7 months: Hugo is on the move.

I can barely remember what happened this month and that's probably because half of it was spent in a jet-lagged daze, following our flight home. The second half seems to have been spent keeping an eye on Hugo as he starts to explore every corner of the living room. He doesn't seem to have realised that he could go past the abstract boundaries of that room and we're not telling him. So for now, his explorations remain confined to an area where table and chair legs abound and suffice.

I think that the month also went quickly because so much is happening in Hugo's expanding world. He is eating (a bit) and moving, moving, moving. It's a wonderful and slightly frightening thing to watch. Here comes the baby-proofing, the dead bugs and dirty leaves in the mouth and extracting him from under furniture. On the bright side, he is able to entertain himself for longer periods (minutes, not hours) by chewing on something or other, climbing over obstacles or licking the table legs. Sometimes, I can even write an email while he is awake... The times they are a'changing.

In no particular order, here are a few things that happened.

 

We flew home from TX, with a quick sunrise stopover in Brisbane.

Hugo graduated to facing forward in the car, liberating some much needed leg room for the front passenger. We've been waiting for this for a long time!

Hugo has begun a culinary journey that will last a lifetime. With a combination of purees and 'family foods', he has already tried quite a variety of things, from asparagus to fish, cheese and ham, toast with avocado, chicken, banana, yoghurt and more... It's a mess but it's a fun and fascinating mess.

As mentioned earlier, Hugo has been exploring and experimenting with his own mobility. These photos  only show a few of his moves but I'll just say that his speed and technique leave us quite impressed with how quickly he is working things out. At the moment, he is perfecting a sort of crawl type motion best described as 'the caterpillar'. It's surprisingly effective!

In typical Australian fashion, the weather seems to have skipped a whole season and gone straight from what was an impossibly mild winter to what might suggest a sticky hot summer. In Newcastle, that means heading to the beach and the park to roll around, eat handfuls of sand, scratch dirt and pull grass out. As long as we can find some shade, this should be a fun summer. 

We've also started a post-postnatal yoga Mother's group. A few of us struck up a friendship going to yoga with our babies but as they get older, we find ourselves doing less and less yoga and ultimately, deserting the group, opting for baby-free yoga sessions while our husbandslook after the babies. Unfortunately, that meant we were missing out on the coffee afterwards. So anyway, now we have a regular catch-up to look forward to each week. 

On a general note, both Chris and I are loving this stage with Hugo. He continues to delight us with his sunny and cheerful demeanour. His pattern has changed and he is now awake for blocks of three hours and taking longer naps. The days are long but have a much nicer pace to them. At least, I don't feel like I am constantly getting him ready for the next nap, which I really struggled with. We've been working a little more actively on his night-time routine, trying to find a pattern which allows us to get some rest. It's going quite well so I would say that spirits are up in our house at the moment which is just how we like it. This photo makes my heart burst a little. 

And finally, he is becoming aware of the existence of other people in the world... oh wait... Maybe not.