Explosion!

This pic is taken by a proud parent to show of Asher's eating-with-a-spoon ability. Unfortunately he's much more interested in the camera than he is in his breakfast. Eating with a spoon is not the only developmental leap we have had, although he's still not walking on his own, just happily cruising and crawling very fast.

There has also been a language explosion, suddenly Asher seem to be able to understand so much more. He has understood a connection between 'bye-bye' and waving for several months but now he starts waving when he wants to leave, or when he wants someone else to leave (sorry dad! He hadn't seen you for a while!). He has also been using 'mumma' and 'dadda' more-or-less correctly for a few weeks now (I appear from the bedroom and it's 'mumumum' or he peers under the kitchen door saying 'daaadaaaaaa' hoping that Sanjay will open it for him) but suddenly he seems to understand so much more. Over the weekend Sanjay asked if he had finished his apple the other day and Asher handed Sanjay the piece of apple that he was holding. Later on I asked Asher to put his green ball in the basket and he did it. Now that we have examples of Asher understanding language we are having to be a whole lot more careful about what we say around him. We'd both like to make sure we keep the bickering to a minimum and definitaly keep name-calling and swear words out of it.

I guess all this new language is perfectly developmentally appropriate now that we are getting so clsoe to his first birthday. Two weeks yesterday til he turns one! I'll think about it a bit more and try to reflect a bit on how this first year has been.

In terms of less pleasant explosions, and I'll spare you the details, Asher got his first gastro bug - it wasn't particulalry bad, but I'm amazed by the amount of laundry I had to do for a few days. It's taken him a week or two to start eating normal foods again, which I guess isn't surprising because he threw up everything he ate for a few days. I was so glad I am still breastfeeding him though, it is a nice source of comfort and I didn't need to worry so much about him not eating food since he was still getting breastmilk.

He is going to wake up soon, so I had better race around and get ready to get out the door while the sun is still out so he can have a crawl around on the grass before lunch.