Team Newman / Ferme

Of course, I was at work when he did it. Apparently, the nanny had taken the boys down to the front room where Richard was working and she stood Lachlan up on the floor and he walked about 10 paces across to his walking trolley. Richard was stunned and phoned me right away. It made my day and I haven’t really stopped smiling since. Half of me is wondering what the hell we’re in for now, though.

Oooh. It’s been longer than I thought since I last posted. Not that anything dramatic has happened. Daniel is still teething and still getting distressed at night. He’s getting his lower incisors through now – bringing his total number of teeth to 16. Considering they only get 20 the first time around and he got his first tooth in late October last year, he’s had a busy time of it. Lachlan is still sitting quite comfortably on eight teeth.

We started our regular physio appointments last week and they seem to be pretty good. At first I was hoping that the classes would help to improve his crawling, but it seems that we’re going to (mostly) bypass the crawling and help him with his walking. He’s dead set keen on getting to his feet whenever he can (that is, whenever we’re close enough to help him) and will lead us around the house like a little emporer, so the exercises in that regard aren’t going to be much of a challenge. However, we do still have to help him build his upper body strength – which he hasn’t got because he’s never really crawled – and his core strength for balance and to prevent him from wobbling so much. We also have to help him transition from sitting to tummy (and probably vice versa) and from sitting to standing because there’s not much point in learning to walk along furniture and so forth, if he can’t get to the furniture in the first place. Still, it’s all looking so much more positive than it was a few months ago.

Lachlan is going from strength to strength in so many ways. He’s walking around at leisure with his little walking trolley and he thinks he’s the bees knees. He’s learnt to steer now, so he can walk from one end of the house to the other, and do laps of the family room without any problems. Richard and I are both firmly convinced that he’s got the skills to walk independently, but he just doesn’t have the confidence. I don’t really mind though – he can take as long as he wants. (Daniel on the other hand, has all the confidence, nay, arrogance in the world, and thinks he can go anywhere, often forgetting that he doesn’t have the skills to back it up!) The only difficulties we’re having with Lachlan at the moment is that he’s starting to get quite clingy again, and the little green monster has started to appear whenever he sees me playing with or helping Daniel. The number of times I’ve been walking Daniel around, or supporting him while he’s standing at the coffee table, and Lachlan will climb up my back, push his way between Daniel and I, or just grab my legs so that I can’t move. Daniel’s not so bad, but if I’m having a cuddle with Daniel and Lachlan comes over looking for attention, Dan will start whinging and trying to push Lachlan away from me. Generally, I just ignore it and try to give them both lots of cuddles, but hopefully they’ll grow out of it sooner rather than later.

Just after we’ve achieved success with the controlled crying and getting the boys to sleep well during the day and overnight, everything has gone pear shaped this last week. Lachlan has pretty much only slept once per day for about 5 days, and he’s also keeping Dan awake with his whinging. So, we’re trying a new routine. The plan at the moment is to stretch them as long as possible in the morning (thank God for television) and then let them sleep for as long as possible over lunch. In the afternoon, we may put Dan down for another nap, but I don’t think we’ll bother with Lachlan anymore. It’s just not worth the effort. On the positive side, Lachlan has been going to sleep at night without a murmur and is pretty much letting us sleep undisturbed all night. Dan is teething again though, with his third and fourth molars coming through, so he’s woken a couple of times in distress. Generally, he’s coping okay though. All credit to him.

Yesterday, I took some really great photos of Dan. He’s really happy most of the time at the moment – I think his teething has stopped for the moment and his increased mobility has eased some of his frustration. He’s able to commando crawl quite well now, and even attempts to crawl on his hands and knees on occasion (rather than his belly and elbows). He’s pulling up onto furniture okay too, though we still have to put him there in the first place. I’ll first embed a video of him crawling and then a photo of him after he’d crawled into our box/tunnel/cubby house.

Dan in the Box

Another Box Shot

And here’s some pictures of him standing on the furniture. He’s so pleased with himself, and loves the camera!

Happy Dan

Happy Boys

There are some other pickies in the gallery also, including Lachlan climbing into the toy box. Enjoy!