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!