Marking 11 months today.

I suppose when you are a new parent, every new experience is exactly that, an experience.  But more than that really, it is also a milestone.  And so it is today that Luka celebrates his last birthday counted in 'months' (at least in so far as it is the last one prior to one being counted in year(s)).  If this does not quite make sense, today is Luka's 11 month birthday.

For his birthday today Luka got an extra 200g for the past month, which means that he officially (we double weighed to make sure) topped the scales at the big 1-0-k-g this morning.  That's right, our little bruiser is now officially freaking heavy!

To say that he is a joy in abundance, is to lack the words to describe the sheer pleasure we derive from his reaction when we walk into the house from being out for some or other reason.  More often than not we will come home and notice his play room door is slightly ajar, knowing that he is in there playing with books, musical toys, and other stimuli with his lovely nanny, Michelle.  Yet, when he hears one of our voices, he is like a bat out of hell, climbing over the local Timorese-made throw pillows, swings the door open, and leopard crawling at light-speed to get to one of us.

There is perhaps not a more incredible feeling at the end of a long, hard day at the office, than to have 10kg of adorable, smiling, cooing (squealing, really) baby boy come charging in your direction when you walk through the door, demanding to be picked up, cuddled, then promptly put back down so that he can resume the game of annoying the cat by endlessly chasing him around the dining room table.

Pouring the batter into what will be the final installment
of the 'months' cake series

For some reason this eleven-month mark has been quite emotional for me.  I found myself today thinking about our time in Darwin, about the baking, the long hours in hospital, and eventually about how Chris and I used to have to strap our (then still premature) baby to our chests, in bed, shortly after arriving in Cape Town, to ensure he is kept warm, secure and safe from slipping off.  Which, as you can imagine, meant that neither one of us slept for a good few months.  And, as per the tradition, I baked a cake.  This time a simple Vanilla Bean Pound Cake (hey, I'm a full-time mom that does not even have time to buy my own eggs - thanks honey!)  It was not so much for the cake, but for the act of baking that I simply had to be in the kitchen tonight.

The final product 

Chris said tonight that if we did this again, he would surely need amnesia - but I thought it comes with that automatically, hence why I don't remember the 1.5-hourly breastfeeds, or the entire month of October at all for that matter.  And as we enter the last month of his first year, I cannot help but feel incredibly sentimental about our time together in Darwin, Cape Town, Oxford, Scotland, Sri Lanka...and soon to be California, Arizona and elsewhere.  How blessed we are to have been given the privilege of guarding over this little person for a few precious years, how I wish the next few won't go quite as quickly...

Countdown to Luka's 1st birthday family extravaganza starts now....

All in a day...

While mommy takes her guilty conscience to work every morning, looks like Master Luka does just fine at home.  His schedule usually goes something like this:

Luka practices his 'cruising' skills in Adrian's
play pen.

06h30 - wake up, daddy changes his nappy - then he hops into bed with mommy for a breastfeed while daddy makes breakfast for both of us
07h15 - after playing in bed, mommy and Luka gets up, mommy hops in the shower, Luka keeps me company (which generally means him pounding on the floor drain in the bathroom) then unpacking the bottom shelf of my closet where I store my belts and other accessories, while I get ready for work
07h30 - Mommy feeds Luka breakfast
07h45 - Michelle, Luka's nanny, shows up - throws his laundry in, tidies up, then takes over feeding while I eat breakfaste
08h00 - (or thereabouts ;) I leave for the office)

rest of the morning - Michelle reads a few books to him, they play in his playroom, and eventually, when his late-sleeping neighbor Adrian wakes up, they either head over there for a play, or Adrian comes here.

mid-morning Luka naps, then lunch time mommy comes home - it used to be for breastfeeding, now I feed him his regular lunch.  We usually have 20 minutes or so that I get to play with him in his playroom.

mid-afternoon Luka takes another nap, perhaps have a play-date again back and forth with Adrian, go for a stroller ride with Adrian, chase Gus, play in the playroom.

