14 months part 2 and photo bomb!

More achievements and milestones to document:

Riku now sleeps through the night- even though he wakes up at around 4.45 (yawn!) we don't hear a peep out of him between putting him down for bed and then, so I think that qualifies as sleeping through! It is quite a relief after so many months of very broken sleep. Now I am just waiting for the days to get shorter again as I am convinced that he will sleep longer when it's darker in the morning- I live in hope anyway!

Riku and his papa checking out their shadows at the station

-He recognises people in photos- I was working in the kitchen today and Riku was pulling on the strip of photos we have attached to the side of the kitchen cabinet, when suddenly I heard him say "Pa pa!"- I checked and he was looking at a picture of T and me, and he pointed at T when I asked him "Where's Papa?" Same reaction when I showed him the photo of T in his bedroom. He has been saying "Pa pa" when he hears T come up or down the stairs for a while now, but that's the first time I've seen him obviously recognise someone in a photo. Now we need to work on "Mama"- I haven't really heard that yet other than as part of a string of babble...He is taking even more of an interest in clothes now and has a favourite bib, one with a Buzzy Bee on it from NZ. Most bibs he will just rip off/shriek until I take it off for him, but if he finds the Buzzy Bee one in the clean washing for example he brings it to me and is really pleased when I put it on for him. He also likes his gumboots at the moment and often brings them to me to put on for him.

Rainy day activity

Sunny day activity! It was a bit cool, but Riku is not a chicken about cold water like his mum! 

-Finally we have an eater- occasionally if he is over-tired he will refuse a meal, but mostly he eats like a champ now, he prefers shop-bought baby food to anything I make normally but I can't really blame him for that as I've never been much of a cook! He will also put away 1.5 Weetbix or a fair-sized bowl of baby cereal for breakfast, and loves most fruit including golden kiwifruit, papaya, mandarin slices, cherries (I take the stones out first of course) and blueberries.

-An acquaintance of ours gave him a tiny version of a chair by a well-known Japanese furniture designer just after he was born, and he can now climb on it by himself and sit down- he looks like a little boss, very cute. I don't have a photo of that yet but look out for it in a future blog post!

-He shakes his head for "no" now, not only copying me when I say no, but also when he doesn't want to do something- sometimes accompanied by a string of "nah nah nah nah", so I think it's not long now before we will be hearing "No!" fairly often!

He loves to walk up and down our road, checking the gutter

Messing with the neighbours' chain...

Our big boy...

Who sometimes looks so little still!

-Some of the people in this area greet us fairly often- the couple next door and the elderly couple across from us, the couple running the fish shop and the 7-11 staff, and "konnichiwa" in Japan is usually accompanied by a slight bow. I noticed about a week ago that whether he is standing on the ground or I'm holding him, if someone says "konnichiwa" to him he will do a little (or sometimes very deep) bow. This morning when he saw Mr. Kobayashi next door Riku bowed even before we greeted each other- it's quite amazing what they are seeing and absorbing even at this age- I am really going to have to watch what I do and say from now on, I have a little mimic on my hands!

Mr. Frog is not impressed- Riku isn't either as his right eyebrow had an altercation with the concrete path just before this photo was taken!

This is getting long so I will finish up now- we are leaving for two weeks in NZ tomorrow and will have a proper photo shoot done so there should be some nice photos to post in the next month or so :)

Riku at 14 months- Part 1

So many new things this month, so I've decided to split this post into two because otherwise I am unlikely to get it finished before he turns 15 months, plus I can't remember some of the things I planned to write about but want to get something posted today anyway, since it's time for an update!

About a week before he turned 14 months Riku seemed to decide that walking was better than crawling after all and nothing has stopped him since then- he still falls on his bottom a lot (thank goodness for the cloth nappies cushioning his bum!) and occasionally trips and bangs his head, not badly luckily. I think because he started walking fairly late he is a bit more coordinated than most kids who start earlier so hopefully he won't get as many bumps on his head as some of his friends have had!

Here are some of the highlights of the last month:

He loves to play with water, and when we go outside onto the street in front of our house (we live at the end of the road and there is no through traffic) he loves to play in any puddles he can find, even if it's just the water sitting on top of the manhole covers- never realised there were so many manholes on our street until now! He also takes any opportunity he can to sneak into the shower room if the door is open and push the buttons on the bath control- luckily the controls don't really work so it doesn't cause any problems! Unfortunately he has also figured out how to make his own puddles by drinking a mouthful of water from his cup and then spitting it out, either down his front or onto the floor so this has meant a few extra changes of clothes lately. I took some photos before dressing him again the other day because he looked cute in his starry nappy. Here you see two sides of Riku, contemplative:

 and mischievous :)

Still only 8 teeth, no sign of those molars yet!

• During winter he was happy to wear a hat about the half the time, and would usually leave it on when it was windy in particular, but in the last few months if we tried to put a hat on his head he would rip it off immediately, elastic or no elastic, until just a couple of weeks ago when suddenly he developed an interest in trying to put clothes on himself, and this includes hats. He will now wear a hat for a reasonable amount of time and sometimes even put it back on his head himself if it falls off! This is a welcome development because now not only is he safer from sunburn, I am also safe from the unspoken tsk tsking I know I am getting from older Japanese people who can't believe I have my child outside without a hat! Here he is in the park the other day where he wore his hat for a good 15 minutes: 
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• Along with the interest in clothes has come a new activity to keep Riku occupied- he will pick up an item of clothing, usually one of his onesies or one of T's T-shirts, and then spend the next 10 minutes trying to put it on over his head- and missing. Somehow it always seems to end up behind his head, but it gives me the chance to get a few things done and I'm sure it is useful practice!
• Velcro nappies Riku figured out long ago, but just recently I was surprised to see he had managed to get the one side of one of his snap nappies undone- this I am less impressed with, because I was looking forward to being able to have him in just a nappy and a T-shirt in summer for ease of changes, but it looks like he will have to wear shorts or trousers since I don't want him taking his nappy off at inopportune times! Here he is the first time he managed it:

• He is becoming a lot more aware of the world around him and has recently noticed that there are things in the sky sometimes- he notices birds and planes as well, but what really interests him for some reason are helicopters. Usually before I've even noticed the helicopter Riku starts the "hooo, hooo" he does when he is excited about something and is trying to attract my attention to it, and points at the sky roughly in the direction of where the helicopter is. Hopefully this means he has inherited good eyesight from me rather than T's short-sightedness, not sure if you can tell this early though?

Anyway, I will post this now and try to finish Part 2 before we leave for NZ on Friday.

Walking in the park

We now have a real walker on our hands! In the last 10 days or so Riku has finally decided he might like to walk after all, and he has gradually been getting more and more confident and increasing the ratio of walking to crawling. Today it was probably about 90% walking vs 10% crawling, so I think we can officially call him a toddler now :)

He still has a bit more trouble walking in shoes, but here is a video of him in the park earlier this week where he was doing very well- looking forward to lots more playing in the park this summer!

Up the stairs

Here is the proof on film of one of Riku's newfound skills (click on "climbing" below):

Climbing

He learned to climb lower stairs not long after he started crawling properly (about 8 months) but the steep stairs in our house have been beyond him until very recently. Needless to say we now have a baby gate at both the top and bottom of the main stairs and are waiting on one for the bottom of the stairs to the third floor as well!