7-8 months letter

To my big boy Riku,

Well, I didn't manage to write you a 7-month letter on time after all, so I'll have to condense two into one this time and try harder next time! You have made amazing progress in the last two months- you can now sit up completely unaided without needing cushions around you in case you fall over (you do still occasionally fall over, bonk your head on the floor and cry but it only happens once every few days now!)

From about 6 weeks ago you started to scoot around the hardwood floors in an army crawl position- always backwards though, so you would keep going until you backed yourself into a corner and then get upset if someone didn't save you! About a month ago that skill was superseded- you managed to get up on all fours and started rocking, slowly at first and then faster and faster, and now you can crawl- not really the sustained, right left right left kind of crawling yet, but you are definitely getting yourself around the room these days.

You are starting to be able to pull yourself upon furniture, on us or on your play gym but usually don't quite get all the way there yourself. Not very far off now I'm sure! Once you are up you can stand for a while and play with things on the table but you sometimes forget you can't stand by yourself just yet and let go with both hands so we have to be right there to catch you still.

You passed your 7-month check with flying colours- you are about 75th percentile for height and 25th for weight, so on the long and lean side, but the doctor didn't seem concerned and that body type is in your genes anyway, it was probably unlikely that your dad and I would have had a very chubby baby. Other than your cheeks of course, which lots of people comment on!

Introducing solid foods is still a hit and miss affair- spoons are still very much a no-go, whether I'm holding it or you are. You like some of the packaged baby snacks that I buy at the baby shops and love cheese, but most food you tend to have a very cursory gnaw on and then throw off the side of your chair- again and again if I keep putting it back on the tray for you. Foods you haven't outright rejected lately include mandarin segments and sekihan (sticky red rice with beans), but at this point you are still about 95% breast fed, so the search continues for foods you will/can eat! One thing you can now do though is drink from a cup with a straw by yourself- you learned to do it with only about five minutes of practice, very impressive!

In the last 3 weeks or so your "vocabulary" has increased a lot, with dadada, byabya and daidai being the favourites at the moment, with quite a range of intonation that we weren't hearing before. Although you were saying mama from about 3 months, we haven't really heard that lately!

Next week will be your first time on a plane as we head to New Zealand for Christmas- I don't imagine we'll get a lot of sleep on the overnight flight on the way there, but not to worry, we are used to that! I have never slept well on planes anyway, and since you still wake up anything from three to six times a night anyway it won't be so different from usual ;) I wish we could have practiced on a shorter flight somewhere, but never mind- I am really looking forward to being able to take you to the beach and introduce you to your New Zealand family including your great grandmother.

We are loving watching you become more and more active and interested in the world around you and can't wait to see what the next month will bring!

Kissing your reflection in the mirror in your book :)

Checking out the giant dice in the kids' play area in Kichijoji

Lots of love from your mummy and papa xxx

A blur

...is what a lot of my photos of Riku look like these days, he is getting very mobile! We have a crawler on our hands, folks- I'll try to get photos that are in focus soon! Actually a video would probably be better ;-)

Sleeping Riku

Riku was a typical newborn, meaning he was awake at least half the night up until he was about a month old, which is when babies apparently start to develop a more mature body clock and start to differentiate night from day. From about 5 weeks until 5 months he would go to bed at about 8.30, wake up once sometime between 2 and 4 am, go straight back to sleep after being fed, and then sleep until at least 6.30 am.

I thought we had lucked out and skipped the dreaded four-month sleep regression, but right around five months Riku started to wake up a lot more often at night and quite often be harder to get back to sleep as well. This has continued up until now- these days on a good night he will wake up only three times (usually at around 11.30 pm, 2.30 and 4 am) and go straight back to sleep each time after being fed. On a bad night we will have to resettle him at least once some time after putting him to bed, which might take up to an hour, then he will wake up every hour right through the night and/or not want to go to sleep at all at some point. Sometimes if he doesn't go back to sleep he will cry, other times (usually around 4 in the morning) he thinks it's playtime and starts rolling around talking and growling (those who have met him recently might have heard him "growling" and know what I mean!)

The bad nights can be exhausting, but it's actually amazing how you can adapt to this kind of thing- for me waking up 3-4 times a night for half an hour each time is the new normal and I can actually function quite well the next day, although I'm sure I wouldn't have been able to in my life BR (=Before Riku). My short term memory, English vocabulary etc seem to have suffered a bit, but oh well, they will come back eventually, right? ;)

Riku is still not eating a lot of solid food because he still refuses to be fed with a spoon, so I am thinking he wakes so often mostly because he gets hungry. I'm hoping that as he is able to eat more table food (i.e. has more teeth and gets used to chewing), he will gradually start to sleep for longer at night again. Wishful thinking, maybe? Time will tell I suppose!

