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:
- 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment