', but very funny.

Setri was doing one of his dinosaur roars. I asked if the dinosaur was happy or angry. "Angy", was the answer. Why was the dinosaur angry?, I asked. "Eat", Setri said. "Lood". The dinosaur wanted food? What kind of food did the dinosaur like to eat? "Cat lood".

Took Setri to 'The Smoke' (formerly Blue Smoke) in New Farm for some american bbq with our friends Nicole, Dave and Cass. Setri was very good- boisterous, babbly and wriggly, with the occasional request to "Go out door" or "Go out-lide", but he never once did a runner or threw a tantrum. He did screech/shout loudly a couple of times after dinner, and only shushed briefly on request before doing the same thing again, but considering it was 7.30pm and we had been in the restaurant for an hour and a half, we considered him to have been extremely well behaved. Before we left home in the afternoon I told Setri we were going to a restaurant and that Auntie Nicole (our friend, a work colleague of Gam's) would be there. Setri brightened and said "Dave!"- Dave being Nicole's husband. I thought that was interesting, because although he likes Dave he doesn't appear to like him any more than Nicole or 'Kaa' ('Auntie Cass', another friend/colleague who we nearly always see at the same time as we see Nicole and Dave). When we were there, Setri actually paid more attention to Nicole (because she is very animated and engaged him a lot). When Dave had a seizure (epileptic) lasting 5 seconds or so I didn't think Setri had even noticed, because he was babbling away and smiling while it was going on. As soon as Dave was back on his chair, Setri slipped off my lap and walked over to Dave and patted him reassuringly on the leg. Which is characteristic of Setri if Gam, me or Mum need some sympathy, but pretty much unheard of for Setri to walk over to any other person (good friend or otherwise) and display that kind of behaviour. It was really sweet.

Since he was about 12-13 months old, Setri has enjoyed joining mum for some 'exercises'. Mum was prescribed a set of exercises for a severe intermittent back problem, and every time she gets out her mat, Setri hops on too and does something that looks like a downward-facing dog yoga position. Lately he has been getting the mat out himself and saying "Ek-ek-lie" (exercise), before doing his downward dog and a few other 'exercises'. Yesterday, I did the exercises myself for the first time. Got out of the habit of running when Gam and I got the flu followed by several colds in a row and have gotten horribly unfit. Haven't gotten back into it because Gam has been spending all his spare time single-handedly landscaping the backyard (his fitness is better than ever as a result, but all his shirt sleeves now look 2 sizes too small! *drool*). I spend my time keeping Setri out of mischief while Gam does yard work. I don't feel comfortable about leaving Setri with Mum while I go for a run these days because I'm back at work full time and really need to spend as much of my home time as I can with Setri and Gam. So I plan on doing Mum's exercises until I get back into some form of cardiovascular fitness regime.

Given that Setri's production of phonemes still comes nowhere near his vocabulary, a week or two ago I tried looking up charts to see whether he is behind in producing certain sounds. Pretty much there is no expectation at all for a kid his age, because as long as they are saying a word or two they are doing ok developmentally!

Lies! Setri has been telling little baby lies practically ever since he could say his first words. But the other day he did this, after making one of his beer jokes:

Sarah: Who drinks beer, Setri?

Setri: Daddy. Me!

Sarah: Oh VERY funny.

Setri: Lie *grin*.

He has since told us a couple more times when he has 'lied'. I'm not 100% sure if an 18mo could understand an explanation of the nuances involved in different kinds of lies. The ones he tells are either harmless (e.g. Telling us he hasn't done poo when he in fact has) or humourous (e.g. saying something we both know is obviously not true for the purpose of having a laugh). Don't want to venture into the more serious territory yet even if he is cognitively able to process it- it's an introduction to a world that Setri hasn't entered yet, one I suppose every parent hopes to fob off for as long as possible.

Gam reminded me of something else Setri does that's pretty funny, no doubt normal for his age. Not sure if I've mentioned it before. He will pick a flower (usually even if we say not to), then say 'back' and try to reattach it. Or break something and say 'brek', then motion putting the pieces back together and say 'back'. He has held off picking some purple flowers Mum planted in the garden, and keeps telling me "Lurllul lauer (purple flower). Die", because Mum told him if he picked them they would die! He loves gardening. Yesterday he ran around with a plant pot and a little garden fork saying "Gargar. Olp Daddy", and I asked him if he was going to grow flowers or vegetables. To my surprise he said vegies (vehveh), specifically tomatoes, and every time we have gone out since then he has spent time plucking grass from the lawn to put in his plant pot while saying "Gargar. Go vehveh (grow vegetables). Ah-mah-mo. Led! (Tomato. Red)". Lord knows what the grass-plucking has to do with any of it, but it is so cute.

I think I subconsciously forgot to blog about this when it first happened a number of months ago (13mo?) because it's a bit embarrassing! Setri suddenly seemed to realise one day that I don't have a penis. I saw him peering at me oddly when I was wiping after peeing in the toilet. "Uh-wun" (other one), he said, pointing. He briefly checked his own (frequently uncovered) bits. "Nee-nih". As I hastily pulled up my pants, worried he'd move in for an exploratory poke, Setri pointed again and stated with a satisfied authority: "Uh-wun". He seemed so happy with his conclusion that I actually didn't bother to try and teach him the right word! He has done the same routine infrequently since, so I suppose I will have to teach him sooner or later.

Setri has learned to peer through tiny cracks in doors. He also loves to 'hide' in his pink Disney-princess tent and peer through the mesh vents in the top corner, before being spotted by whoever he is playing with and shrieking in delight. He knows full well he's not hiding, mind. He also likes to 'hide' by pushing his face into my boob, before popping up to 'surprise' me when I make the requisite inquiry as to his 'disappearance'. When someone puts their eye up to the mesh and looks into Setri's little face pressed up against the mesh and says "Who's in there?", Setri says "Me!!!". He is also really good at spotting himself in photos now. He will nominate 'Mumma', 'Daddy', 'Me' etc. He has even gotten his head around the fact that the 10 week-old 'baby' in the sling with Gam on my BlackBerry screen is him, something he seemed reluctant to acknowledge for an awfully long time. He does have a little trouble with the concept of babies. He not infrequently requests one of his own (preference girl, but as long as it's a baby it will do, apparently). Yesterday he asked me for one, and I told him to ask Gam, who was not at all impressed! Whenever we have told him that Aunty So-and-so is having a baby, he asks '(to)day?', and we have to explain that babies take a while and it will come not today or tomorrow but 'later'. He definitely understands the concept of today and tomorrow, and we have started extending ourselves as far as talking about days of the week. We know he knows 'tomorrow' because if he is upset and asks for something (usually at bed time) and we tell him that he can have/do X tomorrow, he wails "Now! Nowwww!".

On a similar front, can't remember if I mentioned that we were trying (opportunistically) to teach Setri left and right, but he appears to be reasonably proficient! He gets his 'baby' trolley at Bunnings and will generally turn left or right on command, and will nearly always hold up the correct hand when asked which is which. Bunnings visits are a bit traumatic for us these days though, ever since Setri discovered that Bunnings not only has fans on the ceiling/mounted on aisle shelves but also sells a wide assortment of fans. And not just in one section, they seem to be spread out all over the bloody store! We have not managed to leave the store without a tantrum the last 3 or 4 times, all because we won't give Setri an indefinite amount of time to stand there flapping his arms while saying 'Lau! Lau!'!

Setri no longer seems to 'perform' on any 'what letter does this word start with'-type tasks. He usually keeps doing whatever he's doing and offhandedly replies 'bee', before ignoring me. I began to write his name yesterday, getting as far as 'Se' before saying "Setri, I want you to look at this word I'm writing and tell me what it is". Setri, too soon, took a sideways glance and said "Leh-li"(Setri), before wandering off to rat his toybox. Gam laughed while I proclaimed it was unfair and Setri had to try again with another word. I wrote 'daddy'. "Daddy", Setri said dismissively, before toddling off again. I'm not even sure he looked at what I was writing, I think he just guessed! Next I wrote 'grandma', but by then he was just ignoring me altogether. I tried several times to get his attention, and received no reply (even though he was only a metre or so away). "Setri are you ignoring me?", I asked. "Yeah", he replied casually. This is not the first time we've had that particular exchange where he off-handedly acknowledges ignoring me after I have made repeated verbal and other attempts to get his attention. Occasionally we will resort to dropping a word or phrase that is almost guaranteed to catch his attention, like 'fan', 'bus video' or 'chocolate'! Ever since about 5 months of age Setri has been adept at ignoring us. He is so successful at unblinkingly failing to acknowledge us, to even twitch a glance in our direction, I have to admire it as a cultivated skill. He is good to the point where we felt the need, in those early days, to check whether he could actually hear properly or not!

Well, people we know are getting pregnant left right and centre, it seems! Another couple who are good friends of ours are expecting a baby in May, another pseudo-sibling for Setri. Hopefully we can hook them up with our lovely neighbours who are expecting in April. Oh and in this post congratulations are due to Lynn and Patrick, two of my favourite people in the world (even though I've never met them in person) whose little girl finally arrived right after my last post. I am so sure Quyn Anh will grow up a really beautiful little person and an even better adult. I hope Setri grows up as insightful and thoughtful as Patrick and Lynn :)

Figured out today that Setri's 'bear' roar is quite different from his 'dinosaur/'tiger'/'lion' roar. Instead of a 'rarrrrr' it's a 'crrrowllcrrrrowll' I'm not even sure why he thinks bears roar, mind. I guess they might?

When Setri pretends to sleep he no longer says 'Leep... Up!' as he pops his head up and pretends to wake up, he says "Leep... Lake!"

Setri was on fire this morning, I was pointing out house numbers and car numbers as we walked to the bus stop... I said "Do you know what comes after 19?" And he said "lenni". Then he spontaneously held up 5 fingers and said "lie", and I told him very good. Then he said "lic". I asked him what came after six. "Leh-leh". "What comes after seven?" "Nine". A good effort for an 18 (and a half) month-old :)

Tonight Setri pointed at the raw chicken mum was cutting up and said "Raw chiki"! Last time we'd cooked chicken he's pointed at the chicken and asked for some of the 'ham'. We explained what it was and why we only eat it after it has been cooked- and he obviously remembered!

This afternoon we were all in the yard pottering around (or rather I was pottering while Gam and Mum did some real gardening). Setri picked up a small gardening fork and announced "Gargar. (H)olp Daddy". Ahhhhhh I just died of cute overload all over again just writing that down!!!!

Sarah: Setri, what happens to the cup of tea when we put it in the microwave?

Setri: 'Ott.

Setri was picking his nose while he drifted off to sleep tonight, something I've never seen him do before (he has stuck his finger up the 'nose hole' in both my nose and his before, but nothing more than as a basic curiosity). It shouldn't have looked so cute... He's had a very mild cold or virus over the past few days and his nose is so grotty and snotty over the last few days it probably needs a good dig around, I think it would surely be uncomfortable to have that many dried-up boogers in there! He has gotten a lot better at wiping his nose with a tissue and also letting me wipe. It used to be such an ordeal but now he doesn't mind much at all.

Setri seems to have developed an even more deep attachment to my mum just lately. He regularly goes looking for her even when I'm home, and frequently engages her by shouting "MAM-mah!!!" and running up to her with arms outstretched to give her a big cuddle. He has been leaping from my arms into hers for a bedtime cuddle too, instead of just leaning over to rest his head on her shoulder and give her a kiss. Mum loves it, and it's so lovely to see. I just worry about how sad both Setri and Mum are going to be when Mum goes back to NSW. We are all going to cry a lot, I think.

Read an interesting article about kids' screen time in the NYTimes today. Talks of an 'app gap' between rich and poor. We don't have an i-anything, but we have utilised Mum's iPhone (which she uses for an alarm clock and nothing else) as a means of bribing Setri to stay seated on the toilet during our fruitless efforts to teach him to poo there. Mostly for 'wheels on the bus' videos... We still have cause for worry about good old WOB. Setri frequently asks for WOB ("yellow buh", sometimes "Geen buh") videos first thing in the morning, which we have never said yes to. Evenings still result in tantrums if a request for WOB is not aquiesced to immediately. He hasn't had an interest in TV lately, maybe because it seems like the same thing over and over again, or maybe because he realises that he can get whatever he wants on the computer? I would say he gets quite a lot of screen time overall, between half an hour and an hour a day, but even if we have the TV on 'for Setri', he has never been the kind of kid who just sits and watches, he comes and goes and potters around. It's quite evident from the way he has picked up new words and things from TV, and when he expresses concern about someone on TV having an 'owow' that he takes an awful lot in, to the point where we do have to worry about what he sees.

I had to teach Setri the word 'dimple' tonight, after he pondered over the back of his hand, then showed me the 'hole' in his chubby little hand where the skin over one knuckle was indented :)

This is a typical conversation I've been having with Setri just lately. Tonight's version:

Setri: Zuszhi

Sarah: What? What are you saying?

Setri: Zuszhi.

Sarah: (remembering he ate a sushi roll earlier) Are you saying 'sushi'?

Setri: Yeah. Zuszhi *gone*.

Sarah: What happened to it?

Setri: Eat.

Setri has stopped replying to the question 'what's your name?'- just as other people have started asking it. If we ask, he either says something nonsensical and laughs maniacally, or gives a cheeky grin and says nothing at all. Meanwhile he can rattle off 'Gam', 'Deen', 'Lairuh' and 'Lerroll' (Gerald) in response to the respective questions about our names. He hasn't stopped saying his name ('Leh-li') altogether- e.g. if asked whether he wants mummy to do something or Setri to do it, if he doesn't respond with 'me', he will say 'Leh-li' (assuming the answer is not 'yooo' or 'Mumma').

Physically, the most noticeable change in Setri is that his stumpy little legs have been growing longer and longer. In the last week or two, Setri has developed the ability to stand on one leg unaided, which he seems pretty proud to be able to do. He can run 'properly' now, with both feet being off the ground at the same time. It still doesn't look like proper running, probably because he still has fairly chubby little toddler-legs :) He is also a little bit obsessed with jumping, but he can't quite jump. Every now and then both feet will leave the floor but mostly he winds up on tippy-toes and teetering as if he is about to fall over backwards. Gam showed him how he (Gam) could touch the light on the kitchen ceiling by jumping, seemingly sparking a realisation that jumping can be used to reach things that cannot otherwise be reached. Setri has modestly set his sights on our (high) door-knobs. He has been telling us if things are high or low, so I have been trying to explain the difference between tall and short. He already knows the difference between big and little/small. Setri surprised us the other day when our friends Nic and Liz came over for dinner and he roared like some kind of animal (one of his favourite tricks- sometimes it's a lion, a bear or a 'liger', or a 'daggo'- dragon). It was either a bear or a dinosaur that night. He told us it was a little one. We then asked him to roar like a big one, expecting the roar to be exactly the same (it was already a very impressive roar). Instead Setri let out this massive loud roar, practically enough to induce collective pants-wetting among the adults seated at the table. Clearly the boy understands a bit about the difference between big and little.

Since Setri's two poo-on-floor incidents, he has actually told us he wants a nappy on prior to doing his poos. He doesn't say why he wants the nappy, and I suspect if we asked him if he wanted to do a poo he would say no, but it's a step I'm happy with. No-one likes a poo on the floor. Night time wees are a bit of a trauma. Setri wakes and asks to wee in the toilet, but he is so floppy and sleepy that it is really a 2-person job to get him there, remove his nappy and pants and support him while he does a wee. It's so great that he tells us (he's still not dry at night, but from the look and weight of his nappies it's only a little bit of wee going in there), but so hard that he's not capable of helping us out like he does during the day.

Since my dad has come to visit, he has had a bit of a grumble about a couple of things relating to how we communicate with Setri. The first was how it was bad that we refer to incidents that result in pain, as well as the pain itself as an 'ouchie'. Apparently Setri will have to unlearn it, he will find it confusing and embarrassing one day, blah blah blah. We told dad that Setri also knows the meaning of the word 'hurt' and the word 'pain', and it's actually not confusing at all for him, but he wouldn't be convinced. The other thing dad got a bee in his bonnet about was Setri frequently asking for a 'big bit' of something. What spurred the mini-tirade was Setri repeatedly requesting 'chiki, big bit', when Gam smoked a chicken in the drum-smoker he'd just built. It was delicious, and Setri, who'd hardly eaten anything all day, was very enthusiastically consuming bits of this fantastic meal. Dad said that small children are all inherently greedy and we shouldn't give him big bits of anything if he asks for them because it only encourages greediness. I admit to having a similar preconception about small children before Setri came along, but in Setri's case it just isn't true, he doesn't seem to be greedy about anything! I know I am (!), but Setri seems to have this inherent restraint when it comes to anything edible, except maybe breast milk. I told dad that this wasn't true in Setri's case and he got quite grumpy. I pointed out that quite frequently when Setri requests a 'big bit' of something he doesn't get it, usually where doing so will result in a mess, and Setri seems to accept without fail my explanations for his receiving a smaller piece of whatever food item. I didn't think to also point out that his ability to specify verbally what food he would like and whether he would like a big bit or a little bit is damn advanced for his age and I would rather err on the side of further supporting Setri's precocious verbal development than get precious about some imagined problem with his manners based on Dad's observations of other children.

It still blows my mind to think that most kids Setri's age can't use enough words to tell their parents simple things like the water in the shower is too hot or too cold, whether the food they are eating is hot, cold, sour, spicy, salty or sweet, whether they'd like to stand in the sun or the shade, if they have an itch or an ouchie and what body part it is that's itching or hurting, that they saw a car drive up or down the street, what colour it was and if it was a man or a lady driver... Gam says to me if we had another baby there is no guarantee it would be as bright as Setri, which is true. I wonder how we would cope? We have had it very easy indeed.

Beautiful/gorgeous: A day later, he's also learned the reverse (see below) without me teaching it to him separately- I asked Setri if he could tell me a word that meant 'gorgeous', and he replied "bue-bue" :)

Such a quick learner. He parroted me when I called him 'gorgeous' earlier today, saying "gorgor", and I explained it was a word that meant 'beautiful'. Later in the day I told him he was beautiful, and he gave me a knowing grin and said "gorgor". Still can't help wondering how much of his apparent brightness for his age is just down to us paying attention to what it is he's trying to say, where a lot of people seem to dismiss their kid's attempts at communication until the child can produce perfect speech. Some kids probably just learn to stop trying.

My dad has come to stay with us again, after a heart scare. Setri actually seems to look forward to his visits these days. He still hardly talks to dad over the phone, except for 'hello' and 'bye bye', though he often spontaneously offers kisses, kissing the phone. He will answer questions about what he has been up to, etc. though.

He seems to have hit another milestone point in his verbal development. Not so much in his vocabulary, because it's so big already that there isn't a whole lot more he can learn until he starts reading, but in the way he strings 2-3 words together fluently all the time instead of a minority of the time. His pronunciation is still pretty crappy but getting better. He has started saying 'pig' instead of 'gih', and last night he said 'purple', before immediately reverting to 'lurlull'. Gam downloaded Angry Birds for him, a game he described as 'pig owow' (ouchie), which I thought was pretty cute.

Interesting, despite his obvious cognitive abilities, Setri will still look at pictures in a book and demand that they change (e.g. A light be turned on). He thinks pictures are interactive. Last night he opened an 'In the night garden' book and tried to board the Ninky-nonk by climbing on top of the book...

Toilet-wise, he's doing great with the wees, still no progress with poos. He wees last thing at night and hops out of bed and takes himself to the toilet first thing in the morning. His night nappies weigh half what they used to. He will quite happily poo on the floor if he doesn't have a nappy on, then tell us there is a mess. He won't wee on the floor. Mum bought him some undies and initially he seemed to behave as if they were nappies and do a wee in them within a few minutes of getting them on. That seemed to resolve pretty quickly though. We all wish the poo thing would!

The 80s Sesame Street song 'write it down' that Setri is so fond of singing, he moved a step closer towards proper singing when he sang "Light light light light Down" rhythmically *and* in tune!

Counted 3 again today. I was clutching some beans I had picked, and Setri pointed. "Beans. Looo". Two of the thinner beans were held tightly together, separate from the third, so I spread them apart. "It looks like two, I said, but how many are there really?". "Reee!"

I came across a YouTube video of a song for English language learners tha other day. Looks Japanese in style. It's called Good Morning. The very first time I played it for him, as soon as it finished, Setri piped up with "Good! Mormor!", and demanded I play it again. And again etc etc. A few days later, Setri said to me "Good day". And yesterday he said a perfect "Good morning" (only it was evening), and when prompted said something that sounded very much like 'good evening', and at bed time he told everyone "Good night". This morning, when Gam left for work he said "good night" to Gam! When prompted he said 'good day' instead. I find it really interesting that he managed to extrapolate a phrase like 'good day' from a song called 'good morning'. It's certainly not a phrase he's ever heard us say in greeting, although he would have heard me say 'have a good day' to Gam. As a greeting it's quite archaic.

So many words being strung together, these now form the majority of his communications. Geen bohboh (green bottle), brown zhugu (sugar), ice leam, mahmo lor (tomato sauce) etc etc.

Last night Setri parroted Gam. Gam said to Feifei "get out!" And Setri immediately started pointing at Feifei and yelping "Get out! Get out!"...And tonight Gam said to me over something "Stop being silly". I went to ask Setri something and he was grinning at me and repeating something I didn't understand at first: "Dop lilly. Dop lilly"- little monster was parroting his father again. Oh dear!

This afternoon Setri was running around with the cover of one of the Xbox games. I picked him up and we walked back to the lounge to return it. While we were there I thought I'd give him a pop quiz. "Setri", I said, "Can you point to an 'O'?". He touched the 'o' in XBOX. "*Very* good", I said. "Can you point to a zero?". Really, I didn't expect him to get it right. They pretty much look the same, they kind of even sound the same. I would think he's super-smart for pointing to an 'o' when I asked him to point to a zero. But Setri immediately touched the '0' in 360. I was so darn impressed.

Still day 1 of 18mo. Tonight while I was feeding Setri to sleep and singing songs he filched my BlackBerry. He pretended to make a phone call, saying. " 'loh... Bye", but mostly it appeared he just wanted to clutch it as he drifted off to sleep. Because I kept trying to pinch it back when he relaxed, he sat up again and spontaneously started reading aloud the numbers on the keypad. Not in any order, and his pronunciation is shite, but seriously, numbers from 0-9 and he can read them aloud. He also pointed to, and named, letters B and V. He makes my brain hurt :)

Tonight Setri and I played 'chase' for the first time. Setri went to tickle me, as is routine, and instead of submitting I announced "Run run run!" and took off (returning the favour for what he does to me when he has a pooey nappy that I want to change). Setri thought it was such great fun, I was sick of it long before him. He seemed to prefer it when I was chasing him, however. It probably appeals more to his massive naughty streak :)

18mo today. This morning Setri said "Up. Looo (you)", to indicate very specifically that he wanted to be picked up by me. This is because he's been thwarted a few times, most recently yesterday evening, when he's asked me to be picked up and someone else has picked him up instead. Yesterday Mum picked him up for me because I was gardening, and he wailed "Nooo! Mumma! Mumma! Up LEEZ!" And mum and I told him "You are up!". This morning, when I confirmed with Setri the intent behind what he had said, he repeated it in the reverse: "Loo, up". [Update: he now asks this way almost every time. Instead of asking "Up, leez", it's nearly always "Up. Looo". It doesn't sound very polite, but I can appreciate why he's doing it!

Setri at 17 months

2011-10-10T12:23:00.002+10:00

2 days before Setri hits 18m. Tonight he was chasing Xiaoxiao around, and Xiaoxiao hid underneath the table. "Where's Xiaoxiao, Setri?", I asked. "Neath! Neath!" Setri said excitedly, pointing at Xiaoxiao. Don't know when he picked that one up, but I have noticed a spate of instances where Setri will grasp a conceptual word from something I've said and turn it over aloud a few times. 'Before' was one he picked up on this morning, and I struggled to find a good way to explain it!

Also just thought of something Setri does just recently, he describes heavy objects as being heavy. Or, rather, 'hev'

Last night Setri was having some pre-bed boob. Without a word he stopped feeding, sat up and then leaned over and started suckling on the protruding part of my rib cage. "Setri", I said, "There's no boob there". Setri gave the skin over my rib cage another exploratory suck. "Booob", he said earnestly. "No, Setri, Mummy only has two boobs. See? One [pointing to boobs]. Two". "Uh-wun. Dih-din (other one. different)", Setri insisted. I could swear now he was just having me on. "Setri, here's my 'other boob'", I said, giving one a jiggle. "Do you want the other one?". "Uh-wun boob". Setri pointed at the spot where my rib cage protruded. "Setri," I said exasperatedly. "How many boobs does Mummy have?". That characteristic mischievous grin twitched at the corners of Setri's mouth. "Ree!", he said delightedly.
And that's how I found out that 17-month-old Setri can count to three.

Less than a week off 18m, Setri has confirmed he is toilet trained for wees. What did it? We opened up the door to the 2nd toilet, which is hardly ever used, and it seems sheer novelty was enough to prompt him to ask to do a wee in it. 2 days later and he has only weed in his nappy at night. He has, however, only done one wee sitting down, he mostly insists on standing on the toilet seat. We put him in a nappy to take him to Indooroopilly shopping centre today and not long after we got there he announced 'leelee'. We made the long walk to the bathrooms, went to the parents room only to be beaten to the bathroom there by a woman who'd taken her 8-ish yo son in there so he could go to the toilet! So I had to take Setri to the ladies', where he duly did his wee, washed his hands, freaked out at the hand-dryers, and we patted him on the back for being so good. Certainly didn't expect him to tell us while we were out! Unfortunately poos are another story. He absolutely refuses to use the toilet or a potty :( [Update: 4 days later and Setri only just did his first wee in the toilet for Mum while Gam and I were at work... he has been going to the toilet in the morning while we are here, and in the afternoons and evening before bed, but until today mostly refusing to do it for Mum. Oh and tonight he pooed on the floor... Still quite a way to go, hmmm]

Another money story. Setri was playing with his dragon moneybox (he likes to practice putting coins through the slot), when he suddenly held up a $1 coin. "Out." he said, gesturing towards the front door. "Buy mai". "Setri, that's one dollar!" I told him. "Not enough to buy a pie!". Setri picked up a 50c piece and held it together with his dollar, grinning. "Mai! Beer!".

Another concept now being explored by Setri is 'gone'. The word is always accompanied by a spreading of hands. If something gets eaten and there is nothing left, it's 'gone': "Lollat (chocolate) gone!". If someone leaves our house, they are 'gone!'. The 'big hole' in the floor of a cupboard in the laundry that Setri was very fond of telling me about, is now a story that goes like this:

Setri: Mumma. Big hole gone!

Sarah: Really, Setri? What happened to it?

Setri: Grumpah. [Who filled it in on his last visit, much to Setri's disappointment]

Stayed with about 20 friends in a house at the Bunya Mountains over the weekend. Setri has never been around so many people for such a long time before. He loved playing with our friend Liz's 7yo son, 'Lee' (Liam), who was surprisingly engaging with Setri. You'd think 7 is a bit too old to want to waste time playing with a 17mo, but Liam was really good. Setri (not surprisingly) found the presence of large numbers of people a bit intimidating, and wound up tired and cranky because our noise (and being overstimulated) kept him up late, but it was good to see him interacting with some of our friends. He hardly talked all weekend, though, even to us... As if talking to us could somehow set a precedent and ensure he was forced to talk to other people! On the day we arrived and us and Liz, Nic and Liam were the only people there he talked a tiny bit, and Liz said "How do you understand what he's saying?!" It'd be pretty difficult for someone other than us to comprehend more than about 30% of Setri's speech. We explained that the first rule is to remember that he (lately) begins almost every word with an 'L'! He left us on two occasions, once to go outside with Liz and Nic, and another time to play outside with Lucy. He hardly ever sees Lucy (we don't see our friends very often, and Lucy and her partner slightly less than the others), but she seems to be one of those people who every kid takes a shine to. She is a speechie too, who works with kids with autism.