Anyway here are some photos of Riku sleeping that I like- they say that babies and small children look like angels when they are asleep and it's true! No matter how long he has kept me awake for or how grizzly he has been during the day, looking at him sleeping always makes my heart melt :)

Isn't he gorgeous? :) The last one was in Koganei Park about 2 weeks ago- looks like he's had a few too many beers... You might have noticed that he tends to face right when he sleeps, although he does this less often now he has head control- that's because of a kind of diagonal flat spot on the back of his head which he was born with. Apparently it will partially correct itself once he is walking, and will also be a lot less noticeable when he has more hair.

I will definitely have to get on to his 7-month letter post, or he'll be 8 months before I get around to it- eek! Amazing how fast the time goes!

Proof of teeth!

Riku and the mikan

Update on the solid food front- we have been having to go mainly with baby-led weaning as Riku completely refuses to be fed with a spoon about 90% of the time. It is quite challenging to find foods that a 7-month-old can successfully feed himself and also have some variety in his diet.

He has got very good at eating bread and toast and likes baby sembei and sometimes cheese, but will usually only nibble at fruit and vegetables. Recently I tried giving him some segments of mikan (mandarin orange) to see what he would do. Here is the result:

He has a bit of a chew on them and sucks some of the juice out, so we are getting somewhere! He also likes whacking the pieces that are sitting on his chair tray and making the juice fly everywhere- just another way that introducing solids has been a lot messier than I could ever have imagined!

First Marmite!

Thought it was time for Riku to have his first taste of New Zealand so I gave him some Marmite on toast- he might not look too excited, but by Riku standards this is actually a lot of enthusiasm for a food!

Not just one...

...but two teeth have come through this week! We had various signs of teething (red cheeks, a lot of dribbling, *TMI warning* more pooey nappies than usual) over the weekend, and then I noticed on Monday evening that the right bottom tooth was through and it looked like the left wouldn't be too far away- actually I had been thinking it would be first.

When we were out today (at an anti-nuclear power sit-in in outside the government buildings!) we were given some nashi and I let Riku have a taste. He actually managed to bite off a piece quite easily so I felt for a second tooth and sure enough there it was. We hadn't been making much progress with introducing solid foods, and I now realise that was probably because his gums were bothering him. With those two through he seems a bit more interested in food again- we had been taking a break from solids because he seemed completely uninterested and would either clamp his mouth shut or just toss finger food!

I don't have any photos unfortunately and probably won't until the teeth have come through more- he doesn't like me trying to look in his mouth at all, so here is one of him in his Halloween costume at the park on Monday:

It's a frog costume- I know it's probably not immediately obvious!

One year ago...

...Riku looked like this:

And now he looks like this:

(Fascinated by my camera strap in this photo)

What a difference 12 months make! ;)

Riku singing

Riku's Neenie (Nana) helping him with his vibrato ;)

Half birthday letter to Riku

I had better get onto this blog post, or we'll be at 7 months before I get it done! This one I'm writing as a letter to Riku- might be interesting for him to read when he's older :)

Dear Riku,

This month you turned 6 months old- amazing to think you are already halfway to being a year old. You are changing and developing so quickly these days I can hardly keep up- constantly learning new skills and improving on old ones.

You can now sit up unsupported and reach forward for toys without face-planting- you still fall over backwards sometimes, especially if you look up, so we keep a cushion behind you still.

You started to eat solid food at the end of last month but progress has been a bit stop-start- sometimes you will happily eat the cereal, fruit or veggie that we've prepared, but other times (like the last few days) you clamp your mouth shut and refuse to eat anything! It seems like this is normal, so we'll give you a couple of days' break and try again. For some reason you love to eat paper and will grab anything papery and start gumming pieces off it if we aren't watching you constantly!

Some babies your age have 2 or more teeth already but you don't show any signs of any coming through yet- no hurry there though!

In the last month or so you have started to get very ticklish- interestingly it was like one part of your body at a time got ticklish- first your neck, then arms and waist, now your legs and feet. It's great because it means we get to hear your wonderful laugh more often!

Right now you are going through a stage where you sometimes wake up every 90 minutes or so during the night- Mummy is very much hoping that it IS just a stage and you will go back to letting her sleep for 6 or 7 hours like you used to do ;)

These days you are fascinated by cellphones, remote controls, cords, food packages and different textures like the wallpaper and the fabric on the couch- you're not crawling yet but we will have to do some rearranging of the house when you are since your curiosity knows no bounds!

Thank you for coming into our lives, little guy, since you were born every day has been an adventure and we can't wait to see you continue to grow and explore.

Lots of love from Mummy and Papa ♡

You on your 6-month birthday in your first pair of shoes

Riku meets apple

We have recently started to slowly introduce solid foods- we are doing a combination of "traditional weaning" (i.e. cereals and purees) and "baby-led weaning", which means giving babies non-pureed foods (age appropriate) and letting them explore the textures and tastes themselves, so giving half a banana for example rather than mashed banana. As you can imagine it can be quite messy!

Here is a vidoe of Riku trying apple puree for the first time- he pulled the same kind of faces when he first tried a piece of apple- even if the apple seems quite sweet to an adult, it must be quite sour to a baby, or that's what it looks like anyway!

