Staring at the son

Well, I'm finally in a position to be able to sit down and write a few things down. In other words, I'm on holiday in the Ile de Re, with no chores to do, and someone else is taking care of Oscar.

A lot has happened since I last blogged, obviously. In no particular order...:

Oscar turned one, and said Maman for the first time. Or rather Oscar vomited and then looked up with love in his eyes before saying Maman and kissing me with his mouth still full of vomit. But it was mother's day, so I still had tears of pride in my eyes. And it's not like I'm not used to being covered in food and vomit stains by now, anyway...

As a bilingual baby, he hasn't said many intelligible words yet (although as his official translator I understand a lot more than others think he can say), but he delights us with all things beginning with baa... There's baaateau (boat), baabaa (sheep), baaain (bath) and baaaon (ball), and then he amazes us with his animal impressions, with a hand up in the air to show us the elephant's trunk, the cow's mmmoooo and the woowoooo of the owl. But most impressively, I think, is the fact that when he's tired, he runs up to his bedroom door, banging, saying Dodo, which means sleep. What a clever boy. Then again, as the wiser members of my family and friends have pointed out, have you ever heard of a one-year-old who wasn't clever? The cleverest of all one-year-olds in fact?

So life is good. Oscar has a brilliant nature, laughing most of the day and waking up early plotting his domination of the living room without crying for at least half an hour, sharpening his teeth on any surface he can find (five through so far but three more are showing signs of joining the party soon). His months of squealing non stop are over now that he is walking all over and climbing anything that seems stable enough to hold him - or not.

Krusty has turned into a fabulous daddy, too, getting up to play with Oscar each morning to let me sleep an extra 20 mins each morning. In fact the one or two mornings I did have to get up, Oscar just looked at me angrily saying dadda, as if I had stolen away the best part of his day...

And anyway, I'm glad to grab those extra minutes in bed, because most of the time I'm bloated, and nauseous, and exhausted, and in a bad mood.

As for the rest of the day, my mouth is constantly full of saliva and I have to go to the bathroom every 30 minutes.

But I'm happy.

Oh and I'm pregnant again, by the way. But Oscar's already in love with every other baby (or, in his language, deedee) he sees, so let's see how THAT goes!