Monday 29 June 2009

A letter to Robert, 7 months old

Dear Robert,

You are just over 7 months old now, and words simply cannot describe how proud Mummy and Daddy are of you! You are our sunshine, our reason for getting up each day with huge smiles on our faces!

You are such a cheeky, funny, mischeivous little boy! It is so lovely to see you learn new things, and especially lovely to see how much you love us! A few days ago you were playing on the floor downstairs when Daddy got home. As soon as you saw him, you beamed all over your face, and started crawling towards him as fast as you could!

There is never a day that goes by when I don't think how lucky we are to be your Mummy and Daddy. And that you are okay! Every now and then I think back to when you were born, how worried we were first of all that you might go to heaven too soon, and then that maybe you might be too poorly and find things difficult to do. But each day you do something new, and each day my worries slip furthur away! You are already crawling beautifully, and you get so excited that you can now chase after things!

Hazel our pussy cat has always been a little scared of you with your funny noises and the way you wave your arms, and now you can crawl after her you do, and she gets very frightened and tries to hide from you! This morning she ran away and hid under the table, but you spotted her and crawled after her, and then got stuck when she ran away from you again!

You probably think your Mummy and Daddy are very silly, as we keep singing in funny voices, bouncing you up and down, eating your belly and neck while making silly noises, but we only do it because we know it makes you laugh! And we love the sound of you laughing so much so we try and hear it as much as we can!

You are such an incredible joy to us, Robert. We have cherished you from the moment you were conceived and we love you so very much. (And one day, when you have a baby of your own, you will understand just how much!)

All of our love and kisses and giant bear hugs,

Mummy and Daddy xxxx

Saturday 27 June 2009

7 months old - milestones GALLORE!

Wowowowow! What a week of milestones! (Just as Alice predicted!!)

First the belly crawling, then pulling himself up onto his knees (in the bath! Naughty boy lol! And then with his toy box..)

He's been doing really tall pushups like this as well, getting those legs nice and strong!

And he can also sit himself up from laying on his back!! I'd noticed one day putting him in his cot on his back, went out to do something quickly, and came back in to see him sat up! And Jonathan found out one morning at 4am or so when he went groping around for him in his cot to pick him up and give him to me to feed and ended up hitting him in the face!

He likes peering out of the cot bars, sometimes with his legs poking out as well :)

And when his cot bars are down, he likes grabbing the top of them and doing this...

hehehe!

He has also started taking his first proper crawls as well! But if it's too far away that he's trying to get to, he will flop down after a while and pull himself along on his belly again.

He has pulled himself to standing on the little box we take away with us with his nappies, wipes, vests, bibs etc in as well! Can't believe how grown up he has become all of a sudden!

He's also cutting at least 3 more teeth simultaneously. We can see the top two middle teeth and the one next to the newest cut bottom tooth just under the surface of the gum!

Something I've been meaning to write about for absolutely AGES - maybe a month or more? Is Robert's fascination with the labels on his toys. He LOVES the labels on toys or his clothes, but the ones on his clothes are usually where he can't see them! ;) If he spots one, he'll instantly be all quiet, except for these soft "ahhhhh ahhhhh" sounds while he reaches out carefully and tries to grip it in his finger and thumb. Once he manages to get it, he'll then drag it to his mouth, accompanied by the same "aaaaahh" sounds and just spend ages studying it, twiddling it, and trying to get it in his mouth! But then he does the same thing with my nipple as well! Funny boy! I got a photo of him doing the former (labels not nipples lol!!!) finally yesterday...

It's not the best photo because he was a bit squirmy, but it's good enough for the purposes!

Anyway, I want to leave off this entry with a few photos not capturing specific things but just lovely photos of my gorgeous little boy!

Monday 22 June 2009

7 months old - weekend away

Well after a jam packed weekend I have a monster update to do and looooads of photos! But also thank you for the comments on the video!

We went to see my Mum first, she's moved to a new house (she'd been at the old one since before I was 11 (I moved in with her when I was 11 and she was already at this house) and she was desperate for a bungalow! It's bigger but more compact than the old house, if that makes any sense!! The old one was a mid-terrace victorian house with two bedrooms and a long extension at the back which housed a long thin kitchen with a bathroom behind it. It has a bigger garden for their dogs (finally some animals that don't run away from Robert! hehe!) and a huge triple (!) garage and a big driveway.

