Hello everyone!
Ever sine I’ve started crawling my world feels new – I’m discovering new things and most of all I feel independent. My Mom and Dad’s excitement at my crawling is pretty obvious as every time I head off somewhere they are there cheering me on. It feels like my own personal ‘rent-a-crowd’! I also curse the day I asked Mom to buy Dad a laser measuring device for Father’s Day, as he has taken to measuring the distance I crawl. Picture it, there I am, minding my own business, intensely focused and concentrating on crawling, when nearby a red laser dot appears followed by the beep-beep of the measurement being taken. Next comes Dad’s shouts of joy – 1.152m, 1.235m, 1.629m, and so on!
Monday was pretty routine with a morning OT session with Lauren. The remainder of the day was spent playing hard and having lots of fun. Tuesday was a major day of crawling! It felt like my very own ‘Long Crawl To Freedom’. Not skipping a beat, I still concentrated on my vocabulary and I now say ‘car’, based on Mom and Dad (being kids at heart) finding remote controlled cars that they had bought themselves a few years back and were now letting me play with them. Learning new words has a down side – I like the sound of new words so much that I use them over and over again and by the end of the day everything was a ‘car’! A very very special skill that I acquired on Tuesday was that I learnt to kiss. If Mom or Dad sing the Barney Song to me I kiss them at the end! Now this also extends to ‘Jarrod, kisses’ and I kiss them. On Tuesday Dad had Mom’s Volvo washed and vacuumed and some long lost toys were discovered in the car; when Dad presented me with my MIA toys it felt like Christmas!
Tuesday was also a historic day for Mom – her Blackberry, which she drove over with the car last week, was ready for collection. As you all know, Mom and Dad live their lives by the Blackberries, and Mom has been a real grump for the past few days as she had to use a ‘normal’ cell phone while her’s was in for repairs. I asked Mom what a ‘normal’ cell phone was and without missing a beat she said, ‘No email, no IM, no GPS, no GoogleMaps, no Internet, just voice calls’! I briefly wondered how these people survived before the current era of technology, which I immediately discarded when I was presented with my very own (albeit not fully functional) Blackberry. It seems driving over a Blackberry makes it ‘uneconomical to repair’ so Vodacom gave Mom a new phone! I’m so chuffed, now when Mom and Dad hammer away on their Blackberries, I can join in, complete with sounds, lights, and everything – the only thing mine doesn’t do is actually log onto the network. Mom and Dad even charge it for me every evening to make sure I get a reasonable quantum of beeps out of it the next day when I randomly hit keys and pretend to make calls.
Be Sharp Beetles on Wednesday was the second class of the term – I was overwhelmed with excitement at going back to music class. I made some new friends there, and, to my benefit, there are a lot more girls in the class now, some of whom are really cute! Afterward I ‘worked the room’ as the Mom’s had tea and cake and I had some strawberries, chatting to the girls. In the afternoon, Mom hosted the Moms for tea, so I spent the afternoon chatting with my friends and their Mommies, which was very enjoyable.
In the evening Dad arrived with a delivery, so he and I got busy on the study floor opening the packaging and examining its contents. Dad was thrilled, it was a USB 3.5G modem upgrade from Mweb. I asked Dad what three point five meant and he explained it was a three point five generation technology. I shrugged my shoulders in disinterest – how could a generation be measured in halves? While Dad busied himself with plugging the new modem into his laptop, I busied myself with the enormous box. Don’t get me wrong, I love playing with big boxes, but I fail to understand why something the size of a French-fry (I like food references and comparisons) is delivered in a box the size of a shoebox!
Thursday was a busy day. Mom, Dad and I went to breakfast at Doppio Zero in Greenside – this is in keeping with our family tradition of having breakfast together on the last Thursday of every month. Back home we were met by Tammy and Granny, after which we headed off to the Licensing Department to collect Granny’s new driver’s licence, however it was closed owing to a strike! We then opted to go shopping to console our bad luck, and there we searched high and low for a bathing costume for Tammy. By lunch time we were exhausted, so a lunch at Piatto was in order. Tammy and I shared some spag-bol (spaghetti bolognaise) and I nibbled on a slice of my favourite Italian food – focaccia! Back home Tammy put on a fashion show for us with the new clothes she got in the morning. Chaos reigned outside where a myriad of different teams of builders and contractors arrived to do work on our renovations. The noise got too much for Tammy and Granny so they left. I opted for a snooze. In the evening Mom had to bath me, as Dad still had a late appointment. However, I did wait up for him and we bonded for a while before I went to bed.