Counting to 2: Setri has become very fond of counting to 2. He now frequently says 'looo' instead of 'dooo', which is a step backward (part of a pattern of replacing almost all his initial 'd' sounds with 'l'), but on the positive side, he can read the symbol, and pick up two objects and inform us that he has 'loooo' things in his hands, or tell us if he sees two of something (e.g. birds, bins). He also likes to inform me that I have 'looo' boobs... He doesn't seem to have a concept of zero yet, but does seem to have quickly grasped that if he gives one of his 'looo' objects to me, he is left with 'lun', and thoughtfully says this aloud while making a '1' sign.

Another concept recently being explored by Setri is money. It's been a month or two since he progressed from raiding my wallet to fling the cards all over the floor to heading straight for the notes compartment and demanding 'Muh-muh (money). More!'. He now gets money out and holds it out while saying 'buy'. Usually he says he is going to give the money to a 'lady', but he held it out to a 'man' on the TV the other day. He knows that he can't buy things from Gam and I! When asked what he is going to buy, he usually replies 'Buy mai' (pie), or 'mimi' (pizza). I let him get his little paws on some coins for the first time the other day, my Dad is visiting and gave Setri $1 . Setri trotted to the door while holding out the coin and saying 'buy'. When informed that $1 was not sufficient to purchase the pie he wanted to buy, Dad asked him what he would buy instead. Setri broke into one of his mischievous grins. "Beer!" he crowed. First time Dad has been subjected to one of Setri's beer jokes- he looked quite taken aback!

Mum travelled to NSW late last week to visit my brother and his wife, and my dad. Setri didn't appear particularly distressed by her leaving- he asked for her every evening so he could say goodnight, and asked for her every morning so he could clamber onto her bed and shout 'Hey!' and be Grandma's naughty boy. He would instinctively ask for her when he had something to share- a flower to smell or a food to taste. But he seemed to accept it when I reminded him that Grandma had gone on an aeroplane to visit Grandpa and she would be back in 3 days.

On the day she was due to arrive home he was so agitated after his afternoon nap that I eventually called to find out where she and Dad were on their car journey from Kempsey to Brisbane. Setri had been running to the door every time he heard a car, saying "Uh-wun car, Mam-ma!". When she did get back, he was overjoyed. When it came time for him to go to bed, however, he kept hopping out of bed and running away to go and find her, clearly worried she would leave. He sat on her lap until he was almost nodding off, and when put to bed he escaped again, only returning to bed when Mum came in with him (by that point she was ready for bed too). He wailed and tried to follow her when she finally extricated herself from his clutches, finally giving in to sleep when I reminded him that the sun had gone down and it was dark outside. Night-time, therefore time to sleep (his favourite new concept).

Setri has been exploring the concept of day and night time a bit more lately. Instead of just the idea that the sun goes down and goes to sleep, he's been announcing every evening (rather repetitively, actually) "Lun. Down. Dark. Night. Leep". Occasionally he seems to get a bit confused, and when he wants his day nap he will point outside and tell me it's dark! Incidentally, although it would appear he is stringing 5 words together there, I wouldn't call that one a sentence, as it's not at all fluid. He does appear to have kicked up his 2 and 3-word sentences a notch or two lately, adding more and more to his repertoire. The only new one I can think of right now is that he no longer needs prompting to say 'no thank you' instead of simply 'no'.

I haven't spoken about sleep for a while. We had a bad run a couple of months ago when Setri was teething. He'd go to bed between 8-8.30pm, wake at 4am and not settle down until about 6am, then wake for the day at 7am, which was pretty hellish. Since then, though, he has been sleeping through the night without waking from around 8pm until 6am, when he wakes for a feed, which is bliss: our first wholly uninterrupted sleeps in months and months and months. He still only naps for between 45-75min in one stretch in the early afternoon, and is obviously just one of those kids who doesn't need much sleep. I used to wonder if we were doing something wrong, but I figure in hindsight that Setri never went by the book on anything else, so why would he when it comes to sleep? It's unfortunate for Gam and I, but hopefully Setri will be one of those naturally energetic people who don't need a full 8 hours like me. Since Setri arrived, normal life has consisted of us being sleep deprived, exhausted by running around after a mysteriously energetic baby who seems to need less sleep than we do, then stretching our very limited time together in the evenings a bit longer than we should, while not being able to make much productive use of it because we are too exhausted!
Another one of Setri's colour jokes. Tonight he pointed at my pubic hair and said 'Lair. brown'. Then an evil grin spread across his little face. "Green!" he shouted, giggling at his own joke. He then proceeded to tell me with equal glee that the hair on my head was gray.
Setri went to his first birthday party on the weekend- other than his, that is. The little girl's name was Jasmine, an immensely cute, friendly little girl whose mother Mum has come to know through the baby/toddler sessions at either Annerley or Fairfield library. The party was held at Harmony Gardens, a park on the Dutton Park side of the Eleanor Schonell bridge. Setri, predictably, took off running towards the park, shouting 'Mark! Mark!' and spent almost the entire time playing with the small selection of equipment that can be made to go round. He did enjoy Gam pushing him very high on the swing, and the majority of his time not spent on the play equipment was spent chasing any of the large number of bush turkeys who happened to get close. Barely interacted with any of the other children, except a 4yo boy not belonging to the party who was playing in the park. There was a 15mo girl there, also a very cute little thing, friendly and secure. Cognitively there did not seem to be much difference between her and 12mo Jasmine. She didn't seem to talk at all, and when I was handed a cup of apple juice to offer while I was minding her, I had to ask her twice if she wanted some. It was as if she wasn't used to being spoken to directly, at least not spoken to in a normal fashion. She looked surprised but cottoned on very quickly to what I was saying. A world away from Setri at the same age, she was walking but she was really 100% a baby. I suppose she was perfectly normal. There's a big variation at that age, and kids often aren't as responsive to other adults as they are to their caregivers. Little Jasmine was evidently well on her way to talking though, I could pick up quite a few things in her babble that sounded like words in the context of what was going on around her.
Setri often seems to want to impress or gain the approval of older children, and does a bizarre little dance with a big smile on his face as a way of expressing this. Of course it never works- he may as well not exist in their eyes, but it's very cute! He also copies older children. We once met a 3yo boy in the park who goes to the same Playgroup as Setri. The little boy was showing off tricks learned at his gym class, including a handstand with his legs propping him against the wall. Setri immediately (alarmingly) tried to copy, and has since performed the trick at home on days where he has seen this same little boy.
He's completely different with younger children. Younger children he is more likely to give kisses or cuddles to, or in some cases poke them lightly with a single finger like they are some kind of specimen, and loudly announce what colours they are wearing.
Speaking of colours, I have been working on getting him to identify hair colours. He usually defaults to 'brown', but can also identify grey hair. Sometimes even I have a hard time telling if someone's hair is brown or black! Red hair is an interesting one. Rarely is it so red that it would be as readily identified as, say, a red flower. And it's quite rare, so he rarely gets that one right when I ask. He seems to understand 'blonde' but has never got it right in a pop quiz... Though it's a tricky one too. When does 'blonde' turn into a light brown, exactly? Unless someone has Nordic, white-blonde hair it can be tough to say for sure whether it ought to be called brown or blonde. Thankfully most people have brown hair! I haven't exactly worked on 'bald' yet either, as I can see that backfiring into some kind of social faux pas one day. No need to hurry that day!
Setri now points out when the sun is going down in the evening. When it's low in the sky he says 'Lun. Down. Leep', signing 'sleep' before making his distressed 'aaah' noise and accompanying dismayed facial expression.
About 3 months ago, Mum borrowed a book from the library for Setri. It was called 'Noodles has a bedtime', Noodles being an anthropomorphic panda. Even though it involved Setri's most hated subject (sleep), he loved the book. Mum returned it to the library when the loan fell due, and ever since then Setri has repeatedly requested 'Book. Noonoo'. Seriously, it's 2 months on and he's still asking for Noonoo, and looking quite sad when we explain that Noodles has gone to the library. Mum has been looking for the book every week but it's obviously been borrowed out again.

It was a couple of months ago that Setri first started using the word 'big' to describe things, but today is the first time he has used it in the context I expected that he would find it most handy in. See, Setri has long expressed a preference for receiving the larger portion of anything he is being offered. If we break off a piece of something to feed him, his typical response is to point at the larger piece that it was taken from and say, expectantly "thank you". Almost without exception he is told he can only have the small piece. About half the time this will precipitate a little whinge. This morning Setri saw some dark chocolate I'd chopped into pieces on a chopping board the night before and thought he'd get in first and specify which bit he wanted. "Lollat. Big." he ordered! Secretly I wanted to reward his efforts with the big piece (a whole square), but given that it was breakfast time and he is a notoriously poor eater of breakfast I thought I'd better only give him a tiny piece. [He's since done this again, except he this time specified "Lollat. Big bit"!!]

Setri has started to sing tunes, not just tunefully, but using different notes. The other day he made a little rhythmic ditty out of the word tickle. Or, rather 'liddle', which was really interesting. He can't sing any songs, although he sometimes says the words at the same time, but he can sing a syllable (usually 'la') using 3 different notes a whole tone apart. It's really cute :) He is also frequently requesting that I 'help' him play the piano by grasping his wrists and helping him pick out the notes to a song with his stiffened thumb or forefinger. He also likes to 'help' me the same way when I'm playing something for him. I don't play much at all though, he usually prefers to play by himself, and I've always got something else that needs doing and never find the time to practice during the precious 2 hours we get to ourselves after Setri goes to bed. Something else I have noticed is that I can play 'Wheels on the bus' on the piano for him, without singing, and he will perform a different set of actions every verse, like he has a script in his head for how it should go. I find that really interesting. Speaking of WOB, however, Gam and I have had to stop playing him YouTube videos of different versions of it, as his extreme enjoyment of it seemed to have teetered over into pathological obsession territory. He was demanding WOB videos first thing in the morning and first thing after we would arrive home in the evening, as well as throughout the day if we were home. We weren't giving in to most of these demands, generally restricting viewing to the evening, but when he started throwing tantrums when we would get up from the computer after playing 10 or more WOB videos in a row we knew it was time to put a stop to it!

Our neighbours told us a week ago that they are expecting a baby, due date on Setri's 2nd birthday. Early days yet, only 11-12 weeks at the time of writing, but I am really excited for them. They are genuinely lovely people... It always makes me happy to hear that good people are expecting a child. A bonus is that the baby's age means it will be like having a sibling for Setri!

I allowed Setri to raid my wallet yesterday (in return for not raiding some forbidden object). "Muh-muh", he said, going straight for the note compartment. "More". "You want more money?" I asked him. "Yeah", he replied. The note compartment was empty. I fetched a five dollar note that was sitting on the kitchen bench. "You see this Setri?", I asked. You can have it if you tell me what that number is in the corner", I said, pointing to the five. "Lye", he replied almost immediately, stating his word for 'five'. It's obviously not the first time he's read a number correctly but wow... For a little boy who doesn't have the attention span to put up with any of our efforts to actually teach him any of this stuff, he absorbs stuff so well from his everyday interactions and play. He just continues to amaze me.

It seems Setri's communication has developed to the point where he can give quite a detailed account of his day. Take the following exchange I had with him just now after arriving home from work. Setri has just awoken from a nap:

Sarah: What did you do today Setri?

Setri: Leep. (Makes sign for sleep).

Sarah: Oh. Yes you did, I suppose. What else did you do today?

Setri: Baa-baa.

Sarah: Did you sing Baa-Baa Black Sheep?

Setri: Yeah.

Sarah: And what did you get up to before your nap?

Setri: Out.

Sarah: Where did you go?

Setri: Mark.

Sarah: That's great! What did you do at the park?

Setri: (no response- didn't seem to be able to find the words).

I asked my mum about Setri's responses, and it turned out they had indeed gone to the park, sung Baa-baa Black Sheep prior to nap time, and of course he had just had a sleep, as he stated. I'm not just really impressed with his ability to answer open-ended questions like this accurately, I am really happy that he seems to be developing this ability prior to going into childcare. I am not really comfortable putting him in if he has no ability to tell us about his experiences there.

Setri tells a number of jokes like this

Sarah: *puts on a bright orange skirt* "I'm just putting on my skirt, then we can go outside"

Setri: *pointing* Ler. Oran.

Sarah: Yes, very good, it's orange!

Setri: *cheeky grin* Gay!

For some reason, saying something is grey when it's clearly not is a very funny joke.

Conversation with 17mo Setri while breastfeeding

Sarah: I love you, Setri

Setri: Mumma

Sarah: You love mummy?

Setri: Yeah. Daddy. Mam-ma (grandma), buddy (everybody).

Sarah: You love everybody.

Setri: Yeah. Boob.

Sarah: You love boob. That's nice.

Setri: *indecipherable* Rahbra

Sarah: What's that? What else do you love?

Setri: Rahbra.

Sarah: Huh?

Setri: *blows massive raspberry on boob*

Setri decided at dinner that he wasn't hungry, and refused almost everything offered to him. Then, when I sat down to eat some leftover pizza I'd heated, he sat on my lap and lo and behold he was hungry. I removed the cheese and he ate about one third of what I'd prepared for myself. I had a bit of a grumble to Gam, who was sitting next to me, about the disappearance of my dinner. "And I'm really hungry", I complained. Next thing I knew, Setri's little arm stretched out and thrust his piece of pizza at my face. "Mumma", he said earnestly, not just offering me a bite but handing it over completely. Beautiful little boy. I felt so bad for complaining, especially for complaining like he wasn't right there sitting on my lap.

Setri at 16 months

2011-09-09T13:32:00.005+10:00

Ok it seems I've overdone it this month and written more than my BlackBerry is capable of pasting into an email. Same format as usual, recent updates are written first, getting older as you read down the page. Will post the rest soon :) [Update: done!]

Tonight, we were arguing over whether to put bacon in the meat sauce Gam was making for nachos. Needless to say, Gam wanted the bacon, I was against it. "Let's ask Setri", Gam said. "Setri, who does most of the cooking in this house?". "Daddy!", said Setri, most emphatically. "Setri", I said. "Who is a better cook, Mummy or Daddy?". Setri paused and thought for a second. "Daddy". Soooo... guess who won that argument?

Earlier today:

Grandma: Setri, would you like to go to Woolworths, or to the park?
Setri: School!

Setri has wondered from time to time why I call his grandma 'Mum' and his daddy 'Gam'. Once in a blue moon he has tried the words himself, as might be expected, and been satisfied with my explanation for why I use them. Last night he sounded like he really liked saying the word 'Gam', so I told him Mum's name (Teen) and my name too. He pronounced Teen as 'Leen' and seemed quite pleased, and seemed a little unsure of himself with my name, saying 'Lair-luh' (he pronounces his own name as 'Leh-li'). Tonight he copied me again, calling out 'Gam' instead of 'Daddy' when I called out to Gam. He answered correctly when asked what my name and Mum's name was too. Also when watching a video tonight of him at 6 months of age (he requested it by pointing to the thumbnail on my desktop and saying 'baby'), I told him "That's YOU!", and he proceeded to ask that the video be repeated by asking for "More Leh-li". Awwwwww :)

Toilet training has gone backwards. Since I stopped letting Setri have so much play time in the shower after doing his wees, he has stopped telling me when he needs to do one (or rather, he will say he needs to do one, then say 'no' when I ask if he wants to go the bathroom)! He even refuses to go outside these days, except in his plastic clamshell (the exact reverse of what we are trying to teach him!). A couple of times we've been outside and he has been holding on so long that a couple of drops of wee will leak out. I'll ask him if he needs to wee, he'll say 'yeah', then refuse my offer to take him to the bathroom, and ignore me when I suggest he does it on the grass. He will wait until I take him in, then do an absolutely massive, flooding wee in his nappy the minute I put it on. He will wee in the shower, but only on the proviso that I turn on the shower first for him to play with. It has nothing to do with being unable to go if the water is not turned on; he has 'performed' before for the promise of the tap being turned on, and also for the prospect of seeing his wee go down the plug hole and being able to use the shower hose to wash it down... He has realised, I think, that these options leave him less time for playing with the water, because it only comes on after he pees. I think we really need to work on finding a comfortable potty or kiddy toilet seat, and something that works as a bribe to keep him there. Hard to believe that someone like me could wind up with a kid who isn't reliably interested in chocolate or lollies as bribes!

Was wondering a few days ago how Setri was doing with his numbers. At the moment we don't have any counting books out of the library and his interest in participating in 'how many is that?' games/pop-quizzes waxes and wanes. Tonight, however, he was watching 'In the Night Garden' and two of the wooden peg-doll characters called the 'Pontipines' were on screen. 'Dooo' announced Setri, holding up his index finger and thumb, before pausing and using his other hand to manipulate the first while he tried to figure out how to sign it correctly. 'Dooo'. Whether the narrator had also just mentioned that there were two Pontipines I'm not sure. Quite possibly. But Setri definitely showed that he grasped the concept of the number two, without any input from us. I was so impressed :)

Last few days Setri has seemed perfectly healthy but has been right off his food. Nothing can tempt him. Today it's nearly 4 and all he has eaten is most of a ripe pear and a few sultanas. I stayed home so he has been able to have breastfeeds.. Same thing happened yesterday only I wasn't here so he ate nothing all day and only drank a tiny bit of water even though mum offered juice and soy milk. He's a funny little boy. When we ask him what could tempt him to eat he jokes with us and replies "Beer!", or occasionally "Mai (pie). Beer!" He even does 'pie hands' when he says beer! [Next day update: asked him what he would like for breakfast this morning. "Mai! Beer!"... And as we laughed, he piped up and added "Liine!" for good measure]. Little jokester still asks for "Daddy boob" quite regularly, too! I remember doing a child psych subject in undergrad at uni and reading that kids basically don't have a sense of humour and take everything literally until they are 5 or 6. What a load of crap!

Pretending: Setri regularly pretends to do things that he sees us doing. Not surprising. What is surprising is that he can demonstrate that he knows the difference between pretending and doing something for real. For instance, he has known and been able to use in appropriate context the word 'burp' since he was 11-12 months old. If I were to tell him to burp, he would try. But if he was unable to produce a burp he would follow that try by saying 'no' to indicate his inability to do one at that point. Now, if I tell Setri to *pretend* to do a burp, however, he makes an 'erp' noise just like anyone pretending to do a burp. Another example is something that happened a week or two ago. Setri frequently gets hold of bottles of skincare products and motions as if he is getting product from the container and applying it to his face. Stupid as it sounds, I didn't fully realise he knew he was pretending, or grasped the concept of pretending vs doing something for real. When mum came into the bathroom as Setri pilfered my moisturiser jar one morning, I told Mum to watch and share in the cuteness. "Show Grandma how you put the beauty treatment on", I told Setri. Instead of cutely pretending to moisturise, Setri looked at the jar in his hand, held the jar up to me and said 'ope'. Oh. I didn't want him doing actually doing it! I didn't know if he really had much of a grasp on 'pretend', but given that he understood the difference between real and pretend burping I tried anyway. I asked Setri "Can you *pretend* to put moisturiser on?". Whereupon he duly performed his cute little moisturising ritual for his Grandma, and simultaneously impressed me once again with just how smart babies can be :)

We hardly ever drink, but (embarrassingly), Setri can identify wine and beer by their respective bottles, and by the glass too. Tonight he pointed to a glass of red wine that Gam and I were sharing: "Liiiine". "Yes, Setri, wine." . Setri pointed to his nose and sniffed loudly to indicate he wanted to smell the wine (this is something he does a *lot* lately, every day he asks to smell different spices from our spice rack). I held the glass under his nose so he could smell the wine, and he leaned forward, took a sniff, then stood upright and touched his index finger to his tongue. "Teth" (taste), he instructed. "Setri, are you a baby or a man?", Gam asked. "Baby", replied Setri (phew!). "And that's why you can't have any wine", said Gam. Unlike a lot of things, this didn't precipitate a tantrum because Setri already knew he isn't allowed to taste alcohol (being a baby who happily sips tea and coffee, counts gherkins and liquorice among his favourite foods and yesterday ate a bite of raw onion, we know that chances are he would probably quite like the taste of alcohol). [Next day update: this morning I was drinking orange juice in a regular glass and asked Setri if he'd like some. His answer: "Liine". I asked if he meant iron, seeing as I have iron supplement in my OJ, and he said "No, liine", affirming what he meant when I asked if he'd just said he wanted wine for breakfast!][Further update: now when Gam asks him the 'baby or man' question, Setri says 'Man!'.]

Can answer questions in the past tense even if the subject has disappeared. E.g. A car travels down our street, we can ask him "Did the car go up or down the hill, Setri?" Or "What colour was the car?".

'Mine' is getting used more and more frequently. And, of course, generally inappropriately when he has pilfered something particularly desirable. Not always, though. He has an old mobile that we have always told him is 'his phone', and he was only happy to pretend to use it when he was very young, say 10-11 months, until he realised that it didn't work and that other phones have lights and make beepy noises. So any suggestion along the lines of "Why don't you use your phone, Setri", when he asked for one of ours would precipitate a tantrum. Just recently though, I was surprised to see that Setri had dredged his old mobile out of the toybox. "Mine", he told me, clutching it to his chest. I have explained to Setri what it means to borrow something that belongs to someone else (i.e. you may have it in your possession, but it is not *yours*), but he is yet to use it in conversation.

For a couple of weeks now, when Setri (or *cough* one of his toys) asks to go out and we say "Where are you going, Setri?", he doesn't reply 'mark' (park), he says 'cooo' (school). This is all Gam's fault. Gam teases me by saying Setri will soon be putting on a little backpack and waving me goodbye, just like Timmy the lamb does on the Aardman animation show on the ABC kids channel. Of course Setri never passes up a chance to join in teasing me, so he now regularly tells me he's off to school. He always follows it up by telling me that "Mummy, Daddy, Mam-ma... everybody" is going with him to school :)

Piano 'man': Setri has shown a renewed interest in 'Roland' since he has been allowed to sit on the bench seat on his own. Instead of wanting to mash the buttons (it's an electric), he 'plays' rather dramatically, and sometimes even somewhat tunefully when he is up there on his own. He really likes applause from Gam, in particular. Occasionally he still likes me to play his favourite children's songs, especially Wheels on the Bus. Mostly I sit to his right, playing the upper registers on the piano. Yesterday, because he was in the way, I played at the lower end. Then I stopped. "More bus", said Setri. "Man". Huh? "Did you say 'man'?", I asked him. "Yeah," said Setri. "More man". He was telling me he wanted me to play Wheels on the Bus using the low notes! I thought that was a really interesting way he conveyed his message. He liked it so much I wound up playing Wheels on the Bus about 20 more times while he sat on the chair bouncing up and down, frantically performing all the actions... [Update: now when he wants me to position the piano stool so he can muck around on the low notes, he says 'man'.]

He can reliably hold one finger up when asked to show '1', and five fingers for '5'. He tries hard for '4', but not sure he's nailed that yet. He says 'Lor' if I hold up four. I don't know if he really gets what the numbers mean yet, but for obvious reasons I'm not going to assume he doesn't, either.

Pulled a square block out of his trolley this morning, saying 'lair'. He also says 'lair' for 'hair' and 'pear'. This is the first time he's said anything about shapes, other than to tell me that circle shapes are round but they don't *go* round and round. Again, apart from the circle thing (which we taught him so he would stop expecting every circular object to entertain him by spinning), we have only mentioned shapes in the most offhand of manners. So I wasn't sure if 'lair' really meant square or not. I therefore asked Setri if he could get me a triangle block, which he duly did, bringing it over to the lounge and placing it in my lap.
I've noticed that lately Setri has become a little sensitive to being corrected on his pronunciation. A correction and request for him to repeat a word can elicit a bit of a grizzle from him, where it never used to bother him. Also requests for him to say difficult words seem to bother him occasionally these days, whereas he always used to just have a go and garble something, whether it approximated the word requested or not. He also gets very upset when he says he wants something and we suggest that perhaps he might prefer something else. For instance if he asks for boob and we suggest a drink of water instead. It makes sense, because if he wants a drink of water or something else he says 'Ding' or 'Ding. Awah/jew/whatever'... It is kind of patronising to suggest that he doesn't really want what he has just asked for. He reacts better to an outright refusal of his request, because we have at least acknowledged what he has asked for! One doesn't really think not to patronise a 16mo baby/toddler, though, it's so ingrained that that is what we do to kids. I have resolved to stop prompting him to repeat himself, even if he starts saying a word that he previously used to pronounce better (e.g. last night he said 'law' for 'draw', where he used to say 'daw'). I will model the word for him and move on. His vocabulary is so darn impressive I have to keep in mind that his pronunciation is perfectly age-appropriate and it will match up in time! Don't want to give the poor little guy a complex.

Halfway through this month now. Setri strings 3 words together very regularly. Mostly along the lines of 'Mumma, (*instruction), NOW', or '(*instruction), (*instruction), NOW', 'Mumma, (*request), Leez?) or '(*Request). Now, Leez?'. He has- get this- started saying 'bed', and saying 'leep' making the sign for sleep when he is ready for bed! We are so shocked! Sometimes he folds out his toddler-couch, says 'leep' and screws his eyes up tight. I just die of cute overload when he does that.

He still has a bit of an imperfect grasp on reality, and exactly what a photo is. He will often see something in a photo that he would like to change and demands it be made to do what he thinks it should be doing, e.g. a doll sitting down will be told to 'dan-duh', a box will be told to open.
Nailing his colours with 100% accuracy, with the exception of colours that even I find difficult to label (e.g. Pinks that are very close to purples or vice-versa, colours that could justifiably be labelled either an orange-y yellow or a yellow-y orange). Blue, yellow, red, green, pink, purple, black, white, brown and grey. Trying to teach him indigo, teal, beige and 'mustard colour' now.

Physically, Setri is just over 80cm tall but very hard to measure! He seems to have gotten noticeably heavier recently, but when we last tried to weigh him a couple of months ago our own scales were blatantly inaccurate (putting him at 10.5kg or something stupidly low like that). Haven't bothered getting him onto a scale somewhere else- I'd guess he's around 13kg?

We are just past 16m and 1 week, and it's getting hard at this point to explain the concepts that Setri seems capable of grasping! These days we quite often seem to be able to reason with him. The other day I needed to wash his bottom in the sink, and he kicked up a fuss because he wanted a shower, squalling and refusing to squat down in the sink to make it easier for me to wash him. I explained that we would be finished faster if he squatted down, so he stopped crying and did it. Gam also explained why Setri should not pull his hat off his head the other day, and Setri left it on thereafter. This doesn't happen every time (particularly nappy changes, or when there is little perceivable benefit to him in our actions, such as when we remove the car keys from his custody after he has pinched them off the table), but often enough that we can call him quite a reasonable baby on the whole :)

I had a work colleague the other day tell me her daughter had hit the 'terrible twos' and not take me particularly seriously when I empathised over the tantrums. "You wait, it'll get worse", she and an older colleague with 4 children told me, before going on to say that she expected the tantrums to get better once her daughter was able to say the words for what she wanted. They were in the process of trying to teach her the word 'more', something Setri has been able to say since 9 months of age! I didn't tell her that, though. Because Setri is fairly reserved/shy, he hardly talks around strangers (though he has started answering- very quietly- yes/no questions from strangers), so he really does seem fairly normal, maybe even underpowered in the speech department. It's only when talking to us, such as when he points out a yellow object and announces 'Yellow!' that people pause for a second in surprise.