Once we'd had the grand tour of the bungalow, the first thing Dave (her partner) did was to shove a choccy biscuit onto Robert lol! He loved it but boy did he make a mess! Jonathan had to change his shirt! ;)

He also demolished a quarter of a ham, cheese and pickle sandwich! And then tried a cracker.

He is such a piggy lol!

Robert is soooo fascinated by animals now. He loves Hazel and tries to reach out for her and gets all excited and flappy whenever he sees her, but she's so frightened and runs away whenever she sees him! But my Mum's dogs (Lady and Tramp lol) are very good with kids! Here is Robert with Lady, she was getting a little annoyed by him grabbing her leg and with his excited panting noises so she had a little growl and then took sanctuary behind Jonathan's leg!

We ordered a chinese takeaway for dinner, and Robert tried practically everything that was on offer including beef curry, a prawn from Dave's rice, some noodles, some pepper, pineapple and prawn crackers. After his bath, which he LOVED (!!!) and didn't even cry when water went over his face, he went to bed and we watched Mamma Mia. It was a lovely day with Mum and she was so besotted with him, especially when he kept doing these screwed-up-face-grins.. (the photo was actually taken at my dad's but is the only one like it we've got)

Anyway we headed over to Dad's for about 9am on Sunday. The weather had brightened up a bit which was good because we had a barbecue!

Robert enjoyed looking out of the French doors at my dad by the bbq

His smiles are so infectious! All his grandparents who saw him this weekend just adored him! He's a right little poser and he is such a happy baby. Sure he gets his grumpy moments, which seem to sometimes outweigh the smiley times, but one day I actually decided to make a mental note of how much he smiled and how often he was grumpy, and he was happy and all smiles for a hugely greater time!

He loves meal times, enjoying making a mess and smearing the food everywhere, but also enjoys trying new things!

Here he is waiting for his dinner lol

Potato, chicken, salad, coleslaw all went down well, but the big hit (with us as well as him!) was the pineapple dessert my dad cooked us! Roasted with a sugar and butter glaze, it was melt in the mouth delicious! And Robert liked it too so much he kept pulling my hand towards him to get more!

Oh and look! Second little toothy clearly visible now! :)

Can't believe my little monster is 7 months old tomorrow! My gorgeous little man :) I do love him so!

He is getting so active now, I really am going to have zero time to do ANYTHING around the house anymore! He is pulling himself up on things now, the toy box is his favourite, but he's also done it in the bath! Maybe he will be a 7-8 month cruiser after all! Eeeep! We only have one gate still and that's in the hallway/lounge doorway, I still need ones at the top and bottom of the stairs, and something (not sure what!) infront of the cat litter tray and the french doors. Anyway I think I hear Robert stirring from his nap now (I decided to write this instead of washing up/unpacking lol) so I'd better go!

Friday 19 June 2009

video of crawling, pulling up

Jonathan, Robert and I are going to Kent this weekend to see my parents. We've not seen them in a while so I'm quite looking forward to it! We've packed most of Robert's bits, and a few of our bits, and I'm sure we'll get on the road before 9am easily even with packing the last bits with Robert's lovely waking times! We were really lucky this morning, we thought that he was looking all awake and ready to play at 4.30am. OUCH. He was showing all the signs of waking up properly despite going to bed quite late around 8.30pm or so. Maybe even 9pm, can't quite remember. But Jonathan put him in his cot, and after a bit of a grizzle he settled down and slept until about 7.15am. Thank goodness!

Anyway, the video of Robert army crawling is done! He does this quite a lot now, he's tried crawling after the cat, and will do it to get any toy he fancies playing with. We've been watching him and just get the impression that it must be soooo satisfying for him to be able to do this and when he finally gets close enough to grab it! So so proud of him!

He is also pulling up on things! He's tried pulling himself up on the clear plastic box you can see at the far end of the room in the video, but it's not really heavy enough and it just slides towards him. And then he spotted the handles on the inside of the bath tonight and turned to grab it and started pulling up on that! Could he be starting to cruise before he's 9 months old? Heh!

