One

 Weight: 8.9kg  Height: 76cm

Happy Birthday my beautiful boy! I'm still not quite sure how we happen to be at "1" but here we are... and you have suddenly turned into the coolest toddler (!!) I know! (admittedly I am a little biased)

Unfortunately your birthday has coincided with a really stubborn and painful tooth coming through on the top...I feel your pain little man! Cutting teeth is no easy feat!

Aside from the teething situation, Atticus continues to be the happiest, busiest and most social little man! At our 1 year checkup the nurse said that we may have a "gifted child" on our hands because his language skills are that of a 2 year old! To put it simply, Atticus is a chatterbox! He repeats everything I say and responds to both russian and english names of object/sounds/things.

These are some of the words he says:

- awo (hello)

- ba ba (bye bye)

- Mummy (means yummy although I think he's started to relate   "mama" with me)

- nada (nadia)

- sasha (loves saying "s" sounds)

- nina (marina)

- ayi (alec)

- boo (book)

- tita (teacher)

- shoes

- nana (banana)

- apple

- popa (bum in russian)

- 'ary (harry)

- baw (ball)

- no no no (for Spenny and point with his finger)

- saaage (massage)

- moo, maaaa (meow), brr beep beep (car), tu tu (train), woof, bzzz (bee), sssss (snake), oo oo (monkey), 

When Asked his name he proudly exclaims "Attiiiii" and when asked how old he is he says "too", no, you're one, I say, "no, too" he persists.

He loves to sing and dance. He plays ball with Harry and threads round puzzle pieces onto a rod. He blows my mind!

Atti's favourite past time by far remain books. He goes through his books throughout the day, turning the pages and babbling away as though he's reading them out loud. When we read books together, he listens attentively and points to the pictures on the page making the relevant sounds for animals etc.

Atti continues to be an expert crawler but has recently moved up to walking holding onto one hand only. His balance is really improving and I think he's become a bit more interested in the whole "walking thing". Not long now I think.

Tomorrow we are having a big party for you, my boy, and we've been planning for weeks. I've sewed together some decorative flags and baked you a big cake and your daddy has marinated lots and lots of meat. All of your grandparents are busy with preparations and your friends are looking forward to seeing you! It's going to be a wonderful day!

11 months

One word. Cheeky. 

This is Atti's favourite face at the moment: cheesy grin, squinted eyes and scrunched up nose....and boy is he proud of himself! At 11 months, this kid is a big bag of laughs, babbles, mischief and endless fun. He's up for any adventure and if he gets bored, he entertains himself by flirting with and poking faces at anyone around. This kid can put a smile on anyone's face and I'm so lucky to get to hang out with him every day!

And boy is he a chatterbox! These are his words:

Hello - sounds more like "hawoo" (my personal favourite)(whenever he hears a phone ring he says "hawo" very casually nonchalant...)
Bye Bye - "ba ba"
Yoghurt - "goot" (until today I thought he was saying "good" but finally figure out it's actually yoghurt)
"Mama", "dada" - but I don't think they have a meaning still.
"sit" - to Harry
"popa" - (bum in russian...as soon as he's on the change table it's "popa, popa, popa")
"Atti" - HIS personal favourite! (Today I caught him going through a book with pictures of babies in it and at each one he points and says "Atti, Atti")

Our other favourite game is making sounds. These are his sounds:

"a a a" (complete with panting motion) - dog
"moo/boo" - cow
"ma" (meow) - cat
puckers his lips with no sounds - fish
"zzzzz" - bee
"tu tu" - train

He blows kisses with fishlike lips, and has only now actually started to become interested in clapping his hands. (I have been trying to teach him to clap for months)

Atticus loves books, is constantly pulling all his books out of the book box and sits there leafing through them, babbling away at the pages as if he's reading them. He's also started to squeal with excitement as soon as I pull out a favourite book to read. It's hilarious. 

He loves drawers, doors, cupboards...but he loves more discovering all the goodies hidden within. He's obsessed with trying to get into the dishwasher, the shower and drinking water out of Harry's bowl. 

He's crawling at super speeds, cruising along furniture, sitting down and pulling up with precision control and can take a few steps holding only onto one hand. This morning he STOOD by himself for about 5 seconds! Blew me away to say the least.

Atti has started sitting with crossed legs (above)...it kills me. It is the pinnacle of cuteness.

I can't believe there's only one month of babyhood left...How did that happen? Time to start planning that party!

