– 1:20 pm

We refrain from letting you run around in just diapers because you’ve unlocked the great mystery of diaper liberation. This mischievous habit started while trotting around Junior’s place in the good ol’ US of A. Your grandad decided to try it out this morning. Not only did you bid them farewell, but you also embarked on the adventurous quest of sampling your own poop artistic creations. A truly avant-garde exploration of gastronomy!

I wrote that paragraph in part using WordPress’s AI Assistant. I chose a humourous tone and used bits of it. Really impressive. I wonder what you’ll be able to do with it when you’re older. The potential seems boundless and endless.

Valery also made the rookie mistake of looking away for a nanosecond while his coffee was within reach. Tut tut tut! You made sure a bucket and mop were needed after you’d had your fill. I’m sure he’s learned a lesson or two after this behavioural masterclass.

This cheekiness carried on when he dropped you off at ours so it’s any man’s guess what you’re doing to your mum right now. She took you to see her friend Celia. She also has a son you can mingle with.

Before you had to crawl to the closest piece of furniture to stand but you can do that from a sitting position unaided now. I installed all those IKEA doors to control the damage. You get on your tip-toes for even more reach. This means my desk is in danger. So my counteracting action is to barricade land access to my desk. If you haven’t guessed it yet, we’re at war and I’m fighting it with everything I’ve got.

Aaaooouucchh! A bee just stung me on my neck! That fucking hurts!

You can climb chairs too now. I saw it with my own eyes at the Retreat. Your grandad is trying to teach you how to come down safely from them.

You do have a new obsession though, telephones. Everything has an ear and mouthpiece at the moment. So much so that your grandparents had to have a real phone call set up with you, one person in the other room and you in the other blabbing away. Your grandmother is fantastic sport at these sorts of games. She plays right along. I imagine it’s the funniest thing as they try to keep up and hold the conversation.

I’ve also seen you pacing up and down from door to door with my phone on your ear having these “business calls” with God knows who, negotiating contracts and making deals. I’m waiting to see my phone bill come the end of the month. And every time I get my phone back, I have to “wait 15 minutes” because you entered the password incorrectly too many times.

I didn’t find anything to back this up, but your mother says the scrolling gesture was taken from babies. This would explain the way you use my phone, with your index finger pulling up and down the screen.

Liza and I bought a Lovevery subscription. And with that, they send you Montessori toys every four months or so. The idea is to stimulate you mentally and physically. However, between those and the many gifts you’ve received, we quickly realised you constantly had way too many options out all the time. It’s also a faff cleaning up after you and we end up spending way too much time on a frivolous activity.

But then I read one of their articles suggesting we limit and rotate the amount of toys on display in your play station. (Ah! I wonder if that’s how they came up with the name PlayStation i.e. a station or place where your toys are kept for you to play with). Anyway, I followed the instructions and noticed you interacted with the fewer toys for longer and experimented with different ways of playing with them. Just like the article said. Today is rotation day with a couple of new additions. I hope they are fun when you get back to them later this evening.

I’ve also made some language adjustments after reading another article from their blog. So now, instead of saying ‘no’, I opt for a more positive approach, giving you alternatives whenever I want to deter you from something detrimental. But it’s a work in progress.

There are some vaccines you have to take as a one-year-old, most of which are simply boosters from the previous round with a single new addition. They are scheduled for next week. Liza and I won’t be here for them. We’ll be in Croatia for a few days. So your grandparents will get to witness that cry. I don’t think they’re ready.

I wasn’t aware of this but it turns out your grandparents seldom give you a pacifier dummy. They believe it slows down speech development. Now I know why you won’t STFU. To be fair, we only give it to you at night when you wake up looking for one of us and needing comfort. Besides that, I don’t even know where they’ve all disappeared to. We used to have a few. Good riddance though.

You act like a bitch on her period (or me when I’m in one of those moods) whenever we have to clean you at the end of your meal. We use a wet wipe and you act like we’re wiping you down with acid. Well, Liza found a solution to this. I think she read it somewhere. We’ve adopted a warm towel. There’s a lot less shouting and kicking and it’s rather peaceful and amicable.