Peter is now walking everywhere! He loves to walk, to climb, to crawl through things. He is an unstoppable force! It has made things easier when we go out as people tend to freak out seeing a baby crawling touching the ground. (A thing they rarely even let their dogs do)  Peter is loving his new ability to toddle around and get to places while carrying objects as well. One of his favourite passtimes is taking magnets off the fridge and carrying them across the room to stick on our front door (which is metal). He has also tested out this magnetic power with other items (mobile phones) and other walls (non metal). sadly things do not stick but just fall to the ground.

He has also been gaining teeth at a made pace. He has had 6 come in within the past month or so and has 2 more molars coming in. The great thing is that he is able to eat most foods including his first cheeseburger today. Not that that is a proud milestone but it was the only thing available to give him for dinner.

Peter can also now drink with a straw, say "yes, this, hello, dad, mum/mom & donkey" (we think). We know he understands more and does motions for no, waves bye bye, blows kisses and points at what he wants.

I did upload photos but for some reason they didn't work. Will try to get them up soon.

We took Peter on a drive up a mountain last week. He was grumpy the whole way. We think it may have something to do with the 5+ teeth that he has coming in at the same time! So, when we finally parked, we wanted to buy him a Popsicle to suck on. Sadly they only had ice cream drumsticks.

Oh the pure joy he had eating the drumstick....

The only problem is when you eat a cone tip first it gets a bit unstable.

The ice cream starts to fall out and it gets taken off you before it is dropped on the ground.

Oh the sad despair of a baby losing his ice cream!

Peter started to stand on his own today. That is stand without holding on to anyone or anything! He is VERY pleased with himself. We'll try to get a photo of him doing it soon.

Our wonderful little guy turned 13 months today! He continues to gain more skills and abilities that he is happily showing them each day. Some of his favourites are climbing over a triangle cushion repeatedly, waving "bye bye" and then tearing around a corner and waving his head back and forth crazily to say "no."

He is becoming more independent and has learned how to push things out of his way if he doesn't want them. He has also decided he doesn't want to be spoon fed and will only eat things he can pick up on his own.

Not quite walking yet but a speedy crawler and he can walk when holding on to something.

Here is a wonderful picture our friend Georgie took of Peter a few days ago.

As we have mentioned several times, Peter gets a lot of attention from the locals. They often are offering him food to which we have to say "no" too. We are often surprised at this in a place where people often wear masks being afraid of germs but seem to have no issue feeding a random foreign boy!  Must be different people.

In the past week we have stopped a woman feeding him ice cream and then yesterday a man gave him the coke he had just bought from a machine and said he wanted Peter to have it! Tom politely explained that Peter does not yet drink coke but thanked him for his gift.  It's got to be something to do with those blue eyes! =)

Parents & families often surround us when we go to the supermarket and want their children to shake his hand. Again another thing in a germ phobia world we don't understand! In the end, we carry they wipes to clean his hand after the wellwishers, hand shakers and head patters have moved on.

Peter has a great personality. He makes friends everywhere we go and has realised how to get attention by waving and chatting to people.  Here he is posing for the camera.

He loves playing and pulling things off of shelves. You can see the Petey tornado has hit here....

Working from home has become increasingly difficult as Peter is very interested in lap tops, remote controls, mobile phones and cables.  He will casually come up next to you and try to look at the screen. A few moments later, a tiny finger will slowly creep towards the computer as shown below.  He knows he shouldn't touch it but it is so tempting to him!

Peter now has 2 donkeys that he has in his cot. He loves them both and we often find him holding one in each arm or using one as a pillow and holding the other one. It is so cute! Here are a couple photos we captured last week of him.

I write this as Peter holds my phone to his ear and babbles away into it.

