Conrad’s blog

Conrad’s sister is nearing 2 years old now, and we had a joint kids’ birthday party for her and two of the other mums’ kids on Saturday (14 February) afternoon. Conrad seemed to be enjoying himself too, having had a decent morning nap and then, as usual, being thoroughly entertained by everything going on around him. The party was at Donyngs gym in Redhill, where they have a hall with a big soft play area for kids, which can be hired out for parties. The party hire included an hour in the soft play area and then one hour in a party room, where one can have food, drinks, cake, etc. While the toddlers were running around in the hall, Conrad was carried around by his Daddy, while Mummy was trying to take some photos before she’d have to rush off to prepare the room where we would be eating. Conrad managed a short stint in the ballpit too and really enjoyed it – unfortunately at that point I had to run off to lay the tables, so I didn’t manage to take many photos and Conrad had to be whisked away by Daddy from the ballpit to go keep an eye on the birthday girl instead…

At the party we weren’t short of volunteers who wanted to spend some time with Conrad while Mummy and Daddy did their co-host party duties. One of the mums, Lisa, asked to hold him for a bit and he lent in towards her face, forehead to forehead, to look into her eyes – something he does a lot, he seems to like to be very close – and she knew straight away to just lean and look back (‘”My Tommy used to do this”, she said – so I guess they grow out of it…).

While everyone else tucked into the party food, Conrad had his afternoon bottle. Towards the end of it all, he was getting tired, looking a bit hot and bleary-eyed as he does then. He got so many comments about how contented and happy he seemed.

In time for Conrad’s sister’s birthday party I had bought Conrad a new book – he doesn’t have many – ‘Baby’s first animals’, which basically shows an animal on each page and has the noise it makes written underneath (in English, but I always translate). When we looked through the book together on the day after the party he was staring intently at each page I pointed at, then when I got to the last page and said: “Och här är en hund. Hunden säger ‘vov vov’ “, he turned around and looked at me with a big smile. When I repeated the sound he started to laugh. Must have been my delivery… Would be exciting if he’s developing another interest in books besides chewing them, though.

On Sunday (15 February), Conrad sat on a swing for the first time. He seemed to be quietly enjoying himself with a smile on his face, but his sister (already on the swing next to him) went into happy hysterics over her baby brother sitting on a swing too, which was catching and soon he was laughing too. Lovely!

Gabriella

It’s hard to believe that we are 8 months down the line already. The evenings are gradually getting lighter out there, and before we know it we will be nearing summer.

Conrad is so aware of what goes on around him now and so keen on everything. He has had several comments from people recently about how grown-up he looks, how tall he is and how happy he is all the time. He has a really infectious laugh – that definitely has been confirmed by lots of people (including plenty of strangers out and about) so many times! Yesterday (Sunday 8 February) we went with friends to a kids’ soft play place called “Manic Monsters” in Edenbridge for the first time and Conrad had two fantastic laughing sessions: one when I changed his nappy in the ladies’, and one when his Daddy was making faces at him through the netting in one of the play areas. Several people nearby started to smile, one Dad looking up from his laptop at one of the tables near the play area, and someone actually burst out: “What an infectious laugh!”. So apart from smiling away ourselves, we were so proud…!

Conrad loves to try to communicate with any toddler that happens to be nearby, and they usually in turn seem quite curious, if sometimes a bit puzzled by the baby that’s giggling so unreservedly at them. I took Conrad and his sister to a 2-year birthday party on Friday 30 January, and he was playing really happily in the middle of the floor and all the 2-year-olds with a few toys, at the same time as his big, happy eyes were taking in everything around him. After a while away from me, though, I could feel him looking at me and when I turned around he looked straight into my eyes and made an unhappy face – he didn’t cry, but it was as if he was telling me to come and pick him up. As soon as I did, he was all smiles again.

Conrad can be very noisy at times, predominately all happy sounds, mainly caused by his delight to be walking or standing, playing with certain toys or watching his sister. Apart from general, happy shrieks, his favourite sound of the moment is “da-da-da”. (Jessica actually has started to refer to him as “Da-da” – not being able to say “Conrad” just yet.)

Conrad absolutely, definitely has a little brown patch above the pupil of his left eye – the rest of his eyes are still blue – I have checked in different types of lighting conditions so I can finally be certain. The birthmark in the palm of his right hand appears to have shrunk, though I’m not completely sure whether that’s because the rest of his hand has grown bigger around it.

Gabriella

With Conrad’s first tooth coming through, we had a few nights when he’d wake up at 4am and not manage to go back to sleep. I tried baby paracetamol and teething gel, rocking him and singing to him and changing his nappy, but nothing helped, and at about 6am – his normal breakfast time – I’d give him his mid-morning bottle (basically swapping the meals around, so I could feed him in the bedroom and try him in the cot again afterwards, as he certainly would need more sleep after having been awake since 4am) in case he was getting hungry. After his bottle he’d cheer up and become quite active, but be happy enough to lie in his cot giggling and kicking his legs. And after about another half hour he’d go back to sleep.

