Noah went to bed last night just after 7:30pm and slept until 7am. 7am people!!!!!!!!! He was doing that in Australia but he was going to bed a little later than that. That is 11.5 hours, the longest he has ever slept in a row.
He didn`t go down tonight until about 8:40 so I am hoping he sleeps at least until 7am again. It was good though because Shun has no overtime on Wednesday`s and got in just after 8pm and Noah was SOOOOO excited to see him as it is a rare night that he sees his daddy before bed. I was worried he wouldn`t go down to sleep after his bottle because he was too excited crawling all over the place and between the two of us as if to say “You are both here. hmmm…who should I go to?” and crawling to me on the sofa and then back to Shun then back to me like a little energizer bunny!
Despite the good sleep last night he still had two decent naps today- 90 mins or so in the morning and just over 2 hours this afternoon.
As well as big sleeping he did some big eating. He definitely has an appetite despite been a little on the small size (hehe, I was folding some summer clothes yesterday that i bought in after they were washed and was checking the tags and some of them are 4-6 months (h&m) and 3-6 months (next)….Noah is 9 months old in a couple of days, lol!)
For breakfast he had a big bowl of porridge with some apple and peach mixed in with a bit of cinnamon on top. He also had some of my toast as he was BEGGING for it… He washed in down with 100ml of tea (tea is a new thing around here- Shun wanted him to start drinking baby tea so he had some for the first time at the weekend and seems to enjoy it). For lunch he had some hidden veggie bolagnase pasta (pasta spirals, tomato, beef mince with onion, spinach, zuccini and carrot all mushed in!), half a vegemite sandwich, a kiwi fruit and half a tortilla (the sandwich was not enough to satisfy him with his fill of feeding himself) and for dinner he had some “eat your greens” puree I made which has potato, spinach, zucchini, brocolli, peas and is made with veggie stock followed by about 40 little grapes and a rice cracker. He also had a rice cracker earlier in the day. He had about 250ml of water throughout the day too as well as 4 bottles of about 170-200ml.
I can not get over how much he eats. He would still continue to eat if it was something he was feeding himself if I kept putting it in front of him. I always do some puree/mush of some kind first so that I know it is getting INTO his mouth but usually try to do finger food as well at each meal because he much prefers to feed himself now. I am yet to find fruit, apart from banana, that he can eat by himself as it is all too slippery and he doesn`t really care for banana. If I give him a small grape he puts it in his mouth and kind of spits out most of the skin (since I pop them in his mouth without skin)…
After speaking with a few people I am starting to think I will do a 1st birthday party for Noah when we get back to Japan- now to come up with an idea. I like the idea of trains or jungle animals or something else basic like that but am not really sure. The other thing I could do is just choose two or three colours and go from there since it isn`t as if Noah has a strong interest in anything yet and I don`t really want to “push” a theme on him. Lots to think about!
I better get cracking on making some invitations and deciding when and where to do it- first I really have to decide a theme though. Any ideas? What have you done for birthday parties in the past?
Did your kids have 1st birthday parties? Did you have a theme? Are you glad you had a party? Also, did you hold it at home or did you go somewhere else? I will be 7 months pregnant and am not sure I will be up for holding it at home but it would be nice. There is the option of doing it at the local oyako cafe but I need to speak to the owners.
I am also looking for birthday gift ideas- Noah will be one and then it will be Christmas the week later as well. I am thinking blocks and I like the wooden shape sorter toys I have seen. Any ideas?
Also if you have any milk free cake ideas let me know- I have found a couple of recipes but will have to try them out to see if they are edible- the ones I have seen don`t even have soy milk or milk free butter so I really do not understand how they work.
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I am just a twenty something Aussie girl living in Chiba, Japan with my Japanese husband trying to make sense of the crazy Japanese world we live in! We welcomed our first son in December 2009 (Noah) and a second son in January 2011, 2 months premature (Shion). I am working hard at raising them to be confident, bilingual, happy kids!
Wow, what an appetite he has!
