Henry: 13 months, 1 week, 2 days

I'm starting to worry about not having documented enough for Milo and Henry - or maybe it's because I'm getting older, I'm finding it harder to remember the details. Or maybe it's classic second-child syndrome where who did what when becomes less important. Anyway, although this blog is quite a record of their lives to date I have yet to finish Milo's first year book and haven't even started Henry's. While blogs now seem to be the new baby 'book', for some reason I still feel like I want to document everything (or their first year milestones at least) on paper. The books are a work in progress, but I'm going to make more of an effort to include a bit more detail here. So here's a Henry update.

Eating: Nursery think Henry is a great eater but we often find it difficult to feed him on weekends. Breakfast might be a quarter to a half piece of toast with Vegemite and a yoghurt or fromage frais. Monday to Thursday he eats lunch and (late afternoon) tea at nursery and we have dinner at home - although he usually eats very little as he has eaten so much at nursery - maybe yoghurt or fromage frais (whichever one he didn't eat at breakfast). Friday to Sunday, lunch/dinner could be a cheese sandwich, cheesy pasta, risotto, omelette, gnocchi with creamy pesto sauce or baked beans. Sometimes he will have pureed fruit (like an Ella's Pouch) but this can be hit and miss. He used to love roasted carrots and sweet potato but not so much now. He is now very keen to feed himself - and gets quite upset if you don't let him. (Milo was never fussed much either way). Here's a video Henry this morning eating fromage frais - quite adept. The food of the bib is porridge which he had also insisted on feeding himself. Messy, but he's stubborn!

Baked Bean carnage

Henry is now drinking cows milk for his day time feeds too (from 8 months to now at nursery, he has been drinking formula for day time feeds. Other times he is still breastfeeding).

Sleeping: Like Milo, Henry has always been an early waker. Which is not great because neither Nick nor I are morning people. Ugh. Only recently did Henry start sleeping through reliably (around 10 months? Similar for Milo) and we were doing ok until they both got sick a couple of weeks ago and were both waking up constantly through the night for about a week. However, in the last few nights Henry has been sleeping through from about 7.30pm to 5am again. Which is better, but 5am is never really great...

Playing: Henry loves Milo's rocket, our stacking ring toys, toy phones, the Noah's Ark that he got for Christmas, the musical toys and the train he got for his birthday from Maggie and Isla (friends from nursery).

Stacking Clown toy

Henry on the Zing Zillas banana phone

Checking through the Star Wars tub with Milo

Milestones: Henry loves standing up now and on the odd occasion will stand without holding on to anything. This only lasts a few seconds though. If he needs to move when he's standing up, he sits down, moves and then stands again. He can crawl at lightening speed and loves a chase. He will put his hands on his head on demand and is starting to know some songs, like Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and Open, Shut Them (and will clap - almost at the right point in the song). He can climb the stairs - which we thought was brilliant when were right behind him encouraging him up, but is now scary as he loves to do it and if you turn your back for a few seconds, he is suddenly half way to the top...(fortunately this house has permanently affixed stair gates so we'll be using those more).

Teeth: 2 on the bottom, 4 on the top.

Other: His favourite comfort is still being held with his thumb in his mouth (either one) and one hand in the hair of whoever is holding him. He is a charmer and smiles at everyone - and has all the women at nursery wrapped around his little finger. He can make kissy noises and sometimes puts both arms around your neck to give cuddles. If you lay on the floor he is immediately there and either crawls over you or will lay his head on your chest/head. As above, he has a real stubborn/determined streak and will make a loud screeching sound in frustration if you try to stop him from doing what he wants to do. He even has little tantrums if you put him down when he wants you to hold him - he lays on his back, screaming and and kicking his legs. (Sometimes if you put him down when he doesn't want to be put down, he will fling himself backwards which is scary on hard surfaces so we have to be careful about that). He loves opening the cupboards in the kitchen and pulling out all the boxes/packets/jars and pulling the cookbooks off the low shelf. He had his 12/13 month injections this week and wasn't happy about it!

Favourite thing: Sometimes he will do the twinkles with this fingers if you sing 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star'.