Over the past month he has sprouted a few more teeth. He has chipped both his bottom middle incisors, only little chips but it bothers me. The first chip was when he took a bit of a tumble down the back stairs at about 11-12 months, the second happened more recently, probably from biting something made of metal I'd guess. Will ask dentist about it in near future in case he has some kind of defect that causes his teeth to be softer than usual.

In the last few days Setri has been tacking an irresistibly polite and adorable 'Leez?' onto the end of almost every request he makes. He must have known he was onto a winner the minute he tried it, I can never say no!

Setri seems to enjoy drawing with his crayons, but not nearly as much as I thought he would.

At any given time, Setri can identify with about 70% accuracy any of the numbers from one to ten. Mum arrived back from a brief visit to NSW a week ago, and sat down with Setri to read a book (a really good one from the library, called 'One Mole Digging a Hole'). She began reading the book with Setri, asking him to identify the numbers from 1 to 5 as they moved through the book, without pausing much because she didn't expect much in the way of answers. "I think 5 is enough, we'll stop there", she said after reaching number 5 and Setri answered it correctly, being rewarded with a high five. She wasn't going to stop reading of course, just to continue without offering Setri the opportunity to participate. A couple of months ago I was doing the same thing. "Keep going Mum, you'll be surprised", I told her. Setri then proceeded to correctly identify 'Lic, Lehleh, eight, nine and Len' to his astonished grandma (he had flunked 1 and identified 3 only after I had held up my fingers and counted "One, two..." for him).

This morning I let Setri run around with no nappy after he'd done his poo. I was sitting drinking tea and Setri made a distressed noise and came running up with an anguished expression on his face. "Mumma, oh NO!", he said, pointing to a spot on the floor. There was a puddle of wee. Setri made his distress noise again (the one he uses if he sees someone sleeping, sad, or being hurt) and looked at me anxiously. I realised that last time he'd weed I'd reacted pretty much the same way! I reassured him that it wasn't his fault and told him that if he couldn't make it to the bathroom in time, what we do is get a floor towel from the cupboard to mop up the wee (something manageable for him- I didn't want to go on with wet sponges or mops and buckets!). Well, a couple hours later I had a chance to see whether my previous overreaction had scarred him for life. I'd just taken off a nappy so wet I thought for sure it would be a while until the next wee. I was in the kitchen while Setri toddled off to the study to play, when he reappeared at the kitchen door: "Lee." he said. Do you need to do a wee? I asked. "Lee", said Setri again, pointing down the hallway. "Do you need to go to the bathroom or are you telling me you already did a wee?". "Did", he replied matter-of-factly, taking my hand and leading me to the study and pointing at a puddle located alarmingly close to an open book on the floor. Sigh.

Mostly because of time constraints, I haven't talked much about my mum living with us for the past 7 and a half months. She has been such an important part of Setri's life and I feel so lucky to have her here looking after Setri while I work. I feel much more comfortable about Setri going into daycare around the 20-21-month mark in January when Mum goes home than I would have when he was around 11 months when I went back to work. Setri LOVES his Grandma (Mam-ma). He loves to throw open her door in the morning and shout 'Hey!' (Part of his 'I'm being naughty' game where we are supposed to say "Hey! Whatareyoudoing?!"), and 'No-no-no' in the naughtiest tone of voice he can muster. He also says 'Awah. No no no' when he spies a bubbler/drinking fountain, as Mum is always trying to keep him away from those (particularly the ones with dog water dishes attached) when she takes him to the park! Setri saves his cheekiest grins for his Grandma. She is really the only family member he knows and loves apart from Gam and I (although he seems to have this instinctive love for my cousin Natalie even though he's only met her 4 times, I can't say she reciprocates in the head-over-heels way that a first-time Grandma does). It's thanks to Mum's presence here that Dad visits so often, and Setri has finally started treating him like someone he knows instead of an almost-stranger.

We watched Funniest Home Videos tonight, something we usually despise for its content of old people being injured and parents thinking it's funny to film their child/ren in situations that actually require a parent's intervention for the child's wellbeing and/or safety. Despite Setri getting some joy out of seeing a seal and some dolphins (episode was filmed at Seaworld), and us getting a laugh out of Setri saying 'Loof loof!' To a barking dog on the screen, we wound up having to change the channel because he found it distressing to see people falling down and hurting themselves. Even after I explained that people who do stupid things kind of deserve it, the sweet little soul.

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Having your cake and eating it too: Learn how to simultaneously destroy and protect the environment at an Archers Body Corporate seminar!

2011-09-01T13:16:00.002+10:00

I find it both hilariously ironic and kind of scary that our email from Archers Body Corporate one week enthusiastically promotes by-laws that prevent people who live in units from hanging their 'unsightly' washing to dry on their balconies, and their email the next week is titled "Energy Affordability", with the byline "After a whopping 13.29% increase in electricity prices on 1st July 2011, and further increases expected in the future don't miss your opportunity to attend the next Education Seminar Series with a focus on how to reduce your electricity use and save you money into the future"
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RBWH birth, maternity, complaint response whinge

2011-08-25T15:53:00.001+10:00

Speaking of bad customer service, I just wanted to give a big middle finger to the RBWH for their handling of our complaint over mine and Setri's treatment there following Setri's birth. I haven't finished responding to all of the points made in their reply, but they managed to 'forget' to reply to every single important point, and pretty much call us liars too. I am actually shocked that they thought they could leave this stuff out and not have us notice. But they are extremely sorry that we *felt* distressed, even though they essentially say there was nothing to be distressed about. When I'm done, I'll be posting it here and everywhere else I bloody well can. I don't want to forget that the majority of nurses and midwives we dealt with there were wonderful, but the people and institution I'm complaining about need their noses rubbed in their own mess in a big way. I am so insulted and angered by their response that words can't really suffice to express how I feel.

Urban Utilities screw-up

2011-08-25T15:44:00.000+10:00

Over a year ago I made a post whinging about the excessive water use figures (upwards of 700L per day) appearing on our bill. We checked for leaks but there were none. Quite a long time after that, after we had received our second bill showing water usage over 1100L per day (!!!), I wrote to Urban Utilities telling them I wasn't going to pay the bill until they had checked out possible problems at their end. By then we had had a plumber confirm that there was no possibility of a leak of that magnitude at our end. They told me to phone back for follow-up, and I requested that they conduct any follow-up correspondence by email. I like to have stuff in writing, and I don't see why I should pay to sit in their phone queue. I received no further correspondence.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago we received our latest water bill, with the previous unpaid bill also included in the amount.

Urban Utilities had replaced our meter, so obviously it was faulty.

Figures for the new meter (I had to get a calculator and work it out myself) showed an average of 348L per day being used- in line with what UU says is our local area average household consumption. So I just wrote them another email, which I thought I would post here for posterity (and I always like to be contacted by fellow pissed off customers who find these stories :) Let's hope they do the right thing... I was going to tag this post with the 'BAD customer service' tag, but I will allow that failing to consider the lower usage figures with the new meter (and the implications of such for past apparently excessive bills that I had complained about previously) could have been due to an oversight, a lack of conscientiousness. I will see how Queensland Urban Utilities responds to my email before whacking them with that tag.

Hi,

I emailed Urban Utilities some months ago regarding what appeared to be excessive water consumption figures on our bill. I requested follow-up by email but received none.

I see from the latest bill we have received that a new meter was installed on 19/05/2011. The water consumption with the new meter works out at 348L per day, pretty much in line with the local average household usage. Since our household size increased from 2 adults and 1 baby at the beginning of 2011 to 3 adults and 1 baby in March 2011, it is likely our actual water usage prior to then was even less than 348L per day.

I had suspected that we were being over-billed for quite some time, and the figures you will see below confirm that, being in all cases an awful lot higher than 348L per day. In two cases it was well over 1000L per day. The erroneous usage figures appear to date back to the time we moved into this house, in November 2009.

Issue date 29/04/2010: 726L per day
Issue date 26/07/2010: 547L per day
Issue date 26/10/2010: 1165L per day
Issue date 01/02/2011: 732L per day
Issue date 05/05/2011: 1109L per day
Issue date 01/08/2011: 547L per day (before new meter: 594L per day; after new meter: 348L per day)

I also see that this previous over-billing has not been taken into account, despite becoming obvious since the new meter was installed. The amount from the previous bill showing usage of 1109L per day (which, I informed Urban Utilities would not be paid until they investigated the excessive water usage figures), has been added to the current bill, without review or modification.

Given the evidence that I have been significantly over-billed on the basis of erroneously high usage figures for about 22 months, sometimes for water usage up to almost three times higher than what would appear to be our actual usage, I believe that the following ought to occur:

Either
A recalculation of all previous bills to my name (and my husband's) at this address be made in line with the new water usage figures (348L per day) and the amount I have overpaid be credited, with suitable interest (I note that Urban Utilities states that they charge 11% interest on overdue amounts) to my account.
OR the existing bill be waived in its entirety.

Thank you to the customer service-personnel whose job it is to deal with complaints like these, I am aware that none of you are personally responsible for the problems outlined here. I am keen, however, to receive proper follow-up of this matter in due course.

Kind regards,

Setri at 15 months.

2011-08-12T22:40:00.001+10:00

Setri always puts his hand up in the water when the big shower head is running and says 'laining' :)

Everything below the '15mo' written below was written on my BlackBerry but I didn't make updates for a couple of weeks, so it goes up until about 15 and a half months. Since that time he has gotten shockingly good at naming his colours- we've moved on to grey, brown, beige, silver and gold because red, green, yellow, blue etc. are obviously down pat. He can identify pink. He says it backwards in the same way he says 'pig': gih. He still can't make 'p', 't', and 'r' sounds reliably, can't say 's' sounds at all. He can identify purple, but says 'yurlul', which sounds ridiculously close to yellow. One of his recent favourite activities is to get us to play a YouTube video featuring numerous pictures of tractors (set to dance-y music), and he will sit there naming the colours as the pictures flash up. He doesn't always get it right, and if a tractor is multiple colours he won't always get both (e.g. he may say "Yellow. Gee" for a green tractor with yellow wheels, or he may just say "Yellow."). He can identify about 4 numbers from one to ten, specifically 2,4,6 and 8 (no pattern, just coincidence). 9 about half the time. He seems to be able to identify the number 3 from his foam puzzle mat, but hasn't done it in any books yet. 1 is a lost cause- you'd think that would be the easiest!

Something strange he has been doing lately is asking for 'other one' boob. He'll have one, then the other one, then sit up and say 'uh-wun'. I'll point out that he's had both, then say he can have the 'other one' or 'same one', and he will reply 'dih-din' (different), and then get upset when I point out that I only have 2 boobs! Furthermore, he has started asking Gam for boob, and even once asked my mum for boob!

In addition to pretending to give his toys food and drink (and boob), Setri has started adding sound effects, doing a beaut slurping noise when he is pretending that one of his toys is having a drink.

According to my mum, his social skills are getting noticeably better, and for the first time he seems interested in playing with other children, approaching and playing with/near them where he used to seem to move away to play by himself at the park or library (though apparently he has a weakness for little blonde girls). Gam and I saw him trying to show off and copy a 3yo boy he knows from Playgroup when we saw the boy and his mother at the park a few days ago. He is still painfully shy, but warms up to pretty much everyone within a couple of minutes. He held his first conversation with a girl who works at the bakery a couple of days ago (making good eye contact and answering 'yeah' to a few questions and saying 'thank you' for the pie). I hope he grows out of the shyness.

15mo

Yesterday evening he was at his toybox, which is up off the floor and a bit out of reach, pointing at his bag of blocks and saying 'Back. Back'. He says 'bock' for 'blocks', so I wondered what he was talking about. When I got closer, it appeared that he was pointing at the large black block at the top of the bag. As far as I was aware, Setri didn't know 'black' yet, but I asked him if that was what he wanted. 'Yeah', he said. I pulled down the bag and unzipped it for him, and he reached in and pulled out the black block. He held it up. 'Back', he said. Then for good measure he held up a green one. 'Gee', he informed me, before putting it aside. 'Yellow', he announced, reaching into the bag, ignoring the yellow block at the top. 'Uh-wun' (other one), pulling out the large block beneath it of a slightly different lemon hue. So there we go. Today he pointed at a dark coloured car and said 'back', and it did look like it was, but as we walked past it it became apparent that it was in fact a dark metallic blue. Talk about making things complicated!

Instead of saying 'ay' when pointing at wobbily at random bits of text, Setri has taken to sometimes saying 'ohhh'. I have only once seen him point at an actual letter O on request, and he has no interest lately in pointing to any letters at all when I ask him to. He is still reeeeaally keen on books, however.

Something embarrassing he has done since 11 months of age. I've somehow forgotten (read: been a bit too embarrassed) to post it until now: When I'm getting changed or going to the toilet he loves to point at my pubic hair, shout 'Lair! Laaaaaaaairrrr!!!' in a mock-horror tone, and then scoff at me. I have never been prudish around Setri, the hair is nothing new, but somehow he instinctively recognises its potential for humour and embarrassment compared with the hair on my head (which receives a matter-of-fact ruffling and the simple pronouncement 'lair' from time to time). I keep thinking if I don't react to the 'LAIR!!!' thing he will get tired of it and another phase will start, but no such luck yet. It doesn't help that after he'd done it a couple of times he did it in front of Gam, who thought it was absolutely hilarious.

Knows colours blue, yellow, green, red, orange and white (which I hadn't bothered with until he pointed to the lid of the toilet and pronounced it yellow, which I felt a little defensive about, in spite of its pristine whiteness). Maybe purple too.

15 and a half months. Knows difference between 'now', 'later' and 'soon', and uses 'now' and 'soon' spontaneously in conversation. Uses 'now' a *lot*. Can choose between 'same' and 'different' ('lame' and 'dih-din'), has used 'different' spontaneously in conversation. Most interactions still consist of one word even though he's capable of two a lot of the time (and occasionally 3). His enormous vocabulary can't keep up with his consonant deficit, something that keeps getting worse the more words he learns. There's no excuse for some of them either. He can say 'cat', 'kitchi' (kitchen), 'chicki' (chickens), 'cukukuk' (cluck cluck), but still says 'lar' for car. He did come out with a perfectly enunciated 'tea' the other day but immediately reverted to 'dee'.

Today he saw a large number eight on a 'save 8 cents' flyer at the Woolies checkout and pointed at it and said 'eight'.

2nd week in. He just gets sweeter and sweeter. Several times a day he will say 'Mumma', and toddle over to give me a cuddle, or 'Mumma, kissh'... After which comes 'Daddy, kissh', and he will give each of us several kisses in turn.

He has also started being affected by stories. If someone is lost, or has lost something, he gets quite worried and upset and we have to reassure him. He gets even more whiney and distressed by stories that involve people going to bed or to sleep. One day after he asked to see Facebook photos of Bec's little boy Xander ('Lanna'), he had a whinge because one of the photos featured Xander sleeping.

6th day of 15m. For a few days now, Setri has been saying 'thank you' unprompted. Actually it sounds more like someone saying 'thank you' with their mouth full: 'ahng-oo'. Anyway, the context he uses it in, in many cases, is not quite appropriate. What Setri means when he says 'thank you' unbidden is better translated as "I'll have that, thanks very much", i.e. that a particular object in someone's possession should be handed over wholesale. Whether it's saying 'thank you' and taking the whole piece of toast when I've offered him a bite, or attempting to take some other object that we are holding, Setri seems to think it's very unfair when someone says in fact no, he can't have that despite his polite 'thank you'! Hypocritically, we have probably plucked forbidden objects from his grasp from time to time and said 'thank you' without paying regard to whether he wanted to hand it over or not! He also sobs/wails 'Leeeeez' in the most heart-wrenching tones when he doesn't get something he really wants (usually me not getting a boob out quickly enough), or not giving him something he regularly covets but is not allowed to play with.

4th day of 15m. Brought Setri out from the bedroom this morning. While I was in the kitchen getting stuff ready to make coffee, Setri went to his bag of blocks and picked up a red block and walked towards me waving the block in the air. "Led, led", he said earnestly. A few days earlier he had pointed to a red car and said the same thing, but I dismissed it because he can't reliably produce the right answer to 'red' questions when asked.

He put the red block on the floor, and reached for a blue one. 'Booo!', he said, holding it in the air before placing it on the floor and reaching for another red block. He then held that in the air and said "led". Later on though, I asked him what colour his cob of corn was. "Geee", he told me. "Try again", I said. "Booo", he offered, before trying 'green' again when I asked him what other colour it might be!

Also this morning he pretended to change Hello Kitty's nappy, and asked to go to the park. "We'll go to the park later", I told him. "*Now*", he insisted.

3rd day of 15m. I have noticed over the past couple of days that Setri is pointing to large bodies of text and saying 'ay' a lot. Mostly there are a lot of 'ays' and the text too small to reliably see what he's really pointing to. Maybe we over-praised him the other day and he's just doing it for the attention. Lol.

2nd day of 15m. Gam asked "Who has boobs, Setri?". Answer: "Mumma". Last night Setri retrieved a number 3 from his foam play mat and ran around showing it to everyone. "Ree!". Tonight I heard him coming again while In the Night Garden was on, this time chanting "doo". And clutching a foam number 2, waving it at Mum and I in turn before trotting off to the study to show Gam. WTF. Oh and tonight he tried to share one of my boobs with his Big Bear. He stopped feeding and reached out to tug the ear of Big Bear, who I was using as a cushion. "Boooo", said Setri. "Boooo". I was a bit confused. "Are you saying you want the other boob, Setri?", I asked. "Boooo", he insisted. It sure did sound like he was just saying 'boob'. But I flailed around for alternatives. "Do you want me to read you a book?". Finally I let him haul Big Bear out from behind my back. "Booo", said Setri, pushing Big Bear's head towards my boob. I explained that it was very thoughtful of him, but bears don't need boob!

Oh another thing he did today was point at the (very large) light in the coffee shop and say 'bih-light'.
First day of 15m and I asked Setri to put something in the bin for me. He walked to the bin, held the rubbish over it and then withdrew his hand. "Bih-bin", he stated. "Go on, put it in the bin", I prompted, puzzled. "Bih-bin", Setri repeated, sounding insistent, this time pointing to the back door. "Oh, you want to put it in the BIG bin", I said. "Yeah", replied Setri. So we did. Dunno if I've mentioned before that he's obsessed w the bins?

That night he also informed Gam that he had a big nose.

Setri at 14 months

2011-07-12T11:47:00.007+10:00

14mo:

Ok, for the most part this was written on my BlackBerry with the most recent stuff on top and the older stuff below, kind of like a newsfeed. This time I'm testing the email posting function :) Photos later.

Day before turning 15m, Gam and I wind up in a conversation about Setri, and I say, semi facetiously, "Setri knows his alphabet, don't you, Setri?", while Gam scoffs. "What letter does the word 'daddy' start with?", I ask.

I wasn't expecting an answer, but Setri immediately said 'Dee!'. Cue dropped jaws. Gam and I both being taken aback, Gam thought it was a fluke and I figured he was just regurgitating the results of the 'reading' we'd done together a couple of hours earlier when I'd arrived home (I was reading a magazine, Setri said he wanted me to read to him, and so I'd got through a few letters on the front cover before he lost interest. One of them was 'd for daddy'). I recovered quicker than Gam and said, still somewhat disbelieving, "See! I told you he knew his alphabet! Good boy, Setri! You are so clever!", then I scoffed at Gam and Setri chimed in with his derisive baby scoff.

A few minutes later we were changing his nappy and still marvelling over the whole dee thing. "It was just a fluke", Gam said. "Oh it was not," I replied. "Setri, what's another word that starts with D?". After a half-second's pause, Setri piped up 'Down!'. Cue even more amazement. That question was the reverse of what we'd asked him beforehand. It was still the same letter though. So I tried again. "Setri, what letter does the word 'bear' start with?". This time I cheated and prompted him: "Buh...buh...". "Bee!" shouted Setri. Fark. 10 minutes or so later I tried again. "Setri, can you tell me what letter the word 'boy' starts with?". No answer. I repeated the question. "Dee", offered Setri, sounding a bit unsure. Oh well. 4 out of 5 would be a reasonable score for a kindergarten kid, I told Gam. Certainly better than chance, right?

Despite Setri being seemingly so far ahead for his age, in other ways he is absolutely normal. In the last week and a bit he has been throwing soooo many tantrums. In addition, his enunciation of many words is still sometimes quite lazy, he still can't pronounce a lot of words because of his consonant deficit (especially p and t sounds... He will now generally say 'g' and 'z'/'zh' sounds). The other day Mum was contrasting Setri's tendency to have a go at words and make himself understood even with very imperfect pronunciation with my tendency as a baby to never say anything until I had practiced the hell out of it while (I thought) I was out of earshot and it was pretty much perfect. Can't have been true all of the time though, as I remember my parents and Uncle Richard telling me as a child that I used the word 'ersh' to refer to horses!

Setri is still lazy about stringing 2 words together most of the time. For instance if he says 'more' and we ask him to say 'more, please' he will 9/10 times only say 'leez'. His motor skills, well, I don't know but I would say they are normal. He can pull his large duplo-style blocks apart and put them back together *some* of the time. He is quite good at opening screw-type lids (e.g. Mascara), and he clutches a pen or crayon in his fist to 'daw' with it.
His gross motor skills are probably quite a lot better. I have seen Setri stumble over something, lose footing for both his feet (both in the air) and recover his balance with apparent ease on several occasions.

He does still fall over fairly often, particularly when running while carrying objects. He pretty much never cries. If he whimpers we ask him if he's 'had an ouchie' and he will ruefully rub the sore spot and say 'yeah'.

His "kkhhhkkkh" noise for kisses has evolved to a proper 'kishkish'. He has actually started asking for kisses again, too! Just as often, Gam or I will ask if we can give him one, however, and he will say 'no'. But if we then ask him to give us one he will say 'yeah' and quite happily plant one on us!

Singing! I nearly forgot about singing. Setri has always been quite good at indicating what song he wants us to sing, either through use of a sign (e.g. 'twinkle twinkle' or 'the lights on the bus flash on and off') or a word ('buh. rau-rau', for 'the wheels on the bus go round and round). If he wants me to repeat a song I have just made up and he can't say a word that associates well with the song he just asks for 'more lalala'. He sings 'baabaa' for 'baa baa black sheep'. Well, he came up with a new one the other day that I thought was exceptionally cute. Gam showed him for the first time a YouTube video called something like 'Happy Hippo and Stan sing The Lion Sleeps Tonight' which features an animated hippo singing 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' and a dancing animated dog. Setri loved it, and made clear he wanted more by singing a tuneful little 'Eeeeeeeeee. More'. He knows it's called 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight', and he is able to say 'lion', but I thought it was really cute that he asks for the song by singing that first little bit. He very frequently these days asks me to sing the Sesame Street-style song that takes a word and emphasises the first letter. I try and sing it more with letters/sounds Setri doesn't use very much. E.g. for the word 'packet', the song would go "Puh puh-puh-puh-puh -puh-puh-puh-paaack-et (repeats)... Packet is a word that starts with 'P'. Packet!". Nowadays I can barely say anything without Setri asking me to sing that song with whatever word it is that I've just come out with!

Going in the car with Setri is really pretty fun these days. He still calls it 'Lar'... sigh. But he makes 'brrrmbrrrm' noises and shouts 'Go!' whenever we stop at a red light. Then when we explain that the light is red and we have to wait until it turns green he says 'yeah' like he understands and waits a few seconds before shouting 'Go!' again, regardless of whether the light has changed or not.

A couple of days ago I lent him my BlackBerry so he could 'make a phone call' (he still loves to pretend), and I then needed it back briefly to press a button. Setri refused. 'No!' he said, clutching the phone to his chest and looking very sulky. 'Mine now!'. Hehe that reminds me, I have taught him the concept of 'me'. Say to Setri 'who is the cutest boy in the world?' and he grins the cutest grin and says 'Me!'. I don't mind if he's a bit up himself, I'd rather he had an inflated sense of his own awesomeness than wind up a shy perfectionist like me! He seems to get what I'm actually asking, as he mostly answers correctly to 'who'-type questions where the answer might be 'daddy' or 'Feifei' rather than 'me'. I still find myself assuming he is just *saying* something some of the time, but time and time again he demonstrates quite complex understanding of things (more so in this 2nd half of 14months, I think), so more fool us.

Gets cross when I read Playboy and don't keep turning pages to the booooooobs.

Setri had gotten into a puzzling/frustrating habit over the last month or two of pointing at various objects that he didn't know the name of and garbling 'Uh-wuh. Uh-wuh' to indicate he wanted it. He would get quite frustrated when it drew a blank from us. Well we finally figured out what 'uh-wuh' means, and as usual it's us who are the fools, as it makes perfect sense. Uh-wuh = 'other one'. What finally made me cotton on was when Setri wants to swap boobs during a feed he was pulling off and piping up 'uh-wuh', while reaching for the other boob. I twigged that I often ask if he wants the 'other one', and simply asked him if that's what he meant. 'Yeah', he said patiently, sounding somewhat relieved! So, it turns out that 'other one' also applies to things other than the objects he can name. Which is really not a bad way to use the term at all. One other downside is that when he asks for boob and I say no for whatever reason, he figures he has only asked for *one* of my boobs, so he will then ask for the 'uh-wuh'. Oh and when he has already had boob and I tell him "But Setri, you just had some boob a few minutes ago" (he often asks for boob during/after a tantrum), he will reply "More!".

Held out a yellow chopping board to me. I said "Setri, what colour is that chopping board?". "Booo", he said. I shook my head. "What other colour could it be?", I asked. "Yewwow", he replied. He correctly identified and pointed to a green peg without prompting a day or two ago, too (I haven't really bothered 'teaching' green except to point out when I put a green nappy on). [ETA: since then, 'gee' has become one of his default colours. He now randomly points out green objects and says 'gee', and will often reply 'gee!' if we ask 'What colour is that?'... even if it is blue.]

Playing piano, I became aware of Setri fingering the 'a' in the Roland badge stuck to the piano, saying 'Ay... Ay...'. He pointed to the 'a' again straight away when I told Gam about it and he came over to see if I was hallucinating. When I pulled out a book to see if he could reproduce his trick, he completely ignored me.

1 day later he did it again, this time pointing to a capital 'A' when asked, and another day later, pointed to the 'a' on the cover of his 'Beach Book' without hesitation when I asked. I still can't quite believe it, but it seems too reproducible to be a fluke- he hasn't got it wrong once. I asked mum if she had been trying to teach Setri to read and she said no, so we can only guess that perhaps he learned it from Sesame Street? Of course we haven't been trying ourselves, 14 months is too young, right? Looks like our stupid assumptions and low expectations might be the main thing holding our little monster back...