Then mommy comes home and we either go for a walk, a swim, or we play together in the room.


So all in all, yes, I do, from time to time, feel mortified for not spending every waking moment with him - then I see his progress, development, happiness, sociability - and my sanity, and I remember why I work and try to convince myself I am not 'damaging' my child... ;)

When not climbing mountaintops in his Chariot Ferrari,
Luka likes to cruise town in his more fuel efficient hybrid
Chicco umbrella stroller. 

Double Trouble

Luka and neighbor/twin/partner-in-crime on their way to Nicole's for 'parent group' (read: and excuse to get together for a cappuccino on a Tuesday and steal 30-minutes with Luka during an early lunch).

By the looks of it, Luka was quite thrilled to have some company in the backseat!

Me and my homey off on an adventure!

  

A love that's bursting at the seams

I think we have pretty well established that parenthood is not easy.  No really.  It is hard.  What with adapting to having something constantly depending on you (as in every waking, and well yes, most non-waking moments) for food, security, developing, as well as protecting them from themselves (for instance introducing the notion of what goes up, must come down - including your newly-standing self), it is not for the faint-of-heart.

But then, every so often, you get a day where you just have to step back and go wow.  No really, WOW.  Thinking secretly to yourself, how did I get this lucky to have the honor of being this amazing creature's mamma?  Today was such a day.

Mr. All Smiles donning his 'amber teething necklace' said
to relieve pain and inflammation associated with teething,
or, well - it just looks cool!

While we've had a few rougher-than-usual nights (seems the Temple of the Tooth is making room for the Temple of the Teeth), and we actually had to revert to a steady dose of paracetamol last night with the requisite ungodly wake-ups.  Nonetheless, his mamma's 3-hour sleep last night notwithstanding, someone was bright-eyed and bus(h)y-tailed at 06h30 this morning (at this point I feel it necessary to disclose that we did not in fact get to bed until after 01h00 after hosting a few folks for pizza and wine).  I was brave enough to try last weekend's strategy of bringing him to bed to 'play it out' for an hour or so, and then hopefully he would fall asleep again for two hours like last Saturday - but by the fourth time he was practicing the drums on daddy's (sore) head - I decided to get up and get going with him.  We jumped in the car with nothing but his breakfast in his little travel cooler (no nappy, no anything) and headed out to a local beach bar for mommy-and-Luka breakfast.  While mommy nursed a cappuccino, Luka sat every-so-happy in a big-boy chair, no restraining device, no high chair, just lounging with his arm on the arm rest, happily eating his yogurt, fruit and breadsticks, while gaping at the people, televisions and sights around him.  He was all smiles, to the general amusement of the staff and patrons alike.

At home, Luka took a standard 30-minute nap  (while mommy dashed off to pilates) to prepare him for the next adventure of the day - Swim Lesson #3 at a local hotel pool.  He had a marvelous swim class and was able to finally relax a little bit on the back-floating exercise,  and did remarkably well in the submerging section (cannot believe how these bubs are going to be swimming in no time!)  With Luka squealing with delight all the way, we changed him, and had lunch at the lodge.  He (for the first time in...I don't know, months!) sat happily on my lap for over an hour, feeding himself raisins, a teething biscuit and his macaroni, bean, mince lunch.  We took him home for another quick nap (while mommy got a pedicure this time), before his next big adventure.

The exhausted hasher kips on the mountainside above
Dili.

At 4pm, Chris loaded his Chariot Cougar I in the car and set off for the local Hash House Harriers club (while Luka might not remember this, he actually participated in a Hash run in utero). Chris probably should have known from the host that it would be hilly - but didn't put 2 and 2 together until they set off from the Co-Operativo Cafe Timor (CCT) compound and started heading up, up, and more up.  According to Chris, it took about three guys to haul the chariot and its passenger up the hill, and some careful braking on the way down. But it was all worth it when Luka was honored in the circle with his very own Hash t-shirt.  Someone clearly has been following his growth trajectory, since despite its adult S size, we're convinced he'll be in it before Christmas!

