Apart from the gastro thing (which appears to be officially over, hurrah!… except now HRH is very ill indeed) Liam’s doing really well these days.

New words lately: “Tigger”, “ta-ta” (as in thank you, and used infrequently, but when it is it seems to be to ask for something; I think we need to work on the concept of cause and effect), the rats are now “tss”, please is “lss” (as is his playmate Elise), Cheerios are “ch!”, Rice Krispies are “kss”. The trains have become “choo-choo”.

Those ankle boot-shoes just rock. They are so darned cool.

He made up a new game last week. He tossed his ball over the child gate into my office where I was doing some online banking and then grinned at me, looking like a little puppy. So I tossed it over his head into the hall. He followed it, and the next thing I knew he was tossing it over the child gate again. I started tossing the ball further and further down the hall, saying “Go long, son!”. (I am a geek. He’d better get used to it.) He loves this game; he absolutely beams while he plays it. The whole ball thing kind of came out of nowhere. We’ve been trying to teach him how to play with it for months, and nothing. Then out of the blue he found it one day, stood up with it, and dropped it on the floor. He saw it bounce. And that was the end of that. The ball is now one of his favourite toys. He throws it two-handed in that adorable underhanded throw toddlers have.

I don’t want to say this too loudly in case I jinx it, but it looks like we have the one-nap-a-day thing down. He goes down after lunch for an hour and a half to two hours. And as a result, he’s sleeping a bit more at night, which means sleeping in later in the mornings. This is a Very Welcome Thing.

He pulled the Muppet Movie off our DVD shelf and asked to watch it yesterday, so we loaded it and he sat on my lap holding the case, touching the photo of Kermit with his banjo, then looking up at the screen where Kermit was singing ‘The Rainbow Connection’ and softly saying something that sounded like “kog”. Which was, in all likelihood, his version of Kermit the Frog, and charmed me utterly. I cuddled him closer very gently, despite wanting to squeeze him as tightly as I could, overwhelmed by that surge of love and joy he inspires in me.

Sometimes, even in the middle of all the stress and rushing and frustration, all I need is a moment like that to reset everything.

Things are kind of tentative around here. Liam has his first gastro thing happening, and is now living on toast, a bit of juice, and Pedialyte. He’s cheerful and playful during the day, although with a low appetite and he’s operating at a less breakneck speed than usual. He’s sleeping a bit more (I could get very used to this part!), and does that throwing up thing once or twice at night, although he has no temperature. We’ve done more laundry in the past day than we’ve done in the past two weeks. He’s so good: once he’s been sick he just wants to sit in someone’s lap and lean his head against their shoulder, while the other parent changes sheets or washes his bunny or finds new pyjamas. If he’s awake enough he even wants to play a bit, or coo softly to us while he cuddles, or read a book until he drops off to sleep again.

It will be over soon. In the meantime, there’s lots of love going around.