Most of the past month has been spent getting ready for the move to our new house and preparing our current place for rental. We found out early last week that the current owners want to settle 2 weeks earlier so we have had to quickly get lots of documents signed and start organising removalists.
We did get a break from house stuff in mid July with a weekend away in Canberra to go to a baptism. As with all our trips to Canberra we try to go and see something new. This time we took Jeremy to see the Deep Space Communications complex at Tidbinbilla on a freezing but clear Sunday morning and took some great photos.
Jeremy's 2nd tooth looks to be on the way and he is needing less and less support to stand up. Not sure if he will be walking by his birthday next month, but if not it will be very soon after. He has also started climbing up the stairs, but has a bit of trouble getting down again. Our new house is only on a single level and apart from painting the bedrooms we will be baby-proofing (well trying to) as much as we can. Anything in our current place has been temporary (like moving items higher which only buys a short amount of time).
I turned 35 in May and I was looking forward to my birthday. Unfortunately it was overshadowed by Ruby having a severe gall bladder attack that same week and 2 weeks later having surgery for its removal. Ruby required about a week to recover so I took a week off work to take care of both her and Jeremy. It was very similar to after Jeremy was born with Ruby being unable to carry Jeremy along with the added bonus of Ruby only being able to eat soft foods! Fortunately she has fully recovered (fully cleared at her 3 week checkup) and is starting to eat normal foods again.
When we came back from the USA we decided to hunt for a new house so we could have a bit more space and a backyard for Jeremy to run around in. So most of the Saturdays in the past couple of months were taken up looking at houses in the local area. By the time of Ruby's surgery we were really getting tired of house hunting and the options had really been drying up (we had missed one place in mid May as we did not have our finances sorted out). Both of us being home in early June meant we talked more about what we wanted in a new house and we realised that one place we had looked at around my birthday could actually have been what we were looking for. We took another look the following Saturday and in the next week we had finance sorted, made an offer and signed the contract.
Our new house (we handed over the deposit last Thursday) is only a couple of blocks from where we currently live in Telopea. It is on a corner block, all freshly painted and carpeted, new kitchen, with 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms (one being an ensuite), carport, garage and a nice sunroom. There's a huge gum tree out front to provide shade from the western sun and plenty of north facing roof to be able to put in some solar panels (if the gum tree doesn't shade the roof too much). We settle in mid August, which is just in time for us to move in, fix a few things and prepare for Jeremy's first birthday and our housewarming party.
Jeremy had a number of firsts recently and we were able to catch them since we were both home (as well as video them). He now has his first tooth on the lower left front (you can just see it in this photo). Also, there is no more slithering across the living room as he has finally starting to crawl properly. It is amazing to see how fast he can get across the living room and get into the furniture, photo albums and even the home entertainment components (good fun really with lots of wires and lights!). He is also pulling himself up to standing on clothes racks and even his highchair and we think it will not be long before he is walking. We have already had to quickly adjust his cot so he does not climb out. Nothing is safe anymore and we started moving breakables and non-baby friendly items away from his reach.
On the food front Jeremy has moved quickly away from purees. We can now hand him large slices of banana or strawberries or slices of toast and he will happily pick those up off his tray and munch away. We are slowly weaning him and he is down to 2 breastfeeds per day and is even eating some of the same foods as us such as shepherd's pie and risotto. After many weeks of trying he is now drinking some of the water we give him.
Oh and why the "Stinky Nuggets" title? With the move to mainly solid food, his poo has become solid and very stinky which I call his stinky nuggets (as a breastfed baby there was not much poo smell in the first 6 months).
At the end of March we took Jeremy on his first trip to Sanctuary Point south of Sydney and while there took him to the beach for the first time. At both Austinmer and Vincentia (where I probably first had a dip in the ocean as a kid) we took him down to the water's edge to get his feet wet. Even though it was not too cold, he really didn't like going in the water! Funnily enough he was very interested in the waves going in and out, just as long as he was not in the water. Maybe next year...