Mom had a physio appointment for her backache on Friday morning, so we left home before Dad. After Mom’s physio, we headed to the Crawford Pre-Primary School in Rivonia for my physio session with Di. She was very impressed with my crawling, and I enjoyed showing off my new found skills. Di, although very impressed with my crawling, immediately started planning my exercises to walk. If crawling felt this good, I couldn’t wait to start walking about. Back home Opa arrived for a visit at around lunchtime – he brought with him Dad’s old Legos and wooden blocks. I was thrilled – I could see myself spending hours and hours playing with them, just like Dad did more than 30 years ago! Late in the afternoon Dad arrived home and pretty soon I was doing a bunzy run with him.
On Saturday morning Dad and I woke up to discover it had been raining practically the whole night. It was a really nice sound, but the rain brought with it a bit of a chill. Fortunately we had had oodles of gas delivered the previous day so the heaters were all running at full steam keeping us all nice and warm. Later in morning Mom and Dad had to go and select tiles as part of their building project. After travelling on the highway for about 15 minutes, we got stuck in the most horrendous traffic chaos any of us had ever experienced. Dad took evasive action and pretty soon we were travelling through the suburbs and, with the help of both Mom and Dad’s GPS, we arrived at our destination.
Afterward, with the rain still trickling down, we headed off to Hyde Park Corner where I was treated to some new shoes, but not before we popped into Fratelli’s for some Italian food. You guessed it, I had bolognaise and focaccia! Mom also got a new iTrip for her iPod, so now I can listen to my music when we are in the car together. While at Look & Listen, Mom spotted a new CD by one of Dad’s favourite artists, Diana Krall, which immediately made it into the shopping basket. No guessing as to what we listened to on the way home. Back home I experimented with my new shoes, and found them to be really good in providing ‘crawl traction’.
A visit to Cresta was on the cards on Sunday; Mom, Dad and I needed a whole bunch of passport and ID photos taken, so we’re all busy renewing our passports. It was such fun trying not to giggle and wiggle around as I posed for my photo. Mom and Dad behaved much better when it was their turn to be photographed. Afterward we hunted down a baby walker for me; nothing spectacular – just a wooden base filled with wooden toy blocks and a handle for me hold on to and walk. I wasn’t quite there when Mom and Dad selected it, as I was fast asleep at the time, however I did approve of their choice. The only ‘modification’ needed was that Dad wrapped three bricks in bags and then some decorative material to put into the trolley to weigh it down – this made walking for me much easier.
Before I go I must also share with you that I’ve now acquired the skill to screw lids back onto containers, particularly Avent bottles and Tupperware. Mom and Dad are thrilled at that. I also now make animal sounds, such as ‘baaa’ for sheep, ‘grrrrr’ for a lion, and meow for a cat. So when Mom or Dad read a book with me, and they point to an animal and say ‘What does a lion do?’ I go ‘grrrrr’. Admittedly every now and again I make a giraffe or a cow go ‘grrrrr’ as well, but that will come with time.
I’ve also perfected the art of drum rolls (hence tonight’s title); however my drum rolls are pretty literal – I pick up my drum and roll it along the floor. Dad’s response, shouting “drum roll” and then giggling hysterically is enough for me to persist with the drum roll and get the same reaction from him over and over again.
Good night.
Love,
Jarrod
Figure 1 Getting crawling (with Maple and Shatzi looking on)
Figure 2 Playing in the winter sun
Figure 3 Catching fish
Figure 4 Helping Dad open a parcel from Mweb
Figure 5 Inside the Mweb box
Figure 6 Munching on toast at breakfast
Figure 7 Dad and I at breakfast
Figure 8 Having a focaccia at Piatto
Figure 9 Crawling!
Figure 10 Travelling!
Figure 11 Snoozing with my Blackberry
Figure 12 Being cute with Mom
Figure 13 Trying out my new walker
Figure 14 Its as much fun being on the walker as behind it
Figure 15 Learning ‘B’
Figure 16 Looking for Mom
Figure 17 Bust!
Figure 18 Bath smiles