I'm taking 6 months away from my day job to look after my son, Archie, who is now 10 months old. I thought it might be interesting to share my experiences.

Archie's battles with the dreaded lurgi continued this week. No sooner had his fever gone than he picked up the double-whammy of a chest infection and an eye infection. Both are now slowly working their way out of his system, I'm glad to say. But rather than discuss the merits of volumetric space devices, ultrasonic humififiers and vapour plug-ins (all of which have made an appearance this week) I thought I'd talk about some of the developmental observations I've been seeing over the past few weeks.

We had a real 2001: A Space Odyssey moment when Archie took the spindle from a set of wooden stacking rings and wielded it like a sword (or, indeed, a Lightsaber). It wasn't just the way that he held it but that he trembled with excitement and gave a little "Grrrr!!" when he did so. I don't know if you can read anything into it but I did feel there was something raw and innate about the action and I was very much reminded of the scene in the aforementioned movie where the proto-human apes discover how to use bones as weapons. I can't say I've seen any dubious looking obelisks about the place, though.

I took the picture a few moments later - if he is going to become a sword-wielding agent of destruction then at least his Lightsaber is green.

Much of the rest of his recent behaviours seem to be related to him learning about the physics of his world. He's obsessed with dropping things and watching how they fall and where they end up. Balls are a particular favourite and we've spend a lot of time playing a rudimentary game of 'catch' - if you can call it that when there's not really any catching going on.

Another interesting behaviour has centred around his bottles. He's taken to holding the bottle himself and he's fascinated by the level of the milk or water in the bottle. He'll hold and rotate the bottle and watch how the water level changes relative to the bottle as he tilts it. It's not just a one off - he'll repeat his experiment and observations several times. It really feels like he's learning how objects behave under gravity - a right little Newton.  I'd better be careful with those apples.