Father's Day

 

I don't really know how to say what an amazing dad Lucas is, so I thought I'd just post my favourite pictures of him with Olive (including some iphone and instagram shots, which are some of my favourites, despite the crappy quality). Watching them together is such an amazing thing. She's a lucky girl. 

10 months.

At 10 months Olive is starting to feel like a toddler. She's starting to walk on her own, taking about 12 steps before she falls over or grabs something for support. Every day she chooses some object and carries it around with her, shimmying along the walls while she grips it tight. Sometimes it's a toy (her favourite at the moment is a scruffy dog from Cheryl), but usually it's something strange, like last year's Christmas card from Stace and Andrew, a whisk, or an egg carton and texta (because Lucas showed her how to draw on the egg carton and now she's obsessed with trying to draw). She plays little games where she pretends you're trying to chase her and tries to get away as quickly as possible, squealing and laughing...possibly the cutest thing I've ever seen. She was pretending I was chasing her with the vacuum cleaner this morning.

Most people say that babies get so much harder when they start getting around, but for us she's become so much easier. She's so happy now that she can do what she wants. She loves to explore the house, following us from room to room, picking up bits and pieces to examine (or try to eat) as she goes. I love when I find her sitting quietly "reading" a book (her favourite at the moment is "Spot Loves His Dad") or playing with whatever she's found.

She's also started throwing toddler tantrums, which involve feet stomping, yelling and throwing herself on the floor. A little early for terrible twos, but she's always liked to do things early.

9 Months

I'm writing this almost a month late, and she grows and changes so quickly that it's already hard to remember what she was like at 9 months old. A few things I do remember:

* She started sleeping better after our little "holiday" at Tresillian. I couldn't let her "cry it out" even with support, so we took the softer option, patting her to sleep in her cot (rather than feeding or rocking her to sleep). At 9 months she still needed me to pat her to sleep, but was down to waking one or two times each night (a vast improvement from her usual, every 2 hours). I even got an 8 hour stretch for the first time since she was born!

* She'd started crawling - though not in the conventional way. Using one leg to scoot along, dragging the other leg underneath her.

* She'd figured out how to get around the whole house using a mixture of crawling and walking along the furniture and walls. The walls were (and still are) covered in tiny, dirty hand prints.

* She was starting to talk and communicate more. Saying Dad, Mum and bub all the time. Waving and pointing at everything.

* Her favourite things to play with were cutlery, tupperware, blocks and the cat food box.

* Her favourite food was grapes.

* She was starting to take a step or two on her own.

* She was super happy and confident and much more friendly, smiling at checkout ladies and strangers on escalators.

* She was constantly trying to chew on any button she found (as can be seen in the photos above).

8 months.

 

So, life and uni got in the way of updating, but I figure if I at least keep up the monthly posts it will be nice to look back on. Already, I look at photos from two months ago and she seems like a different baby. In the last month she's grown up so much and learned so many new things. She's giving kisses, starting to wave, walking along every piece of furniture (or holding anyone's hand) she can find, saying "mum", recognising people's names and looking for them when we ask where they are, pointing out things in books and learning to feed herself. 

She's also finally starting to grow out of her fear of strangers and has started becoming much more confident and friendly. We don't have to worry that she's going to scream the place down every time we take her anywhere anymore, which makes life seem a lot more normal. Apart from the continuing lack of sleep. She's still waking up a million times a night and needs me to put her back to sleep. It's exhausting and some days I don't know how I function on the little sleep I've had. I get by by trying not to think about it. If I pretend I'm well rested it's not as stressful, somehow. But we're off to Tresillian on Thursday, so I'm hoping they can help without traumatising Olive (or me).

It amazes me when I see these people who have babies and seem to continue on with life as normal, when at 8 months the new baby fog seems like it's only just lifting. I don't know if we got a particularly challenging baby, if some people find it easier to just get on with it, or if everyone puts their old life aside for the first 6 months but you don't really notice unless you're the one with the new baby. Anyway, we got there, and now I feel like we're a little family, rather than two people who just had a baby and don't know what to do with it. It's nice.