Has learned a new kind of joke. He is still very fond of the 'look at me doing something I know is naughty, am I going to get a reaction?'. But now he has added a new one to his repertoire: *pretending* to do something he knows he's not supposed to do in order to elicit a reaction. Background: Setri knows he's not supposed to eat paper, and these days he generally doesn't. When he does, he generally gets a reaction out of one of us. Mostly when he finds a little piece of paper on the floor he will pick it up, hold it in the air and say 'bin!', and either hand it over to one of us or toddle off to the bin to put it in, if we ask him to.

Last night, Setri found a small piece of paper. He picked it up between thumb and forefinger and waved it in the air for Gam, Mum and I to see. "Is that for the bin, Setri?", my mum asked. "No", said Setri, waving it around once more before bringing it to his mouth with a dramatic flourish and pretending to pop the paper in before dropping his hand by his side and licking and smacking his lips like he'd just eaten it. Because the piece of paper was so small we were nearly fooled, it was only because I was off to the side that I could see he was still clutching it! Because of our initial gasps and cries of 'don't eat it!', Setri continued his little performance with a broad and mischievous grin of satisfaction as he repeatedly brought the paper to his mouth, oh-so-nearly touched the paper to his tongue, made a big show of lip-smacking and then grinned, because by now he was getting positive attention for the fact he was playing a joke on us!

Can answer new kinds of questions. Last month he could answer yes and no questions, 'what-does-that-animal-say' questions and two-choice questions. Now he can answer more complex ones. E.g. 'Where are you going, Setri?' 'Out'. 'And where are you going when you go out, Setri?' 'Mark' (Park). 'What would you like to eat, Setri?'- 'Mai!' (Pie).

He is inconsistently making 'p' and 't' sounds, finally.

He is getting more and more enthusiastic about books. It's not uncommon to have to read the same book several times in a row, or to have to read 5 books without a break. He toddles over, clutching a book and earnestly says 'Boo. Boo'. No-one can refuse!

Has started not just making his toys 'dance dance' but also wave their paws and say 'hello' and 'goodbye'. The 'hello' is something I used to do ages ago, before Setri was really capable of playing with the toys himself. Imagine my surprise when I was sitting next to Setri while he pottered around with his 'Lambie' one day when all of a sudden he started fiddling with Lambie's 'hand' and muttering 'loh... loh...!'. "What's that, Setri?", I asked him. He turned Lambie to face me and started making a more deliberate waving motion with Lambie's fluffy limb. 'Loh', he said again, more emphatically. I still didn't get it, and thought he was trying to tell me that Lambie was doing a 'round round' sign, or something. I almost gave up, then Setri came out with a big frustrated 'el-LOH' and kept waving lambie's hand at me, and I finally got it! Since then, all his bears/lambs/bunnies all say 'loh' and 'bye'. He seems to have cottoned onto the semantic relationship between the two words, as he will quite often make one of the animals say 'loh', wait for one of us to respond, then wave the animal's paw again and say 'bye bye!'. He still won't say hello to most people though, and if I prompt him to he generally fixes the person with a scowl and says 'No!'. He will, however, say hello to cats and dogs... Sigh. (ETA when we had Mum's side of the family over on the evening of Gam's birthday for his and Grandma's 30th and 95th respectively, Setri would not say hello or give kisses, as expected, but he did, surprisingly, take the bear he was given as a present by his Auntie Natty (Natalie) and get the bear to give everyone kisses when asked. And once again he was head over heels for Auntie Natty, it's quite amazing. He even willingly gave her hugs and kisses, and even tried to share his piece of garlic bread with her, which bemused her no end- we had to explain it was because he loved her).

Can walk backwards competently, likes to do funny little hop-steps and dance around.

Has started insisting on being settled by Gam and no-one else. Whether it's at bedtime or waking in the middle of the night, he will call 'daddy' insistently until Gam takes him for a cuddle. If I offer 'mummy cuddles' he will say exasperatedly 'Mumma... *daddy*'. (ETA: a couple of weeks later he has grown out of this and now insists on 'Mumma' to go to sleep).

Pulled out potty from under sink and tried to sit on it, saying 'leeee'. Said 'yeah' when I asked him if he wanted to wee (this was obvious when I took off his nappy). After about 10-15 seconds of sitting on the potty he appeared to be uncomfortable and wanted to get up; I cajoled him into sitting another 15 or so but nothing happened and he was very insistent on getting up; he proceeded to wee on the bathmat, the second time this has happened. He seems to know exactly when he's going to wee, but when asked if he wants to do it in the potty he says 'no' almost every time.(ETA: Since then he has actually been pretty good, but he will wee in the shower in preference to the potty. I did get him to wee in the potty standing up once, but I managed to get wee on his pants, so since then I have just taken them off and let him do it in the shower. If we see him kind of grabbing at the front of his nappy we ask him if he needs to wee. The answer is invariably 'yeah'. Next question is 'would you like to do it in your potty/the shower', to which he will usually reply 'yeah' and we cart him off to the bathroom. When he says 'no', we ask 'do you want to do it in your nappy?' And he says 'yeah'! We really need a bribe that will work consistently. The problem with having a baby who doesn't always say yes to offers of chocolate or sweet things is that they can be very hard to bribe!).

Poo is even worse. If we are in bed in the morning and he needs to poo, he will say 'poo', and confirm 'yeah' when I ask him if he needs to poo, which is good, but he will never agree to do it in the potty. Also, if we are in the kitchen or living room and he heads off for some private time and I ask if he needs to poo he will as often as not say 'no'. Same if he has done one and doesn't want to go to the bathroom for cleanup, he either ignores me or lies very insistently that he hasn't done one (this has been the case for months). I have asked him on a few occasions whether he is going to learn to do his poos in the potty and each time he looks very concerned and says an empahtic 'no!'.

Still has his keen sense of comic timing. Was putting him in car today after shopping, and told him after he was buckled in that we were about to 'Ready, steady, go'. 'Go!' shouted Setri. 'Shall we leave Mummy behind?', Gam asked. I was fervently hoping he'd say no, but a mischievous (some might say evil) grin curled at the corners of his little mouth and he said 'Yeah'. Out of the mouths of babes and all that, I sometimes hope he is just saying yeah or no to something he doesn't understand... But he followed this 'yeah' up a second later with 'Go!' and then his patented evil-baby-henchman scoff like he knew he'd said something Gam would find really funny.

Sent via BlackBerry® from Telstra

Nick Minchin exits politics

2011-06-22T22:41:00.000+10:00

And his proudest achievement in 18 years of drawing a fat salary from the public purse is...

defeating the 'Yes' camp in the referendum on a republic.

FFS. I think we deserve our money back.

Setri at 13 months

2011-06-09T17:14:00.003+10:00

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
========================================

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'!

Setri at 12 months

2011-05-05T21:21:00.001+10:00

Physical:

Not sure how tall he is now, but he must be growing, because he's able to reach things he previously wasn't able to reach. ~12kg.

Now walks about 90% of the time, reverting to crawling when he falls over or gets excited and wants to go very fast (e.g. chasing a cat). He seems to crawl a bit more when tired.

Communication:

He can do even more things on command, including 'throw a tanty', as I discovered after trying to get a photo of him having a tantrum one morning: if not on a nice soft surface like the bed he carefully prostrates himself so as not to bang his head. When I tried to take a photo, the tantrum turned out to be a tokenistic one only a few seconds long, so I said to Setri 'could you throw another tanty for the camera?' And he did it!

Is still expanding his vocabulary, putting more combinations of two words together. He's started occasionally using 'r' sounds, and sometimes says 'rau rau' instead of 'lau lau'. He can say 'ruhruh' for 'run run' (but he can't actually run, yet). Loves naming things and also describing what he's doing. E.g. he might sit on the ground with a bottle or other cylindrical object, and roll it around, saying "roll, roll". Plus his long-established habit of saying 'down' when he plans to get down from somewhere has provided us on many occasions with a crucial few seconds' warning w which to save him from danger. This month he figured out how to make himself go 'round round' by sitting and using his feet to propel himself around, pivoting on his bum, and also how to turn in a circle while standing up (saying "lau lau lau!" with a big, proud grin on his face as he does it).

Another example of communication with Setri at this age: today (29/04) he asked Gam for the kitchen tongs, by gesturing and saying 'rollo' (to get Gam looking in the right direction, as the tongs hang next to the rolling pin), then saying 'no' and pointing to the tongs (which he couldn't say the name for) when Gam asked him if he wanted the rolling pin. A couple of minutes later, I saw Setri signing 'finished' at me, and asked if he was finished with the tongs (we have been working, very successfully, on getting him to hand objects to us when he is finished w them rather than just dropping them on the floor). "Yeah" said Setri, handing me the tongs then following it up with "Buh". "Do you want a brush?", I asked him. "Yeah", he replied. So I got him a silicone pastry brush to play with. He has enough words (and other sounds that we know the meaning of) now that he is nearly always able to communicate what he wants, rather than just pointing or waiting for us to offer him X or Y and then tell us yes or no. It's very handy.

One word of interest in Setri's language development is the word 'sneeze'. Setri's word for sneeze is 'neh', something he just started saying one day when someone sneezed (instead of whimpering in fear or outright bursting into tears). He also has a toy, given to him at 8 weeks of age by his Auntie Cil and Uncle Richard, a garishly coloured dragon named 'Sneezy the Activity Dragon'. Some time in the last month or so, Setri started calling Sneezy 'nehneh'! In the last couple of weeks, 'neh' has evolved to sound like 'nee'. Other times, however, he seems to go a bit backwards with his pronunciation. For a little while it was hard to tell if he was saying 'flower' or 'round' because he would consistently drop the 'uh' off 'lau-uh', and instead say 'lau'.

Sleep:

Sleep has been horrible, awful, terrible. Not so much for him, but us, particularly the time he was sick. He yells and thrashes in the early 'am and is hard to settle. Sometimes he actually wakes up, and demands we do too, but mostly it's him yelling and thrashing while being soundly asleep. Then around 5am he has started demanding to get up (saying 'Up!' And sometimes 'out!'). He talks in his sleep quite a lot, which can be funny, and he also signs in his sleep, which is even funnier. The sad thing is, we had a couple (3, to be precise) of really good nights, including 2 in a row. I got quite hopeful that things were changing with the 2 in a row.

Toilet training milestone

2011-04-24T14:13:00.001+10:00

Today was the first time that Setri used his potty! He kicked up a bigger stink than usual about me putting a nappy on him, and so I asked him "Do you want to do a wee in your potty?", and he said "yeah". I figured he was just trying to get out of having a nappy on, but I took him to the bathroom, he willingly sat on his potty, and did a wee! I am so proud. We made sure to give him lots of praise.

The potty was the stupidly large one clearly not made for a kid younger than about 3, so I had to hold him up so his bottom didn't fall in. That's going to be a bit annoying for us both. Even the slightly smaller one we have (that wasn't handy at the time) is likely going to be too big for quite a while.

I'm not sure if Setri decided to use the potty because I spent quite a bit of time telling him this morning that he was only allowed to touch the toilet paper once he was doing his wees and poos in the potty (he tries to get to the toilet paper every time he's in the bathroom, chanting "Lau lau" (round round), with the aim of making it spin on the holder). He does seem to know when he needs to go, because he often waits before coming out of the shower so he can do a wee in there, and sometimes even goes back into the shower after he has come out just so he can do a wee.... I was even a little worried that he might train himself to only go in the shower! He still isn't toilet trained, though, because he weed in a nappy an hour or two after using the potty, but I figure this is one more step forward :)

Setri's vocabulary at 12 months

2011-04-14T22:37:00.001+10:00

It struck me just now that it's very odd that Setri has all these words, yet he isn't yet saying 'bye bye' (which we use a lot)... he just waves! This isn't an exhaustive list. I've tried, but not only am I sleep deprived, he uses a lot of 'words'... I'm sure I'll think of more, but this is a good snapshot of where Setri's vocabulary is at 1 year of age. He doesn't always use his words in the most sophisticated way. Until a couple of weeks ago, for example, his first resort was to always point at an object he wanted and say 'more' to indicate that he wanted it. Even now he rarely uses the word 'want' ("Wan'"), and when he does, it's usually to say something like "Bubbuhw. Wan' more", rather than "Wan' bubbuhw'. He's more likely still to just say "More. More bubbuhw".

People:

Mama
Daddy
Nan-ma/Mam-ma (Grandma)
Vfeh-Vfeh (Feifei, Xiaoxiao)
Ba(d)ba(d) = Bad Chicken (one of our 2 chickens)
Rover (Grover from Sesame Street)
Elmo (from Sesame Street)
My-muh (Jemima the doll from Playschool)
Bubba (as often as not, 'babeh' these days)

Body parts:

Beh-buh (belly button, also now penis and nipples referred to as beh-buh, despite our best efforts. He once said 'nih-nih' for nipples when we corrected him, but then went back to calling them 'belly button' again!)
Boob
Ear
Eye-lath
Eye-bra
Lair (hair)
Mole
Oh (toe)

Bodily functions:

Barp (burp)
Neh (sneeze- he made this one up himself and now says it any time someone sneezes)
Var (fart)

Vehicles/machines:

Bye/Moh-bye (bike, motor-bike)
Buh (bus)
Dig-dig (digger)
Lawnmower
Van

Descriptive/instructive/verbs:

Ba-ba (with an 'a' sound slightly less nasal than the one he uses for 'bin'... pretty much like the 'a' sound in 'bang-bang', which is what he's trying to say)
Boo (blue)
Dair (there)
Dah dah (dance dance- I *think* he also says 'dah-di' for 'dancing')
Dat (that)
Dot-dot (dot
Dow/down (down)
Duck (stuck)
Lau-lau (round round)
Mammack (smack smack- he thinks it's a game to wave his bottom in the air and have it 'smacked'- you can tell he's not a child who's been spanked!)
More
No (no)
Oh' ('O' as in 'open', followed by a strange glottal stop)
Ow (out)
Uh (up)
Wan' (want)
Yeah (yeah/yes)

Animals:

Bar (bear)
Ber (bird)
Buhbuh (butterfly)
Dog
Duck (duck)
'Og (frog)

Food:

Ba-ba (basil, also pesto, probably because my mum refers to it as 'basil')
Bro' (with some kind of glottal stop rather than an actual 'ck' sound)(broccoli)
Deet (date)
Dew (juice)
Dough (dough, pastry, also the KitchenAid that makes the dough)
Lala (lasagne)
Lehleh (lemon, lettuce and other leafy greens)
Main (pronounced like the French word) = mint
Muh-muh (mushroom)
Nah-nuh (banana)
Nehneh (nectarine, or peaches/plums/any stonefruit vaguely resembling nectarine)
Poon (prune)

Other objects

Bain (pronounced like the French for 'bath')(bin)
Bohboh (with the 'o' sounding like the 'o' in 'bother')(bottle)
Boo' (book, without the 'k' sound)
Boo/Uh-boo (boot/ugg-boot)
Bowl (bowls, small buckets, large cups)
Bra
Broo (broom)
Bruh (brush)
Bubbuhw (bubble)
Buh (button)
Dirt
Dot-dot (dot)
Door
Lau/Lau-uh (flower)
Lah-le (glasses,sunglasses)
Laht (light)
Lollo (wallet)
Na-na (nappy)
Nano (piano)
Nin-na (ninja)
'Owel (towel)
'Ower (shower)
Pboo (spoon)
Weh-bah (wheelbarrow)

The birth of Setriakor: Epilogue

2011-04-11T21:16:00.002+10:00

That first night home, I had my first proper night's sleep in a week, even though I slept lightly with Setri asleep in the bed next to me. Gam changed nappies and brought me water when I needed it. Looking after Setri at home was exactly as we had imagined. Except for the part where I cried every time I left him alone in our room. And every time I remembered the hospital stay. And every time I thought about putting him down. Gam would often be distressed to find me sitting on the couch with Setri in my arms and tears rolling down my cheeks for what seemed like no good reason at all.

After arriving home it took Setri another 36 hours of crying and discomfort to poo for the first time since his second day of life. The combination of nil-by-mouth and antibiotics had really messed with his digestive system. Another strike against the Special Care Registrars and their overly interventionist approach, as far as we were concerned.

Aside from that, everything appeared fine. From the minute we arrived home, Setri seemed infinitely more relaxed. He never had to scream for a feed because we were right there to see if he was hungry. He could be held whenever he needed it (which seemed to be all the time, but I didn't mind). We brought Setri back to the hospital at 6 days old for my Birth Centre follow-up, although I hated going back to the RBWH. Gam reassured me it was ok, we didn't have to stay there this time.

Karen, the midwife who delivered Setri, must have had an inkling of how we were feeling: she gave us brochures on how to complain. We had already taken some from the hospital, but we gratefully accepted these as a gesture of recognition that not all was right with our treatment there. Karen also gave us a disposable nappy- Setri had pooed when we arrived and we had changed his nappy. Problem was, we made the classic rookie mistake of only bringing one spare nappy. How many times could a baby poo during a half-hour visit, after all? However many spare nappies you have in your possession, plus one! He had put on weight though. I was so relieved, still fearful the hospital would find an excuse to take him back.

Gam told her how the registrar who came to my room on the second night had told me that she had been there at Setri's birth, that there was a lot of meconium in the waters and that he was 'in a bad way' and had vomited after the birth. Karen seemed shocked. Absolutely not, she told us. I had the lowest grade of meconium staining in my waters, and Setri was absolutely fine- as healthy as any baby could hope to be immediately after the birth. He had certainly not vomited. Karen asked me, a little apprehensively, if I had any issues with the care I had received through the Birth Centre. “No. You guys were fantastic”, I said without hesitation. Relieved, she gave me a hug and we said goodbye.

Four weeks after Setri's birth we had a group of friends over to breakfast at our house, the first time we had seen them since the birth. I tried to recount an abbreviated version of our stay in hospital to my friend Nicole. I thought enough time had passed that I would be able to at least manage that, but I started crying and couldn't finish.

We skipped an appointment that the Special Care Nursery had made for Setri with the doctor supposedly in charge of his care. Setri was healthy. If they were looking for reasons to justify his hospitalisation they wouldn't have found a single one. No way were we taking him back there.

Exactly 8 weeks after Setri's birth I noticed an increase in my bleeding, after it having previously nearly stopped. That night, around 9pm, I passed a couple of golf ball-sized clots. Risk of haemorrhage. I phoned the hospital and had my midwife on duty paged as per the instructions in my postnatal care information. Annie called back. I should go to the hospital right away, she said, detailing what I should look out for and the steps I should take if I started haemorrhaging. It sounded fairly straightforward, as long as I didn't haemorrhage. If that happened, it sounded like I would be dead before I reached the hospital. Chances were I just needed to be checked by a doctor, then I could go home. Actually, I'm not sure whether she said I could go home, or if that's what I told myself. I thanked Annie for her help. When I relayed the news to Gam my voice shook and I started to cry. “I have to go back to the hospital. I don't want to go back”.

Gam did his best to reassure me. I convinced myself that it was just a formality. The doctor would tell me I was ok and then we could go home.

The roads to the hospital were almost empty- it was a public holiday. We parked in the 'community vehicles' spot right out the front of the hospital. Inside, I had been instructed to go to the reception desk at the Birth Centre; from there I was directed to a waiting room that had obviously been closed for the night. It was locked, dark inside. There were no chairs outside, so I sat on the floor while Gam went back to the reception desk to ask where to go.

Eventually we were directed down a hallway past the Birth Suites in the regular maternity part of the hospital. I had walked down that hallway in labour, wrapped in a sheet, but my memory was hazy. “It was right about here that you had a contraction”, Gam said. I had hung onto the wooden handrail for support. “There were people looking at you, so I wrapped my arms around you and glared at them.”

We reached the small room we had been directed to. Setri needed a feed so I sat in a chair to feed him. The nurse arrived, then left while Setri finished feeding. Immediately afterward, he pooed, and it leaked out of his nappy and onto his jumpsuit. Ugh. Trust it to happen while we were out of the house. At least we were prepared this time: we had brought 2 spare nappies and a change of clothes. The nurse returned. Gam took Setri away to find changing room facilities. I was asked to lie on the bed by a nurse, who took down details of my problem bleeding. There were basically two possibilities: a postpartum infection or some retained placenta. I suspected the latter- when my midwife Karen put traction on Setri's umbilical cord after the birth, the placenta appeared to be torn. Karen had assured me it was all there, but the second she had pulled on the cord I felt it was wrong- she had stopped when I had asked and the placenta was expelled by my body a minute later- and now I felt that my fear at the time had been confirmed. I didn't say so. Instead I told her I hadn't passed any clots since 9pm and I was sure the bleeding was subsiding. I hadn't any symptoms of infection- no elevated temperature, no foul odour.

The nurse looked at the maternity pad I was wearing. It looked like a moderate amount of blood, she said, but I should go to the toilet and change my pad and also give her a urine sample while I was at it. The instructions were to wipe away all the blood with a sterile tissue she gave me, presumably to keep the sample clear of blood.

The toilet was quite a way down the corridor. In the end I just did the best I could to wipe away the blood. It just kept coming. I had awful trouble providing a urine sample, as I had made sure to visit the bathroom before we left for the hospital, but I managed what seemed like just enough. I changed my pad, flushed the toilet and pulled up my pants. As I started to walk away from the toilet I felt an odd, warm feeling between my legs, and knew I was about to pass another clot.

Shit. If they found out about this they would try to keep me in the hospital. I quickly pulled down my pants and hovered over the toilet seat as another dark red, golf-ball sized clot fell out of me. I knew that up to this point Gam was supportive of me deciding whether or not to stay overnight in the hospital, but this could well be the tipping point where he would be so worried for my safety that he would urge me to stay. I knew I was at risk of a haemorrhage but decided to lie and tell the nurse that the bleeding had subsided.

The nurse knocked on the bathroom door. I had been gone a while, was I ok? Just finishing up, I told her.

“You were gone a long time”, said Gam. “I had trouble peeing enough for the urine sample”, I said. Well, that was true. Setri had pooed again while I was gone, and Gam had changed him again.

The gynaecological registrar came by to examine me. She seemed to be favouring a diagnosis of infection rather than retained placenta. She wanted to keep me in hospital overnight, she said. I told her I was very keen to avoid it, if possible. How many women get a postpartum infection?, I asked. Something like 5 percent, she told me. She would be back soon. She wanted to do an internal examination. Not something I felt like, but it would have been silly to refuse. Registrar and nurse left the room together

“One more reason to never do this again.” said Gam. “What do you mean?”, I asked. “No. More. Kids. Look at all the things that have gone wrong”, he said. “First the Special Care Nursery, where I had to go home without you and Setri for almost a whole week, then the mastitis, and now some horrible infection where you might bleed to death at any minute. I'm getting the snip as soon as I can.”

I started crying. I knew that Gam wasn't likely to be keen on having more kids anyway, but it felt horrible that the misfortunes that had befallen us would influence his decision. Especially our experience with those bastard Special Care doctors meant that I might never have another baby as a result of Gam being traumatised by the experience. And the reference to the mastitis bothered me, because I felt like I was being blamed for something else that wasn't my fault. As for tonight's events, I knew where Gam was coming from. It had crossed his mind that I could die. To him, nothing was worth that, not even Setri, let alone risking something like this again- possibly with worse consequences- for some non-existent future baby. At the same time, I almost felt that I was being punished for it if it factored into Gam refusing something I wanted. No way was that his intention, I knew, but it still hurt. Besides, could there possibly be a worse time to bring this up? I sniffed and wiped away tears.

Gam seemed surprised and ever-so-slightly irritated that I had suddenly gotten so emotional, but also appeared to realise that perhaps this wasn't the best time to talk about ruling out more kids. He apologised and handed me some tissues.

The nurse returned. I quizzed her on the likelihood of infection, puzzled that the doctor seemed to think it the most likely diagnosis. How many infections presented with no temperature? No foul-smelling discharge? Almost none, she told me. Pressed for a figure, she said 99.9% would have one or both symptoms. I had neither. I was relieved.

The registrar returned to conduct an internal examination. She explained that it would be just like a pap smear, she would use a speculum and take some swabs from around my cervix, plus take a look at it with a little light. It might be a bit uncomfortable, she said.

Although the clear plastic speculum was lubricated with some kind of gel, it was quite uncomfortable when inserted. I gritted my teeth for the swabs but they weren't too bad. Then the registrar said “There's another clot working its way out through the cervix. Let me just...”. And with that, she inserted a crochet-hook-like implement into my vagina and, after a moment's work, hauled out another clot, which the nurse promptly wiped away. A concerned look crossed the doctor's face. “I'd keep you in”, she said.

Why did there have to be another clot? How many more would there be? Just how much risk was there if I refused to stay? On the one hand I wanted to avoid the hospital at almost any cost. On the other hand, I had only been Setri's mother for 8 weeks, and I didn't want to die now. I wanted to be his mother for a lot longer. At least until he could remember me, and know how much I loved him. And Gam. I pictured Gam raising Setri on his own, and felt distraught. I would rather stay in the hospital than have that happen. On the other hand, if I stayed in the hospital they might take Setri away again? What if another midwife decided that he was breathing too fast and the whole thing happened again? Panicking internally at the thought, I asked what the risk was of a haemorrhage.

Without answering my question directly, the registrar stated how quickly a woman can bleed out during a postpartum haemorrhage. Often too quickly for an ambulance to arrive. “8 weeks is pretty much exactly the time that we'd expect to see problems”, she told me. “I'd rather have you in the hospital where if something goes wrong we can get you help quickly. You can have your baby right with you in the room”, she said. Experience told me better than to believe that. She didn't know what could go wrong- I did. The memory of escaping from hospital with Setri was still fresh. I looked desperately at Gam, whose gaze told me that he knew exactly what I was thinking, and the same thing had gone through his mind. I'd need an ultrasound to determine whether there were any pieces of retained placenta, she said. If I stayed overnight, as an inpatient I would have priority in the queue and could have that ultrasound in the morning. If I went home, I would have to return to the hospital the next day and have the ultrasound as an outpatient, and likely have to wait several hours for it.

That made no sense. If I was really at risk of bleeding to death, shouldn't the degree of seriousness of my condition dictate my position in the queue, not whether I was a damn inpatient? I was being asked to spend a night in hospital, risking going through again what we had been put through after Setri's birth, to avoid a few hours waiting in line for an ultrasound the next day? That sealed my decision. I wanted to go home.

There was only a very small risk I would die, I told myself. I didn't feel particularly reassured.

The registrar looked unhappy. I would have to sign some forms, she told me. I was going to be discharging myself against medical advice. Was I sure?

I wanted to be safe. I wanted to stay, just in case the worst happened. I wasn't delusional. I knew the worst thing that could happen was that I might die. That was far worse than one more night away from Gam. Worse even than Setri being taken away again. But the risk of haemorrhage, despite being greatly increased, seemed smaller than the risk of suffering another night away from Gam. Another night of harassment, another night where someone might decide that Setri's breathing was a little funny, where I would be relentlessly pestered to give him up to the Special Care Nursery for 'observation'. I had failed Setri once and released him to those people, and look what happened. I didn't trust myself not to let it happen again. I probably wasn't going to bleed out at home, I told myself. It was a horrific thought, but the risk was actually very small. They were just being careful, that's all.

I signed the forms, the same forms we had insisted we had wanted to sign to get Setri out of hospital when there was absolutely nothing wrong with him. Gam and I marvelled at how hard we had had to fight to get Setri discharged, yet here I was with a condition that made both of us fearful for my survival, and the forms were handed over with no fuss at all.

I gave them to the nurse. She then went over some symptoms I should look out for. When we should jump into the car and hurry to the hospital; when we should call an ambulance. She seemed genuinely worried about me, surprisingly so. It did give me pause for thought. I knew my decision was questionable, I just hoped I wasn't one of the unlucky ones.