This happened four mornings in a row. The fifth morning I tried singing him to sleep (‘När trollmor…’ seems to work well for Conrad) kneeling by the side of his cot, holding my right hand against his left cheek and stroking his temple with my thumb. After a few minutes of crying and tossing and turning, he started calming down and then quietly fell asleep. And slept for another hour. The following night he woke and stirred at 4am, then 5am, resettling himself in-between. I reckoned then, that if it had been teething the first few nights, his tooth probably wasn’t causing him discomfort anymore. As it happens, though, today I felt the rough edge of Conrad’s second tooth coming through – right next to his first one, at the front right at his bottom jaw – so we’ll see what the next few nights are like. Daytime he’s not complained at all, only seemed to chew on things a bit harder than normal.

Conrad’s steadier on his feet now, standing by the sofa, the sofa table or the trampoline to play. He’s still so chuffed when he gets to walk about – or rather run, as he can get up to a fair amount of speed, at times almost lying horizontally with his head first as his feet don’t always seem to keep up with him… A few evenings ago, Conrad and Jessica were chasing each other through the kitchen/hallway/living room (Conrad holding on to Daddy’s hands) and it was really fun!

Last Thursday (5th February), Conrad woke up again after we had been at the Thursday morning toddler group for only about half an hour. He was so excited about everything going on around him that both he and I forgot that he was due his milk at 10am. (I remembered about 45 minutes later and he was very happy to have it when offered.) Afterwards he threw up a fair bit, mainly over my jeans and the floor. He hasn’t actually been sick much at all for a very long while, but the last week it’s been a bit bad again, though mainly after milk feeds. I have been wondering whether it can be linked to the teething (Conrad’s sister Jessica can still be sick every so often if she’s tired or unwell), but so many people want to blame everything on teething – from sore bottoms to heartburn to runny noses, when the real reasons to my mind most likely probably are tummy upsets, acidic food and colds – that I’m not sure I should look to make that connection. Not that it matters; it’s just a case of wiping stuff clean and doing a bit of extra washing, and I’m sure it’ll improve as he gets older.

Conrad had another bath in the tub today and was splashing so vigorously he gradually slid backwards until he had his back at the other end, right by the shower. I held a towel in front of me to try to protect myself from the worst, but it’s great to see him having such fun and not minding water splashed in his face. He also doesn’t mind at all when I pour water over his head to wash his hair. At one point he suddenly sat completely still and reached his hand out to touch the water, as if he was trying to grab it between his fingers. Then he spotted a bright blue mug in the corner of his eye, reached to grab it and the splashing started again! It would be so nice to take him to ‘water confidence’ classes (‘swim’ classes for babies) and see what he makes of it, though my problem would be what to do with his sister meanwhile (I haven’t found any baby swim classes on a Wednesday).

Every day there’s a moment when the two siblings have a giggle together. Yesterday there were two. In the morning I was hanging up some washing (in the living room as unfortunately winter time we have no other space to hang it). Jessica loves to help and Conrad usually watches us sitting on the floor. In the last few days Jessica’s also started to place things on top of her own or a toy’s head saying ‘hatt’ (‘hat’ in Swedish). When she was grabbing Conrad’s bibs out of the pile of damp laundry, this time she started putting them on Conrad’s head, proudly declaring each one a “hatt”. Conrad started to giggle, then Jessica started to giggle too, and the game continued for a while – Conrad was sitting quite still, closely watching Jessica with a big smile on his face, but every so often he’d move just a little bit and one of the bibs would slide off so Jessica had to hurry to put it back on top.

In the afternoon, Jessica played ‘Where’s Conrad?’ putting a muslin over his head and every time he tore it off or it slid off to reveal his smiling face peering out underneath it (unbelievably cute…!). They were giggling so much I thought they’d fall over.

Gabriella

Sunday night to Monday (2nd February), the skies decided to open and treat the UK to some proper winter weather. Especially in Surrey, things came to a standstill, with lots of people not making it to work or school – a lot of schools actually shut for a couple of days. Ian didn’t manage to get to work either – the station was shut, with all trains cancelled, and when he phoned work to say he was going to be a bit late in and drive instead, he was told that traffic into Redhill was horrendous and not to worry, but stay at home. So suddenly we had an extra day the whole family together!

We certainly didn’t want to miss the opportunity for the kids to experience all the snow, so we set off to the park and the playground. There was plenty of the white stuff for Daddy to make a sizeable snowman in a not too short space of time whilst Mummy put a pair of wellies on Conrad to let him stand and walk outside for the first time and get a closer look at the snow.

He was quite wobbly on his feet, understandably, as the snow was thick and uneven under foot, Conrad not having worn anything but socks on his feet, and I’m not sure the wellies were the best fit, either. But he was giggling away happily, so he must have been enjoying himself. I didn’t wait too long until I tucked him back into his cosy toe, though, as it felt pretty cold.

With a lot of parents not making it to work, we saw lots of couples with young kids out for walks or playing in the snow. And with schools closed, there were several groups of excited kids roaming around Horley. It was a bit of an odd day and the kids suddenly having a day off probably felt like the whole day was a bit of an exception to routines and rules – as we were in Lidl getting a pack of nappies a group ran through the shop, cheering and throwing snow balls at the tills. We did see several police cars driving slowly around Horley the rest of the day, every so often stopping a few kids for a chat.

Today I decided to not go to the park at all. Snow starting to melt yesterday afternoon, then freezing overnight, had made roads and pavements slippery. So I took the kids food shopping and back in the double buggy. Schools were still closed but more people, including Ian (though it took him longer than usual and he had to catch a bus instead of the train) made it to work.

Gabriella