He is putting all that solid food to good use! Midway through April Jeremy turned his roll / stretch into a drag crawl (more like a commando crawl). He can do a kind of push up as well get up off his tummy as if he is going to crawl but just he sways from side to side and then goes back onto his tummy. Not that dragging along the floor is slowing him down, he now tries to chase after us. A number of things in our lounge and family rooms have had to be moved as he has found these much more interesting than his toys!
We started off the month with a quick visit to Mudgee, but our main focus in February was the trip to Seattle. This was Jeremy's first aeroplane ride and a long trip anyway (14 hours from Sydney to LA is long enough for adults!). Our flights to LA and back (on V Australia) left in the evening and we had a seat with a bassinet for Jeremy. Both times Jeremy slept really well (basically like his normal nighttime sleep) even when there was turbulence (when you have to take the baby out of the basinet). However, Jeremy really did not like the connecting flight from LA to Seattle (on Alaskan Airlines). He did not have his own seat or bassinet and the plane just felt crowded. We had finally entered that elite group: Parents With the Screaming Child (PWSC).
In Seattle as well as visiting family and friends we also visited places like Mt Rainier (where Jeremy saw his first snow) and Snoqualmie Falls (where Ruby took this really great photo of Jeremy). However, I think the best thing is that Jeremy forged a bond between himself and his Lola and Lolo (Filipino for Grandma and Granddad). We also set up a webcam so that (via Skype) he can see more of Lola and Lolo in the future.
One of the great things about going to Seattle is indulging in their coffee. There is much more choice over there and the price is much cheaper than here! We enjoyed delicious coffees such as Intense dark chocolate mocha from Tully's, dark chocolate cherry mocha from Starbucks and caramel mocha from Dilettante cafe at the airport. If we had another couple of weeks, we'd probably would have sampled the lot of mochas from all the major Seattle coffee chains.
In Australia many of the shopping centres have dedicated parents rooms which makes life for us very easy as there is a place to change Jeremy and for Ruby to breast feed him. In general this was not the case in Seattle, at best they have a room with a toilet and a change table. Except at Westfield Southcenter where the parents room was excellent.
Jeremy's poo got a lot worse in that he more often than not would also dirty up his all clothes (we call these either number 3s or Poo-Splosions). All in all not very nice to change it the back of a car or in a toilet. The nappies (ok diapers in the USA) we bought in the US were so much thinner than the ones we get here (Pampers Baby Dry) and whilst they were great for soaking up wee, they might also have been the reason Poo-Splosions were so bad.
As Jeremy was just over 6 months old when we arrived back in Sydney we took him for his next immunisation (he was very good with not much crying) and started him on solids. First we tried rice cereal (which he really likes as you can see in the video below) and have since moved onto apple, banana, pumpkin and avocado. He is not too sure about these and has made some funny faces when given a spoonful or pushed the spoon away. The best way we have found get him to eat these is to mix them with the rice cereal. We are also reasonably sure he is getting the solids through as the Poo-Splosions seem to have been tamed...
Normally I include the videos in the same location as the photos (Google's Picasa). However, I was not very happy with the overall quality of the videos (Google converts them so they look very pixellated) so I am giving Vimeo a try as its quality looks very similar to the original movie.
The weekend after we came back from Seattle we took Jeremy to the wedding of our friends Michael and Emily (the first wedding Jeremy has been to). He behaved himself very well and despite there being a few mosquitos about he managed to not get bitten (I suspect they went after Ruby instead).
Jeremy is now using his rolling and stretching skills to explore our lounge and dining rooms. We are really not used to how quickly he can move and we really need to keep a closer eye on him as he is very keen to put everything in his mouth! I do not think it will be long before he starts crawling...
Actually he has only learnt how to roll from his back to his front and not back again. A couple of mornings I have found Jeremy on his tummy, sometimes situated 90-270 degrees from the original position when we tucked him in for bed. Its a bit scary too as we never know how long he's been that way, sometimes he gets so tired from tummy time that he just face-plants himself into the bed. So, from now on we check him more often just after we put him to bed. He can also self-settle into sleeping now too which is great!
As for laughing, check out this video. After mother's group last wednesday, we visited my Auntie Vergie who was playing with Jeremy causing him to laugh. The next day, I tried the same trick and got him to laugh some more. He doesn't do it all the time, but it was neat to have caught it on camera.
Jeremy received both his passports in January: Australian and American, which made it possible to book our tickets to the US. We are looking forward to visiting my family in Seattle, but more importantly some Jeremy-free time as Lola offered to do a lot of babysitting. I don't think she will leave him out of her sight!
Another month has zipped by and now we are in a new year and decade. During December Jeremy had his first visit to Santa, first visit to the beach, first train ride and he did a great job opening his xmas presents.
We started December by taking Jeremy to see Santa and he sat on his knee very calm and collected (no smiles though!). A new baby for our friend Themy gave us a great excuse to take Jeremy to the beach for the first time.
Jeremy's first trip on a train was into the city so we could sort out his US Passport. He loved going on the train and did not want to just sit in his pram, but look out the window over my shoulder and take in all of Sydney zipping by. Whilst it was a rather miserable day in the city we had a look at both the David Jones windows and Myer's Santaland. Jeremy was not too interested, but we will probably go back and look again this year (but a bit earlier in December, rather than the week before xmas!).
We celebrated xmas in Sydney with our family. Jeremy was actually quite good at opening presents once I had given him part of the paper to hold onto. However, he was not too interested in the presents themselves, instead he just wanted to munch on the paper.
In December we tried getting Jeremy to self settle as we realised he was going too heavy soon to settle by comforting him on the shoulder. This has largely turned out to be successful We know that if he is not asleep at 8-9 mins after putting him down he won't go to sleep without another cuddle (or 10!).
We ended 2009 on the central coast where Jeremy was able to see his first fireworks. The Wangi fireworks were excellent and we were far enough away they were not too loud.
November was a busy month for us and Jeremy has once again surprised us with how much he has grown (last week he was over 7kg and 65cm long) and now fits into size 00 clothes. Click on the following link to go to our November photos and video.
Compare how Jeremy has grown over the past couple of months!
Jeremy had his first trip to visit his grandparents in Mudgee (and we worked out how much to pack in the car). The following weekend Jeremy had his first Thanksgiving in Canberra with his godparents Phil and Allelie. It also turned out to be a good weekend to be away from Sydney with temperatures only 30 C compared to Sydney's 42! His godparents also gave him a toy caterpillar which always brings out smiles and chuckles.
Jeremy also said his first word (see this video, or go to the photo album link above). We are also pretty sure he has said a few "yeah's" as well in the past couple of weeks. Jeremy is also doing very well on the sleep front and is now regularly sleeping though the night (well ok, he does wake up at 5-530am!).
This month Ruby finally joined a mother's group (Parramatta council finally organised something) and that is going well as they have met every week since. Jeremy has made a lot of new friends amongst the other babies in the group.
We also discovered this month how useful the parents room at the big shopping centres are. Not only can we change Jeremy, they also have a private are where mums can breastfeed. This makes shopping trips so much easier. Whilst it is on the wrong floor for most of the shops we normally visit, the Parramatta parent's room is by far the best.
On the nappy front Jeremy has tried out the Toys'R'Us nappies which were very good (and a reasonable price). Our experience with the Aldi nappies were not so good as Ruby found she kept on getting blowouts. Ruby also discovered Sorbies which are quite good and come with both daytime and nighttime nappies. We also stocked up on the next size of Huggies for the upcoming months, we can't believe that Jeremy can now fit into Crawler (6-11kg) size nappies!