In the car on the way home, in the dark, I quietly shed a few tears, hoping Gam wouldn't notice. I was afraid of not making it through the night. I could tell Gam was deeply worried too. Setri slept.

Back home, Gam left the car and the garage unlocked, in case he had to get me to hospital in a hurry. We would go to the Mater if something happened, he said, he could get there quicker than if we had to wait for an ambulance.

I did wake up the next day. We waited 5 hours at the hospital for an ultrasound. A few days later I received a phonecall letting me know that the results, as well as those of the blood tests, were clear. No infection, and no retained placenta. It was likely that there had been some pieces of the placenta retained but the clots I passed had been the last of it.

We weren't tested like that again, but it was another month or so before I attempted to recount even an abbreviated version of our hospital stay to another person. By that time I could put Setri down on his own without recalling our forced separation and crying.

The raw trauma faded but I was, and am, still angry. The first 5 days of Setri's life were stolen from him, and from us. Not for a legitimate reason. It was not just that no-one listened. It was not just the unprofessional behaviour, the harassment, disrespect and unwarranted, illegitimate threats from registrars on that second, awful night in hospital. It was not just the fact that medical interventions were conducted on Setri without our knowledge or our consent. Not just the fact that they put him nil-by-mouth without a good medical reason for doing so, depriving him of crucial colostrum in those first early days of life. Not just the way they completely failed to provide me with breastfeeding support just as my milk was coming in. Not just the way we were blackmailed into agreeing to a nasogastric tube when it was implied that Setri was becoming malnourished and it would be our fault if his health were affected. Not just the fact that if they had managed to do that, Setri would undoubtedly have been made a lot sicker and hospitalised a lot longer thanks to their stupid, medically unnecessary intervention. Not just any one of those things, which I think on their own would be plenty to get angry about. All of it. I'm angry about all of it. I think about all I have to be grateful for, and it's a heck of a lot. For 5 days we were living cheek by jowl with people whose lives would be changed for the worse to an unimaginable degree, helped through the experience by the same doctors who had caused us so much trouble. But that doesn't take away from the fact that what happened to us was wrong, and it was someone's fault, and it could have been prevented.

I'm reading over this on the eve of Setri's first birthday. I wrote the last parts of Setri's birth story 6 months ago. I had thought a lot of the stronger emotions I had about this experience had faded, and I suppose to a degree they have. But when I started preparing for my return to work, and had to attend a course at UQ Library's Herston branch, I was reminded of the only other time I had been to the library, which was at the same time I first encountered the Special Care Nursery. I was pregnant at the time and never once imagined that I would be there again in a non-professional context. Just the prospect of having to go to that library, had me feeling anxious and sick all week leading up to the course. I was relieved when I saw didn't have to walk past the front door of the Ned Hanlon building after getting off the bus.

We always intended to send off an official complaint about our experience, and we've had it ready to go for months without actually getting around to sending it. Gam is sending it off tonight. I just want to get this all out there and off my chest before Setri's first birthday tomorrow so I can let it be Setri's day, the anniversary of the arrival of our beautiful little guy, instead of the anniversary of a time that was supposed to be joyous but was instead turned into a horrible experience. We don't get to have that time over again.
.

The birth of Setriakor: day 6.

2011-04-11T21:15:00.002+10:00

In the morning we packed up our things so we could be ready to leave as soon as we had arranged Setri's discharge. As had become practice, we discussed strategy in case roadblocks were again thrown in our way.

We stayed in the Special Care Nursery from an early hour after asking to see a doctor. We expected to have to fight for an early discharge against medical advice. Instead we were informed by a nurse that she would be arranging discharge and that after being seen by the registrar on duty and being given his hearing check, we would be on our way. “Huh. Well that can only be a good thing,” I said to Gam.

Setri had a feed and we waited. People came and went; the doctors did their morning rounds in a whirl, spending all of about 10 seconds in the nursery, apparently without so much of a glance at Setri. It wouldn't have surprised us to learn that that was the full extent of the attention they paid to him throughout his stay, such was the magnitude of their mistake in keeping him in Special Care for 5 nights.

A blood test nurse came by. One more heel prick test to ensure Setri's jaundice was subsiding, she said. It seemed pretty obvious that it was, especially since he had been tested 2 days prior and we were told bilirubin levels were within normal range, and his minimal jaundice had only diminished since he started feeding again. After the ordeal of the last tests, where one nurse had had to hold Setri down in the isolette to stop him from army-crawling away while another nurse tried repeatedly to get blood from his heel, Setri screaming all the while, we feared the worst. This nurse surprised us by taking her time. She swapped the newborn heelprick needle for a larger one more suited to Setri's enormous size and spent a number of minutes patiently squeezing tiny drop after tiny drop from Setri's reluctant heel. Setri was uncomfortable but not traumatised, and we were grateful.

The hearing test nurse stopped by with a trolley. My stomach twisted itself in knots. She was wearing a cheery purple shirt and not her midwife's uniform, but I recognised her instantly as the midwife who had caused me so much trouble on my second night in hospital, bringing the registrars who had alternately confused me with another patient, treated me scornfully and threatened to remove Setri from my care. She stopped to announce her presence to the nurse on duty and I pointed her out to Gam. “That's the one”. “Are you alright?”, he asked. I didn't feel alright. I felt sick and scared all over again. “I'll be ok, I said.”

She recognised me too. She greeted me cheerfully, but it was obvious that there was some strain. I was there because of her. Setri was there because of her. Setri fed, was quiet and passed the test. She told us about her sons. Don't believe anyone who tells you that boys are trouble, she said. Hers were good boys who had never caused her any trouble. Trying to find common ground. “I hope you don't hold anything against me for the other night”, she said before she left. “I hope you don't hold anything against me”. I did. I couldn't help it. I was swelling with resentment. If it hadn't been for her, I could have gone home. At the same time I knew she had been acting on legitimate concerns and followed them up appropriately, if somewhat overzealously. It was the doctors who were responsible for keeping us there, not her. I shook my head. “You were just doing your job”.

We waited some more.

The registrar- a fit, good-looking Scandinavian import whose appearance made me feel even more conscious of my bloated, pale body, dark under-eye circles and unkempt appearance- came by while Setri was having a feed. Oh she couldn't possibly do the requisite checks now, she said, he would get too agitated. She would come back shortly.

We waited. A couple of hours passed. We didn't dare leave in case the registrar came back. We took turns going to the bathroom. We grew impatient. We chatted with the nice nurses on duty. One- it was her first day in Special Care- was a lactation consultant. I wondered what she would have made of the registrars arbitrarily placing Setri nil-by-mouth and then failing to give me any breastfeeding support. She offered advice if I needed it, but noted that Setri was feeding well.

Gam changed Setri's wet nappy. Setri still hadn't pooed. We felt safe enough with the nurse on duty to ask: When should we be worried? It had been 3 days. If he hadn't pooed within 48 hours, she said, bring him back to hospital. Not to this one, Gam muttered to me. Setri was never coming back to Special Care.

How long until Setri's bellybutton stump fell off?, we asked the nurse. It looked pretty dried out to us. “Oh probably another 5 days at least,” she said. 10 minutes later, the stump and its plastic clip fell off. We showed the surprised nurse. I told Gam that I had read that some people keep it as a memento, along with keepsakes such as a lock of the baby's hair, or first teeth. We agreed that was pretty gross, but neither of us could make the first move to throw out the stump. Gam stowed it in my bag, as we joked that we'd probably find it in a few months' time being batted around by one of the cats, covered in lint.

More time passed. We grew annoyed. It was now after lunch time. Neither of us had even had breakfast, let alone lunch. Even my 'comfortable' chair was now causing me pain, but I didn't yet have the strength for taking walks just to stretch my legs. Gam went looking for the registrar but couldn't find her. I overheard the nurses talking about how full the Special Care Nursery now was. Was that why Setri was being discharged? It was Saturday- as far as we had been informed, he was supposed to be released on Monday. No-one had given us a reason for the sudden change of plans, and we didn't dare ask in case we somehow jinxed things. The symptom for which he had been hospitalised, the fast breathing, was still present. Somehow they had abandoned the idea that he was about to drop dead, without explaining why they had suddenly changed their minds.

Eventually the registrar came back. Setri was still breathing somewhat fast but passed all the health checks except one. The registrar couldn't find a pulse in his femoral artery. She tried and she tried, and still couldn't find one. Was it really necessary? We asked. Clearly he had a pulse- he was alive, wasn't he? She was insistent that it had to be done. She went away, came back. Gam and I gritted our teeth After 20 minutes she finally found the pulse she was looking for and we were free to go, just like that.

“I have been inside this building for nearly a week”, I said to Gam as we approached the front door of the hospital building. “And I had to go out this door every night without you and Setri”, he said. I tried to imagine what that must have felt like. How on earth could things have gone so wrong when a perfect birth had produced such a healthy baby?

Outside, I blinked in the bright sunlight. The weather had turned from unseasonably warm remnants of summer when I went into labour to cold Autumn while I was inside, and I hadn't packed a jacket. I felt I'd had a taste of what it was like to be released from prison.

The birth of Setriakor: Day 5

2011-04-11T21:14:00.000+10:00

Gam arrived early. I was feeding Setri again, and he came straight to Special Care. We wanted to speak to the doctors as early as possible and get underway our plan to discharge Setri against medical advice. We knew now that the doctors would make it as difficult as possible and it would likely take until the afternoon before we could take Setri home.

Gam was worried as to how I was holding up, having been woken every 2 hours to feed Setri. He was not to worry, I told him, I was feeling wonderful. He had stood up for me, he had fought for Setri, and Setri had spent the night getting cuddles and the breast milk he needed every 2 hours. I was still on cloud nine.

Gam was not so well-off, having again barely slept. He was looking fairly haggard. I was glad today was to be our last day. We put word in early that we wanted to speak to the registrar on duty about discharging Setri. We had no plan to wait for any damn meeting, rounds by the doctors or any other nonsense.

After feeding Setri we headed out of Special Care and ran into the young aboriginal couple whose tiny, pom-pom haired daughter was also in Special Care. We exchanged greetings. They were here rather early, Gam mentioned. Yes, the young guy affirmed. They were no longer staying with an Auntie 40 minutes away from the hospital, they were staying in a special room at the hospital. It was really good, he said, their daughter stayed in the room with them and the hospital was just making sure that their daughter continued to put on weight for a couple of days in their care and they would be allowed to go home.

How did they get this room?, Gam asked. The young guy wasn't sure. Someone approached them, he said. If you wanted to stay there otherwise you had to apply. It usually took a couple of days, as far as he was aware. Never mind, said Gam, it sounded good but we were planning on getting out of there sooner than that. We said our goodbyes. Why hadn't anyone told us about this option, we wondered, so we could be together? I was alone. Gam was spending nights home alone on the couch, too upset to sleep in our bedroom. Setri was in Special Care, clearly stressed by the separation, and Gam was driving anywhere from 20-40 minutes each way from the hospital depending on the time of day, and spending $24 a day on parking. More any time he went home to cook and bring me a decent dinner. Setri wasn't sick, he could easily have been in a room with us and checked up on by the hospital staff if they were so damn worried, still convinced his life was in danger. To say we felt a bit miffed would be to greatly understate things.

The friendly, red-haired registrar from the day before stopped by my ward to see us. Before we could tell her that we wanted Setri out of there, she made an announcement. She had a proposal, she said. They were still no closer to a diagnosis and Setri's breathing was still a little high- in the 70s rather than the 40-60 per minute considered normal. They wanted to keep Setri in hospital. We knew that, and didn't care what they wanted. But we let her speak her piece.

Rather than have me stay in the ward, there was a special room right next to Special Care, she told us- that must be the unit we had just learned about!

I would be allowed to stay there for one night, and then Gam could join me the next night. That way, rather than having to walk the long walk from the gynaecology ward to Special Care every 2 hours at night, I would have to walk only a short distance down the corridor. They would call me every 2 hours or when Setri woke for a feed. On the second night, with Gam staying there, the same thing would happen. On the third night Setri could stay in the room with us and staff would check up on him. This might occur on the second night if all went well. The maximum number of nights we could stay in the unit was three. On Monday- one full week after Setri's birth- we would be discharged. Was that acceptable to us?

Gam and I looked at each other. We had finally been given a discharge date. We knew Setri didn't need to be in hospital and we didn't want or intend for him and me to be there until Monday. However, this was a way out without conflict, without looking like we were doing the wrong thing, going against doctors' orders. A way out without looking like the bad parents we had been painted by some of the registrars to be. We agreed without hesitation.

The registrar would sort it out then, she told us. We were to see a certain nurse in charge of admissions to that unit in the afternoon; meanwhile she would arrange my discharge from Maternity this very morning.

As soon as she had left, Gam and I both said what we had been thinking. First, there was no way we would stay for 2 more nights. One night in the unit would provide a path to exit that met the Special Care registrars halfway. We could handle that. Secondly, although we were very happy about this turn of events we both had a couple of questions in mind- why on earth would I have to stay there on my own the first night? Why would we have to be separated for yet another night when the room was equipped for couples? That seemed arbitrary and cruel after everything we had been through. As for us staying together with Setri in the unit for one more night, if they weren't going to be monitoring him overnight, what was the aim of it? It seemed as if they were trying to test us, to see if I was capable of looking after Setri on my own. What was going to stop Gam staying there with me anyway? Surely they weren't going to police visitors for that room like they did for the wards? And why 3 nights? After all, Setri had been in hospital for 4 nights without dying, they still hadn't come up with a diagnosis. What made them think something was likely enough to happen in the next 2 nights that they had to keep him in hospital?

“You should just stay with me in the unit tonight regardless”, I told Gam. We messaged Mum and Dad to let them know we wouldn't be coming home today after all and to visit us at the hospital.

I was eating homemade porridge that Gam brought in for me when the discharge nurse arrived to see me. She saw I was eating and said she would come back shortly. Mum and Dad arrived in good spirits. We told them what was happening and that we would only be there for one more night. Both Gam and I hid our feelings of trepidation at saying out loud that we would be there only one more night. We had said it so many times since Setri was born, and each time events had conspired to keep us there.

Something I withheld even from Gam was that I was starting to feel institutionalised. I had not left the building even once since I arrived 5 days ago. It was bad enough to leave Setri and go to another part of the building to eat, sleep or go to the toilet. It hadn't occurred to me to step outside, not without Setri. I was becoming afraid of going home. It was a stupid fear, I knew it, and I worried it would upset Gam. But I still didn't really know how to look after a baby. 4 days had passed in which I was not allowed by the hospital to learn how to care for my baby. Setri was 4 days old and I still didn't really even know how to change a nappy. Here, the cleaning was done every day. The food was shit, but it arrived at the same time every day. If my sheets needed changing they would be changed. It was nonsense, of course. I wasn't happy, and I wasn't comfortable. I was horribly sleep-deprived. Anything I needed at home, Gam would provide. But we weren't a smooth-running machine like the hospital. As clinical, unreasonable, inhuman as the treatment of Setri and I had been, it was predictable, familiar. Somehow I was becoming afraid to leave. It was an odd feeling.

The discharge nurse came back as I finished my porridge. After making sure I didn't mind her conducting the requisite health checks in their presence, I lay on the bed while she palpated my mushy-feeling abdomen to check that my uterus was shrinking properly, and asked about bleeding and pain. Everything checked out, I signed my discharge forms and we carried our bags down to the Special Care Nursery level. It was still too early to check in there, so after leaving them outside the unit we all went again to visit Setri, familiar now with the pathetic rigmarole of having to take turns for one of us stand outside the nursery in the hallway because even a baby's own mother and father counted as visitors. It still grated on me that this was just one more thing we never would have had to do if the hospital had done the right thing and allowed us to take Setri home. I was seething with resentment, yet still anxious that they would find a way to prevent us from taking him home.

One thing that still worried us was that Setri had lost so much weight. Of course this was due to the fact that the registrar had arbitrarily placed him on nil-by-mouth for over 36 hours before we had the guts to feed him against their orders, but they weren't about to take that into account. A Special Care nurse informed us that if he lost more than 10% of his body weight it was policy to keep him in hospital. Even though it was the fault of the doctors that he'd lost so much weight in the first place, Gam and I said to each other. The nurse reassured us that she had weighed him and he had 'only' lost about 8% of his body weight. It would start to pick up now that he was feeding again, she said kindly. He now weighed under 5kg, 440g down from his birth weight.

Setri was still feeding with great vigour; those damn wires attached to him notwithstanding. The cannula in his hand had caused him great irritation from the start, but it was my mum, a former nurse, who first noticed that something had gone wrong.

“His hand looks a bit swollen”, she said. It did. He also seemed uncomfortable when it was touched. “I think the cannula's come out”, Mum said, “See that redness further up his arm?”. We flagged down the nurse, who removed the dressing that held the cannula in place. It was horrible- Setri's arm and hand were swollen and bright red, obviously sore and sensitive, judging by Setri's reaction to having it handled. It wasn't an infection, but the cannula site had blocked up and the glucose drip that they had not taken out in spite of the fact that Setri was now breastfeeding again had been feeding into his arm rather than a vein. “That's pretty red,” said Mum. “Looks like it's been like that for a while.”

The nurse bustled about, removing the cannula and dressing from Setri's arm. From what she told us, it wasn't a surprise that this had occurred. The cannula site was getting old. They had flushed it early that morning, the doctors wanting to keep the site open (god knows why- this made us mad. What else did those people have in store for him?) but not wanting to recannulate him at a new site for the obvious reason that he was now no longer nil-by-mouth and didn't really need it. “We want this out, we do not want him recannulated,” Gam said, noting that it had been done the first time around without our permission. Chances were he didn't need to say it- they probably would not have recannulated Setri, but who could blame him for feeling the need to iterate it so strongly, after everything that had happened?

“One more thing that wouldn't have happened but for the Special Care Nursery”, I said bitterly, upset all over again as I looked at Setri's little arm, swollen and red. “This is an actual injury”, said Gam. It looked painful. We were angry. None of this should have happened. None of it. We shouldn't have been there. We were effectively forced into this situation and now our baby was in pain once again as a result of unnecessary medical intervention. On its own it might have seemed minor, but to us it was just the latest in a long string of insults. At least he had his preferred sucking hand back- the dressing and the cannula had prevented him from self-soothing in his preferred manner, part of the reason it had appeared to annoy him so much in the first place.

“Don't worry, we'll get you out of this place soon”, Gam said to Setri.

It was around this time that one of the nurses enquired about Setri's bowel movements during the short time he had spent outside the Special Care Nursery. “Normal”, I told her. He had pooed meconium on his second night in hospital while in the maternity ward with me, and had pooed at least once prior to that on his first day in Special Care. Why? Setri hadn't passed a bowel movement since being put nil-by-mouth when he was less than 2 days old, she told us. That was normal, given his treatment, but it was something they had to monitor. If he didn't poo soon it could indicate trouble. If he didn't poo, would it mean they would keep him in hospital?, we asked. It could, she said. “Great”, said Gam. “One more thing to worry about.” One more potential health problem that was the fault of the hospital. The registrar had placed Setri nil-by-mouth when he was only 1 day old, and it was 36 hours before we told them to go to hell and fed him anyway. That meant he missed most of the colostrum I produced- colostrum designed to clear out his gastrointestinal tract. One more reason to be angry.

It was not long after lunch time when we moved our stuff into the special parents' unit. It was set up like a cheap motel room and had a double bed. No reassuringly sterile hospital linens here, though- the bedclothes looked worn and had seen better days. The room was clean enough, but still a bit scungy. Quite a lot scungy compared with the hospital environment I'd become used to, really. There was a folding change-table for parents whose babies were allowed to stay with them. It looked dangerously flimsy.

Even worse was the bathroom. It was a shared bathroom, with a door on either side leading from both the parents' units, and a special locking system explained to us by the admitting nurse. Sharing wasn't the problem. I'd been sharing a bathroom with at least one person right from the very beginning. The bathroom was dirty. As in it hadn't had more than a perfunctory cleaning in a long time. The toilet-roll holder had been pulled away from the wall and the roll dangled ready to fall on the floor. There were handrails right next to the toilet, which I had found essential for support up to that point, but their less-than-clean appearance meant I just took extra care getting up and down rather than touch them. I did my best to wash my hands extra thoroughly. The unsavoury state of the unit did have one positive, if unintended, effect: I suddenly lost all apprehension about going back home! No matter how incapable Gam and I were of keeping on top of the housework, it would take a long time for our bathroom to get that dirty!

Meals were still delivered, but only for me. We weren't sure if Gam was officially staying in the unit or not. He had been there when we checked in, and no-one mentioned that it was only supposed to be me staying there. Not that it mattered, as the meals were just as inedible. The only difference was that I was offered a 'menu' and could elect to receive full-fat milk in the mornings rather than the skim milk that had been provided while I was staying in Maternity.

For the first time in 5 nights, Gam and I spent the night together. It was the first time in many months that I had been able to spoon him in bed, now that my massive, uncomfortable pregnant stomach had disappeared. It felt blissful to hold him.

Not so blissful was being woken every 2 hours on the dot by a phonecall from Special Care, hauling on a few more items of clothing and trotting down the hallway to feed Setri. 5 days in and we were both severely sleep-deprived to the point where it felt literally painful to drag ourselves from slumber. Gam almost succumbed to the temptation of staying in bed at one point, but doggedly roused himself and followed me to the nursery before falling asleep in his chair as I fed Setri. It was ridiculous, we grumbled on the way back to our room. At home we'd have Setri in our room, in the co-sleeper cot attached to our bed. We were being sleep-deprived for nothing other than the satisfaction of the hospital. No way were we going to do this for another night, even if Setri was allowed to stay in the parents' unit with us. Having Gam with me, us being a team again through the night as well as the day, a family tucked into the corner of the Special Care Nursery, Setri falling asleep in Gam's arms as he held him after a feed, it felt almost right. But we were still in the hospital, and we ached with tiredness and the desire to go home.

Bedtime procrastination

2011-04-03T18:50:00.000+10:00

I was just trying to put Setri to bed. He pointed at a glass of water and said 'more', so I gave him some. I put the glass of water back on the side table and he immediately pointed and said 'more'. So I offered him more and he had a sip. By the third time he asked for more I was a bit suspicious of his motives, and I swear I could see a mischievous glint in his eye. By the fifth time he asked, he was so full of water he couldn't bring himself to take a sip- he turned his head with a sheepish smile to acknowledge that his bedtime procrastination plan had been revealed... not even 12 months old and pulling tricks like that already!

Setri at 11 months

2011-03-30T19:13:00.005+10:00

I guess we've really just carried on full bore from last month. Setri still isn't walking, but he's more confident walking while holding onto an adult's hand with only one of his hands, and he is taking steps... usually while distracted (i.e. trying to steal something), or if we sneakily move out of his reach when he is standing unsupported he will walk a few steps to get to us. If we leave him standing up, move just out of reach and then alert him that we have moved and encourage him to walk to us, however, he will burst into tears because he thinks he can't do it.

UPDATE 06/04/2011: he started walking today, just like that. My second day back at work. Mum told us when we got home that Setri had taken 2 or 3 steps, and I didn't think anything of it because he'd done it before, but about 5 minutes later Setri was up and walking- proper walking! I bribed him with chocolate to walk across the room to me, but he was obviously enjoying showing off, because the next time I offered him chocolate to walk he walked and forgot to take the chocolate, then refused when I offered it to him later! UPDATE 08/04/2011: Having got that out of the way, Setri didn't walk at all yesterday (adamantly saying 'no!' whenever we suggested it), and then did only a little bit of walking today. It's pretty obvious that he prefers crawling still.

Setri's speaking has come along at an amazing rate, unlike his walking. He answers most yes and no questions (he says 'yeah', though, never 'yes'), rather than just saying 'no no no' when he doesn't like something. He does sometimes say an uncertain 'yeah' when he doesn't actually understand something. He sometimes refers to things with a possessive 'my' (e.g. "mah bowl"). He routinely strings two words together. Usually 'more' paired with whatever it is that he wants, or a demand along the lines of "Daddy: up!", or "Wan' lawnmower". I'm not sure how big his vocabulary is, but I'm going to attempt to document how many words he can say (and others that he thinks he can say but are only a couple of relevant syllables of the word he's trying to make) just out of interest and also for Gam's parents. I'm guessing about 50, about 15-20 of which would probably be intelligible to someone other than Gam, my mum or me. Gam's guess is higher, but I suppose we'll see once I actually write it all down.

Setri has actually started dictating to us the words he wants us to be using when we sing his favourite song (Wheels on the Bus). In the car just over a week ago, for example, we were singing 'Wheels on the car' to distract him when he was a bit whingy. Setri interrupted mid-way through the song to instruct us: "No. Buh. Lau lau." Surprised that he had interrupted his favourite song, we clarified: "Do you want us to sing wheels on the bus, Setri?". "Yeah", he replied. Since then he has stopped us singing about various things to tell us that he wants the lyrics about the 'og' (frog), or the 'bubba' (his word for 'baby'). I knew that sort of thing was coming, but I thought it was quite a way off! He is actually a fairly bossy little man, to the point where we (probably me more than Gam) have to be careful not to be so impressed by his language abilities that we let him dictate what he gets to do when we have other plans for him! The advantage is, of course, that he hardly ever throws frustrated tantrums... just tantrums where he has said 'no' to something where he has clearly outlined his wishes (e.g. wanting to go 'out' because he has heard or seen someone going out the door, or said 'no' to a nappy change).

Now, thanks to his Farm book he frequently says 'lawnmower' instead of just 'mower'. Whenever he hears a mower, whippersnipper or chainsaw or similar, he says 'mower'. When he hears a dog bark, he says 'dog', even though he can't see a dog.

He still makes really good attempts at words that he has almost no chance of pronouncing correctly. 'Uh-mah-mo' for 'tomato' comes to mind. Unbelievable as it seems, he can say 'eyelashes' so well it would probably be understood by the average person- it comes out as 'eyelath'. I don't think he knows he himself has any, but he reaches out and strokes my eyelashes very gently with one finger, and sometimes does the same to Gam. 'Glasses' is another one- he says '-lah-thir' while reaching for them with his smeary little hands... Lately he seems to have relapsed into saying something that sounds more like 'lah-le' for glasses though. Thankfully the context helps differentiate this from mention of his favourite food, lasagne, which he initially called 'lala'... it seems to be morphing into something closer to the actual word now though.

His consonant drought is starting to produce some predictable confusion. Tonight, while saying goodnight to Gam and my mum, Setri started saying what sounded like 'lau lau', his attempt at 'round and round'. Unable to spot what might be going 'round and round', we asked him what it was. "LAU-uh!", came his slightly exasperated reply, pointing at the chinese painting of a flower above the kitchen doorway. In a similar vein he says 'buh' for bus, 'far-buh' for 'farm buggy' (see below... sigh) and 'buh' for button ('bah-buh' for belly button)', with the context thankfully always dissimilar enough that we can tell just what it is he's referring to. He's sticking consonants on the ends of a few words now though- 'duck' (stuck) was one of the first (last month), and this month he can say 'burp' (he says it with a big, proud, mischievous grin). I think there's something else he's sticking a 'k' sound on the end of, but I forget. 'Up' is still pronounced 'uh'. 'Bear' is pronounced 'bar'.