10 months

"Attiiiiiiiiii!!!" this is the first sound I hear in the morning as soon as Atticus opens his eyes! "Atti, Atti, Atti...." he says it with such concentration and pride! He also says "up", "mama", and occasionally "bye bye". His favourite animal sound is "mooo", which sounds more like "boo" at this stage. I often find him sitting in some corner of the house "mooing" for minutes on end. Sounds like I have a little cow in the house! Other animal sounds Atti knows is "woof woof" for dogs and lately he's been making a very serious effort at buzzing like a bee!

 His tongue is always hanging out lately and that little index finger likes to poke at everything and everything! He's crawling, pulling up, sitting up, rolling over and cruising at full speed. Harry is finding it harder to hide from Atticus and often grunts at the fact that he has been caught off guard yet again. Atticus has figured out how to open drawers and cupboards, pull toys out of boxes, lift up rubbish bin lids and toilet seats, open and close doors, pull chords out of electrical outlets. The house is in a constant state of chaos, as soon as I tidy one area up, he's already somewhere else making another mess. 

 Socially, Atticus is a delight! He's extremely friendly, cheeky and happy to make friends everywhere we go! Everyone knows him at our local shops and he's quite happy to indulge anyone who stops  us in the street for a chat with a big smile.

 He's finally started to enjoy solids and is a big fan of soups. I have literally become a big soup kitchen. Strawberries, bagels, yoghurt and Vegemite are all favourites!

Deep sleep remains elusive to us all and we are effectively co-sleeping at this stage and doing anything that works. I'm in a happy place about it all though, as it means we get to cuddle all night and if Atti wakes up, I can usually just give him a boob and we all go back to sleep. We're at the point where we recognise that it's just a phase and Atti will move on when he's ready but this seems to be working now and we're feeling a bit more rested and less sleep deprived.

9 months

This young man has now spent as much time in the outside world as it took me to bake him in my oven. Can you believe how grown up and mature he looks in that shirt!? I'm pretty sure he knows it too! cheeky little bugger.

This last month has brought about some amazing development and at an overwhelmingly fast rate. A couple of weeks ago, I got really excited that he finally figured out how to sit up from being on his belly, the next day he pulled up to standing with the help of my sewing box and two days later he went for his first solo walk with the walker. In the last couple of days he's decided that commando crawling is for little babies and has miraculously mastered proper crawling at lightning speeds! Every day he gets faster and faster and I literally have to run ahead to remove any hazardous objects in his way. Sometimes I don't make it and have to wrestle them out of his little hands.

Atticus babbles away to himself and those around all the time! So many new sounds including mama, dada, dudu, dudi, baba, up. He's started stringing syllables together and is really expressive when "talking" to us. He really loves being part of the conversation. I've noticed lately that he tries to sing along with me when I sing him our songs. He recognises the song from the beginning and sometimes starts babbling the tune of the chorus before I even get there. 

When asked "what does a doggy say?" he responds with a panting/barking sound, tongue hanging out....and makes a close-lipped "moo" for a cow. He starts "moo-ing" when I open his book to the picture of a cow. These little things seem so silly but they're such a huge deal in my world! He waves "hello" and "goodbye" (when he's in the mood of course), almost claps his hands,  and gives me gentle slobber kisses. oh the slobber!

We're still travelling quite slowly through the world of solids. We have identified some favourites though: strawberries, plain yogurt, bread, cheese and watermelon. Sleep is also a sensitive topic...but I keep telling myself not to get caught up in it too much; that he will grow out of it...he WILL eat food, and WILL sleep through...won't he?

No new teeth this month. Still only 4. But boy, does it hurt if he bites!

We had our first hospital emergency last week. You'll notice a little dot on Atti's left hand from the IV drip. We were having a perfectly normal day when Atti started screaming all of a sudden, kicking his legs out frantically, went pale and even green and started being really drowsy and refusing to feed. I knew something was wrong straight away. The screams were nothing I'd heard before and he had the look of fear in his eyes. Without going into it too much, we rushed to emergency and they figured out pretty quickly that it was an intussusception...where one piece of bowel gets sucked up into itself. The doctors gave him morphine! and put him on the drip. The procedure was to have air pumped into his bottom to push the bowel back out. If this didn't work, we would have to go to surgery. It was the single most horrific experience I think I have ever been through. Even all the hospital trips with Filipp didn't prepare me for this. Seeing your little baby suffering and in pain is heartbreaking. He's so little and helpless and totally dependant on you to figure out what is wrong, to look after him and make him feel better. We stayed at the hospital overnight and Atti woke up smiling and giggling and back to his old self. That was quick! I think I'm still recovering, trying to push the image of him being so sick and in so much pain out of my mind's eye.

