April 2020

The big change in Anna's life recently is basically the big change in everyones life. The start of this year bought a new 4 day Day care routine - Tuesday to Friday - which she adapted to very well. Spending most of the week in that environment is a pretty big change and was tiring at first, both for her with those long hours and for us getting here prepared, dropped off and picked up daily. Day care were excitied to have her for more of the week and I think it was helping her build a lot of skills around eating, playing, interacting with others and sleeping independantly.

With the virus we decided to pull her out and work from home. It has been a bit of an adjustment going back to looking after it at home whilst working from home but has so far gone pretty well. Anna is getting better at occupying herself or sitting at the computer watching her shows while I work.

It also meant that swimming lessons for the moment have come to an end, she was progressing well in a new higher level class and beginning to master skills like juming in, grabbing the sides of the pool, diving to get a skining toy and using a pool noodle.

Travel

In Janurary we rented out a house with family in Mornington. Anna enjoyed the trip and was well behaved, sleeping well in her portacot and enjoying the pool. At the time she was right on the cusp of walking so the family enjoyed seeing her standing up and trying to take a step or 2 before fallling over.

We were originally going to take a road trip to Canberra right after this trip but ended up not going due to the poor air quality with all the bush fires at the time.

Walking

Anna took her first proper steps around the start of Janurary, she has been standing up against furnature for some time. I wouldn't count it unless there were a solid 5 or so steps without falling over, easy enough to take a couple of stumbling steps before falling over. Once she worked it out she took to walking very quickly within a week could basically walk as far as she wanted, at a slow pace with falls of course.

Similar with shoes it only took her a day or 2 to get the hang of them and she was off.

Sleeping

Anna continues to be a good sleeper with only the occasional bad night that we usually have attributed to teething. She hasn't been sick at all in the past couple of months which has probably helped. Recently she has taken to essentially taking herself to bed when she is tired.

Early this year at Day care she was moved up to the next room which meant adjusting from 2 naps a day to one. She took to this well and it hasn't been the cause of much issue.

Just this past week we have taken the side off her cot so she can get in and out herself. The first night was a big rough, not sure if that was due to the change or something else, but has been fine after that. She is enjoying the freedom and so far there haven't been any issues with her falling out.

Eating/ Drinking

Anna continues to be a good eater, eating or at least trying everything we give her. Unsurprisingly as she has been exposed to more foods she has gotten more a preference to things with more flavour and won't be things like straight steamed vegetables as well as she would when she first started eating them, eats them fine with some sauce on them though.

She is particularly good at using a fork and a spoon, when she wants to. I suspect Day care allowing her to independantly eat from an earlier age using her fork and spoon has helped there.

She much prefers to eat independantly but doesn't mind if I spoon or fork something particularly messy for her.

She enjoys her jam toast for breakfast, although she generally doesn't get a lot of choice there.

Talk

Easily distinguisable words still come on slowly. She is making a lot of baby babble talk and now including a number of words such as mum, dad, kick, duck, car, hi, bye and a delightful sheeps sound. I have noticed just recently that she is getting better at repeating a new word I am saying to here and point to, for example "wall" just today.

Play

Anna's hand eye coordination continues to improve. She has taken really well recently to throwing and kicking a ball. She also enjoys playing outside on her slide and in her new cubby house.

She will sit and play blocks and other toys by herself and likes reading (turning the pages) of books.

She has recently been more interested in playing baby iphone/ ipad games and has the ability now to tap and drag well.

What's next?

It seems that things will continue to be different for the forseeable future. She likely won't be back in Day care or resuming swimming for some time and we won't likely be doing any visiting, much less taking any trips for some time.

On the other hand this is a good oppotunity to spend a bit more time with Anna as we will likely be working at home for some time.