Understanding

I find myself wondering how much Joel understands at the moment.

If we talk to him, he listens, and he certainly knows what 'no' means.  Maybe it's the tone with which we say it rather than the word itself.

This is the face I get at dinner when he's considering flinging his food.

Calculating!!

This morning we've been up since 6.30 and my Mum has recently bought him a V-tech walker from Ebay and he decided to play it with his feet, but when the annoying puppy said 'clap your hands' he did!!

I then sat him up and kept saying 'clap hands Joel', 'Mummy says clap your hands' (in manner of simon says like puppy), 'if you're happy and you know it clap your hands' and he didn't do it again.  Coincidence?  I'm not sure!!  I know I'm biased but I think he's a clever little boy!!

He's been to my parents today whilst I've had a day doing bits for Steve and general housework which is so much easier without Joel to watch as well and they sent me this:

It seems he wanted to go straight to his toys without even taking his hat and jumper off!!  He loves that ball toy and hammer they've got and he puts the balls in the right holes and everything, very carefully!  My parents think it's very funny as they can't even pick the balls up once in the holes, they have to push them through!

What else have we been up to since the last post?  Just lots of playing really.  Trying to think of new things to do every day such as:

And going out for fresh air to the castle with Izzy to play around:

Ignore the crows feet!!

Every day seems to bring something new.  He's now getting into a proper crawling position on all fours, he can get around faster every day.  He's very careful at putting things in things, he's learnt smaller things can fit in bigger things and he loves to clap and applaud himself when he gets it right!  His palette is expanding as well and he's very good at eating most things I give him.

He was a bit ill this week with an upset tummy for a day so I looked up online what he should be having and found the phrase BRAT - bananas, rice, apple sauce and toast!  So he had bananas and toast for breakfast for a couple of days, pasta with a bit of grated parmesan and olive oil, stewed apples, risotto and lots of toast and he was fine very soon after that.  Except that now he's come down with a few sniffles so has gone to bed at 5.30pm after hardly any tea (fish pie which will be lunch tomorrow for him now) so I'm anticipating a bit of a rough night.  I can envisage us both up watching Waybuloo on catch up eating toast at 1am so we'll see how we go and whether we make it to Mums and Toddlers in the morning!