Atti Speak

"COPTA" he yells and points at the sky at the faintest sound in the sky. Even if it's actually a plane and even if he can't even see it...Yes, we currently have a slight obsession with helicopters.

4 | 52

"A portrait of Atticus, once a week, every week, in 2013."

This week has been tough in the sleep department. A bad case of teething and separation anxiety has resulted in Atticus waking up an hour or so after falling asleep screaming. Some nights I sit by his cot, others we take him downstairs for cuddles and a break, or we take him straight into our bed where he automatically relaxes and falls asleep. The big boy bed should arrive next week. I'm counting down the days...

16 months...an update

I haven't done of these posts in a while and considering how much development has been going on in Atti's world it is long overdue. Here are some things Atticus has been getting up to lately:

• Atticus is a wordsmith. He repeats my EVERY. SINGLE. WORD... ALL. THE. TIME.
• he knows the names of all the animals, their sounds, all variations of transport, talks in mixed russian and english but knows that cat/dog/cow in both languages says "meow, woof, moo"
• we talk...like full on conversations! "bye bye" he says "bye bye, where are you going?" i reply, "Alec" he says, always "Alec"
• he's making sentences, "bye bye, dada, see ya"
• we walk past dogs in the street and he yells "no! sit, sit" from his pram
• asks for water, biscuits, milk, apricots, books, anything he likes
• Atticus loves songs and music. He sings along to Elmo in the car as well as a CD of old school russian children's songs and asks for me to put certain songs on. When there's a catchy beat, he moves his hips to the beat and shimmies his shoulders.
• These are the songs we sing: "Happy Birthday", "Do...a deer...", Antoshka", "Twinkle, Twinkle little star"
• These are the books on high rotation at the moment and these are ones that Atti asks for depending on time of day and his mood: "We're Going on a Bear Hunt", "Madeline", "Goodnight Moon", "Peepo", "Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes", "Lost and Found"...just to name a few...we know them all off by heart already and Atti is always on cue making sound effects for relevant pages/characters
• Atti has started making more of an effort trying to use the spoon to feed himself and has started trying to put on his own shoes, hat and tshirt.
• "Park" he says, grabs my hand and pulls me to the door, pulling on the handle to try and open it.
• Since discovering that his full name is Atti-cus he has deduced that everyone else is also "Dadacus", "Mamacus", "Ninacus", "Alecus".
• Point to pictures in a book and says, "Show me cake", "Show me car", "Show me bird"...
• Point to nose, eyes, ears and says "Nos", "gaza", "uki". Also refer to glasses/sunglasses as "Gaza" and yells it out loud while pointing to someone wearing glasses.
• Is slowly becoming a better eater. We have taken the tray table off his high chair so he can now climb into it himself. When I ask him if he's hungry, he runs to the chair, yelling "Chair, chair", climbs up into it and starts yelling "Kasha, Kasha!" 
• When we go to watch trains he now yells "Coming coming, tootoo coming!"
• Plays with his (or my) hair when settling himself to sleep.
• Sleeping is still a nightmare, wakes up every couple of hours and still spends half the night in our bed...we're working on it...trying to keep in perspective that  HE WILL EVENTUALLY SLEEP! We've ordered him a big boy bed so hopefully that will change things up a bit. I have a theory that he really hates the cot and sees it as a bit of a cage. 

** Photos taken at Dad's birthday lunch at Fitzrovia

At Heide

We took a trip to Heide today to frolic in the sculpture garden and check out the Louise Bourgeois exhibition. While the sculpture garden was a big hit with Atticus, I think it left him a little over excited and over stimulated and our morning ended with both of us in tears; him yelling at me hysterically for an hour instead of having his nap. Nevertheless, here are some pics from the morning before things turned pear shaped.

 The cow says "Moooooooo"

"Airplane" 

3 | 52

"A portrait of Atticus, once a week, every week, in 2013."

Yoghurt face delight at being handed another raspberry...which he will proceed to thread onto his index finger, parade it around the living room, teasingly offer it to Harry and then just as quickly pop into his mouth.

2 | 52

"A portrait of Atticus, once a week, every week, in 2013."

Atticus meets the water fountain! The sensation of water shooting up into his mouth was exhilarating and exciting. 

It was hard to chose this week. The slightly crazier out take is below.

1 | 52

"A portrait of Atticus, once a week, every week, in 2013."

This is the start of my new project for this year. I have been admiring Jodi's 52 project all year and have decided to jump on board and document Atticus' year in a weekly portrait. It will give my blogging a more consistent rhythm and I'm excited to see Atti's year unravel in weekly portraits.

Today he came back from his first weekend away in Blairgowrie with my parents. Which also means a first weekend for us without him. The break was refreshing but very surreal at the same time. We were haunted by a sense of something missing and had a hard time relaxing. Atticus returned looking more grown up, speaking new words and singing new songs. He had cuddles and kisses for us all, and lots to tell me at bedtime about his weekend away.

Christmas in Blairgowrie | Part 4

The giant bubbles were a hit with kids and adults alike

Quiet moments with "Nina" playing with "meow kot" and reading books.

Bathtime fun with Dada, and always a couple of spectators cheering them on.

Atticus had the pleasure of playing with his cousins one afternoon. The girls were very gentle, looking after him and following him around, making sure he doesn't get into any mischief. I think he was more mesmerised by them and their toys and just kept following them around, quietly observing their methods of play.

"Hat" he says as he pats her unruly curls.

Christmas in Blairgowrie | Part 3

We spent countless mornings drinking coffee at The Sisters and devouring their perfectly cooked eggs. Atti kept himself busy practicing his art skills on their giant chalkboard, drinking babychinos, mushing vegemite sandwiches and nibbling on the giant chalk!

Christmas in Blairgowrie | Part 2

Beach walks with Atti on my back are becoming a little more difficult as he gets longer and heavier (although I really don't know how he's putting any weight on considering he hardly eats anything). He loves the seaside though, collecting rocks, shells, eating sand and picking flowers.

He's also become a bit of a Maugli, always hanging out with the dogs, sharing his food with them, trying to steal their food and drink water from their bowl. We would constantly find him sitting with the dogs, singing them songs and telling him stories in his own language. Although Harry stays as far away from him as he can, Spencer is surprisingly tollerant; letting Atti pull his hair, pinch him, stick tiny fingers into his nose and chase him. He doesn't complain, just happy to have someone to play with. They have a month between them in age, and maybe they have a special relationship. They play wrestle; Spencer nibbles on Atti's hands and Atti squeals with laughter, trying to bite him back.