As for 1st birthday paries, we just did a family party for Dylan, but we didn’t really have a community of friends or anything here at that point, we’d been in Beijing for less than a year and didn’t really know anyone. This year I haven’t really thought about what I’m going to do for Annika’s first. If my family end up coming out for Christmas we’ll probably wait till they get out here to have a party but if not we might do a small thing and maybe invite some friends. I’m not a big party kind of person so I don’t know. We’ll see!
We didn’t have a theme for Shou’s first birthday either – or Ryu’s. Just a cake and about 12 people – for Shou’s. Ryu’s was joint with Shou’s and just general chaos. I had streamers and balloons for Shou and his prezzie was a ride on train – but he got a huge case of wooden blocks – which he played with (threw) a lot and then went through about a year of not touching as not quite skilled enough to make things with single blocks – You could get duplo or similar? I wish we had some bigger building blocks like that. Doing it at a cafe wouldn’t be expensive? Harder to just let kids roam? And if it’s shit weather you still have to get there – why not make everyone come to you and the birthday boy
not sure what Noah has already in terms of toys, but we got H a ride along car which she STILL uses to this day. Plus a winnie the pooh bike with the guard rail and push handle. For smaller presents, a little keyboard, some jigsaw puzzles (she is puzzle mad), duplo, and that’s about all I can remember XD
How did I miss this post?!? It still hasn’t come up in my google reader…
I am amazed at how much Noah is eating now – wow!! I can’t believe with the amount he eats how small he still is
I am so worried that once Leilah starts solids she is just going to get chubbier and chubbier, lol!
Very excited about Noah’s birthday party – the ideas you have shared with me sound great!!
Nay I was thinking the same, this appeared in my reader but not as new it appeared at the end of someone else`s new post. Weird.
you`ll have to take a look around and ask about the cafe. We are choosing slightly cheaper and doing it outside (hopefully the weather agrees, but T said he was going to check out maybe renting a local jidoukan, just have to find it first).
I was originally going to do something fish related, then animal related, then changed my mind and decided on Its a small world (was going to keep it secret but thats ok). Its still likely to be what I was planning but since the ILs decided to come along with a random aunt (grrrr) we definitely can`t do it inside our apartment so if we do it outside we can`t really do much in terms of decorating.
Oh and as for a present, I am making Misora a doll. Probably won`t work for Noah though
Wow, that is so good about Noah’s sleep! And it sounds like he is eating fantastically too… do you think he’s having a growth spurt? It’s great he likes such a variety of food.
For Ali’s first birthday party we had an afternoon tea at a park with family and a few friends, and I just had primary colour decorations and a 1 cake from the AWW cake book. http://floatingworld.typepad.com/floating_world_views/2008/09/birthday-cake.html It was really nice to do something to celebrate, since the first year is such a milestone for parents and the baby, but I don’t think it’s worth doing something overly elaborate because 1 year olds are too young to really notice and can get a bit overwhelmed.
A couple of websites I love for kids toys are:
http://www.sendatoy.com.au/
http://www.ecotoys.com.au/store/
http://www.bambinipronto.com.au/
… they have nice wooden toys that last a really long time. Could be worth a look for Noah’s Christmas present since you’ll be in Australia and could get it delivered easily.
Wow, I can’t believe it’s already time to start planning for Goma-chan’s 1st b-day! The time has gone by soooo fast!
For E’s 1st, we just had a small gathering of friends and family, maybe 10 people. No theme, just a Dora the Explorer cake, red and orange balloons, and blue streamers.
For all 3 of my kiddo’s 1st birthdays, we had the main, big birthday cake, then got the birthday baby their own, personal mini-cake. Watching the cake being demolished is always the highlight of 1st birthday parties.
Can’t believe he’s nearly 1 already!
For the cake, I only have soy milk and dairy-free spread in the house and I make all my cakes with those – if a recipe calls for butter I just use the “Pure” or whatever it’s called, and soy is fine for replacing the milk. I have never really noticed much difference, perhaps the crumb is not as dense but that’s about it. I don’t know how easy it is to get dairy free spread in Japan, but try! If not, you can always use the old Symply too good to be true trick of using applesauce instead of butter.
This one is my favourite, if Noah likes lemon flavoured things
http://greeninkgirl.blogspot.com/2009/06/cake-solves-everything.html
xx