Peter has started to say a few words in the past few weeks. His first recognizable, consistent one is "Hello."  He generally only says it while holding something up to his ear like he is talking on the phone. We hear it pretty frequently coming from him.  This is probably due to the crowds of people that daily say hello to him both those he knows and those he doesn't. When we go out to the shops, we constantly hear "Hellooooo bebe" followed by the Cantonese phrase pronounced "Ho Dakeeee" which means "very cute."

Peter's second favourite thing to say is "hi dad." Again this is usually done while holding a phone or some object up to the ear. He loves his daddy very much and is sad when he has to go to work or even just leave the room.

He understands both hello and goodbye but chooses to wave goodbye rather than say anything.

In the past couple days he has started to say "yes."  This is pretty exciting that I guess he has heard "yes" more than "no" in his year of life.  Such a perfect child!

He is very good at pointing at an object of interest and making a darth vader breathing noise to indicate his interest. It is  funny to hear.

These are a bit late in putting up but we wanted to post some photos of Peter's birthday cake and his enjoyment in eating it. Tom & I spent about 6 hours making this cake for him. Why Eeyore? Somehow Peter has become a big fan of Eeyore/donkeys and sleeps with one in his cot and is generally happier with one around. We thought it fitting to make him a cake of the same.  We really enjoyed making it for him although we know he will only know it from looking at these photos one day. =0)

July was a busy month full of Peter learning new skills up to his 1st birthday.  In the past few weeks, he has fully learned to crawl, stand up, cruise around furniture, wave hello and bye bye, say hello, pretend to talk on the phone and a variety of other things.

We celebrated his 1st birthday yesterday with a special pancake treat at Mcdonalds and then a trip to our onsite cafe for a babyccino (little cup of milk foam).  We also had his baby friends over for a swim in his pool & a little cake.  We are having a bigger party on Monday with all of his older friends. I am planning on making a cake tomorrow for him.

We have been so thankful for our "family" here in HK that have taken such an important role in looking after him and being his adopted aunts, uncles and cousins.  The lead by great example and bring him great joy.

Peter Day #1

Peter Day #365 (1year)

Enjoying his pancake

and babyccino...

Enjoying my newest donkey from Grandma

We gave Peter this walker and he has been loving it walking back and forth across the room.

Peter enjoying a swim with his friends. It has been very hot here the past few days so was a perfect day for the pool.

Time for some birthday cake. Actually it is a bear shaped muffin with less sugar than cake. The babies loved it!

Our dear little (& big) friends. They all love playing together.

Our cute little family...

Leaving hospital:

Peter continues to amaze us as he grows and aquires new skills. A few days ago he started to properly crawl up on hands & knees. He can now pull himself to standing on pretty much anything. This means we have to watch him more closely as he can reach things higher than he used to.  Some of his favourite things this week have been:

1. Emptying a tissue box one piece at a time and then eating half a tissue before getting caught.
2. Figuring out that if you are handed a banana, you can squeeze it to make a good sound and a nice slimy mess all over yourself.
3. It is a lot of fun to make cheesey smiles to a captive adult audience.
4. Talking on the phone is  a lot of fun especially when it's daddy on the other end!
5. Swimming pools are also very fun on a hot day.

After some very rough nights of recovery after the visit to the hospital, Peter finally seems to be back to his normal happy self. He has regained the weight he lost and is not afraid of people anymore. He doesn't seem to have much stranger anxiety which makes it easier in a place where he is stared at and talked to a lot.

Peter has not said any defined words that we can recognise yet but he does well to communicate a variety of things. He makes one sound when he is trying to say hello to someone, one when he is hungry, not happy/hungry anymore and others.  Have been trying to teach him some baby signs but I don't think we are consistent enough for him to remember.

We are getting ready for his 1st birthday in just a few weeks. Time has gone so fast.  We are looking forward to celebrating with him.  We are so thankful for our healthy little boy and want him to have a good time.

Petey enjoying his new little pool. The little whale in front of him spouts water and swims around which is so much fun.

Tom & I often take Peter on a walk to these big gold dolphins. He really enjoys walks and usually makes at least 1 friend along the way.

