So Not On The Spectrum

Baby Bear totally amazes me all the time.

He actually gets the point of eye contact and has done from a young age. For months now, if I'm reading and he wants my attention, he will grab my face and turn my head so that I have to make eye contact with him.

Beanie Bear has just started getting into imaginative play and will occasionally bring me a pretend ice cream or cup of tea. This morning Beanie put a pretend (invisible) chocolate down on the table for Baby Bear, and Baby actually made the motions of picking it up and pretending to eat it! At 19.5 months old!

Loo Bear wasn't too bad with this kind of stuff at the same age but it blows me away just how naturally it comes to Baby Bear.

Update

   

Finding beauty everywhere

~~~~~

Loo Bear has been enjoying the puzzles in the CSIRO's Double Helix magazines.

~~~~~

Shmoo has been perfecting his gluten free raspberry and lemon friands*. He has now made them several times, including a batch for our homeschool monitor. We had our review (and Loo's initial monitoring visit) in August and it went very well.

*We made the friands with Nuttelex a couple of times so that they were dairy-free and whilst they were okay, they're definitely much better with real butter.

~~~~~

 

I'd given up on our cauliflowers and hadn't checked on them too closely for a while. While collecting herbs one morning I glanced over and noticed a huge head of cauliflower. We've had 3 more since and we're also still getting lots of yummy silverbeet, parsley, kale and beetroot.  Shmoo has taken to helping me weed the beds and keep an eye on the developing cabbage heads.

~~~~~

The last few months I've been getting back into making our own yoghurt and have even branched out into making labneh. So easy and yummy.

~~~~~

  

We had fun making some bird feeders recently. The OH poked a hole in the bottom of 5 plastic cups. We then used a length of kitchen string to tie 2 craft sticks in an 'X' shape and threaded the other end through the hole inside the cup and securing to the outside with sticky tape. Repeated for all 5 cups. We mixed 1kg wild bird seed mix with 250g softened lard. The boys packed the seed mixture into the cups; removed the tape; and pulled the string tight so that the craft sticks rested snugly against the top of the cups. We froze the cups for a few minutes until they had set and then removed the seed mix from the cups and hung them up outside.

~~~~~

Baby Bear had a cardiology review a while ago. At 18 months old he was not impressed with being stripped down in front of strangers in a strange environment, attached to strange machines, and poked with strange equipment. He put up with being weighed (9.29kg with a nappy on - below the 3rd centile line still) and then cracked it. He was very vocal about his displeasure. I breastfed him through the ECG and that somewhat distracted him but by the time we got to the echo he was totally over it. He wouldn't feed anymore and refused to be distracted by the apps on my mobile. They couldn't really get a good view of his heart because of his screaming and squirming around but it looked like there probably wasn't anything 'significant'. The cardiologist was happy enough to schedule the next review for 2 years time, when Baby Bear should be old enough to be a bit more cooperative and allow us a better look at his heart.

~~~~~

It's been a tough winter with us seeming to catch a cold or flu every 2-4 weeks for the past 3 months. The last cold has left Baby Bear with a mild chest infection and a horrible case of oral thrush. His mouth is causing him a lot of pain and I haven't been able to brush his teeth because he screams and his mouth and gums bleed so much. Our GP has just put Baby Bear on antibiotics 3 times a day for the chest infection and to make sure nothing nasty has gotten to his heart through his mouth. He's also on nilstat 4 times a day for the thrush. Poor baby. He's terrible at taking meds and I'm also giving him probiotics, kefir grains, xylitol and coconut oil so it feels like I'm trying to coax him into opening his mouth all day. Fingers crossed that it all clears up very quickly!