Blake is going to be a year and a half in a week. Like all parents we think a lot about his development. Is he reaching his milestones on time? Ahead of time? Is he breaking records? Is he providing me with fantastic anecdotes that I can use to obliterate the self image of fellow parents and send them running and screaming back to their "What To Expect" books?
To be honest, I don't really care. I'm not researching on-line to see what Blake is supposed to be able to do week by week. I don't try to compare him to other babies at that age, including what I used to be like. There are mainly two reasons for that. For one thing I don't want to broadcast to him any anxiety. I don't want him to feel inadequate or slow. For the most part, though, it's simply the fact that I really don't care if my son is the strongest, tallest or smartest (he is the handsomest, though). I'll leave that second-hand achievement chasing to other parents. For me it's far more important that he'll be happy, healthy and a decent human being.
Mind you, I'll totally update my Facebook status to show off if he won a Noble Prize. He is more than welcome to become an Olympic gold medallist or create a pill that cures all forms of cancer overnight. Don't get me wrong, I don't want him to work night shifts at Tesco all the way to his pension, it's just that I prioritize other things above a successful career. I assume that part of being happy means doing something you like doing (or at least don't hate) and getting paid for that fairly.
With this chunky disclaimer out of the way, I can concentrate on little Blakey-Cakey at almost one and a half. What is he up to? How developed is he?
Well, he can't talk yet. Not properly. There's lots of ababababawapapa and making fart noises with his mouth. He also tried saying sunflower (which is really two words) as his first word a couple of months ago, but it came out more like safa. This pretty much sums up his speaking efforts for the moment. Oh, there was also the brief period where he enjoyed making a noise while sucking in air which was quite startling as you don't really expect a one year old to gasp. Repeatedly.
On the physical front he's doing very well. He's not walking as much as running. He always zooms about the place and always with a clear sense of purpose. Got to pop into the guest room, climb on the bed and peek outside through the window. Then through the kitchen to the wash-room where he needs to go check on the washing machine. Run to the living room and push his train and throw some balls around. Then must run back to the kitchen and splash the dog water all over the place, slip on the puddle he made and cry. Occasionally he'd climb the stairs to the first floor and close the baby gate after himself. He'd even sometimes stop halfway through and attempt to go down a stair or two by carefully finding his footing. I suppose he remembers the unplanned tumble down the stairs from a few months ago (a story for another time).
Blake spends most of his time conducting scientific experiments. He's very good with technology. He only needs to be shown once what each button does. Right now he knows how to turn the iPod in his room, play pre-recorded tunes on Daddy's electronic piano and his own toy piano. He knows what button turns on any of the phones and the fax. He even called the police too a couple of times and no, they didn't think it was cute. He manges to turn on alarms and disable playlists on the iPod, something that took me quite a while to figure out how to undo. His latest tech achievement was creating a custom chat room in World of Warcraft called 433fj1i019. Conquering the field of electronics isn't enough, though.
A budding physician Blake likes taking objects and test their rollability on the coffee table in his daddy's study. Balls and tube shaped objects roll quite well. A glass full of grapes juice rolls exceptionally well and makes a fine sticky mess on the white carpet underneath. Books and eyeglasses fail the rollability test, which makes them ideal test subjects for breakability. He found that standing by the child's gate on the top of the stairs he could throw pretty much anything down below through the gaps between the posts. If something happens to be too big to fit between the bars all that needs to be done is push the object up slowly and over the railing. The foot of the stairs now looks like a landfill with toys, clothes, discs, TV remotes, phones and whatnot. So far the only casualty was a plastic pig toy. All in the name of science.
Blake also loves flipping the pages of books. And eat them. He especially likes taking a book and placing it first on our bed or the coffee table and why wouldn't he? I sometimes try and sit with him to read the words for him, but he flips the pages a bit too fast and I can only manage to squeeze in the first few words.
This is just scraping the surface. There's so much else that he does and I'll need to probably follow up this post with another. This is just a taste of Life with Blake right now and I can tell you: the boy is delicious!
