We've seen the present we are going to buy Callum. There is a garage in Early Learning Centre that matches the magnetic vehicle sets he has already, plus you get an extra 3 cars.
I've practiced making the cake that will be his Birthday cake. I've not iced it, as don't want to waste icing. Plus, it sank, so I wouldn't have been able to ice it. I hope that doesn't happen when I make it for real. It appears I opened the oven door too early. Fingers crossed it all goes well for next week. Otherwise, this could be the last birthday cake I ever make...I'm going with a jungle theme for the icing I think. I was going to do a cat but don't want to do anything too complicated for his first cake. Now, I know you are thinking that a jungle theme must be harder than a cat but I can do the jungle bits all on one round cake whereas, for a cat, I would have to bake an extra cat for ears and a tail. I would also want the icing to be chocolate flavour (chocolate overkill here as sponge cake is chocolate too) and I couldn't find any ready made and I'm not brave enough to make it. I can see it now, it is going to be a disaster. I hope it, at least, tastes nice.
So, our little man and what he's up to.
He gets up a bit of speed now when crawling. Enough to chase after and terrorise Lotté. Found them both under the dining room table tonight, in between the chairs. Lotté looking for the best escape route!
I had thought the stairs were safe but found him a third of the way up them the other day! Now need to watch him. He loves the stairs and heads to them at every chance he gets, whether upstairs or down. My sister recommends only getting a stairgate at the top and teaching him not to go up the stairs without me. Otherwise, whenever we go anywhere without a stairgate, we will have to be up with him every 5 minutes stopping him from climbing them. Not sure how easy this will be but it is worth a try. It is scary that Callum has no awareness of safety on the stairs. How do you teach that at his age. He would very easily get half way up the stairs, get tired and go to just sit back, nearly falling down the stairs. Luckily, I've been behind him whenever he has gone to do this. I think he knows that he has to go down backwards when he is at the top of the stairs. Although, he hasn't quite worked out how to get into position yet. He gets to the top of the stairs and then kind of crawls and shuffles on his bum trying to turn round and then when he is there, he doesn't know what to do next. I still help him to go down, moving his legs for him but will stop that so he works it out for himself.
Callum is pulling himself up to standing all the time now. But only today has he (kind of) worked out how to sit down again - just not very stylishly. He used to stand up and then cry out when he wanted to sit down. Now he sort of throws himself on his bum. He is getting a little bit braver day by day, for example, only holding on with one hand and I don't think it will be long before he is cruising around the furniture. I tried to get him to walk with a doggy walker we have (a walker that looks like a doggy not a tool for taking dogs for walks (oh, how my vocabulary has suffered - doggy is now an everyday word instead of dog!!!)) but he wasn't really sure what to do with it and pulled it towards him instead.
The cutest thing he does at the moment is copy me when I make an elephant sound and a trunk action with my arm. He also hisses like a snake when I do it. He has even done the elephant one when asked when we hadn't been practicing it immediately before - if that makes sense? Going to work on those some more :o)
He is still a little toad when it comes to meal times but I'm trying hard to ignore his throwing food on the floor.
My little man is growing up so quick - he is one next week and I'm still trying to believe I've even had a baby!!!