I love this photo of Peter.

The big dolphins....

Peter has 2 little friends here that he loves to spend time with. They all get excited to see eachother and play.

Here are Peter & Finlay sporting their mohawks.

Peter loves the shopping trolley at the supermarket. He is so happy to sit in it and chatters away to anyone who passes by, often waving at them as well. Our little market has an elevator in it (different I know) which he also loves going up and down in.

Here are Hannah and Peter enjoying their time together at the store.

We took Peter for a picnic on the beach. He loved touching the sand.  We often go on walks along here as he wakes up really early and wants to be on the move. This is just a few minute's walk from where we live.

We found these bananas in the local supermarket a few days ago. Complete with "little petey" stickers on each banana.

Peter loves bananas and will happily eat a whole one on his own. He generally stuffs as much as possible in at one time. Funny to watch!

Baby books say that at about this time babies have formed an attachment to something- a blanket, a toy, something.  I was just saying to Tom that I didn't think Peter was attached to one specific thing.  All this changed a few nights ago when Peter was crying & crying until Tom handed him this big stuffed donkey. As soon as he had it, Peter fell over on him sound asleep.  Since that night, each time we have put the donkey in with Peter he has quickly fallen asleep holding him. Ok, so we have found a favourite toy! The only issue is that it is as big as him! We won't be able to travel with it or even take it out with us to town. I think we will try to have it like his dummy (pacifier) - only available at nap time. Baby books also recommend getting several of the same toy or cutting a favourite blanket in half - not really an option here!

Here are a few photos of Peter sleeping with his new best friend.

For the past 2 weeks we have seen our poor little boy feel so sick. Through multiple changes of clothes, sheets & blankets we have washed & rewashed all his things.  Thanks to all who have been thinking of us and even to those who have recently donated money as some of this helped us pay for him to go to the Dr.

Last week we found a paediatrician who said he had some sort of virus causing him to be ill and not want any food. We were given some medicine and hoped he would feel better. That evening we ended up the in ER as he got worse and wasn't responding as he should.  We spent 7 hours in the ER (which is on high alert for swine flu) so we had masks, temp checks and the whole bit. He was finally admitted to a ward at 5am and we were told to leave and that visiting hours were from 6-8pm only.  This was a very hard thing to leave a sad, sick, unhappy baby alone in this strange place. We insisted coming back to feed him and thankfully they let Christy in the ward at 10 am.

She came in to find him strapped to the bed in a straight jacket sitting up. It was a horrible thing and illegal in most parts of the world.  I was determined to stay with him no matter what they said and thankfully they let me stay with him until he was discharged in the afternoon.

We have had a few more days of sickness and basically trying to get Peter to eat whatever we can.  Things appear to be looking up although we are still a bit cautious at this point.

Our dear little boy has lost weight as you can see from the photos but is in good spirits and his smile has returned much to our relief.

We are deeply grateful for those who have supported us and continue to. Thanks for helping us look after Petey. We are looking into the possibility of some private insurance to make sure he never again has to be in that hospital.

Peter pulled all the books off the shelf yesterday and was pleased to be covered in them.

Getting closer to being on all fours...

Definitely on the move

Our dear little boy, still smiling despite being so sick.

Our messy little friend enjoyed his cheese sandwich. Actually, once he realised there was cheese, he ate that and threw the bread on the ground

We have also put up a baby gate to keep our quick moving little boy in one room at a time. (This was a bit staged as he didn't stand up on his own) Still looking very please with himself.

Now that Peter can sit up on his own in his cot he has also started to fall asleep sitting up.  Here's how we found him this morning.

Peter has been busy experiencing some new things.

We took him to Starbucks last weekend and got him a "babyccino" which is a little cup of frothed milk. He loved it and was upset when it was finished.

We introduced him to watermelon which he only enjoyed eating this way rather than pre cut up pieces

And then we walked into his room one morning and found him sitting up in his bed!

And just one more cheesey smile....