Interestingly, he stopped saying 'yay-yay' to refer to Feifei a while back, instead switching to something that sounded a lot wider of the mark: 'var-var'... it seems like he was trying to work on producing the 'f' sound (very similar to 'v'), and he now calls Feifei something that sounds more like 'vfeh-vfeh'. He has also started calling Xiaoxiao the same thing. His default animal, however, is the dog. If he sees a new animal on TV, he will point and say 'Dog! Dogdog!'.

Because of his love for his Farm book (not animals, nor crops, solely pictures of farm equipment), Setri is picking up some pretty obscure words for an Farm 11-month-old. 'Digdig' (digger) isn't the most useful word, and nor is 'lawnmower', though he sees plenty of those around and loves to point them out. In fact it's gotten so that if he hears a lawnmower he starts saying 'Mower. Lawnmower' very insistently, wanting to be taken outside to see it. He isn't yet able to say 'tractor', but I'd bet he could identify one.

Hard to believe, but one of Setri's cute little words has actually gotten annoyingly overused. 'Duck' (stuck) is no longer restricted to him being in a precarious or dangerous position that he can't get out of. First he extrapolated it to mean that something was definitively out of his reach (like if a ball rolled under the couch). I thought that was clever. But now... 'Duck' is when he's on the change table and doesn't want to be. 'Duck' is when something is just out of reach and he has made a really half-arsed attempt to get it. 'Duck' is when one of us is carrying him and we haven't put him down fast enough for his liking... You get the picture. It's so bad that this afternoon he was playing with a drawer after I had already stopped him; I was right next to him, with my head turned away, chatting with Gam, when Setri started saying 'duck!' over and over. I am so used to it I actually kept talking for a few seconds as Setri's utterances of 'duck!' became more and more insistent, and when I finally looked around we saw he had shut his fingers in the drawer! Nothing particularly painful, thankfully (no tears), but I did make a mental note to tell Setri the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf as soon as he's old enough to understand it!

Sleep:

Was/is pretty ok now. Finally he was having two one-hour naps per day, but now all of a sudden it seems like he really only needs one. We're still co-sleeping with him, but I think he would rather have his own bed (i.e. he would like to kick us out of ours). I picked a bad time to write this post, as we had a night from hell last night (Setri was fine- he just yells and thrashes in his sleep without actually waking up, meaning he is generally bright and cheery the following day). He was having 2 one-hour naps per day but now seems to have dropped back to mostly having a single one hour nap, and possibly a shorter nap of about a half-hour or so.

Feeding:

Boob still comes a distant second to food, and for the first time a feed of breast milk is noticeably not enough to satisfy Setri's hunger- if he hasn't eaten I can give him a feed and he will subsequently ask for food. He's not at all fussy, but he also won't reliably eat any one food... except maybe lasagne. And when I say any one food, that includes chocolate, donuts, and all sorts of delicious things that kids are supposed to want to devour in great volumes. He will as often as not say 'no' in response to an offer of something yummy that Gam or I are eating, or stop after just one bite. So one day Setri might really enjoy sweet potato, and the next day he will say no when it's offered. Sometimes it's a real guessing game, but I guess adults are the same- it's not like I get the same thing out of the fridge or cupboard for lunch every day.

Sharing:

Setri can now 'give' an item without immediately wanting to take it back. He has also taken to occasionally offering his food to me.

Play:

All Setri's bears dance. He grabs them, shakes them around while saying 'dah dah' (the word for dance he has been saying since he was 6mo, still no closer to the real word!).

Empathy:

I don't think kids Setri's age have developed empathy, as such, but there is something starting to show there... we had some little incident where Gam and I were mucking around on the bed with Setri and Gam accidentally banged my hand or something fairly unmemorable that caused me to say ow and stop playing. Gam jokingly started insisting it was all my fault, and Setri got quite upset at this and crawled over to give me a cuddle and pats. It was very cute, very endearing.

Toilet training:

Hasn't progressed at all, as I've been holding off trying anything until Setri can actually get on and off the potty by himself. He does generally try and wait in the shower after I get out if he needs to wee, which I encourage, and can tell me 'more' if I ask if he has finished his wee and there is actually more to come... although alarmingly he has told me there is 'more' once or twice, strained a little and produced not wee but a fart- hopefully there is never anything more than a fart!

2011-03-21T09:20:00.005+10:00

Yesterday, Setri was able to name the computer mouse for the first time. 'Mau' (pronounced like 'mouse' but without the 's' sound). My computer mouse has a wheel, and wheels are a great favourite of Setri's. So he spent time, as he usually does, making the wheel go round-round ('lau, lau'). He has also taken to spinning me around on my chair while saying 'lau, lau'

This morning, trying for a change from his favourite 'farm' book (equipment, not animals, with pictures of tractors, lawnmower, combine harvester etc etc), I brought out his 'animal' book. When we happened upon the picture of a mouse and I said 'mouse', Setri knowingly said 'lau, lau', and made a circular motion with his hand... Not really sure how to explain things like that...

Setri at 10 months

2011-03-13T10:50:00.002+10:00

This was the month Setri ate his first ever chocolate biscuit!

What a month!

Maybe 8 and 9 months seemed to pass with Setri developing at a leisurely pace. He didn't grow much, he didn't really hit any major milestones. I kind of stopped worrying that he was growing and developing too fast for me to properly enjoy and appreciate every minute. It seemed like Setri was going to stop and be a baby for a while, if that makes sense.

Well, in the 9 month post I mentioned that Setri seemed to have voluntarily/intentionally stood up by himself (albeit briefly) for the first time, just a few days before hitting the 10 month mark. Bang on 10 months, he started practising standing up without hanging onto something, like he was trying to impress us- even holding his arms up in the air in a victory pose for the few seconds before he began to lose his balance and inevitably plonked his bottom on the ground. He's extended the length of time he can do that for to maybe 30 seconds or so, and seems fine to clap, rub his face, or play with a toy while he's doing it, but he mainly seems to practice on the bed, in the cot, or in 'baby jail' (the playpen/portacot), places I suppose it must be softer to land on one's bottom. It's gotten so that he expects a nightly audience and demands to be taken to baby jail so he can show off for a while before being taken to bed.

Rather than cruising along the lounge now, he frequently walks parallel to it while holding on with one hand. He also shows a marked preference for walking while holding onto our hands instead of crawling. Around half the time when he has expressed a desire to go someplace, instead of dropping to the ground and crawling, he will keep hanging onto our hands and expect us to 'walk' him there. He still can't quite stand up by himself without using something to steady himself as he gets up (he has done it, but only in baby jail and on the bed), but he's clearly working on it, getting halfway before lowering himself to the floor again.

Communication:

Setri's vocabulary has seemingly exploded, with the constraints of his primitive.pronunciation the only thing holding him back. I had been working hard on getting him to point to things he wants, or to places he wants to go. He now points and says 'dat', if he doesn't know the word for the object he is after, and 'dair' for a place he wants to go to. We have been extremely accommodating, in an effort to encourage this language development, to the point where Setri will throw a bit of a wobbly if we say he can't go 'dair', or can't have 'dat', or can't go 'down' the stairs. He also uses 'down' in another context- when he wants something brought down to him. He attempts to copy a LOT of different words that we say. Mostly he makes a pretty damn good approximation, for someone who only seems to be able to pronounce 'd', 'b', 'n', 'm' and 'l' sounds with any level of consistency. The other day he attempted 'turkey'. With his consonant deficit it came out as 'durdee'. Not a bad try for a 10mo. His vowels are still great- he says 'ow-er', for shower, for example, and 'ow-el' for towel. He now calls Gam 'Daddy' pretty much all the time, but I'm still 'Mum-ma'. He is finally able to stick an 'n' sound on the end of 'down', though not every time, but what impresses me most is that he is able to use 'down' in a number of different contexts. He will crawl to the stairs on our front verandah, for example, point down and say 'down', but he can also be on the floor and identify something he wants brought down to him (mostly by pointing or grabbing), and say 'dowwwn!'.

That's only the beginning, really. He wails 'duck!' when he's stuck, he says 'yeah' in the right context. He says 'more' all the time- not just as a way of getting more of something, it has become a proxy for 'want'- a very useful word.

Setri: More.

Gam: More what? More coffee?

Setri: Yeah.

Setri after his first chocolate biscuit. I was only going to give him a taste, but he grasped it with both hands with a "For me?! You shouldn't have!" expression on his face, and then celebrated by holding it above his head and saying 'yay!'. How could I take it back after that?

His celebrations were so priceless that we couldn't even tear ourselves away to go and fetch a camera (hence no pictures of that).

Gam and I have both got him to string two words together using 'more' a couple of times. Just like the first time I got him to say 'more'- if there's something he really wants, chances are he'll be motivated enough to force out the word! He says 'mower', too, pronounced more like 'morwer', getting very excited about anything with wheels. 'Dog' gets a real workout, also, as he loves those (but cries with terror whenever one barks). He also has 'words' that he says consistently that wouldn't mean much to anyone else but are identifiable to us because we're familiar with Setri-language. 'Leh-leh' is 'lemon', '-LAH' is 'glasses', 'nan-nah' is 'grandma', 'nano' is 'piano'...

My very very very favourite word, one he uses only rarely, is 'cuddle'. Setri can't actually say 'cuddle'... he says 'doddle'... and I pretty much die of happiness every time he does. He usually says it when he wants a cuddle from Gam: 'Daddy... doddle' (*mummy dies of cute overload right about this point*). He isn't a mummy's boy like I hoped, but he is a very affectionate little boy with us. He's so lovely :)

Setri has also started pretend play, putting phones up to his ear as if he is making a call. He is also able to identify the whereabouts of his head- if we ask him to put something (hat, glasses etc) on his head he will touch it to his head.

In addition to wheels, Setri loves anything that goes 'round and round'. His favourite song is 'wheels on the bus', and he does a little dance at the mere mention of the song. The wheels on the pram, the mower, toy cars, the washing machine, the dryer, the fans (still a big favourite), the microwave (we now have one because Mum brought it up with her)... even a little cardboard-paged book titled 'Farm' that features pictures of tractors, utes, combine harvesters and the like, anything that goes 'round and round' is a massive favourite, and Setri will illustrate this by saying 'lau lau' (like the 'ow' in 'loud') and making a circular motion with his hand.

Sleep:

Sleep is worth a mention this month. Setri's still not an easy baby to get to sleep, but he is reliably having 2 naps a day and IF I am there to resettle him the second he wakes up, he will sleep for an hour each time. Thank **** for that.

Teeth:

Setri got 4 teeth in 5 days when he was 10 and a half months old. I was right when I predicted several months ago that it would be one of the top teeth to break through first (they are both through, along with one of the upper lateral incisors and one of the bottom central incisors), just way off on the timing. All things considered I think we had an easy time of it with teething... Now that the teeth are through he is way more interested in solid food again, but a temporary disinterest in food was really the only thing we had to deal with. His sleep was a bit unsettled some days, but that's the case even now, so I don't think any sleep woes were attributable to the teething. By the standards of any teething baby, Setri was remarkably good (even though he caught a little cold around the same time); considering he popped 4 teeth in 5 days he was an angel.

Social:

We won a term's worth of Gymboree sessions/lessons when I entered some online competition a few months ago. I hadn't even considered taking Setri to Gymboree because I thought it was some kind of glorified Playgroup- and Playgroup is so cheap as to be pretty much free. Boy was I wrong about Gymboree! We opted to go to the Sunnybank one on Saturdays so Gam could go too. I don't know what it is about the place, but our shy, reserved little boy (who routinely greets adults with a stern frown and cries if another adult gets between him and his parents) suddenly forgot we existed. He was not only crawling around excitedly trying to make friends with other babies (and steal their toys), he was crawling up to other parents and being smiley and chatty, playing with them without giving us so much as a backward glance. I don't know what it is about the place (nearly all the other parents at the first 2 classes seemed to be first-timers too, around our age, friendly, nice-looking, and have gorgeous kids), but Setri has an absolute ball there. He and one other little boy (2 months older and walking) are the 'naughty kids', ignoring the routine when it suits them and socialising and getting into mischief instead. It's really great to see. Playgroup has nothing on Gymboree in Setri's eyes!

We have also been taking Setri to swimming lessons. He looooooves swimming, but isn't 100% in love with the lessons. Part of it is due to the fact that the environment is rather loud and lessons proceed at a fast pace without it being properly explained to him what's going on. Still, there are aspects of it that he loves- part of the lesson involves crawling through a foam tunnel floating on the water, and Setri is always champing at the bit, flapping away trying to get to the swimming instructor so he can be put in the tunnel (where he tries to camp out and play instead of crawling through to Gam at the other end like he is supposed to...). After two lessons it was obvious he'd picked up at least a little bit from the lessons when he spontaneously started trying to blow bubbles in the water on the shower floor.

To think, a few months ago Setri was rocketing ahead in terms of his motor development and seemed to be lagging his peers slightly in terms of babbling. Now, babies who first crawled and cruised months after Setri started are taking their first steps, according to Facebook, and Setri is focused elsewhere. He's obviously coming along just fine, but if there were any expectations we'd built up for him, it was more to do with his initially phenomenal size and strong motor development. Now he is much more normal in that regard.

Life changes:

My mum moved in with us when Setri was 10 and a half months old. I'm going back to work next month, just before Setri's first birthday, and we wanted to get him used to being cared for by her for periods of time before I went back (and also give me time to get stuff done that I need to do). I don't think any of us were sure about how it would/will work out (the main concern being that my dad can't handle her being away), but it has actually been really good so far. Setri loves his Grandma, and Mum is quickly learning the things that keep him happy (things that go round, walks, lots of outside time- let's hope Brisbane's weather holds up!).

Photos still to come [Update 22/05/2011: and finally, I got around to it!]

Away from Setri, getting back to work

2011-03-07T11:19:00.000+10:00

I think today is the first time since getting home from hospital after Setri's birth that I have been alone. My mum has moved in with us for a while to look after Setri when I go back to work, and we are aiming to set a pattern that gets him used to being looked after her for certain hours in the day. We are beginning with me working at home in preparation for returning to my PhD. It's been just under 2 hours and I'm already getting antsy about Setri being away so long! He does love his grandma though, I'm not worried that he is particularly missing me.

Mum has been here about a week now, and I think it has been really good. I'm not sure how Gam feels about it yet, it's probably not as bad as he might have feared. We went out to dinner together for the first time since Setri's birth- only the second time we have been out on our own since he was born. I'm really looking forward to having a bit more time with Gam... I'm not pleased about how I've managed the relationship side of things since Setri arrived, though there is a whole post's worth of musings on that topic, if only I had time to make it.

Back to work now, I simply don't have time to procrastinate any more!

Setri at 9 months

2011-02-18T22:40:00.001+10:00

[18/02/2011] Well, still haven't got around to sticking pictures in this post, but I'd better publish it because otherwise it'll be time for the 10 month post before this one goes up! Will try and stick photos in later :)

[21/05/2011] It's been bugging me for ages that I still hadn't gotten around to putting pictures up. Turned out that I was pretty slack in taking pictures when Setri was 9mo and there were only a few anyway. Slack is possibly a bit harsh- for several months he throws a tanty when I try and take a photo and don't give him the camera- it doesn't make for the best photos :)

Speech:

This month seems to be one of rapid speech development. Not so much hitting milestones, but building and gaining more confidence. He now consistently calls me 'Mum-mum' and 'Mum-ma' again, instead of 'Nun-nun'. I thought he had that figured out a couple of months ago but then he stopped saying any 'm' sounds for a while.

He now consistently calls Feifei 'yay yay', and says a very definite 'no!' when he is given a suggestion he dislikes or I try and do something he doesn't want (e.g. "Sleepytime, Setri!"). This morning he indicated that he wanted some coffee, which I obliged by giving him a few drops in the end of a straw, and he then indicated with an infuriating mooing noise that he wanted more, which I also obliged, trying to encourage him to use the word 'more', instead of making the mooing noise. When I offered a third lot (more coffee, Setri?), he replied 'no'. Gam says we should encourage him to extend his vocabulary by saying 'no thanks' every time he replies 'no', as a blunt 'no' won't seem cute for long! Sometimes if I put him down when he doesn't want to be put down I will get a super-dramatic "No! Mummmm-mummm! No!" [Update 04/02/2010: my insistent coaching worked- he now says 'mmmORE!' most times when prompted!]

Setri will now often mimic sounds when prompted- e.g. familiar ones like 'Mum-mum' and 'dad dad', and especially 'yay yay', but he also likes to assert himself. One time, after saying 'dad dad' when prompted, we asked him to say 'mum mum' and Setri emphatically replied 'dad DAD!' [Update 10/02/2010: the last few days he has been a lot more adventurous in what he will attempt to mimic. Today, at first prompting, he said 'AN' for 'ant', and since Monday he will make a burbly 'bub-wub-wub' noise (most of the time) when asked to say 'bubble').

He makes attempts at words that he is not yet successful with- 'baw-OOH' and 'AWW' for ball, for example. He also uses 'DOW' (down) in its proper context (i.e. when he wants to be put on the floor, or to be taken down the stairs). His vowel sounds are good, but the rest, especially consonants at the end of words, still has a way to go. He still, for instance, says 'UH' for up. And, just as often, he makes that infuriating moooing 'UuhNnnh!' noise when he wants something. (Update 10/02/2010: Today he said 'dot', with a clearly enunciated 't' on the end for the first time- we have an Aboriginal artwork that he is obsessed with and roars 'Doh-doh-doh!' at whenever he gets within arm's reach. He immediately went back to saying 'doh' again, but he's getting there).

Social:

This month I took Setri to Playgroup for the first time, and he seemed to have a really good time. There were only 2 babies in the same age bracket- one chubby 9-month-old girl who wasn't yet able to crawl or even sit up by herself as far as I could tell, and one nearly 11 month-old- an absolutely angelic-looking little blonde girl who seemed to be about where Setri is developmentally, slightly ahead, as her mother told me she was able to stand on her own, which Setri isn't doing.

Update 10/02/2010: Bec brought Xander around for a playdate a few days ago. Setri had an absolute ball, 'talking' to Xander in the special way he does to the cats. He obviously took a lot on board, as as soon as Xander had left, Setri started copying one of the cute things Xander does- putting his arms in the air and saying 'yay!'. Setri had never before put his arms above his head except in an effort to steal things, so it was obvious straight away that he'd got it from Xander. Anyway, he got such a cheer out of Gam and I that he does it all the time now, mostly without the 'yay', but every time with an ultra-cute smile on his little face in anticipation of the reaction it gets from anyone who sees it (except the cats, who are strangely immune, even though he has included this new skill in his arsenal of charming things to win over Xiaoxiao)... it's super-adorable. He also now thinks that he has the ability to descend the stairs at the front of our house by himself, because he saw Xander (who can WALK- big difference there!) doing it.

Getting around:

It's actually rather surprising that Setri isn't yet standing on his own, given he has been crawling for nearly 5 months, but ever since he could trundle around and get into mischief it was like he didn't have the same hunger to advance that he used to have. He will sometimes let go of whatever he's holding onto when he's standing up, but from what I can tell it's more because he forgets to hang on rather than because he's testing new skills. Today, for instance, he was holding onto a spoon with one hand and hanging onto my leg with the other, and he let go of my leg so he could slap me on the knee a few times without letting go of his spoon. He sometimes stands on one foot while dancing, and waves the other leg around, and sometimes stands on tiptoes on one foot when he's trying to steal something off the lounge or a shelf that's too high for him. (Update 10/02/2010: today was the first time he seemed to intentionally let go of something and test his ability to stand. He only managed a couple of seconds before sitting down heavily with a surprised look on his face).

Physical:

Setri is still only about 75 or 76 cm tall. I thought he had gotten a little taller, but perhaps he just tends to stand straighter than he used to. We haven't weighed him since whenever I last mentioned it, but I'm pretty sure he's heavier because I'm finding him difficult to carry for any length of time.

This month he stopped clapping the 'wrong way' (i.e. palm of hand to back of hand) and started clapping properly, palm-to-palm.

Feeding:

Feeding has been a little strange for the last couple of weeks. Setri shows lots of signs of teething (but still hasn't sprouted a single tooth) and has gone off solid food a lot. Even meat won't reliably tempt him. Many days lately he has had almost nothing but breast milk. It's easy to tell the days when he's feeling better because 'normal' for Setri means only minimal interest in boob- he's never been one of those babies whose eyes light up as soon as they lay eyes on their mother'. Given his lasting obsession with food from age 3-and-a-half months onward, it really feels strange on days where he refuses most solid food.

Despite not being particularly interested in boob, Setri this month again started doing something he's done in passing before, and I always wondered if I was imagining things... He sees vaguely-breast-shaped objects and starts saying 'boooo'. This time around, it started with the onions that he raided from our tiered fruit basket. He would point the root bit towards his mouth, open his lips in a pre-latch pout and say 'Boooo. Booooo!' before putting his mouth on the onion and sucking. Then it was the turn of the pomegranate, the plum (which he went on to eat half of, so it wasn't a complete waste of time), the orange, the rockmelon and the lime. He does it in the fruit aisles of the supermarket, and he gets especially excited when he spies a balloon. Quite beserk with excitement, in fact.

Sleep:

Sleep seems better lately, but I can't quantify how. I think I'm the one adjusting, resisting the temptation to stay up late just to get some time on my own with Gam and to get a few things done around the house. Mostly it's so exhausting getting him off to sleep between 7.30-8pm (with settling starting as early as 6.30pm) that I'm a bit of a zombie afterwards, and never very productive anyway. It's gotten so that I'm satisfied if I get to eat dinner without interruption. Gam generally tries first to settle Setri if I'm eating, so I can finish my meal. Between his bedtime and ours(~10.30pm), Setri wakes once or twice on a good night, 3 on a normal one and 4-5 times on a bad one. On good nights it's enough for him to simply see us and he will keel over and go back to sleep, while on bad nights there appears to be some kind of discomfort keeping him awake and it can take up to half an hour to resettle him. As a rule, Setri doesn't wake once we come to bed with him, until around 6 in the morning when the alarm goes off. Then I get up and he gets up, most days, and we leave Gam to sleep for around half an hour. After a bad night, it's the other way around, Gam gets up and Setri and I stay in bed until around 7am, but thankfully bad nights are few and far between. Often on weekends I will stay up late, idiot that I am, figuring I can sleep in the next day, but the latest Setri will sleep in is around 7-7.30am.

Toilet training:

I gave up trying to put Setri on the potty when he needs to poo, as he made it pretty clear he was unhappy when I did try. He doesn't mind being taken to the bathroom, though, so I do that. I figure maybe when he can walk and get on and off the potty himself it might be easier. He's still young yet!

Setri at 8 months

2011-01-09T21:34:00.001+10:00

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.

Sleeeeeeep

2011-01-01T18:51:00.000+10:00

I truly would like to know how it is that an 8-month-old baby can stay up til all hours, get me up after 7 hours sleep, have a single 40 minute nap during the day, and then repeat the cycle night after night, remaining annoyingly chipper while I get more and more tired. How can an 8 month-old get by on only ~9 hours' sleep a day?

Honestly, every day I think 'He will surely sleep well tonight, he's hardly slept at all today, and he got up early to boot'. And every night I tell myself 'He will surely sleep well tomorrow, he's going to bed at the same time as us, he will NEED a big nap tomorrow!'. And never will it be true more than once in a blue moon- and I mean I could probably count the times it's proved true on one hand

Moreover, where does this enduring optimism of mine come from? Setri has clearly got me beaten, and yet every day I'll believe that tomorrow will be different. Is stupidity and blind optimism a symptom of sleep deprivation? I wish I had half that boy's energy. If he can go through life being powered like the Energizer Bunny, more power to him, I won't begrudge him that even now. Ok, maybe a little bit...

Setri at 7 months

2010-12-08T22:54:00.002+10:00

Have had so little time lately, Setri is hardly sleeping any longer than we are, and is very very mobile when awake, requiring constant vigilance. Have left post in point form because I have no time to edit. Just had to get this thing up before he is no longer 7 months old!

- Seems to have settled on 'the worm' rather than proper crawling as his favoured way to get speedily from one place to another. When he isn't in a hurry to get somewhere he will crawl properly, kind of ambling, but when he has a real goal in mind, he does this horribly uncomfortable-looking cross between a caterpillar movement and a bellyflop.

- Has determined that Gam is 'dada' and calls out to him that way (if Gam fails to notice, then it's 'DaDAAAA!!!!'). In the last week or so, with encouragement from Gam (and me, of course!) he has started calling out to me as 'mama'.

- Now crawls from the bed into his cot to do a poo nearly every morning, before calling out to me to wake me up so I can bathe him. If he needs to poo and he's not in his cot, he will crawl away to a secluded location and do his business there. I really hope he doesn't have hang-ups about pooing already. Still haven't got around to buying him a potty.

- By the first week of 7 months' age he had not really expanded his vocabulary of babbling sounds much. In the 3rd week he is making all sorts of babbling sounds, the most unusual being a click noise that he makes with his tongue.

- In the first week after turning 7 months old he could cruise furniture for about a metre, still mostly only pulling himself up to standing in the cot. In the third week, he can cruise around the entire lounge area, including moving between individual pieces of furniture. He has also mastered sitting down after pulling himself to standing, something that caused him a little bit of concern from time to time.

- We've lowered the floor of the cot so as to lessen the risk he'll plunge over the railing. I know you're not supposed to use a co-sleeper cot once the baby can stand up in it, but we generally still only use it as a baby prison/playpen (and Setri uses it as a toilet). I thought that the floor of the cot being so much lower than the bed might make Setri reluctant to get in there, but no- he carefully lowers himself in about half the time, and just half leaps, half falls in there the rest of the time. It's high enough that he can climb out fairly easily, but low enough that he sometimes forgets that he can.

- Can jump up and down (getting 'air' with his feet off the surface!) while hanging onto the back of the couch or cot. Likes also to jump on the bed while holding onto our hands.

- Likes to turn on the sound of a musical toy and then beat his hands in time to the music.

- Likes to unpack containers.

- Likes to play 'roll the ball', where he and I take turns rolling the ball to one another. Setri still hasn't quite mastered the rolling part (mostly he just drops the ball and it rolls by itself), but he definitely gets into the spirit of the game... for about 30 seconds or so!

- Thinks that 'clap' means to smack his hand onto my hand (or Gam's hand)... I've been trying so hard to teach him to clap and haven't got far!

- Likes to 'help' turn the light on and off, but only gets a big smile on his face and sense of achievement when he turns the light on.

- Has introduced footwork into his repertoire of dance moves.

- Regularly lets go with one hand while standing- can hold an object to chew while holding on with the other hand, without leaning his body against whatever he is holding onto.

- Has developed a weird kind of separation anxiety. He will throw a 'devo' (kind of like a sad tantrum, with a heavy dose of abandonment guilt) if Gam or I leave the room, even if one of us is holding him at the time! If it's only one of us in the room and we have to duck out and leave him for a second, it will often precipitate a devo that involves Setri sobbing and desperately crawling after us.

- Is an insane baby daredevil. The game of 'drop', which used to involve him sitting on the bed and falling backwards onto the mattress, has morphed into this crazy game where Gam or I hold Setri at chest height at the foot of the bed, as often as not screeching "Nononono! Not yet!" and trying desperately to hold him upright as Setri, with a demented glint in his eye and a massive grin on his face, attempts to hurl himself backward from that height to land with a big 'flop' onto the mattress. He does still wait for the 'drop' command about half the time. I can see Setri hurling himself off a bridge with a bungee cord around his ankles as soon as he's old enough. He's a little baby thrillseeker. I'm not sure I approve.