Anyway I'm starting to yawn lots now so I think that's my body's way of telling me to get to bed or I'll regret it in the morning!

Wednesday 17 June 2009

Messy play, army crawling

I have had a lovely day with Robert today. Usually at some point I kind of get itchy for it to be 6.30 or so when I start to do his bedtime routine, but today I wasn't! I have seriously been all loved up with my little Monkey Man!

We went to messy play this afternoon down the surestart centre. They had out water, sand, mixing ingredients (custard, pasta, flour, tea leaves etc), a water tray filled with spaghetti, and then a couple of trays on the floor, one filled with rice crispies, and the other filled with icing sugar and cocoa powder.

I put him in the rice crispies first, he just picked up the spoons that were in the tray to begin with but then he got a handful of the rice crispies and got some in his mouth, and he seemed to like them! After a while I took him out and put him in the icing sugar mixture. He got the taste of that too and started smearing it all over his face and putting the spoons and other bits and bobs in there in his mouth, with some of it on mixed with his saliva to a lovely paste lol! Then when Janice (one of the ladies who works there) brought in some water in bubble bottles with holes punched in the lids, for the children to shake in the powder, of course it then got REALLY messy and it just went all over his face, front, legs, my legs, my arms! He also had a brief play with the tea leaves, and in the water.

It was a lot of fun, we both got mucky, and he provided us with a lot of laughs! It's a shame I never got a photo of him, he was a right picture!

In other news, Robert has started to crawl, sort of! The last couple of days he has figured out that if he uses his arms and legs and pushes against the floor he can move forward and reach whatever it is that is just out of reach and that he really wants! Only he stays on his belly, so it's kind of like an army crawl! But it's so funny because his legs sort of go way up in the air while he's trying to shuffle forward on his belly! I will get a video up here within the next few days to show you! He still gets on his hands and knees and rocks, but hasn't discovered how to move from that position.

Part of me wanted to do a different sort of entry today, a letter-type one but I figured there was such a lot of news to update on I'd better just do the normal sort!

Today when I fed Robert to sleep (something I have relaxed on, I have decided to just let him do this, after all it's not going to last forever, and he likes it and I like it, so why deny us both?), I then sat up with him cradled in my arms, his face sooo so so peaceful and beautiful. I just lapped up every detail of his face, his long eyelashes, his smooth cheeks, his perfect little lips, his gorgeous hair. I could have just held him and stared at him for hours. I'm so so lucky. I am just so pleased I get to spend each day with this happy smiley inquisitive snuggly little boy and so thankful that we had such good midwives around for his birth.

I love him so much.

Tuesday 16 June 2009

naps, fall, eating

So today we had a bit of a scare... I was eating breakfast and reading forums while Jonathan was looking after Robert in the bedroom shortly before he was going to get him changed. Suddenly I heard a panicked sounding "no no no no no!" and I rushed through and then heard a thud, and then wailing - Jonathan had been cleaning his glasses, and in the few seconds he was doing that, Robert had rolled the full length of the bed and fallen off! Jonathan was absolutely distraught, I let him cuddle Robert, who quietened down after a few minutes of wailing, poor chappy! After he stopped crying he seems to be okay, seems normal and isn't doing anything out of the ordinary. But Jonathan just feels so terrible, I reassured him that these things happen, and that I'd keep an eye on him to make sure he's okay.

Anyway, last week, Robert was suuuuch a bad napper! His late morning naps went right out of the window! He'd get sleepy on the breast, I'd take him off, put him in his cot, and waaaaaah, he'd get himself in a tizzy and despite being knackered wouldn't sleep again for hours. So far this week it's proving a little better.

Despite the absolute knackering-ness of last week, I am just sooo besotted with my little boy! I'm so proud of him and I just love him so much I can't even describe!

Check out these press-ups!

My strong boy! He can now also army crawl to something and grab it if it's just out of reach! Eeep!

