For the first few weeks after Jon (21m) figured out the trick of hauling himself up onto the dining room chairs, this was just the best fun. He loves getting a little collection of things to play with on the table and in this case, a pen (that he can’t operate) is the most delightful toy ever.
Since recovering from the financial pain of paying the deposit and stamp duty for our present flat, we’ve been steadily ploughing through a list of rooms that need to be overhauled, in order of importance.
First came the shower room (2005) which was so ghastly beforehand that I didn’t even think to take any pictures until they’d ripped the whole thing out. Then later that year came the conservatory — the fact that it was falling down around us forced our hand on that one.
The next logical step, in 2007, was the kitchen, being such a key area, and we definitely pushed the boat out for that project, turning it into an amazing space (combined with the little conservatory) that we love to spend time in. That left only the bathroom which I’d more or less resigned myself to living with until we moved on.
Here’s how that changed.
The first in the series of (unfortunate?) events was that Tom lost his job, leaving us with a chunk of cash, but one that we might have to live off in the event of Tom remaining unemployed.
The second was the whole long and frustrating episode (happy ending fortunately) with the upstairs neighbour’s dodgy pipework which was dripping through our ceiling. Since that was fixed we’ve been living with some significant holes in our bathroom.
L to R: Hole(s) around the bathroom light-fitting, and missing wall panel
We agreed that in theory, Tom could fix these himself if the jobless situation persisted. But they’d be left as they were until he had finished his mandatory leave, so that if he had a job to go to by the end of it, we’d have the funds available to get someone in. (And why stop at fixing a few holes when there are so many other things we want to change?)
Happily, Tom went on to find another job, and we pressed ahead with getting our favourite builder over to see what could be done with our space.
This being London, flats are not the largest, and our bathroom in particular is on the compact side. It didn’t take long for our builder to veto our original plan of putting in a corner bath across the end and moving the toilet.
(According to the plumber, the major stumbling block is fitting the bath and a 3″ sewer pipe into the available width, which is a little over 1.3m. Hmph. :zipit: )
After some head scratching, we came up with Plan B which still ticks all the boxes in terms of fixing (F) things we dislike (D) about the bathroom, while not requiring us to move any actual walls around 
:
D: Overly narrow bath that moves slightly when you get into it.
F: Slightly wider, double-ended bath, fitted properly.
D: Uncooperative bath taps and leaky shower head.
F: New bath mixer taps and shower.
D: Grotty linoleum floor covering.
F: Tiles on the floor.
D: Peeling wallpaper on solid walls on the right.
F: Tiles all round, floor-to-ceiling.
D: Heated towel rail (on left) not connected to the central heating.
F: New radiator plumbed into the central heating and with an extra “summer heating element” wired in.
D: Non-functional mirror light.
F: Replacement light.
D: No plug point for our electric toothbrush.
F: New shaver socket.
D: Typically English hard-to-access toilet cistern (we had to lever out a grouted-in panel to get to it the first time we needed to! 
).
F: Push back the wall and have a regular cistern.
D: Aforementioned holes in ceiling and wall.
F: New ceiling and wall panel.
D: Cupboards that stick and are hard to open.
F: New cupboards.
To fit in a wider bath, we’ve asked the builders to pull the bath forward a bit and flatten off the back wall. This leaves a cavity on the right-hand-side, and that’s going to become a cupboard.
The fun starts this Friday – whee! – when the builders are coming in to strip out everything except the toilet. From there, they are going to do their utmost to finish it in a month! Promises to be absolute mayhem, especially with Jon around, so I’m hanging onto the “long-term gain” idea (yes, I really DO want a new bathroom!) and trying not to think about it.
We had a phone call yesterday morning, from what turned out be a slightly puzzled friend. She’d been intrigued by an unusual recording left on her answer-phone, and had decided to try and find out a little more by using BT’s “last-number-recall” feature to dial the last incoming number.
So she didn’t know who she was calling when she rang us, but I recognised her voice and first name and was able to fill her in.
Which brought us to the next question – who had called her from our number the day before? A memory suddenly sprang to mind. Of walking into the lounge – to check on Jonathan who was being suspiciously quiet – and finding him completely and utterly engrossed with our cordless telephone which he had liberated from the edge of the kitchen counter!
I had quickly whisked the phone away from Jon and hadn’t realised that he’d actually called anyone at the time. But sure enough, using the history button (which was the same trick Jon had used!), the matching number was right there at the top of the list!
If you’re wondering, apparently the message was “quiet, and breathy”…
After 6½ months of crawling (during which time he reached proficiency level of “lightning fast”) and 3½ months of “cruising”, Jonathan finally took his first steps at 19½ months. It wasn’t anything dramatic, just a stumbling dash from the security of the wall, to a chair three baby-steps away, but it did show that he could do it.
QED, as it were.
Having proved the point, Jon went on to keep his new skill under wraps. Diligent observers might catch sight of a small body bobbing across a minor gap where crawling would be regarded as tiresome, but aside from these few occasions Jon wasn’t keen. Sitting down unexpectedly didn’t suit him, and he got very cross with parents who tried to trick him into walking by sneaking away a supportive hand, or stepping out of the way when he lurched over.
Then came Australia and lots of contact with Jonathan’s walking, talking cousins. That seemed to get Jon thinking that it was time to hone his latest skill.
From daring acts of standing up in the bath “Look Ma, no ha-” *Splash!* (over and over again) to long sessions of falling all over the floor trying to get up into standing position by himself, Jon put his mind to it and worked hard.
Soon he was covering longer and longer distances, actually letting go of an adult’s supporting finger to get ahead, and getting the hang of getting up unaided and standing for longer periods, skills that definitely came second to the actual walking.
In terms of baby-proofing our home, given that Jon could climb before he could walk, not much has changed. However, what we have found is that the cross-pollination of toys has escalated severely!
In the old crawling days, Jon was rather limited in his ability to transport toys about the house. We’d catch him doing a rather jerky crawl, dragging or pushing whatever he wanted to take with him; or shuffling awkwardly on his knees, a short-term solution which left hands free to carry things.
Neither of these two options come close to the elegant simplicity of walking and carrying, something that Jon can now appreciate fully.
So now we find toys Everywhere. Puzzle pieces down the side of Tom’s computer, shaker-bells next to my side of the bed, books by the front door, blocks in the bathroom. And in every room, a paper-bag/plastic container/toy piled high with a random collection of objects that have taken Jon’s fancy.
Our little author of chaos – now fully mobile…