- He's improving, socially. I still haven't got around to taking him to playgroup (I did get as far as phoning for information, but no-one picked up, and things have been so hectic since I haven't thought about it). We had a nice outing a couple of weeks ago to Bec and Matt's place, where Setri seemed to have a great time and interacted really well with Xander. I would like to say he played with Xander, but I think that would be a bit advanced for Setri! He did, however, return Xander's kisses, which was really cute. I couldn't help thinking afterwards how amazing it was that as advanced as Xander is compared with Setri (he understands pretty much everything that is said to him, has a couple of words and walks as if he's been doing it his whole life and not just a few months), in a few years they'll be at school and there will be similar age gaps between kids in the same class, and it there will hardly be a noticeable difference between them.

By the time we left Bec and Matt's, Setri had had a cuddle from Bec without giving her sadface and was waving enthusiastically to Matt (he is still reeeeally inconsistent with his waving, however). Setri seems to be much more comfortable being held by other people than he used to be. He has since had cuddles from our friend Erin, for the first time not giving her his sadface (it always puzzled me that he could give Erin sadface at all- she is a smiley, bubbly person, one who works in childcare, no less!), his Uncle Semefa, Semefa's girlfriend (Auntie Dibs) and maybe one or two other people, with no problems at all. It does seem to take Setri a couple of hours to get really comfortable with someone, though.

- Setri has finally met Gam's brother, his Uncle Semefa, and got a bonus for waiting so long- meeting Semefa's lovely girlfriend, Auntie Dibs, as well. If those two ever have kids, Setri might well have cousins even cuter than he is... I think my head might explode! Not sure of Dibs' ancestry, she's Singaporean and muslim, living in Oman. Stunning, regardless. Setri seemed comfortable with Semefa in the same way he is with my cousin Rachelle, I think there are enough familial similarities that it puts him more at ease than with other people (could be an age thing as well, as Setri freaked out a little at first when my parents visited at 5 months). Dibs is a 'baby person', really engaging with him, so Setri seems to love her as well.

Detective Sarah and the mystery of Morbido

2010-11-27T20:52:00.000+10:00

Further to my nougat rant a little while back, I learned something else to do with nougat today that I thought I ought to share in case there's other nougat lovers out there randomly biting into things they've snatched off shelves and paid for with nary a glance at the packaging save to ascertain that it bears the word 'nougat'. Ahem.

On another visit to Superior Fruit in Graceville today, I noticed that they had some beautiful, shiny packages labelled 'Torrone'. The genuine article! After a little squeeze of the packet to determine the texture (hard-chewy vs soft), and a scan of the ingredients list (having learned my lesson after my last brush with that godawful Nougat Limar), we paid up and took our prize home... Actually we bought a bunch of other stuff on impulse too, Superior Fruit have so many delicious things it's impossible to go home without an impulse buy. Even though I'm on a wheat and dairy-free diet for the next couple of weeks (to see if it helps Setri- more on that in another post) I managed to come home with a bunch of yummy stuff. Anyway, I digress. But the shiny green and golden foil package of torrone worked wonders to distract Setri from whinging in the car on the way home!

Once home I unwrapped the beautiful packaging and discovered something terrible: inside the first layer of foil was a piece of silver cardboard, and inside that was another silver foil package containing the torrone. Soft torrone!

Woe is me and all that... despite the failure to obtain nougat of my preferred texture, I must admit this stuff is absolutely delicious. It contains almonds, pistachios and candied orange and citron. The only disappointment is how squishy it is.

How to save myself from making this particular mistake again? I thought surely the packaging, labelled in Italian, might provide a clue. My knowledge of the Italian language is basically limited to the musical terms I picked up over the years I spent learning piano. Not that helpful.

Some wording on the package beneath the large-font 'Torrone' stated:

"Morbido con mandorle et pistacchi"

Ok. The last word was obviously referring to the pistachio nuts. 'Mandorle' sounded familiar- almonds? 'Con' means 'with'. So something with almond and pistachio. The location of the something would be the perfect place for a descriptor of the texture- soft, or hard or whatever.

It's stupid, but I thought "Ok... morbido... sounds like morbid. Nothing like 'hard' or 'soft'. But if it was going to be one or the other... morbid... when a person is morbidly obese they are very soft! Aha!". Then, as you do, I confirmed with Google. 'Torrone morbido' is indeed soft torrone. I really doubt that the etymology of the word has anything to do with the -ahem- brilliant logic I used to figure it out (I have to go and look it up now!), but there you go.

So, lovers of soft torrone should look out for the word 'morbido' to appear somewhere on the packaging, and lovers of the hard stuff should avoid it like the plague. Don't rely on a surreptitious squeeze of the package to tell you all you need to know, or you might be deceived- like I was- by cunningly placed cardboard! Unless there's no alternative, in which case any nougat that contains the proper ingredients will satisfy cravings until the good stuff comes along... Mmmm.

Nougat Limar. They put WHAT in it??

2010-11-13T21:12:00.005+10:00

Sure, it looks good...

I am a lover of nougat. My personal preference is for the hard (chewy, not brittle) Italian-style torrone. I detest nougat with peanuts and dislike pretty much any with any kind of dried fruit except sour cherries, as well as nougat flavoured with chocolate etc. I like plain nougat with pistachios, almonds or macadamias, in that order, maybe with a bit of honey as long as it doesn't up the sweetness too much.

Now, being a fairly simple product with few ingredients, even the nougat I 'dislike' is generally fairly edible. Definitely not objectionable, so I have no qualms about giving an unfamiliar nougat a go.

After a bad experience buying a new nougat at some markets a few years ago, however, I tried to break myself of this happy-go-lucky approach to nougat. The nougat I bought at the markets tasted salty. "WTF?", I thought at the time. "Nougat doesn't have salt!". I checked the ingredients listed for the pistachio, cherry and cranberry 'Nougat Limar' I had just purchased. Salt was in the list of ingredients. I resolved never to buy the disgusting stuff again. It was hard- I kept seeing this appealing-looking nougat everywhere. Nougat even appeared in the bulk food aisle at Mrs Flannery's, and after buying, tasting and discarding it because it was salty I'm pretty sure it was Nougat Limar, as it was the same pistachio and cranberry flavour as I'd once bought at those markets.

I had made a habit of satisfying my nougat cravings with a reliable purchase of pistachio torrone from the wonderful deli Samios Foods whenever we went there. But slowly it disappeared from their shelves and was not restocked. The horror! So today I did a very stupid thing. I saw some very attractive-looking pistachio nougat at the equally wonderful Superior Fruit. They stock lots of high-quality products. Could it be a good one? I gave it a squeeze and it didn't feel too squishy (I only realised later that it said 'soft, French-style'), so I popped it in our basket. It was Nougat Limar, but I couldn't remember the brand of the Nougat I had resolved never to buy. I didn't think to check the ingredients list to ascertain whether it was dodgy until after it had been passed through the register. What can I say, it was 11am and I hadn't even had a coffee, let alone breakfast! Salt. Never mind, I was starving and had no time to eat any real food before breastfeeding Setri and putting him down for a nap. I tried a piece. The taste of salt was there alright, but it wasn't as overpowering as I remembered.

Later I came back for more. There was another odd taste that really shouldn't be present. Real nougat is made, basically, from egg whites and sugar. It has a very clean taste. This tasted cloying, claggy... it tasted of... powdered milk! That was it!

I checked the ingredients list, reading it thoroughly this time.

Sure enough: 'Milk solids'. Powdered milk! Nougat Limar don't just put in salt, they put powdered bloody milk in their 'nougat'. No wonder it's so revolting. Why is this stuff everywhere??? (Don't tell me the answer to that- I know the sad answer is because most people eat it and like it... most people have no taste!).

Got to find me some genuine, chewy hard torrone to drown my sorrows, to alleviate my thwarted craving for good, honest nougat *sob*.

What's more, on their website they have a link to a page titled 'Our Ingredients'. Except it doesn't tell you a single frickin' thing about their ingredients! It has the varieties of 'nougat' that they flog to unsuspecting consumers, and a big, breathy announcement that "Nougat Limar is Gluten Free". Oh yes, they're so special... just like all those other nougats that taste better, don't have shonky ingredients and are also gluten free because- get this- EGG WHITES AND SUGAR AND NUTS ARE ALL GLUTEN FREE!

GRR.

Why yes, yes I am feeling especially ranty tonight. But the shonky bastards deserved it- I already had a pent-up tirade from the first time I tried their stupid salty nougat a couple of years ago :)

Setri at 6 months

2010-10-22T10:27:00.001+10:00

That big half-year milestone has been and gone, and I guess it marks the passing of a significant chunk of Setri's babyhood. It's amazing to think of all the developmental stages he has been through, and how many are still to come. It's also amazing to think that this time last year we didn't have him. To me, that part of my life pre-Setri seems so distinct, and so distant, it's almost hard to imagine that not so long ago he didn't exist.

Physical:

We actually haven't weighed Setri since ~5 months, when he weighed 11kg and measured 75cm long. It seems like he hasn't really put on any noticeable weight since then, and his thighs have gotten noticeably leaner, presumably from all the crawling. More like legs than fat little hams, with noticeably less cellulite on his fat little bum... it was the cutest baby cellulite ever, I'm kind of sorry to see less of it! Let's say he still isn't exactly a skinny baby, but I like it that way :) The rolls on his 'sausage arms' have been diminishing, to the extent where we can see white stripes where the fat rolls blocked the sun from tanning the skin!

His hair is now quite definitively curly, in beautiful brown ringlets. At the back and sides of his head it tends towards wavy. He definitely got a 50:50 cross between Gam's hair and mine! I still don't think he particularly looks like either one of us, but my lord he is cute. I know I'm supposed to think that, being his mother, but I reckon even if I tried my hardest to be objective I'd still think he was exceptionally beautiful (Gam says I'm just like any other deranged parent, mind).

His motor skills are still pretty advanced for his age. He can use pincer grip to pick up a currant, but he doesn't yet have the skills to get something that small into his mouth. A cherry tomato or sultana poses no problem, however.

Setri does not, as yet, have even a single tooth. Two bumps where his top teeth will be have been there for quite some time now, but he is showing no signs of teething (apart from wanting to gnaw on everything, which he has been doing for months now). He can bite so hard with just his gums that he has bruised my finger, I don't think I look forward to him having teeth... I think it won't be long before he draws blood when he finally gets his first teeth...

Getting around:

Setri's crawling has improved out of sight over the last couple of weeks. He can now really scoot around pretty fast, though much faster on the bed or the grass than our wooden floor. He doesn't get much opportunity to crawl on the grass yet because we have a big problem with nasty, aggressive large black ants. They bite and sting and are very painful, and so we restrict Setri to a small area of lawn out the front where we and our pest guy have nailed most of the ants and is thus relatively ant-free. Now he can crawl faster I am forever hauling him back onto the grass after he scrambles his way over to the gravel path to try and put rocks in his mouth. Better to eat grass than rocks, I figure. He has also taken to exploring a bigger area of the house- previously he was content (actually that's not quite the right word, but never mind) to stick to crawling around our lounge area. He is also mastering going from sitting to crawling and from crawling to sitting, but he doesn't yet have the brains to figure out that he can go from lying to sitting via crawling, so if he's lying down and he wants to sit he just whinges and does his 'landed fish' impression.

Setri seems to be growing out of his bad habit of whinging to us to fetch things for him rather than crawling to get them himself, especially if it's something he knows he isn't allowed to have, like Gam's BlackBerry or my laptop, whereupon he will employ stealth-crawling and get there in the quietest and quickest fashion possible. However, because he knows he can crawl he also has a nasty habit of throwing tantrums when I lie him down in the bouncer (which I only use when we're outside, to keep him away from the ants). He wants to get out and crawl around, and often I can't let him, so I lie him right down so he can't get out of it. Or rather he can, these days, but it is rather awkward. Over the last couple of weeks I have taken to allowing him to stand up hanging onto a large, overturned plant pot on the grass while I hang clothes, risking ant-bites, rather than being screamed at. We did poison the main nests under the clothes line, but there are still too many for me to allow him to crawl around there.

Setri doing his 'gummy' expression.

He has been able to stand supporting his own weight since he was about 9 weeks old, but it is only since he turned 6 months that I'm comfortable to let Setri stay standing without me positioned with my hands ready to grab him should he fall. He has only fallen twice: once on the wood floor- a fairly controlled fall, thankfully, and once on the grass (a full-on fall that scared him but obviously didn't hurt him because he didn't even whimper). He can stand for a good 5+ minutes without getting tired and starting to complain.

'Side-gummy'. Makes him look like a cute little doll, or an alien. I can't decide.

He hasn't yet put 2 and 2 together and figured out how to pull himself up on things- he's not very good at staying balanced in a crawling position while reaching up with one hand is the main reason why, I think, because I have definitely seen him thinking about pulling himself up! [UPDATE 6/11/2010: I spoke too soon, he finally did it last night, while Gam was there to watch, no less! Gam was pretty pleased to be there to witness a 'first']. He can 'cruise' the furniture while standing up, but it's very slow and awkward, and he really doesn't move sideways more than about 30cm or so. Mostly he just stands still, it's only if there is something nearby that he wants- e.g. the remote control- that he will try and cruise.

Communication:

Setri definitely understands a greater number of words than he did at 5 months. I figured out that he knew who 'Daddy' was when I was talking to him one afternoon in the bedroom and upon hearing the word 'daddy', Setri's head turned towards the bedroom door to see if Gam was coming in! He wouldn't have a clue who 'Mummy' is, I think, though (despite my often referring to myself in the third person in the hope he might at least learn the word. *cough*). He now knows the word 'fan', 'jump', 'dance' (soooo cute! I could watch that all day- he even throws in some footwork now), 'sit', 'weewee', 'come', 'give' (really in the sense to let go of something- I thought it better than trying to teach him 'give', 'let go' and 'drop' (especially since 'drop' to Setri is a game where he throws himself backwards onto the bed), so I apply this one to getting him to hand over or at least drop his spoon or any other object, as well as getting him to let go a handful of my hair or Feifei's fur!) and 'Feifei' and 'Xiaoxiao'. I'm pretty sure he also understands 'water' and 'more'. Not so sure about 'bye bye' (we've been saying that one for a while, when Gam goes off to work or I leave Setri to be minded by Gam while I do some chores). He probably knows quite a few other words and I just haven't cottoned on and tested him yet. It is really quite surprising how switched on a 6 month-old baby is! It's also a bit scary- perhaps I say some things that I shouldn't (like Mikey!!) and I won't find out until it's too late! From reading those 'baby development' emails I get on a monthly/weekly basis (depending on the source), you'd think that Setri would only just now be learning to respond to his name.

In terms of the sounds Setri makes, he is still not engaging in the so-called canonical babbling (repetitive syllables- bababa, dadada etc.) that a lot of babies supposedly do at this age. He says plenty of vowel-consonant combinations, but very rarely does he create strings of the same v-c combination in that stereotypical way [UPDATE 7/11/2010- in the last couple of days he has started canonical babbling. Mostly 'dadadadadada', with also a bit of 'lalalalala' and 'yayayayaya']. He has recently been exploring the upper reaches of his vocal range. Gam and I euphemistically call it 'singing', but it's more like semi-melodic squealing and squarking (as opposed to what we like to call Setri's 'psycho-squeal'). It's loud. He also makes what can only be described as cajoling noises, usually aimed at the cats, but sometimes at objects he wants but are out of reach.

'Socialising' at Nest Nappies

Social:

For a while after my parents visited, Setri seemed friendlier and more engaged with other people- a little bit readier with a smile than he used to be. Now he seems to have gone back to his usual serious self, hardly ever smiling for anyone but Gam and I. So I'm going to have to get out and socialise him more with other people and kids. We do have people over every few weeks, and take Setri shopping with us to the same stores where people kind of know him, but I suppose it's not quite the same level of engagement that he'd have if I took him on dedicated social outings. There's a local playgroup I'm going to start attending, and I'll make more of an effort to catch up in person with the few other girls I know with babies Setri's age.

Getting put in his place by a little girl!

One social outing we undertook recently- we took him to a 'cocktail party' to celebrate the 1 year anniversary of everyone's favourite modern cloth nappy store, Nest Nappies, in Paddington, and Setri 'played' with other babies for the first time. When I say played I mean he sat on a mat next to them and they all played with toys. It was very funny, Setri sat next to a tiny little 8mo girl who kept taking his toys, and Setri would try pathetically to get them back but really just let himself get totally pwned by this cute little girl. There was another older baby (also around 8-9 months, I guess) who kept making excited shrieking noises, and every time she did, Setri looked like he was about to cry. She made him very nervous! He was very well behaved, but Gam and I were there the whole time. Unfortunately he screamed in the car all the way home, something he has done ever since we took him to get his 6 month vaccinations. He just screams and screams and screams. It makes for a loooong car trip, and is really sad because he used to love car trips. It's as if he thinks that every time he is in the car now we are going to take him to get needles. I really hope he gets over it. We are trying to make trips pleasant- on the last one we tried to bribe/distract him with strawberries (his favourite food), but it only worked for a few seconds [UPDATE 7/11/2010: Car trips this weekend were fine, thank god!].

Setri with his good friend Feifei

Setri does try very hard to engage socially with Feifei and Xiaoxiao. He talks to them, cajoles them to come to him, and gives them friendly smiles. He can't for the life of him figure out why they aren't won over! Feifei will come near Setri, and permit handfuls of his fur to be pulled out, if I am there, whereas Xiaoxiao sensibly still won't have anything to do with him.

Trying to avoid a nap.

Sleep:

Night-time is not so good as it used to be. Setri tends to sleep solidly from about 7.30pm-2am (with a break at around 10pm when I get him up and put him in a night nappy and feed him, as we are going to bed). He is still sleeping in our bed, although I will occasionally put him to sleep in his cot during the day. During the morning he doesn't actually wake, but cries and wriggles in his sleep. He tends to settle if I wake him (he's typically not hungry) and then re-settle him, but he is extraordinarily difficult to wake. Sometimes we have resorted to sitting him upright and gently slapping his cheeks, and even that doesn't always work! So we often get up tired these days. Normally, Setri wakes up at around 6am. If he's had a bad night, he will typically fall into a peaceful sleep about 15 minutes before our alarm goes off, so we have a tantalising 15 minutes of sweet sweet sleep before having to force ourselves to wake up for the day. Even then he doesn't generally do me the favour of staying asleep for long. I have taken to napping during the day a few times a week to catch up on sleep, but I think Gam and I have both developed a chronic, low-level sleep deprivation. Gam makes his worse by staying up really late on the weekend. I get Setri up and out of the bedroom so he can sleep in til 8 or 9am, but even so Gam only winds up with 6-7 hours sleep. I feel reaaaally wrecked if I stay up past 11pm these days, because I simply don't get a chance to catch up on sleep.

Setri does, however, have a really endearing habit these days of either putting his arms out for a cuddle so he can be cuddled to sleep on my chest, or simply clambering on top of me to fall asleep. It's the sort of thing almost anyone would frown upon, but frankly I love it. He's only going to be a baby for a short time, and quite possibly might be the only baby I ever have, so I am going to make the most of everything. I love him to bits, and if he wants a cuddle he gets a cuddle. He has also started letting me know when he's ready for bed (I can't quite explain how he communicates that, but it's fairly clear when he does).

His ball is still his favourite toy.

Play:

Another endearing, if frustrating habit, is Setri's utter adoration of Gam. These days Gam cannot so much as shift in his chair in the study while I'm trying to settle Setri, without Setri pricking up his ears and looking around hopefully to see if Daddy is coming to play with him! It's just beautiful, and quite hilarious, to see Setri do his 'full body waggle' and flap his arms and legs and squeal with excitement when Gam comes into the bedroom to play with him. Gam is the one who engages in the most risky play, Setri's favourite. He loves to be held upside down by his ankles and swung over the bed, to be thrown onto the bed, thrown up into the air. I only ever do the most tame versions of these (e.g. saying 'drop!' and watching Setri fling himself backwards onto the bed) and I am consequently considered rather unexciting in comparison.

Gam made Setri a rattle from a pimenton tin.

Setri has also shown the first signs of a sense of humour- for example blowing a raspberry on my cheek when I have asked him for a kiss, or copying what we do to him, and pulling up my shirt to blow a raspberry on my tummy, or Gam's neck. He has also recently started thinking it's funny to bite the loose skin on my tummy :( That's not just unpleasant because it reminds me of its presence, it's unpleasant because he has one hell of a bite on him and it bruises! I'm pretty sure I've seen a smug little grin when I have told him not to touch something, and he has feinted, pretended he's going to play with something else, before darting forward and trying to grab whatever it is I've told him he can't have.

Tomato face.

Feeding:

Setri has increased his solids intake by quite a lot since hitting 6 months. We're doing baby-led weaning, so I don't really measure his intake, but it's a noticeable increase. He seems to alternate between days where he will eat a whole lot of solid food, and days where he seems to only want a small amount.

We are growing a few different things in our garden at the moment, and it is really satisfying to be able to give Setri food we have grown ourselves. He is a big fan of cherry tomatoes, which are just starting to ripen, and he still loves to chew on a bit of mint or basil or lettuce. Our loquat trees (already established when we moved in) produced a few loquats that weren't eaten by birds or possums, so Setri has also enjoyed homegrown loquat (something I'd never tried before moving into our house). I yesterday harvested my first eggplant, so Setri will get to enjoy (hopefully) that too.

With regard to the kinds of foods Setri enjoys, there have been quite a few surprises. It can depend on the time of day, his level of tiredness and all sorts of things, but he has been surprisingly indifferent to some foods I was sure he'd love (rockmelon, pawpaw) and incredibly keen on some things I expected him to be fairly indifferent to! Cucumber, grilled zucchini and grilled green capsicum, for example... I know I used to hate cooked capsicum when I was a kid... I also gave him some blue cheese to try a couple of weeks ago. Not a particularly strong one, but it surprised me that he liked it! Babaghanoush, too, raw garlic and all! I am still reasonably sure that his gut reacts badly to wheat and dairy, however. A few days ago I let him try some sour cherry jam, which he enjoyed, so I then offered him some pomegranate molasses, and his little face puckered up from the sour taste and he started to cry! I also let him have a taste of Gam's chilli (con carne) a week or so ago, and he cried because it was too hot, but I followed it up with a fingerful of natural yoghurt and he was fine. I don't really say no to him trying anything except chunks of nuts or alcohol (which we hardly ever have anyway). Unfortunately he seems to enjoy drinking my coffee... so much for that being an acquired taste. I don't have sugar in my coffee either! Lately if I'm having a coffee I will offer Setri a cup of water first. He knows it's not the same, but it seems to placate him somewhat.

His cup-drinking skills have also improved a lot over the last month or so. He still couldn't drink from a cup without me holding it for him (if I didn't want him to spill it after only a sip or two), but in terms of his ability to take in liquid from a cup and swallow, he can manage more gulps and swallows without having to take a breath than he used to. Unfortunately he still backwashes in a big way, which is a bit gross if he's just eaten and I let him share my cup...

After his 6 month needles.

Toileting:

Something that really interests me about Setri's development over the last month is that he has taken to stealth-pooing. He waits until I put him into his cot and- here's the key thing- leave the room. It's not like it happens at a particular time of day, either, because I don't put him in his cot to sleep, I only put him in there so he can amuse himself with his toys and there is less risk of him crawling off the bed. At a guess I'd say 9 poos out of 10 now occur in this manner.

Now, I would put that down to chance, except for the fact that Setri now knows how to wee on command. I'd kind of suspected this for a while. When his nappy is off on the change table I would exhort him to 'weewee' (so as to save myself from being peed on and to save a nappy), and he'd hold my gaze, his transverse abdominal muscles would clench, he'd grunt a little, and more often than not he would wee. Sometimes he wouldn't, and would seem to get frustrated with me asking him to. Could've been crazy parent syndrome, I thought. We'd wait and see. Well, one day when I asked him to 'weewee', Setri caught my eye, and he gave a little smile that told me he knew exactly what he was doing. He now routinely gives that little smile, and nearly always wees on command, even if it's only a little wee, whether we're on the change table or in the bath. I am so impressed with that, because while I have read about 'elimination communication' (kinda-sorta early toilet training), I have also read that children don't develop awareness and control over the muscles required to go to the toilet until much later. I was a believer in EC, but it really seemed like too much work. Setri seems to have developed some degree of toileting awareness on his own, and I really wasn't expecting it this early. Frustratingly, the potty I bought before he was born (along with a whole heap of other baby stuff) is far too big for him. It's frickin' enormous- and Setri is an enormous baby. Seriously, that potty must be built for large (3yo?) toddlers, it would be too big for a small toddler. So now I'm faced with the task of hunting down a small potty to try him on, to see if we can take this toilet-training thing a bit further. I don't know what my chances are of getting him to poo in his potty, seeing as he seems to want to poo when I'm out of the room, but at least I can get him used to the idea of doing wees in one.

He has also tried on numerous occasions lately to attract my attention when he needs to wee when his nappy is off. It used to be the case that I'd discover he'd weed only when I would notice him slipping around on the wooden floor in a puddle of wee, unable to crawl (yuck!), but lately he has taken to waving his hands to ask to get up and giving me earnest looks, which are completely lost on me until he pees a short time later. I really have to get better about picking up on those cues, or it could be a missed opportunity for toilet-training.

Anyway, that's been my big surprise for the month, I didn't expect to be addressing anything to do with toilet-training so early! These days 12 months would be considered early. Though before Setri was born my mum (who TT'd me at a fairly relaxed pace) told me that my Grannie (dad's late mother) claimed to have TT'd Dad's oldest brother at 3 months. "More like toilet-timing than toilet training", scoffed Mum. At the time I was inclined to agree with her, but now... who knows?

Setri's bucket bath looks an awful lot smaller than it did when he was 2 weeks old!

The latest in a grand tradition of anti-porn screeds in the mainstream media

2010-10-15T00:11:00.000+10:00

Gam sent me a link to this garbage anti-porn article by a (groan) 'Professor of Women's Studies' that I had missed because it was published in the opinion section on the Brisbane Times website. I have so little time to blog these days (let alone do all the stuff that I should be getting done!) that I shouldn't have even read it, knowing I wouldn't be able to help penning a suitably ranty response, but at least I kept it pretty much in point form rather than writing an essay like I did last time.

==================================
Gail Dines on 'porn'. Rather than addressing her sweeping generalisation of the broad diversity of tastes catered for in the real world of porn, I will refer you here to show you exactly what kind of bunk is created when some ignoramus takes a position based on some stupid stereotype of porn. Hereafter just assume that every time Dines writes the word 'porn' she is referring to something hardcore featuring a generic blonde with anus lipstick and silicone boobs being roughly penetrated by 'any number' of well-equipped, ungentlemanly brutes.

"The men they date, have sex with and marry are increasingly being brought up on a steady diet of porn, and the more they watch, the less capable they are of forming connected, intimate relationships."

• Proof? Cite studies?

"The porn these men consume looks nothing like your father's Playboy."

• Really? The same Playboy that 'women's studies' professors spent years railing against as sexist and harmful? I own a Playboy collection ranging through vintage and modern issues spanning nearly 50 years, and the old ones, while being incredibly tame in terms of the visual depictions of women (and extraordinarily literary in their content), are written with a now quaint, old-fashioned sexist bent, despite being reasonably progressive and liberal for their time in terms of women's sexuality.