After the hash it was home for dinner, a bottle, a bath, followed by mommy's nightly full-body massage (something I have done since birth - for which he actually laid fairly still for once) and he was asleep before he even hit the bed....

Luka receives his first
hasherdashery.

What an incredible day to be a parent.  They're certainly not all like this, but boy do they make it worth it....

Learning about this walking thing...

One small step for Luka, one giant headache for mamma and daddy...

Around a month ago, Luka started pulling himself up onto people and furniture around him.  That skill is pretty much firmly established now. To my horror, when I walked into his room the other night when he was crying, I came face to face with the little guy staring at me through the bed frame, while standing upright!

He likes to hang onto a small footstool in the kitchen while one of us drags it to 'practice' walking.  Obviously now he wants to 'practice' a lot more.  So here is a video of Luka practicing with his daddy at a beach side restaurant recently.

Practicing in the pool

We were very thrilled with Luka's first swim lesson last week, and tried practicing some of the new skills in Nicole and Fiona's pool over the weekend.  Luka has always been a natural in the water, which may or may not be a good thing for us I realize, and so have little issues really with getting his face wet.  Here is a cute short video of Luka with daddy in the pool.  One of the things the swim trainer does with them is to use a kickboard to encourage kicking, and then to throw things in front of them out of their reach to encourage the use of their arms.  Here is a short video of Luka practicing kicking with his new $2.40 Timor Plaza kickboard.

We'll be attending the weekly swim class for six weeks until we depart for the US, and hopefully resume with the next level when we get back.  In the meantime, nothing like living in the tropics to ensure plenty of practice time in a swimming pool!

Bub Club #2: Introducing 'arts & crafts'

The calm before the storm....

Dili Bub Club #2 was hosted by the awesome hosts - Nicole, Fiona, Amelia, Angelica and Luca.  We gathered at their gorgeous home in Dili to, well...how to say this lightly - completely wreck it!  Afterall, what do you get when you take 10 babies stripped down to nothing but their nappies, large swaths of construction paper, a bucket of jello, plenty of bubble wrap, four different color paints (non-toxic of course), and cherry red play dough - that's right - most people's worst nightmare.  But not if you are Nicole and Fiona.  With three little ones under the age of two (that would be the lovely Miss Amelia, and her twin siblings, cool as a cucumber Luca, and feisty Miss Angelica), they make it all look so much easier than I often feel with only one!

The storm... Picasso, make way for Lukasso!

The idea was to introduce the babies to the concept of 'texture' - and boy did they get a big kick out of that.  Everyone stripped down to their nappies, and were set free on the floor filled with cleverly positioned construction paper, paint, bubble wrap, and other textures taped to the floor. The Bubs crawled and clamored over each other to get to stick their hands in the bucket of jello, play with (okay, and taste) the play dough, and smear paint on the back of huge topo-maps taped to the shiny tile floor.

It was absolutely fascinating to watch the babies explore the various textures, tastes and sensations.  And explore they did - between enjoying his first 'jello shots' and me scraping the play dough off the roof of his mouth after spying a suspicious red coating lining the top of his mouth when he leaned back during a belly laugh, there was plenty of 'exploring' and 'experiencing' going on.  Watching their little brains firing and just taking it all in reminded me of the wonder and honor of watching the process of a little person growing into a big person.

For little ones, they did quite well with the whole 'big kid activities', considering all but two are still under one year of age, so the notion of 'arts and crafts's' and heck, even fine motor skills, remain somewhat of a mystery - yet, they each enjoyed the experience in their own special way.  For Luka, this meant immediately diving into the paints, then trying to throw the entire bucket of jello out of the floor, then exploring his talents as a make-up artist by diligently painting Miss Maya's face both with the paint brush, and his paw print (Video Here), and finally ripping the topo maps on the floor to shreds at the end of the day (mommy, just helping to clean up!)