Julie's Boggle

Back in September, Jon was just embarking on Standing 101. He’s now well into Standing 202 which implies getting up in about a quarter of the previous time, and standing with great self-assurance.  Just relying on objects (both solid, and not so solid) for balance rather than complete support.

With two months of standing practice behind him, Jonathan’s also getting a lot more comfortable with “cruising”. (This term for walking-while-hanging-onto-furniture seems to be something that one only gets to hear about after becoming involved with toddlers. )

After resisting for a while, Jon has discovered the useful aspect of cruising – principally the convenience of not having to keep dropping back to the floor all the time.  Particularly if there is some juicy goal in sight (say, the TV remote control, or the laptop) which he needs to get to with speed if he’s to reach it before paranoid parents see where he’s headed. At times like this, he can shuffle himself around the coffee table with surprising speed!

I’m guessing that for Jon walking doesn’t have that sort of appeal that a genuine Challenge has. But climbing on the other hand – well that’s where ALL the excitement is right now.

The adventures started with Jonathan climbing up onto the crate that we used to use to protect the hifi (and now keep because Jon is rather fond of standing up against it and using it as a table).

I’ll admit to being impressed to see him manage to get up and down (without falling!) several times; but I was less amused when he decided to take his drink up there with him, consuming it while perched backwards on the very edge with complete disregard for maternal nerves.

Jon’s climbing escapades went a little further while we were setting up for playgroup last week. One minute he was just standing next to one of the kiddie chairs that we use for craft, and the next he was standing up on it (“Eeek!” ) and transferring himself confidently onto the craft table. Where he sat looking very pleased with himself!

The last aspect of Jon that cannot be omitted, is his passion for food. He always was really easy to feed and even now when we are a lot more adventurous with him, there are very few things he will turn down.  (Raw tomatoes, cucumbers and uncooked carrots to date.)  However once he got to 11 months, he did start to have some very serious objections.  To food running out.

My acid test for Jonathan having had enough to eat has always been how long he would last until the next meal.  So while initially I might have believed that the noisy crying and cross utterances really did indicate that Jon was still hungry, I came to the conclusion, quite rapidly, that in actual fact he just loves eating.  Anything!

And therefore the end of any food is an occasion for loud wailing and bleating for more until he gets distracted by something more interesting.

Jon’s developing intellect continually adds complications to the food-handling process though.  As the one-year marker approached, he started to be aware of other people eating (especially when he wasn’t eating), and this swiftly became a trigger for all the food-love behaviour even if he’d just had a complete meal!

In restaurants and when visiting friends, this started to get a bit tricky.  The solution we’ve found at the moment is to drip-feed him items that take a very long time to eat (chewy bread crusts) or can be sub-divided into lots of pieces (apple pieces / rice cakes) so that we can get through our meal in the time it takes him to get through the range of pre-packed snacks!

Lately, a further complication has come in the form of Jon recognising that someone else is eating one of his favourite foods (bread being the most prevalent) while he’s eating something else (say, apple pieces).  This can lead to a mini-tantrum erupting.  Apple gets spat out, the bowl gets shoved away and there are sounds of baby vexation.  This is even if the alternative foodstuff is on the other side of the room!

Once we’re done eating though, all is forgiven and apple will happily be consumed again.  It is food after all!

At 16 months Jonathan now weighs 10.5 kg and is 79cm tall. (It finally feels relevant to say “tall” because he does actually stand quite a lot).

Personality-wise, there are so many little attributes of Jon that have developed over the last 4 – 5 months that I hardly know where to start. In essence though, he’s still a really happy, laid back character, very easy to manage and mostly uncomplaining.

One of the aspects that Tom and I are really enjoying, is that he’s a lot more touchy-feely now. That’s not to say that he’s overtly affectionate, but in little things: like leaning into us (for a 3 second cuddle) when we’re sitting down or holding him, patting us benevolently on the head, and crawling enthusiastically into our arms if we crouch down and call him over.

We also love how he’s finally figured out who we are. As in, the pivotal people in his life.  It’s wonderful to see how excited he gets when one of us returns from being out. We are blessed with a very enthusiastic set of squeaks and shrilling, and Tom even gets the occasional “Da!”.

Jon’s little character is definitely maturing and this initially led to a waning of the easy smiles and laughter that we were used to. But it turns out that we’re just working with more complex triggers now, and there are still just as many ways to get Jon chuckling like a madman.

For instance, he is hugely amused by loud banging noises and the mishaps that cause them. So when half a dozen pill containers came tumbling down off the high medicine shelf onto Mommy (who was trying to extract just one of them) the accompanying thuds and crashes and a little squeal from me had Jon laughing so hard he almost fell over. To get him to smile for the camera, forget “Smile!”, the magic word is “Whoops!” or “Bang!”. Works like a charm.

Jon also takes great pleasure in the little things.  Retrieving his muslin at nap time by snagging it down from the side of his cot where it hangs, playing peekaboo with it, whipping Mommy’s glasses off before she can take evasive action; all these bring a smile that speaks volumes of his sheer happiness in the moment.

As far as it suits me, I keep Jon’s life fairly structured in terms of our daily routine. He enjoys his sleep and naps for about 45 minutes in the morning, and an hour around lunch. Sleeps which I could probably combine but it’s far too convenient having him sleep while I get myself ready in the morning.

