On the move

The biggest news since I last posted is that Alex is walking (and has done so for about a week). Last weekend he did two or so steps and then during the week practiced a bit more. Today it was at least five! I don’t consider he is walking until he can walk across the room so G thinks that may be by the end of the week.

Along with the joys of Alex evolving into a toddler is his new habit of climbing on everything. The up turned washing basket, Luke’s stool, his play table etc. Luckily he knows to get down off things (especially beds and sofas he needs to back off) so we’ve avoided any major accidents so far.

At 10 and ½ months Alex’s personality is showing itself. He’s been in his “I want mummy and only mummy” stage for a while and just this weekend was much happier with G and other people so I’m hoping he’s starting to move out of it. He’s much happier playing on his own and even crawls off up the passage and into the room to play with toys. That’s a big improvement than having a baby hanging off my legs or in my arms most of the day. He’s also clearly communicating and has noises, grunts and gestures that clearly say “no more”, “get that away from me”, “pick me up” and much more.

Our other BIG news is that after a long weekend away at Falls Creek when we all stayed in a family room we’ve put the boys into the same bedroom. Not only do we have our room back but they seem to quite like it. Both are lightish sleepers but Luke pretty much sleeps through any night waking and it’s only a little dicey from 5am when one can easily wake the other. Most families we know with kids in the same room love it so we think our boys will as well. They are building a strong bond and I love to see Luke crawling around the house with Alex. I’m a little more worried now that Luke is trying to pick Alex up and carry him – there’s only a few kilos weight difference between them.

Luke is getting very close to three and is definitely in the best stage yet. The terrible twos were reasonably kind to us although he does have some awful moments when he’s overtired and completely horrible. The weekend away at Falls Creek was an example. His little girlfriend would acknowledge that she was tired and take herself off to bed and sleep but Luke would hype up, fight us and get out of control. I’m with the opinion that girls are more mature…

We had a couple of funny incidents with Luke last week. On Tuesday when I picked him up from childcare he announced he wanted mustard for dinner so I said sure but we both forgot by the time we got home. Then Wednesday he was going on about mustard again but when we got it out he turned his nose up and kept going on and on about it. Then I realised that I’d made custard the week before and Luke had been calling it mustard. So G got cooking and Luke and Alex both ate a big bowl of mustard for dinner on Thursday! We were out doing a few errands around the corner when two extremely large women were walking towards us – Luke says “they’ve got big tummies” and then the other day we’re driving and he sees a man crossing the road and Luke says “he’s not got much hair”. Oh no the horror what comes out of the mouth of babes…