This last image is of him trying to clap his hands together:)

8 months

weight: 8.150kg length: 70.5cm

 Oh my, how did we get to 8 months? Atti has really grown into such a little person over the last month that i now think of him as a little man rather than a baby. the biggest development is that we are now crawling! yes, we're on the move. it all happened so quickly, first getting up on hands and knees and then he finally figured out how to push himself forward and in the space of a couple of days suddenly became a pro commando crawler! filipp has been busy putting up baby gates and hiding all the lose cords etc because Atti is busy exploring! it's so fascinating now observing him explore the objects that interest him and seeing him go where he wants to go. key objects of interest are...Harry....he's always chasing Harry, but also, my little hand held vaccum cleaner, chair legs, bathroom tiles, Harry's water bowl, glass doors outside...in fact as soon as he sees the sliding door open to the backyard, he crawls with all his might! he just wants to go outside and play fetch with the dog! 

Atti now has his top front teeth too! They broke a couple of weeks ago and i think they really bothered him. he was completely off solids for 2 weeks before they came in and wasn't sleeping very well.

ma ma ma and ba ba ba are new sounds that have been added to our vocabulary...he loves to babble! he loves to play peekaboo and look at himself in the mirror. to get someone's attention he keeps looking and smiling at the person with the cheekiest smile and when he finally gets your attention, he starts swinging his head from side to side with the biggest grin on his face! it's quite amusing. 

  ** on a style note, Atti's beautiful jumper and matching socks are from petit bateau and were a gift from my colleague.

(yes, i look tired in this photo)

7 months

weight: 7.814kg length: 70.5 cm

Atticus wasn't in the best mood for this month's portrait session and really wasn't falling for any of my silly songs or sounds in an attempt to cheer him up. it was more of a "just get on with it mum, i have stuff to do" type of mood. he continues to be busy busy and is always exploring, playing, observing and constantly requiring more and more stimulation. i often feel that he gets frustrated when his little fingers won't do the things he wants them to or gets angry with certain toys when he cant get them to do what he wants.


physical development this month has seen Atti get off the floor and onto his knees. he gets on all fours and jiggles his bum around to gain momentum. in the last couple of days he's actually started moving each little leg forward individually then crashing back down on his belly, but it does move him forward! he's really starting to get around quite well, especially on floorboards.
he sits unsupported now and has almost managed sitting up from being on his belly a couple of times! off course with all this experimentation on the path to mobility come falls, bumps, topples and scrapes. the skin on his knees is starting to harden and you can see little red splotches of carpet burn.

Atticus also loves to stand and "walk". i'm totally blown away by the fact that he actually steps his feet forward quite effectively when held by the hands and takes great joy in "walking". he beams with pride and looks around with a big grin on his face to make sure everyone can see what he's doing! most of the time when i give him my fingers to grab, he tries to stand up straight from lying down instead of sitting up first. he grabs my fingers straight away when offered and is always ready to stand and walk. he's also started to lift up his arms when he wants to be picked up which is super cute!
oh, and his top two teeth are getting ready to burst onto the scene! any day now.... 

Atti's social skills have become a little more sophisticated this month. he spends a lot of time staring at and analysing strangers and won't smile at just anyone. he will occasionally, however, just start absolutely cracking up at some stranger in the distance...really laughing out loud, but when they come closer to say hi, he goes all serious and greases them off! 
he recognises family and friends and responds to his own name. he knows my little songs and games and spends our long afternoon walks blabbing to himself for entertainment.

challenges this month saw us tackling sleep problems with a couple of days of controlled crying. we got to a stage where Atticus would wake up 5-6 times a night, screaming, and the only way i could get him back to sleep was to feed him to sleep in our bed. a week or so of this had me calling the emergency helpline and trawling through sleep books. the first bout of control crying was heartbreaking but it only lasted 2 minutes or so and i was actually surprised at how quickly he started to settle himself after he realised i wasn't coming in to feed him. after just 2 days, he started waking up only once or twice and would settle back to sleep much quicker by himself.  


Atticus' interests continue to be people, smiles, watching the dogs and really exploring his world. he's become an absolute expert at pulling my hair out and i sometimes think his favourite thing is to lie next to me and pull my hair as hard as he can. he's also become fascinated with people's mouths. i'm not sure if it's the teeth or just a mouth moving but if he's in your lap, he can't take his eyes off your mouth and loves to stick his little fingers in there.
we've taken a couple of steps backwards with solids as Atti has started refusing all food in mush form. the only thing he has been eating for the last couple of days is watermelon and grapes! he loves to bite, squish, suck and play with the little pieces inside his mouth. i think the cold fruit probably feels quite soothing to his sore teething gums. watermelon is a definite favourite at the moment.

27 weeks late...the belly report

...and this is how it all happened at the Atti factory! (seems like another lifetime now)

in retrospect i really should have worn the same outfit for all the photos! oh well, next time...