I looked back in my blog of Thomas at Ollie’s age, to see what he was eating at the time, and of course I hadn’t recorded it, so i’m none-the-wiser. However I did notice that Thomas was already crawling a lot and pulling himself up to play the piano at this age! Ollie is still at the slithering stage, and he hasn’t managed to pull himself up yet.
However I remember trying like crazy to teach Thomas to clap, which he absolutely wouldn’t. Ollie learnt to clap on the 27th December. He even claps if you sing “Let everyone clap hands with me!”
It’s easy to see how these differences came about. Thomas had a big space to move around in, and spent quite a lot of time in the baby-bouncer up to this age, so his leg muscles were probably stronger and he had more incentive to move around. Also access to lots of things he could grab onto. Ollie on the other hand, has quite a small space to play in, hasn’t been in the bouncer much, and can’t reach anything to pull himself up with (Thomas would just climb on it). On the other hand, he gets a lot of input from Thomas, and of course learns very quickly from him – hence being able to clap.
I also wanted to tell you about my surreal night. Ollie kept waking up every hour, so I was getting exhausted. Finally at about 4.45am, he went back to sleep and I climbed back into my bed again. Then Thomas, with perfect timing, woke up 5 minutes later, saying “mummy! mummy!” I climbed into Thomas’ bed with him, and lay there trying to sleep. However Thomas’ protestations about “want to sleep in YOUR bed” woke Ollie up. I managed to shut Thomas up, telling him to go to sleep, but Ollie managed to press one of the buttons on his cot toy that plays the Can-Can.
So, having been up hourly since 1am, I am now trying to get to sleep with Thomas and his entourage of a million teddies, to the accompanying soundtrack of the Can-Can. Ollie thought it was great, and after about 15 repeated presses of the button. I got out of bed and took the toy out of his reach.
Later in the night, when I had given up and gone back to my own bed hoping to leave the boys to it. I heard Thomas singing from the other room, very mournfully, the last verse of American Pie – in tune, and with all the words.
“I met a girl who sang the blues, and I asked her for some happy news, but she just smiled and turned away…” etc etc
Anyway, the rest of the night is all a blur, but I woke up in my own bed with Ollie, and Thomas coming into our room at 8.30am so at least all the shinannigans got me an hour’s lie-in!