On an average evening, we put Jon down sometime around 19h30 (he often stays awake in bed until 20h00) , and wake him (if he hasn’t woken himself) when we get up at 07h00. Awakenings in the night are very rare indeed and can usually be traced back to one of three things: (1) lost muslin, (2) painful teething or (3) having a fever.

Jon gave up his dummy quite early on, but he does have an immense fondness for his bottle.  A bottle with some warm water in it is our “last resort” when he won’t go down for his daytime naps, and he really knows how to hold out for it!

It’s been great to watch him over the last few months as he starts to develop a real awareness of his surroundings and some sort of primitive understanding of what we’re saying.  For instance, I’ve discovered that he will object to being laid down unceremoniously on the changing mat, but if I say to him “Ok, lying down now”, he’s far more receptive.

Jon’s own talking is fairly limited.  We get some babbling away to himself, often very expressively, but very little in the way of mimicking us despite lots of parental coaxing. 

Very occasionally he’ll give out a soft little “Bi!” for bye, and we like to think he’s finally pinned “Da” to Tom.  “Mum” as in “mum-um-um-um!” seems to be used most commonly for “Food!  Over there! Why aren’t you giving it to me?”

Jon has had just two little incisors at the bottom for ages now and they were certainly very cute.  (He does also have teeth at the top but they’re only gradually becoming noticeable.)

However, after almost 8 months of hanging back, the final two incisors at the bottom have broken through so the cute little two-tooth smiles will soon be changing…

5 November dawned grey and brooding in London. It is, of course, a day already immortalised by Guy Fawkes. This year it also became the dawning of a new era with the first “black president” of America. On a somewhat less planetary-scale, a new era dawned for me too as I (Tom speaking here by the way), rather abruptly, found my job in the city had vaporised.

I’m overplaying the drama, aren’t I? Alright, continuing more plainly…

Many of you will react with shock and sympathy. Thank you. But let me allay your concerns. We’re generously provided for and can easily see off quite a long period without any income. In this, we see the hand of God. In fact the whole thing has his mark on it.

What will I do next? For now, I am contractually obliged to enjoy a long period of “gardening leave” until my notice period expires. After that? Well watch this space…

I suppose our return to the internet after an enforced absence of 2 and a bit months (!) cannot be allowed to pass without a rant of some sort. And in this instance, there are two words to describe the source of all our woes: BT and Pipex.

The side of BT that deal with phone lines (BT Retail) can at least claim to have customer service, even if their technicians are occasionally found wanting. In this case, a basic crossed line was fixed (on the 30th of August) within 48 hours of us notifying them, but by using the simple expedient of plugging us into a whole new position in the exchange, thus cutting us off from our broadband provider, Pipex.

And, Pipex, on the other hand, never lost an opportunity to disappoint. The shiny, happy people at the Pipex call centre were unfailingly pleasant and apologetic, and utterly, utterly impotent when it came to driving the actions to resolve our problem.  (We were confidently informed that it had already been resolved on at least three occasions.)

During the three weeks that they had to fix the problem, despite numerous calls on their expensive “Customer Service” and “Technical Support” lines, all that was achieved was the accidental cancellation and subsequent reinstatement of our account.

By the end of the first week of teeth-gnashing, we were firmly resolved to leave Pipex (who, incidentally, have been bought by Tiscali since we originally joined), but we needed to rescue our emails first and that required time and resurrection of the hated dial-up modem.

A weekend away slowed us down somewhat, but the day after we got back, we started the process of getting a new internet service provider (ISP). Unfortunately, new accounts take 10 days to be processed. Ho-hum.

At the end of those 10 days, our new ISP diligently attempted to hook us up and came back with the announcement that there was a fault on the line (Really?) and that BT had been notified. (This is BT Wholesale – a different section of BT to the one that deals with phone faults, and one that will not speak directly to members of the public.)

So, on the one hand, we were rejoicing because we now have an ISP that actually does something to resolve our problem, and proves that they care by calling us back! Tears of joy all round. But on the other hand, groaning as the BT call-handling system limbers up and churns out another couple of days wait.

Finally, poised on the very brink of getting us back online, our new ISP was on the phone to us again with an update. They had been told that BT Wholesale were doing some really heavy maintenance -taking up all their engineers- and aaarrrgghh! they wouldn’t be able to schedule our reconnection for at least another 7 DAYS!

Sadly that still wasn’t the end of it.   At the end of that first week, and every week that followed for the next 6 weeks, our ISP diligently informed us (by phone, email and snail mail) that BT were, regrettably, going to need another [insert number here] days to work on the problem. Before long we also heard that they were closing our exchange and working overtime to migrate everyone to another exchange.

Fortunately our faith in BT was so much diminished by the time the second letter arrived that we didn’t hang around waiting, but somewhat irritably handed over the funds to pay for a 3G modem (a pricey little toy) and a month’s worth of Pay-as-you-go option with “3″ mobile.

That turned out to be a lifesaver in terms of getting us connected again, but the speed and general flakiness of 3G in a basement flat (the only practical modem location for getting a good signal was in the middle of our bed!) meant that we were not very happy 3G customers overall.

The resolution, which came on the 3rd of November, was even more absurd than what had happened in the interim.  Pipex it turned out, never did realise that we had cancelled, and eventually sent out one of their overworked engineers who connected us up (in the old exchange) again!  And, well, it’s far too complicated to explain here, but we’re going to stay with them for a little longer (still waiting for our “refund cheque”) at least until that exchange is formally closed.

And (our happily reconnected) life goes on…