Oh my gosh pulpi! Hello hello hello! So glad you & your family are well. Very best of luck with ttc.
Anna I'm thrilled that your work is going so well - congratulations! We have just put Ru into nursery as well - just two afternoons a week so far, but I think that now that my DH is back at work, realistically if I am going to earn a serious amount then I am going to have to eventually up Ru's nursery hours. We'll see how it goes. Really glad that you are somewhat coming to terms with the loss of your mum, as well. It's a long and painful process - I think it took me about six years before I really accepted that my mum had gone. Much love to you, as always.
Here is my update:
R is currently 11 months and 18 days old. He is starting to get a little bit more hair on top but still basically looks like the bald baby from Each Peach Pear Plum. He's walking very confidently now, and he falls over pretty safely too - I've stopped getting a jolt of adrenalin every time he trips. He can clap his hands and tap his head and OH MY GOODNESS he dances! He only does it when music is playing (especially if it's live music, i.e. Daddy on the mandolin), but he sort of squats a bit and stomps one foot and turns around - it is absolutely hilarious and it's definitely an attempt at dancing. Which is funny because I don't think he's actually seen much dancing - some sort of innate response to the music?!
He has said no words at all yet. The only time I get a definite 'mamma' that is connected to me is when it's bedtime milk time. And then I think it's probably just his word for milk! Mostly he makes this very weird 'crrrrhhh, crrrrrhhh' sound (like someone trying to do a French 'R' very badly) which he applies (with pointing) to dogs, horses, strawberries, grapes... Basically anything he likes.
We've finally moved on to him feeding himself proper food, which he is doing with gusto. He won't let me spoon feed him anything but porridge now. In the last couple of days he's discovered the pocket in his bib that catches all the food, and he now goes fishing in it halfway through the meal for choice morsels that he missed the first time round. I've started baking my own bread (I know right? Just call me Nigella) so that I can make him low salt 50/50 stuff, and that's going down pretty well. Ruben enjoys 'helping' me bake. By 'helping' I mean, taking fistfuls of flour and sprinkling it liberally over the kitchen tiles, then banging the scales because they make a nice noise.
It's been pretty amazing watching the development of his ability to manipulate objects. Today I watched him spend a few minutes working out how to put a lid on and off a rinsed-out milk bottle, and then he basically spent the whole day walking round the kitchen doing that. On, off, on, off, on, accidentally twist it too far so that it gets stuck, cry, hand bottle to mummy to fix it, off, on, off, on, off... It's so cool to see him working all these things out. It makes me SO EXCITED for all the learning to come, too. Arrggghhh.
Oh, and naps! He is FINALLY napping properly - I've got two solid hours out of him every day for a week. I think he's just knackered from all the running around. It has made such a huge difference to me - I can now keep more on top of my to-do list, and I don't feel half-dead by 7pm each night. I am really hoping this is going to help in a big way with my anxiety, too, as it gives me some breathing space and 'switch off' time. He's also had his settling in at nursery this week - went pretty well, the first time he had no tears at all until he spotted me come to pick him up! He'll be doing 10 hours a week there to begin with. I'm not too worried - I'm pretty sure he's going to love it. I just feel slightly sorry for the baby room staff...
Anyway, as Julf said, if you can be tempted to come over to Facebook, do... It's fairly active there at the moment and it's lovely to keep in touch with everyone on a regular basis. x