Robin Artemis photo gallery

Eighth month, 11 November - 11 December, 2011

I did a second egg donation cycle in November, and this was in the waiting room for the radiology clinic to get my follicles scanned. We met another donor there who also had two children, both with her in the pram. Robin enjoyed making friends on these visits.

This month I started getting Robin sitting on the potty as a regular thing instead of just an occasional one. I'd temporarily given up on Sparrow, and Robin needed a much shorter time of attention for success than she did. He was pretty good about sitting there to start with because it was interesting, but during the month he started crawling and got better at standing and climbing so it started being less interesting and I always had to have a toy on hand for him to hold if I didn't want him to remove himself too soon. Here he's having quite a conversation with me, while I get Sparrow breakfast.

Aww. This is the first time he slept on anything other than his back. He'd fallen asleep partway through a breastfeed and just kind of keeled over and stayed there.

Out shopping for stuff to make Christmas presents with. I wanted to make Sparrow and Mimi button necklaces, but my collection of buttons didn't seem to have much in it that wasn't khaki. And I couldn't even find most of those. So we went button shopping. Robin thought the Christmas fabric was interesting. He likes drapy things, as Sparrow did at that age (and still does).

Shopping in Bunnings is not nearly so interesting... or it wouldn't be, if it weren't for the Huge Fans above. He likes those.

Robin got quite good at crawling this month, going from the "commando" crawl that really just dragged his legs along, to a full cross-body movement. And then he started trying to go over things. The vacuum cleaner was in his way, so he tried a couple times and eventually managed to just go straight over it.

He was starting to want to climb on things, but they had to be low to start with. This book box was a good size but it tended to slide. So I put it by the futon with a couple of toys above, to see if he wanted to try and climb further up. And eventually he did start making his way onto it to try and reach the golf club and little bowl, two of his favourites at the time.

This month Robin got so good at crawling, in fact, that he started making his way around to explore. He particularly likes this room, which we call the Fun Room, because that is where Baths Happen. So occasionally when he finds himself where he can see that doorway he goes on in there to have a look, just in case there happens to be a bath on the way. Baths are fun. Usually he's disappointed, of course, but that's all right. He found another way to amuse himself.

It's Sparrow's stepstool. He starts by grabbing the lower step and standing holding onto that, then works his way onto the top step. I usually come and hold the stool steady with my foot to make sure it doesn't slide during this process. If you look you'll see only one nappy bucket, because the other is in the bath so that he can't grab it and pull it over trying to use that to stand up with too. At first when he did this on the stool he was a bit unsteady. Then he got a bit more steady. And that made him confident, so he started letting go with one hand and waving it about. This would have worked out better for him if he kept both feet flat on the floor too. Oh well, controlling four limbs at once is one of the infant challenges.

But now that the idea of standing is firmly implanted, anything he can use to climb himself up is wonderful. He has found a new love for his cot. One morning I left him and James sleeping and took Sparrow out for breakfast when she woke. When I do that I keep an ear out for Robin so that I can have Sparrow-only time but grab Robin before he can wake up James. When I finally heard him making joyful "it's morning" noises, I came in and found this. None of this lying around in bed anymore, Mum, I'm up and moving.

That particular morning I took him out of the bed and put him on the floor by the mirror so that I could finish sorting out the thing I was in the middle of with Sparrow. He didn't want to lie in front of the mirror any more. Not when there's a shelf just the right height behind it!

Mornings when I drop Sparrow at daycare can be challenging, as that drop-off is right when he might want to start his nap, but might not be able to transfer out of the car. And some days sleep is a very long way away, so he just grouches and grizzles at me for the whole car trip. On this morning he was grizzly, so I stopped at a park. I was going to go to the Williamstown Botanic Gardens but they were too far away when he cracked it, so we stopped at the first convenient park I saw. He loved it. We sat under the trees (which he spent lots of time looking up at, he loves trees), watched birds, rolled on the grass, looked at things far away (there was a bit of distance across the park). It was lovely.

He's really an outdoors kid. Even when he's at home he likes to be outside, and if he gets upset we can always calm him down by taking him out onto the balcony. Right now he's playing with the door and kissing the glass, but he likes looking out and would also like me to open the door so he can go out.

We had a quick stop at the shops to get some yoghurt for Sparrow before daycare, because I was out. I grabbed my usual kind of trolley, the kind that holds a toddler and an infant. But Sparrow insisted she wanted to walk. So I started putting Robin in instead (my back was really killing me that week, my paraspinal muscles kept spasming, so I didn't want to argue over anything while holding an eight-kilo baby). Then Robin started insisting that there was No Way He Was Going To Lie Down In This Seat. He wanted to sit up. So I put him in the toddler seat for the first time. He was much happier, and sat quite stably in it without any extra support. So no more baby seats for him now, he is quite sure he's outgrown them. (I ended up putting Sparrow in the body of the trolley to make sure we got around the supermarket easily! I just couldn't walk easily with her, but leaning on the trolley was comfortable. It was a rough week. I learnt that I must not EVER skip my core-muscle-activation exercises.)

Another park stop, this time in Altona on a beautiful day. We just sat on the grass behind the fish and chip shop and looked at birds - galahs, seagulls, magpie larks, a wattlebird - and other fun things. Robin really enjoys nature, he looks at birds and tracks them with his eyes. I remember that Sparrow never seemed to watch them until much older, but maybe it wasn't that much older and more about interest than ability. He also spends more time looking up at trees than Sparrow ever seemed to, she just didn't seem that interested in them when I took her to places with trees as a special treat for us. Robin however always reacts with happiness, so he will get plenty of park trips.

Right at the end of the month we had a nurse visit, Robin's eight-month scheduled one. He weighed 8.48 kg and was 68 cm long - 200g (or one feed) heavier and one cm longer than Sparrow was at the same age. Which are negligible differences as far as I'm concerned, but apparently where Sparrow was big for a girl, he is small for a boy. I can't say I think he's undersize in any way, not when the differences are a cm or two. I still think it's funny that their weight can change more in a day and height be measured less accurately (because they're wiggling) than makes the difference between 50th percentile and 75th or 25th percentile.