--Mickey
To be honest, I don't really care. I'm not researching on-line to see what Blake is supposed to be able to do week by week. I don't try to compare him to other babies at that age, including what I used to be like. There are mainly two reasons for that. For one thing I don't want to broadcast to him any anxiety. I don't want him to feel inadequate or slow. For the most part, though, it's simply the fact that I really don't care if my son is the strongest, tallest or smartest (he is the handsomest, though). I'll leave that second-hand achievement chasing to other parents. For me it's far more important that he'll be happy, healthy and a decent human being.
Mind you, I'll totally update my Facebook status to show off if he won a Noble Prize. He is more than welcome to become an Olympic gold medallist or create a pill that cures all forms of cancer overnight. Don't get me wrong, I don't want him to work night shifts at Tesco all the way to his pension, it's just that I prioritize other things above a successful career. I assume that part of being happy means doing something you like doing (or at least don't hate) and getting paid for that fairly.
With this chunky disclaimer out of the way, I can concentrate on little Blakey-Cakey at almost one and a half. What is he up to? How developed is he?
Well, he can't talk yet. Not properly. There's lots of ababababawapapa and making fart noises with his mouth. He also tried saying sunflower (which is really two words) as his first word a couple of months ago, but it came out more like safa. This pretty much sums up his speaking efforts for the moment. Oh, there was also the brief period where he enjoyed making a noise while sucking in air which was quite startling as you don't really expect a one year old to gasp. Repeatedly.
On the physical front he's doing very well. He's not walking as much as running. He always zooms about the place and always with a clear sense of purpose. Got to pop into the guest room, climb on the bed and peek outside through the window. Then through the kitchen to the wash-room where he needs to go check on the washing machine. Run to the living room and push his train and throw some balls around. Then must run back to the kitchen and splash the dog water all over the place, slip on the puddle he made and cry. Occasionally he'd climb the stairs to the first floor and close the baby gate after himself. He'd even sometimes stop halfway through and attempt to go down a stair or two by carefully finding his footing. I suppose he remembers the unplanned tumble down the stairs from a few months ago (a story for another time).
Blake spends most of his time conducting scientific experiments. He's very good with technology. He only needs to be shown once what each button does. Right now he knows how to turn the iPod in his room, play pre-recorded tunes on Daddy's electronic piano and his own toy piano. He knows what button turns on any of the phones and the fax. He even called the police too a couple of times and no, they didn't think it was cute. He manges to turn on alarms and disable playlists on the iPod, something that took me quite a while to figure out how to undo. His latest tech achievement was creating a custom chat room in World of Warcraft called 433fj1i019. Conquering the field of electronics isn't enough, though.
A budding physician Blake likes taking objects and test their rollability on the coffee table in his daddy's study. Balls and tube shaped objects roll quite well. A glass full of grapes juice rolls exceptionally well and makes a fine sticky mess on the white carpet underneath. Books and eyeglasses fail the rollability test, which makes them ideal test subjects for breakability. He found that standing by the child's gate on the top of the stairs he could throw pretty much anything down below through the gaps between the posts. If something happens to be too big to fit between the bars all that needs to be done is push the object up slowly and over the railing. The foot of the stairs now looks like a landfill with toys, clothes, discs, TV remotes, phones and whatnot. So far the only casualty was a plastic pig toy. All in the name of science.
Blake also loves flipping the pages of books. And eat them. He especially likes taking a book and placing it first on our bed or the coffee table and why wouldn't he? I sometimes try and sit with him to read the words for him, but he flips the pages a bit too fast and I can only manage to squeeze in the first few words.
This is just scraping the surface. There's so much else that he does and I'll need to probably follow up this post with another. This is just a taste of Life with Blake right now and I can tell you: the boy is delicious!
--Mickey
2 comments:
hey!! you got a blog too! well, it looks like you had it for much longer than me, but I really enjoyed reading it...
have a look at mine too!
see you on the 29th!
mx
I'm already following your blog, Marco!
My blog has been around for a while, but I always keep wishing I'd be writing more regularly... Maybe now that I finally have one follower I'd be more motivated to! :D
--MB
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