On Saturday we went over to Northampton to get some stair gates (we've put one inbetween the hallway and the living room, but we need to get new ones for the stairs as the ones we got are too wide and don't really hold very well on the curved banister), and then stopped by Jonathan's parents as they live in a village on the outskirts. We had a chinese take-away for dinner, and Robert had some too! He loved the chinese prawn crackers, but also tried some pineapple, onion, pepper with some of the sauces on it. And had some bits and bobs that Betsy cut up for him, including their first strawberry from the garden which Steve was miffed about! (although I'm guessing it was only mock-miffed)

Robert was soooo tired bless him! I was sure we were going to get the classic fast asleep at the highchair photo, but he didn't quite get that tired, although he was close!

On Sunday I made some cottage pie (using the shepherd's pie recipe that I got from Alice but also adding some courgettes to the veg as I didn't have enough leeks) with sweet potato mash on top, and yesterday Robert had some! He did really well picking it up with his hands and didn't resort to sticking his face in it once! But he still managed to get it everywhere!



Love my little mucky boy :)

Saturday 13 June 2009

A photo that makes my heart sing

We're about to head over to Northampton to do some shopping in Mothercare/Babies R Us for stairgates etc as we're sure he's set to crawl very soon. I don't have very long therefore for a proper entry, there is lots I want to talk about however, re Robert's naps, showing some new photos, etc.

But I just wanted to post this, simply because it makes my heart swell up with love whenever I look at it...

Wednesday 10 June 2009

Sorry for long delay, pro photos, other pics

Eeep, I'm so sorry I've not updated in so long! For some reason I thought I'd updated more recently, I guess not though!

In the last week quite a bit has happened. We got the professional photos! The parents all chipped in along with us to get the photo CD, and we also got the raw images (which weren't of the quality that the photographer wanted people to see, but since we're dab hands at photo editting, we reproduced them to a good standard, and I've put them all up on facebook. And hopefully soon they will also be where I can link them easily as well. ;)

Robert's had a few "first" tastes of things. One of them being curry! He seems to really like curry, although it's a little difficult for him to handle and feed himself, although he tries occasionally but then seems to decide it's easier to do this...

He's also tried for the first time strawberries, sausage, grapes (cut in half) and some other things probably!

Something else I did was make Robert some shakers, made out of pasta and rice. I spent a good portion of a day soaking pasta and rice in water with food colouring in to dye it, and then letting it dry out before transferring it to bottles.

On Saturday we went to Oxford to see some friends of Jonathan's. Andy was a colleague of Jonathan's and his wife Pinky both came to our wedding, and at the time she was heavily pregnant with their second son, who is now just turned 4! She showed Robert the stained glass fish they had hanging up in the window, and she seemed to love Robert!

Robert was very well behaved for the trip which was lovely!

When we got home, we decided to try and tire him out some more, so let him play with some shredded paper.

This is his new (and very cheeky!) grin!

And here's a look as if to say "I didn't do it, please don't be mad at me Mummy!" Hehehe!

Jonathan got a new camera lense yesterday, and so today I tried it out on Robert. It basically makes the background, and also anything in front of the focussed area very blurry, so it looks very pro!

And one showing off his toothy! Still no sign of toothy number 2, although still lots of dribbles and chomping!

Anyway, here are some of the pro photos :)

Monday 1 June 2009

Rocking and co-sleeping

I don't think it is going to be very long at all before Robert starts to crawl - the last few days he has been getting up onto hands and knees and rocking on them, something I remember reading in Alice's baby journal, I think it was Matthew. I just can't believe how quickly my little boy is growing up! It seems crazy to think how worried we were when he was born, wondering if his development would be slowed at all, but from what I can tell by reading baby development sites is that he's more or less spot on for everything!

Something else I wanted to record here was thoughts on sleep issues. It does seem to be the bane of every parent's life, the big S issue. Last night I thought to myself what would happen if Robert DID sleep through the night. And as odd as this might sound, it got me thinking that maybe I don't want him to sleep through! I really really do enjoy nursing him in bed. Falling asleep cuddled up with him. If he slept through that would just disappear, and I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet! We are semi-co-sleepers. We put him to bed in his cot, and he sleeps there til he wakes during the night, at which point he comes into bed with us to nurse, and often we'll fall asleep together for a while. If I wake and get uncomfortable, I will go and put him back in his cot, but after he wakes, he does spend a fair amount of time in our bed with us. And he does sleep better with us. It's also making me think twice about putting him in his own room. I guess I'll just have to wait and see how things play out!