• It might not 'look like' your father's Playboy, but that's because the content in dear old Dad's Playboy is now pretty much PG rated in the wider context of the amount of flesh it's permissible to display in any visual media in this day and age. Why *should* porn look like your father's Playboy? Playboy never called itself porn anyway, it was nutbag feminists and religious extremists (who have a lot more in common than either group would care to admit) who labelled it such.

"Consumers are catapulted into a world of cruel and brutal sex acts designed to dehumanise women"

- What Dines is saying is that porn is a vast, anti-woman conspiracy. It's not as simple as people wanting to get off, oh no! No, it's a James Bond-style plot hatched by people (i.e. men) who HATE WOMEN and want to victimise them. How can something so preposterous get published in a mainstream newspaper? How? How can someone who spews such tripe, with a blatantly sexist, anti-male bent, be employed at an institution of higher learning?

This is what really gets my goat about anti-porn campaigners. Sheila Jeffries, Dines, they are all highly paid 'academics' who aren't subject to the kind of rigorous review and standards that academics in other fields are subject to. Their extremism is rewarded because they are in a field characterised by nutbaggery and populated by nutbags. It doesn't matter to what extent their work is based on crazed and unfounded claims, because the more it is, the more it is rewarded. Alternate views don't get a look in- women who aren't in complete lockstep (which is most of them, I'll wager), are ostracised and pilloried as brainwashed victims of the invented conspiracy that these overpaid academic feminists spend their careers railing against. They might be respected in their field, but that's because the field is populated not with scientists, who are compelled to adhere to certain standards of objectivity, but with fellow extremists. Universities employ these feminist nutbags because they're big in their field, but in doing so they do themselves a disservice and undermine the very standards in research and education that they purport to uphold. It's a disgrace.

"In the vast majority of porn today, sex is not about making love... connection, empathy, tenderness, caring, affection- are missing, and in their place are those we normally associate with hate- fear, disgust, anger, loathing and contempt".

• Outright bullshit. Porn was never meant to be about portraying sex as being about making love. Sex itself is primarily not about connection, empathy, tenderness etc. etc. It's a biological urge. It can be done in that context, sure, but the other- feeling sexual pleasure just for pleasure's sake- is no less legitimate. There is such a massive, mind-boggling variety of porn out there, and I am 100% certain that Professor (ugh) Dines pulled that grand, sweeping generalisation out of her arse. It's a popular misconception, and it's only popular because people like Dines get published and people like me, who actually watch porn, don't.

"In the vast majority of porn today... as [the female performer] is being roughly penetrated by any number of men, she is being called vile names such as whore, slut, and worse."

• Proof? In the vast majority of porn? How many men? Called names? If you're going to imply that you've studied the stuff and looked at the numbers, cough up some data, woman. Where was that published, exactly?

• Also, the insinuation is that somehow sex that might be characterised as rough, a quickie, fast-and-furious, is somehow non-consensual and degrading to women. Lots of women like rough sex! I like rough sex! If I was a 'professor of women's studies' I might be tempted to pull a sweeping, unfounded pseudo-statistical generalisation out of my arse, such as "a majority of women like rough sex", but I'm not, so I won't. I am confident in saying, however, that it is likely that in the vast majority of porn depicting rough sex, whether with multiple partners or not, the sex is 100% consensual.

"We often hear that porn is all about fun and fantasy, so it has no real effect. My interviews with university-age men tell a very different story."

• See, if this woman's work and any of the journals that published it had even a modicum of scientific credibility, any reviewer would be screaming "SELECTION BIAS, you idiot, SELECTION BIAS!!". What kind of 'university-aged' man would volunteer to speak to some anti-porn-campaigner women's studies professor about their own porn habits? No sane person would believe that their confessional would be treated objectively by an anti-porn 'researcher' (who has already decided what she would like the outcome of her 'research' to be, thankyouverymuch). Her 'research' is likely to consist of interviews with young men who believe that porn is a problem for them, not a broad spectrum of young men in the community. Dines doesn't acknowledge this, of course. What matters to her is not the credibility of her data, just that it backs up her preconceived notions.

"Unlike previous generations, these boys and men have unlimited access to hard-core images 24 hours a day".

• Does that conjure up an image of some dishevelled male, frazzled by hours of self-abuse, in a darkened room lit only by a computer screen displaying pornographic imagery? You betcha! Men, given a computer, will do nothing but access hard-core porn 24 hours a day! They can't help themselves! It's there, so they just keep chugging it down, like an addictive mixture of red cordial and heroin.

"Many of the men I talk to believe that porn sex is what women want, and they become upset and angry when their sex partner, perhaps their wife, girlfriend, or a one night hook-up, refuses to look or behave like their favourite porn star."

• Oh. My. Goodness. So much wrong with this claim it's hard to know where to start. I'll start from the end and work backwards.

• 1. Let's spell this out. Guy gets lucky and convinces a girl to hook up with him. Alright!! Sex is on the menu! Now choose the most likely option:

a) Guy can't believe his luck, starts tearing off his clothes in a hurry so he can get some action in case he's about to wake up and finds it's all a dream.

b) Guy sits random hook-up down and says  "Ok, go to the bathroom, put on these heels and bung on a bit more eyeliner. By the way I'm going to call you Jenna while we're doing it, I hope you won't mind." Then, when the woman in question laughs in his face, he flies into a rage.

• 2. Let's tease apart the rest of what Dines has said...

A man can believe that 'porn sex is what women want' (let's ignore the fact that 'porn sex' in fact encompasses every kind of sex known to humankind and keep it within the narrow-minded spirit that the author intended this passage to be read in, shall we?).

A man can be affronted and angry when his wife or girlfriend (let's ignore the preposterous idea that a one-night hook-up would be subjected to this one, shall we?) refuses to 'look or behave like [the man's] favourite porn star.'

I think a reasonable person would agree that a reasonable man who somehow convinced himself that 'porn sex is what women want' (haha) would, when confronted with information to the contrary, adjust his view in light of this new information.

I think a reasonable person would agree that a man who not only convinced himself that 'porn sex is what women want' but then got angry when confronted with the fact that his wife or girlfriend did not, in fact, want this so-called 'porn sex', could quite reasonably be labelled deranged.

Q.E.D. Dines has admitted that many of the men she has talked to are deranged. Now, is she saying that a substantial proportion of men in the population at large are thus deranged?

"Next to the screaming orgasms and sexual gymnastics of porn sex (again, we must ignore reality and adhere to the Dines Dictionary definition of 'porn sex' to comprehend this statement), real sex with real women starts to feel boring and bland."

• Given that Dines has admitted, albeit unwittingly, that her sample is subject to the worst kind of selection bias and her subjects are, in fact, deranged, this statement actually makes sense. In that context.

• I feel confident in saying, however, that contrary to Dines' implication that all men who view pornography (and thus pretty much all men) are wont to view real sex with indifference and instead prefer porn... ROFLMAO!!!!!! What kind of idiot would seriously suggest something like that???!!

"These men have become so accustomed to porn sex (refer to Dines Dictionary) that some are disappointed by their own sexual performance."

• Wait, only some? Not 'many'? So, while 'many' men in Dines' sample held women to a (stereotypical) porn standard, only 'some' held themselves to the same standard. This again confirms the fucked-up-ness of the sort of guy who would talk to a confirmed anti-porn feminist about their porn habits. Again, I say, NOT representative of the male population as a whole.

"They need to pull up the porn images in their head in order to have an orgasm with their partner."

• Do I need to spell it out? The sort of men who talk to this woman are sufferers of serious sexual disorders! That there is some diagnostic criteria for severely dysfunctional sexual behaviour. If not mental disorders in general, going by some of the other things she has said about these men.

• How, then, is it not extremely offensive and sexist to extrapolate this data obtained by interviewing a subset of the male population who suffer from mental and sexual dysfunction across the male population as a whole? WHY is this tripe being published?

"I had been somewhat sceptical of the addiction model, thinking that it was a way for men to avoid taking responsibility for their porn use. However... sex and relationship therapists Wendy Maltz and Larry Maltz discuss in their book The Porn Trap ..."

• Hang on right there. You're an academic and your reference for this pile of crap you're writing is a couple of sex therapists who wrote a sensationalist, anti-porn book. Honestly! This speaks volumes about the field of women's studies and the universities that pay fat salaries to a select group of women whose profession is spouting unfounded crap.

"While men may share their favourite porn stories, they don't tend to talk to each other about their addictive behaviour..."

• I'm sorry, men what? 'Porn stories'?! I can't say that men don't have special men-only gatherings where they swap their 'favourite porn stories'. Whilst I suspect this is a figment of Dines' imagination, if 'men' did engage in this particular activity I suppose that as a woman I wouldn't be included. From what I've seen of porn, which is probably more than Dines, porn that does have a story is the exception these days. What does that leave to swap? "So then this chick walks into a room where there's a couch, and there's this guy and pretty soon most of their clothes are off and they're doing it". "Awesome! That sounds just like the one I saw last week, except it had two chicks!". "Well the last one I saw didn't even have a guy, there was just this one chick, and a vibrator..."

"If we are really going to tackle porn, however, we... need to build a long-term, multi-pronged movement that involves building coalitions, grassroots education programs, and media strategies that eventually lead to cultural change."

• What, like the current media strategy of printing only anti-porn screeds, typically written by overpaid academic feminists with a tenuous grasp on reality?

• And why do we need to 'tackle porn'? Porn is not the problem! A minority of people have the kind of problem with porn that Dines describes, and the solution is not to obliterate pornography. Mental problems and sexual disorders require appropriate treatment, but we don't need to put the rest of the world in a straitjacket to treat the problems of a small number of people.

• As is typical of anti-porn screeds published in the mainstream media, all porn is lumped in the same basket with no acknowledgement of the diversity of tastes that it caters to. Porn is easily more reflective of human diversity than any other mainstream visual entertainment medium and I'll wager that any real research would back that up. We won't see anything approaching real research from the likes of Dines, however.

"As long as we have porn, women will never be seen as full human beings deserving of all the rights that men have... There is no room for porn in a just society"

• Oh what a crock. As Gam likes to point out, anti-porn campaigners like Dines exhibit a massive blind spot when it comes to gay porn, because it undermines bullshit arguments such as the one above. It's a stupid statement, an unfounded one, and underscores the fact that the academic credentials of anyone in the field of 'women's studies' are immediately suspect. Dines' views are rightly relegated to the opinion pages, but she's masquerading as some sort of social scientist when she really has no more credibility in this field than the average religious nutbag who might pen a similar anti-porn screed. Professor my arse. How can someone get paid to come up with such crap?

Sitting

2010-10-05T09:21:00.000+10:00

Yesterday Setri managed to get to a sitting position on his own for the first time. I think it was an accident and he just accidentally sat back while in a crawling position, but he stayed up, so I think it counts as a first!

Setri at 5 months

2010-10-02T23:01:00.002+10:00

23 weeks old.

Physical:

At 5 months Setri is sporting a head of dark brown curls- finally the curls make an appearance! Gam didn't think it was going to happen, Setri's hair looked straight for so long. I figured there would have to be curls at some point- with Gam's tight, curly afro hair there just had to be! Setri's curls are pretty big, rather than afro, though.

24 weeks.

Setri now weighs 11kg and is roughly 75cm long. I think that makes him about as big as a very large 8-month-old or a mid-sized 11-12 month-old. The extra weight hasn't been going on as chub, though- his thigh rolls have diminished in number to just one on each leg, plus an extra crease above his right knee. Just as well, or he'd be wrapped in newspaper instead of all his nice expensive modern cloth nappies... he is on the largest setting for nearly all of them and I'm praying his fat little bottom doesn't get any fatter!

24 weeks old

Whenever he gets his paws on something new, Setri passes things from one hand to another and studies them closely... Gam and I call it his 'Dr Setri'.

'Dr Setri' studies his sippy-cup.

He grabs at everything. He's so grabby, I'll be carrying him past things and a chubby little arm will shoot out at anything and everything. Likewise, I'll hand him to Gam for a minute and Setri's hand will immediately be aimed at something on the desk. His hand-eye coordination is getting quite good too. Probably my fault it's so good- whenever he tried grabbing the spring of the Jolly Jumper as it hung from the doorway I would swing it and tell him he would only be allowed to put it in his mouth if he could catch it. Needless to say this was an impossible task at first, but it didn't take him long to get the hang of grabbing it while it was moving... I think this skill has translated into improved hand-eye coordination for fast grabbing of stationary objects... oops.

Hehe his bum crack is showing because I didn't do the nappy up tightly enough... so cute :)

Possibly throwing... we still can't figure out if it's deliberate or whether he just accidentally lets go of things and flings them away... given that it never seems to happen when we first give him an object to play with, always after he seems to be getting bored or disinterested, I'm inclined to think deliberate, but I won't call it yet.

He shakes everything to see if it will make a noise. Nappies, toys, items of clothing- anything we give him will be given a vigorous shake in order to determine whether it might make a pleasing rattle/squeak/dinging noise.

Totally 'devo' because I didn't get him the phone- even though it was right in front of him and he was more than capable of crawling forward a couple of inches to get it himself!

He cries his 'sad cry' when something he wants is taken away from him (i.e. tantrum). Also when something he wants is not brought to him... even if he's capable of getting it, the default most of the time is to whinge so someone will do the hard work for him.

Granted, when I took this photo he was crawling backwards rather than forwards, but hey you couldn't tell if I didn't mention it :P

Is crawling! When the 5 month mark ticked over he was still pretty much at the 'two steps forward, one step back' stage, but now he crawls forward all the time. Slowly and doggedly, but it's in one direction! He can make it just over a metre, so far. Typically less if he knows we are present and can fetch for him whatever it is he is crawling towards... He is very motivated when we place a cup of water on the floor for him to crawl towards, and gets 'rewarded' with a drink. Toys: a little bit motivated. Parents: not motivated at all (after all, why don't we come to him? Clearly if we make him crawl we are just being mean!). UPDATE: a couple of days ago he had a day where he seemed to have forgotten how to crawl, only crawling backwards, and getting very frustrated, but the next day he was 'moving forward' well enough to give Julia Gillard a run for her money.

Setri loves to show off for Gam in his Jolly Jumper. Loves showing off for Gam full stop. When Gam gets home, or when he comes into the bedroom as Setri is just waking or is supposed to be heading off to sleep, Setri does a 'full body waggle' of excitement. It's so cute. He doesn't make the same effort for me!

He has started rolling over from front to back when he doesn't want to go to sleep, or when he wants to play or elicit a smile from us (mostly when he doesn't want to go to sleep). The cutest thing is now that he can crawl he can make his way over to me if I'm lying on the bed and semi-roll onto me so that his head is snuggled up on my arm or shoulder. He doesn't yet lift his head and shoulders when he's lying on his back though, which apparently he should be doing 'round about now.

He has started night-waking, something he did briefly around the 4-month mark. Somewhere in the AM Setri awakes and decides to do stuff that is more interesting than sleeping... like crawl to the bedside table in an attempt to steal Gam's BlackBerry (anything with a screen, particularly if it has buttons, is insanely tempting).

23 weeks.

Weirdly, for a few weeks it was as if he had completely forgotten how to roll from back to front. If he's flat on his back, he would just grizzle to be rolled over. And it's not that he was being lazy- I placed toys and desirable objects (the laptop!) for him to encourage him to reach and roll, to no avail. He would arch his back and try to flip himself over, but couldn't remember how to roll. Then all of a sudden, he started doing it again, no problems!

He can sit up by himself without supporting himself using his arms now, but one of his favourite games is to be sat up on the bed and then fling himself backwards so he falls back onto the bed. It's easy to tell when he's about to play this 'game', because he likes to catch my eye (or Gam's) and give a big grin before throwing himself onto his back. This is an extension of the 'drop' game, where Gam and I used to let him fall back onto the bed after letting him stand up... only problem is, occasionally we will sit him up on our laps only to have him try and fling himself backwards onto the floor. Obviously he hasn't succeeded yet, as that would be something he'd only try once, I imagine. This 'game' is the reason I have yet to get a photo of him sitting properly- every time I've got the camera ready to take a picture while Setri is sitting, he gets a big grin on his face and flings himself backwards!

Setri has also mastered the fine art of ignoring one's parents. While most of the time he will turn his head if we call his name, sometimes he will be far too interested in something else and not turn around until we repeatedly call or make an unexpected noise (e.g. clapping). I'm guessing this is normal?

This spatula hangs from a doorway in our kitchen, along with a matching slotted spoon. Setri grabs at them every time he goes past- they're great toys!

Feeding:

I'd say Setri is currently still getting 95-98% of his nutritional intake from breast milk, but these days I'm making an effort to let him eat some kind of solid food at least once a day, even if it's only a taste.

We bought him a high chair- one of the portable ones that clamps onto the table. I had thought we would be able to get away without something like this, as he could eat while sitting on our laps. Indeed he can, but one thing we noticed very early on is that Setri really prefers to make eye contact with one of us while he eats. It's like he needs to take his cues about the food he's eating from us, and he likes to see us eating the same thing. This was pretty difficult to do while having him seated on my lap, and he seems to love sitting in the high chair. Sometimes I'll put him in it just so he can play with things while seated at the table, too.

Water is still one of Setri's favourite 'foods'. 23 weeks.

Setri now bites his food and chews it up- if he takes too big a bite he will spit some of it out, but he always bites in preference to sucking when he is eating solid food these days. He's been trying all sorts of things, no holds barred. The only thing he really turned his nose up at was tinned sardines. He looked absolutely appalled, and very deliberately spat the whole lot out. I can't really blame him, they weren't very nice ones (even though they were the King Oscar brand, in olive oil, they weren't very good). We haven't given him anything with a lot of chilli, but quite a few things most Aussies would classify as a bit hot- e.g. thai chicken balls with fresh chilli in them, a bit of my 'Hot Mama' burger from Grill'd.

Another thing Setri is surprisingly not fond of is potato. He's had it mashed (with added breast milk), baked (with olive oil, herbs and a bit of duck fat) and fried (as fries, both chunky and shoestring) and seems to find it boring, Gam's and my enjoyment of them notwithstanding! It's not that he finds it offensive, he just doesn't seem to like it.

A bit fed up with me taking photos... 23 weeks.

Social:

He gives proper cuddles.

He gives slimy, open-mouth 'kisses', including to his toys after they 'kiss' him

Whinges and makes a straining, 'unnhhhh' noise when he wants something but can't get at it himself.

23 weeks.

Up until he hit 5 months he was still inventing new sounds and using them to death for a few days before moving on to the next one. Mostly they were non-speech- the new sounds variously consisted of farty noises (raspberries), bird-like noises, a cough when he wants something, or wants attention ('ahem ahem!'), a gasping cough/laugh when he wants attention (cough-gasp/whoop- it's very alarming!). Since he hit the 5 month mark he's once again been babbling a lot using speech sounds, without going on 'jags' of making a sound for days on end. He is still making his 'kissch' and 'kisschkissch' noises and getting better at them... so I'm convinced he says it when he wants kisses (or when we're playing a game where he usually gets them), and also saying it to his 'Lamby' toy that I often make give him 'kisses'... it should be noted that Gam is still convinced I'm mad for insisting that Setri is trying to say 'kiss' :P

He loves anything with a screen. Technology! 23 weeks.

Just before Setri hit 5 months, Gam and I got to go out together without him for the first time. We won tickets to a Will Studd cheese masterclass (which was awesome) and Setri was looked after by our wonderful friend Liz. I was very unsure as to how he'd handle it, as he had recently, for the first time, started indicating to us that he wanted to be held by other people (friends), only to start crying very shortly after being handed over for a cuddle. Liz said they had a 'good first half hour and a bad second half hour', which indicated to us that his crying probably had as much to do with the time of day as us being out (because otherwise he would have started crying as soon as we left).

Visit from his 'Grumpa' and 'Grandma Teen'. 22 weeks.

We have resolved to try and go out a bit more without Setri, mostly for us but also partly to get him used to more people. My parents came to visit the day after Setri hit 5 months, and Mum looked after him for a couple of hours while Gam and I went to buy landscaping supplies, and she also took him out in the sling on her own for a couple of walks, and Setri was perfectly happy. He did cry towards the end of our landscaping supplies-jaunt, but only because he was hungry.

The first day or so my parents were here, Setri was pretty wary of them, but after Mum joined in the fun of playing games with Setri as he procrastinated going to sleep the first night, Setri decided she was one of the family and he liked all the extra attention. And my dad had a beard he could pull, so he was cool too. From what we saw during my parents' visit I think he would really thrive on the extra attention if he had grandparents living closer. Gam's parents haven't met him yet, and mine still live 6 hours away by car- I know they'd all like to see more of him; my mum wants to move to Brisbane but my dad is dead against moving.

Auntie Rachelle (my cousin) and Uncle Chris came to visit. Setri has always been remarkably good for Rach, even when he was at a stage where he didn't really like being held by other people. 22 weeks old.

My dad, while he was visiting, expressed the opinion that I was too quick to attend to Setri's demands. I disagree. When Setri awakens and calls out, for example, I always hurry to the bedroom to talk to him and/or pick him up. Gam and I both think that our attentiveness (this doesn't translate into giving in when he throws a tanty over not being handed an object that he wants) has actually paid great dividends in that Setri hardly ever cries. If he wants us to come and get him from another room he will call out, and if he wants a feed he makes soft, conversational murmuring noises. The only time he ever cries is if he's in discomfort, fear, or pain (e.g. woken up with a pooey nappy, has become scared by a loud, unfamiliar noise, or has a bit of wind pain). I'm of the opinion that if we waited until Setri cried before attending to his needs then his first resort for everything would be to cry, because he would know that's what would work to get our attention. That would just be a pain, not to mention not a very good form of communication because we would be at a loss to tell exactly what it was he was crying about! At least now we've narrowed it down (plus he has different cries for different things).

Visit to Bean Scene café, where Gam and I had our first date. 24 weeks old.

Setri still absolutely loves going places in the car (ever since we moved him to a regular car seat), and for walks. Just to look at all the new and interesting things- he's fascinated by absolutely everything, and remarkably well-behaved. He pretty much never whinges when we're out these days, not even when he gets tired.

It sounds dumb, but I've been enjoying this time so much that I have to restrain myself from getting all creepy and evangelical about parenthood on people who don't yet have a kid (a couple of people we know are thinking about it). But I honestly feel like people who don't do this are missing out on something completely and utterly awesome. Sure you could afford a fantastic around-the-world-trip for the cost of raising a kid to 18 years of age, but that's got nothing on the experience of watching a baby grow. I was never against having kids, but I think my mushiness over the whole thing now would make the old me sick. I can wholeheartedly understand why some people get a little bit addicted to it, even. Although I can't imagine having two kids close in age and not being able to devote the same kind of time to the second baby as one does to their first... I am doing my best to savour every minute of my time with Setri. The way we have been speeding through life, with him changing so quickly, gives me an appreciation of the importance of every day that I never had before. It's hard to explain... I just feel like he's going to be grown up before I know it, and I am going to miss this time of my life, while he won't remember a thing!

Not Gisele: 23 weeks on and still saggy

2010-09-23T14:34:00.001+10:00

At least my old clothes now fit!

Well it's not as if it wasn't obvious that I wouldn't be modelling a bikini 2 minutes after giving birth, a la Gisele Bundchen. And, like I was at 11 weeks postpartum I'm still unsure as to whether I'll ever be able to wear a bikini again... I've already made Gam very sad by buying my first one-piece swimsuit in more than 10 years (i.e. since I had a say in what kind of swimsuit I wore!).

Still have lots of extra skin...

I bought from Trixan Body, for anyone who's interested- I really hate swimsuit shopping... not because I'm insecure, but because there is just so much crap out there and I hate wasting my time trying it on. Trixan Body have 'free postage and free returns', so you can buy as many things as you like to try on, and send back what doesn't fit, and I took full advantage! I ordered 5 one-piece suits and sent back 3... brilliant system, even if I did buy one more swimsuit than I meant to! I doubt I'll ever shop for swimmers anywhere else.

Bellybutton skin...

I've lost a bit more weight since 11 weeks, and am now back to my pre-pregnancy weight. The downside of that is that the stretched skin on my stomach hasn't kept up as much as it might have, and I still have quite a lot extra. However, it must be a lot better than it was, because it used to look so gross when I was lying down- all wrinkly- and now it doesn't look anywhere near as bad. More like the stomach of a 50-year-old than a 100-year-old... just a tiny hint of wrinkle now! Oh, but lying on my side my stomach still looks like it's melting off my body. Pretty bad, but it was fairly horrifying before, so it's definitely better than it was! I'm pleased with how the stretchmarks are fading too. Note to anyone who's curious: I did not apply any magic creams or oils, not even moisturiser... I did try and remember to do something like that a few times (no more than about 4-5 times in 23 weeks) with free samples of nice-smelling oils I got sent when I bought some baby clothes for Setri, but most of the time I barely remember to shave my legs, let alone apply nice oils and things... and at least this way I'm not tempted to credit magic oils and creams with stretchmark-fading properties, which I might be if I had used them on a regular basis.

Stomach skin... hard to believe that it used to be even worse!

My bellybutton looks normal when I lie down, but not when I stand up... it kind of slumps forward under the extra skin and looks pretty bloody sad. I finally got to see a physio at the hospital about a month ago, where my stomach muscles were checked for separation and I was also checked internally for signs of prolapse or other damage. There was good news all around in terms of the fascia between my abdominal muscles repairing itself, as well as there being no obvious internal damage, but the physio said that the fascia between my abs had been stretched and might always be a couple of centimetres wider than it used to be, particularly around my bellybutton, so I'll have a bit less waist definition than I used to, by the looks of it... My bellybutton is a bit of a joke, there is so much extra skin on top of it, and it's almost like it's been uprooted from wherever it used to be positioned in my stomach. I'm happy to know that I'm fine to do sit-up-type motions... not that I ever do sit-ups, but getting out of bed while lifting Setri, that kind of thing.

I was actually chuffed when the physio seemed impressed by my stomach muscles- Gam and I hadn't yet got around to doing even a token effort at exercise at the time. Since then we have been for one short jog and 2 days ago I attended a supposedly easy pilates/yoga-mix class at the gym my cousin Rach goes to... The muscles I do have are pretty strong (arms and stomach), but the muscles that have wasted in my year or so without exercise (bum, thighs, inner-thighs, calves) were so non-existent that I was in pain within a few seconds of starting the class! The pain after the class was all good pain, though, and I've resolved to do a bit more exercise.

I say I'm not insecure, but I have noticed that when we are having people over I avoid wearing anything that would require me to lift up my top to breastfeed Setri and thus reveal my stomach... so I guess I am a little insecure. I'm happy enough with how things are going, but I do feel my body is still a little gross for public consumption.

Not going bald, but it was a near thing...

2010-09-22T21:41:00.000+10:00

I had a nice moment of surprise and relief the other day when I was brushing my hair (what little of it that is left) and realised that I had an 'undercoat' of new hair beginning to grow. Phew!

In other news, Setri is crawling, but not very far, nor very fast. He is obsessed with the cats and tries to crawl to them... they feel perfectly safe sitting still and watching him until he comes within arm's reach. I figure the day they high-tail it as soon as Setri starts marching their way is the day we can truly say he is crawling.

The Australian wets itself over Green-bashing backlash

2010-09-19T21:19:00.001+10:00

The Australian has gotten all defensive over the unsettled reaction among its media colleagues and competitors over the way it engaged in open Green-bashing last week. What a complete joke. Seriously, 'tough reporting'? Portraying open calls for the destruction of the Greens as serious journalistic scrutiny?

They're not kidding anyone any more, and it's got them worried.