One and a half!

Here he is, my big 18-month old! He finally fits the boots in the size I was advised to buy when he first started walking, which was more than a centimetre longer than his actual foot length- unfortunately that made the shoes so big on him that he couldn't walk properly in them when he was still learning, plus it was getting a bit hot for boots, so we put them away for a while. They are perfect now and the season is perfect for them too :)

I apologise for the lack of blog posts this month, poor Riku has had two days of unexplained fever plus two colds, and the only week he wasn't sick I was working so we haven't had a lot of activities or outings this month unfortunately. He is almost over his most recent cold (which I also caught after managing to avoid the first one) and we have not one but two Halloween parties coming up next week, but I wanted to make those a separate post so here is what has been happening in the last month or so.

- The love for all things vehicular has intensified, any item of clothing, iPhone app, book or sticker sheet with cars, trains, planes and trucks on it is a firm favourite at the moment. He has a couple of long-sleeved tops with cars and trucks on them and we layer them under short-sleeved shirts on the cooler days. Occasionally he will catch sight of the patterns on his sleeves and squeak "car!" or do his fire siren sound. Cars and trucks now get taken to bed and he gets quite upset when I won't let him take the wooden or battery-operated ones into the bath!

Testing his skills as a shinkansen driver

Using a 7-11 sign as a construction site for his favourite dumptruck

- He is now this close to really being able to run, it's still more of a fast toddle but he is getting faster all the time and I have to run to catch him at times! Here he is dashing around the balloon area at a kids' play space we were trying out for the first time:

Trying out the running track at the brand new park not too far from us

- Even with being sick I have been trying to take him to parks and open spaces as much as possible so we get to enjoy one of the nicest times of the year- luckily he will get plenty of outdoor time in NZ too as we're spending the whole month of December there this year!

Enjoying autumn leaves with a friend the day before coming down with his second cold of the month

-Language-wise he is not as advanced as some of the kids we know the same age, but he is at about the same level as others and well within the bounds of normal, especially for a child from a bilingual household. This month he has mostly been imitating vehicles, machines and animals. He has added "wa wa" (quack quack) to his repertoire as well as "toot toot" (ships) and "go go" (he says this for frogs for some reason, not quite sure why as I've always said "ribbit ribbit" to him! In the last few days he has been trying very hard to say "shoes", which is coming out as "shissz" at the moment, we're getting there! He understands more and more all the time, and will often hand me the things I ask for- twice this week I have asked him to give me the orange truck when he's been on the other side of the room and he will walk over, pick it up and bring it to me. I'm not sure whether he is understanding the colour word (we have a DVD for teaching babies colours which he has seen a few times) or just "truck", but I'm convinced it's not just a coincidence!

A perfect Riku-sized room! Pity it's full of garbage...

-He continues to be a very picky and light eater which concerns me since he hasn't really put on any weight in the last 6 months and is fairly thin. He has his 18 month check coming up in a couple of weeks so I imagine I will be told then if there's any cause for concern.

Look out for the Halloween post to come next week, he has a very cute costume! Here's a couple of photos in advance since we're only a few days away:

Yum!

Train love :)

Since Riku will be one and a half tomorrow I got him a present- an electric train set with a train and a firetruck. He was absolutely over the moon, and spent about ten minutes squeaking "Car! Car!" in excitement (all wheeled conveyances are still cars for Riku, whether it is a pushchair, a bicycle, a train or a...car).

He spent a good hour or two happily putting the trains on the tracks and taking them off again and then carrying them around the room both today and yesterday, and insisted on taking some pieces of track out with us when we went for a walk today.

He got a bit upset when I wouldn't let him take one of the trains in the bath this evening, but since they are battery operated I thought it probably wasn't the best idea!

Riku's interest extends to real trains and we spent about ten minutes standing on the bridge that goes over one of the train lines watching the trains go past- I had to drag him away in the end! His papa is a bit worried that he will turn into one of the geeks you see here standing at the end of the platform taking pictures and getting all excited when a new type of carriage is released, but I told him we probably don't have to worry about that for a while ;)

Riku the artiste

This is what our boy managed to create while I was sorting clothes in the next room:

Actually that is only about half of it. Google told me that hairspray is the way to get ballpoint pen off wallpaper, so I went out to but some (the can I had was empty) and then spent about half an hour spraying and rubbing the wall- it got about 90% of the pen off, which was a lot better than I expected! Needless to say pens will be kept out of Mr. Riku's reach from now on!

The hole in the wall in the first picture is from where the previous owners had a phone and we took the cord out- Riku thinks it's fun to poke things in the hole which is gradually making it bigger- time to fix it I think!