Current favourites

Two of Riku's favourite toys at the moment- a kind of Weeble Wobble thing which he can really bash around these days, and a maraca/rattle which he enjoys shaking and throwing and thankfully doesn't hit himself in the face with too often any more!

He is getting quite co-ordinated now, and as you can see is really coming along with his sitting up and tummy time :)

Riku in Nikko

Last weekend we went on Riku's first proper trip, to Nikko. The original plan was to stay just the one night but we realised in the afternoon of the second day that it was going to be a long and tiring trip back to Tokyo after quite a full day and that because we were travelling with a baby it was probably better to attempt the trip home the next day when the trains would be less crowded and we were all well-rested. Luckily it was a long weekend so Toru was off the next day as well. It turned out to be a good decision!

Here are some photos:

In front of Toshogu Shrine

A cafe was having a New Zealand festival

Looking at the river above Ryuzu no taki waterfalls

In front of Shinkyo Bridge

Five months! Part One

A few days late, but now we have a quiet afternoon it's time for a 5-month birthday post! We have been busy the last week because Riku's Jiji and Baba (my Dad and stepmum, we are using the Japanese names for grandpa and grandma) are visiting and we have been going out most days. I'm typing and uploading photos with one hand while feeding Riku at the same time which is slow going so I'll split this post into two parts I think.

There have been a lot of firsts in the last month, here are some of them:

First time sitting by himself

We had a mini picnic in the park and he managed to stay like this without toppling for over a minute- he can sit even longer now and stay up without using his hands to balance but it's hard to get a photo of since I have to make sure he doesn't keel over backwards which still happens quite a lot! He looked quite proud of his achievement.

First shirt

I bought him this outfit back in February before he was even born, but last week was his first chance to wear it when we had some cooler weather. He looks like a real little boy!

First rugby game

I tried to get a happier picture but Riku was a bit overwhelmed by the cheering from the other people watching the game and this was the best I could get! It was actually a Japan-France game but Riku showed up in New Zealand colours. Of course he supported the Brave Blossoms in this game though ;)

First time at the sumo

We went to the Kokugikan (National Sumo Stadium) this week with Jiji and Baba to watch the day's bouts. Riku watched some of it, slept through other parts!

First okonomiyaki restaurant

Riku perusing the menu at an okonomiyaki restaurant- he was quite interested and did not want to give the menu back to the waitress!

First pot plant destruction

I looked around while cooking dinner yesterday to find that Riku had pulled over a house plant and ripped off half of one of its leaves. I did an internet search afterwards and found that it is actually poisonous if eaten in large quantities and causes severe mouth pain if chewed anyway so lucky we caught him before he tried that! We are definitely going to have to look for another place for that plant before long.

Edited to add another first:

First time in a shopping cart

This is at the big home centre near us- he's now old enough to use these carts. He looked quite pleased with himself at first, but decided about 15 minutes later that he didn't like it after all and I had to put him back in his carrier (^-^;)

Laughing, ima koso

I was watching the news while changing Riku's nappy the other night and one of the party leader candidates had a very dramatic way of talking so I imitated the way he said "ima koso" ("right now", or "now in particular") and Riku laughed out loud. It took us a while to realise that it was actually my hair that was making him laugh although the "ima koso" seemed to make it even funnier!

We got some of it on video here:

Nappy update

Here was Riku in his S.waddlebees nappy at 3 weeks old:

And here he is at 21 weeks and just under double the weight:

What a difference! It wasn't that long ago, but already it's hard to believe he was that tiny!

New things

We had some chilly weather this week, so for a couple of days Riku was in long sleeves and trousers, which he hasn't worn since he was a new born- he looks different somehow!

A new thing this week is that Riku is getting close to being able to sit by himself- in fact he already can for a few seconds if he is on my lap or the sofa. I have to be ready to catch him though or he does a faceplant...

Almost there...

He has never really been into dummies (pacifiers)- we got him to take one about 3 times when he was around 5-7 weeks old and it did help him sleep, but mostly he would spit it out after just a few seconds. Since he is constantly chewing/sucking on his hands these days I thought I would try a dummy again just to see how he would react- he sucked/chewed on it for a while before spitting it out quite a distance, so still not that keen on the idea apparently!

Not too sure about this

Yep, hands are definitely better!

A big development in the last week is that he has suddenly taken an interest in his feet and will use both hands to pull his toes into his mouth- I don't have a photo of that unfortunately but will try to get one soon.

Froggy legs ;)

Riku at the beach again

Last Saturday we drove down to the beach, this time to Enoshima which is the Tokyo summer mecca and can get very crowded.

Riku enjoyed the trip in the car but was most unimpressed with the water this time- the photos tell the story well :)

Getting used to this carseat thing

Slip- check, slop- check, slide- check- oops, forgot to slap on a hat!

Hmm, this is interesting

Eek, cold stuff!

Don't do that again, Daddy!

Sunset at Enoshima beach- it was quite cloudy that day but when it's clear you can see Mt. Fuji behind where the people are, even in summer.