Pretty much since Conrad moved in with Jessica, we’ve had a quite a few very early rises, with Conrad stirring around 5am, and waking his sister up too. Conrad stirs and starts to chat away to himself, and more often than not kicks the side of his cot as he rolls back and forth. But every so often we get a 6am one, which is fantastic – almost like a lie-in. Conrad seems chirpier throughout the morning for it (and his sister and Mummy aren’t quite as shattered either…!). Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, or just Conrad sleeping a bit more due to the cold he’s just had, but it seems somehow that the slightly later mornings have been a bit more common lately.
As soon as I come into the room and pull down the ‘black out’-blanket from the window, Conrad giggles at me and kicks his legs excitedly, and Jessica hops to her feet, point to his cot and goes ‘Dada vaken!’ with a big smile. I fetch Jessica out of her cot bed, sit Conrad up in his, open the window and straighten both their beds out (so they’re ready for the kids’ naps later in the day). And then I lift Conrad up and our procession of three make our way down the stairs with Jessica, clutching her bed toys, leading the way. Then Jessica, sitting on top of Conrad’s box of clothes in the bathroom, watches me wash Conrad and change his clothes and nappies before we go into the living room and sit down at the table for breakfast.
Conrad has two 1.5 to 2 Weetabix or Oatibix biscuits (on alternate days) with full fat milk and little bit of mashed banana. Jessica chooses his bib out of the two I’ve put on the table for them, which he seems quite happy with. After he’s had his cereal I offer him water in his sippy mug. If he wants to, he’s fine picking it up and drinking from it himself now, but the last week or two, he’s been more interested in blowing in the water, giggling as he makes bubbles in the water and it pours down over his chin and into the bib. He’s terribly cute with his big smile (when he smiles it’s with his whole face, his eyes light up and you can’t help smiling back and feel all warm inside) and then he giggles and kicks his feet and Jessica giggles too.
When Conrad plays he seems particularly interested in toys that make a noise – that is, musical noise. Some of his favourites seem to be Jessica’s drum, xylophone and swanny whistle – aside from all of his own and Jessica’s rattles, which he loves to shake (and still, not to forget, chomp). When he hits the drum and xylophone, it’s not to whack it as hard as he can, but makes quite a pleasant, melodic sound. He blows the swanny whistle really well, we think, for someone so little, and we were all really happily surprised when he managed to make a whistling noise come out of a star-shaped funnel (belonging to the outdoor sand table) by blowing into it. It amused us all when he did it first time, and it made him laugh and look very pleased too, and he seems to find it really easy to do it (although Ian and I have both tried to make a sound of it and failed miserably…!). So I guess we’re wondering a bit whether music might be his thing…?
It probably sounds too good to be true that Conrad laughs and smiles so much, but he really does. He gets cranky too, of course: when he’s tired, he loses interest in things much more quickly and grumbles if he’s not given attention; when he’s just about to have his breakfast (when I’m preparing it in front of him, even if he’s been perfectly happy up until that point) he starts to crank because it’s not in his mouth yet(!); sometimes when he falls over either out of surprise or because he’s bumped himself a bit. But he’s such an easy-going little boy, who seems to really be enjoying life – long may that last!
Only one month left until Conrad’s first birthday…
Gabriella
Helt galet lik dig Gabriella i brunrödrandiga tröjan…Puss! M