A little time

has passed. Er pupo is one month older and still blabs away: "papá, papá, papá" and I swear he said mamma this morning, but he wasn't for repeating it and hubby didn't hear so we'll have to wait to tick that one off in the books. He finds it very funny to make very unPC native american calls with my hand and is now learning to do it with his own hand, though his attempts to stick a whole fist in his mouth are making this a little difficult. He's losing his puppy fat and becoming a proper little boy. Proper crawling is still beyond him (why bother, when one can drag oneself on the parquet) but he is into EVERYTHING! He loves to explore the house. He had a couple of traumatic days when we were teaching him the word "no" (in connection with power sockets), where he would start to bawl every time we said it - but now he looks guiltily at the power socket, we say "no", he looks over again, thinks about it, then moves on back to something far more interesting. Like tearing up the tv guide.

We're all off to Italy in three weeks, which is much needed after a very stressful term. Hubby is officially back at work, but we are basically sharing the caring of er pupo, working a lot at home, including evenings and getting a babysitter when needs must. He'll start with the dagmamma when we come back at the end of July. And then... independence hails. I'm hoping he'll learn to walk during his time in Italy and Scotland, but I don't have great expectations. To be quite honest, I don't give a toss that he seems to be behind the average child on his movement. He'll get there when he's ready and it won't make any difference by the time he starts school. He's very happy, blethers non-stop and is pretty smart at getting his own way. What more does he need?

So that's us; holiday much needed, so I can actually do some work. That is, take the laptop, NOT sit in meetings all day, and get some research going.