Worshipping at the Church of Steve

It's official, Jon and I are incurable geeks and greedy consumers too easily drawn to shiny stuff. I shouldn't speak for Jon but I feel fairly confident he wouldn't disagree. What am I talking about? Why, shiny new Apple gadgets of course! The last couple of months has seen us both handing over our hard earned cash for beautiful bits of kit with glowing apples on.

While in the US Jon had his sights set on an iPad and got one as a generous birthday gift from his parents. I firmly stated I would not be needing one and would save my money for an upgrade to a new iPhone instead. I'll be damned if after a few days of using Jon's I wasn't in the Apple store at the Grove in LA, sheepishly clutching an iPad whilst handing over my Amex card to a nice young man in a shirt bearing that hypnotic apple. Well done Will Power, I know I can always count on you. So not only do we have an iPad, we have one each.

Then along came the iPhone 4, and you probably already know how this story ends. Oh yes, matching iPhones once again too. The justification for the upgrade I can barely afford (goodbye salary, hello statutory maternity pay) is the great portable video capability and I've definitely been using it enough for said justification. The price tag of the iPhone is small price to pay for hundreds of captured memories of the darling offspring. He'll thank us one day once he's forgiven us for spending his inheritance on gadgets!!


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Weaning fun

As previously reported Alex is now six months old and it's time to start weaning so we celebrated his half birthday with his first real food. No cake though, he got tenderstem broccoli, asparagus and butternut squash. Now this may be a bit controversial but I am not going the standard route with purees and mush, but following Baby Led Weaning instead.

The idea behind BLW is that eating is a natural part of babies' development and we should let them go at their own pace rather than start strapping them down and spooning goo into their mouths too soon. I didn't really have to question that as we were sure Alex was ready to start solids. He has been really interested in food for a little while now, watching with fascination as we eat and trying to grab everything. Of course some of it is teething and wanting to put everything and anything in his mouth anyway but it soon became apparent he was keen to imitate us and try eating (and he sees a lot of eating, believe me!). A friend of ours had done it very successfully with their daughter and I was convinced it was well worth a go from that point.

I wanted to start him off on the right foot with some good foods so I gave him some veggies out of my superfood salad. What better than tenderstem broccoli for a little guy? It's got a built in handle! He was delighted to finally be given some food when he wanted it and seemed to love the experience but eating itself was a bit of a shock!

Here's how it went:

It was so much fun to watch him feed himself. He did try the asparagus later on, but only licked and gummed it a tiny bit before rejecting it. He was highly unimpressed with the butternut squash which I thought he would like because of the bright colour and the sweetness, but he pretty much just looked at it and then threw it across the room, signaling that lunch is without doubt over!

There will be more weaning adventures posts to follow, as I document this journey. I'm sure some of them will be filled with frustration and all with mess!

Six months old

Our little Alex was six months old on Friday. I can't believe how quickly the time has gone and I also can't believe I'm saying something as cliche as "they grow up so fast" (again!), but I am! He is just delicious, a really sweet, easy going and happy little guy, as those of you who have met him will know. It is amazing to watch him grow so fast and I feel like I'll be waving him off to university any minute!

What is Alex doing at 6 months?

• Smiling and laughing and he does lots of it. He's very smiley and his giggle is highly infectious. Mummy and Daddy get those special smiles when we walk into the room now too, there's nothing quite so heartwarming as those.
  
• He's got 2 bottom teeth so far and they make for such a cute two-toothy smile but you have to be quick not to be hypnotised by said smile and end up with a quite painful bite.
  
• He's getting very good at grabbing things and starting to show pretty good motor control. It's funny when he has to really concentrate on something though, especially when he is focusing hard on putting something in his mouth, it makes him go cross-eyed.
• Everything goes in his mouth at the moment, and right now his favourite thing is his feet.
• He babbles a lot. He's been doing it for some time now and seems to "get" conversation. Daddy says it's because Mummy talks to him constantly and he has to learn early on how to get a word in edgeways! Cheek! He is constantly making new sounds and practicing them, which is adorable when it's the gurgles and oohs and ahs but lately it's been squeals and shrieks which I hope is just a phase, and a sort of wailing/singing which is very cute but gets us some strange looks when he does it in public.
• His favourite toy at the moment is his Sophie la Giraffe teether. It's brilliant and he chews on it all the time but it's funny because people either know exactly what it is by name (and every baby in the Queens Park/West Hampstead set has one) or I get really strange disapproving looks from people who think I have given my baby a dog toy to chew on!
  
• He is very affectionate and knows how to cuddle now. The first time I felt him put his arms around my neck when I picked him up was one of those landmark motherhood melty moments. He also likes to touch our faces affectionately and sometimes while he is feeding will smile up at me and reach up to touch and stroke my hair. Those are my favourite moments. Although he is still not able to control his movements that well when he gets excited and I am working on teaching him the difference between stroking and pulling/yanking!
  
• Food - we are just about to start solids so watch this space on how that goes. I'm nervous about having a child who is a picky or just reluctant eater, but I'd say there's a good chance he'll like food, being three quarters Chinese and half me! He's got a good appetite and feeds well so hopefully he'll take to eating solids.
• He can sit up fairly well with help but can't do it on his own yet.
• He is pretty strong and likes to be in a standing position. I think he's motivated by his nosiness as he can see more that way.
• We've been taking swimming lessons for a couple of months. He's getting pretty good at it, I'll have to post in more detail about that.
• He loves being sung to. Nursery rhymes are hit and miss. Some of them make him really laugh, others are received with a stare.
• He thinks his nose is funny. His favourite Mummy moment is the eskimo kiss, where I rub noses with him.
  
• He loves it when Daddy flies him around the room or "zooms" him and recently showed his excitement and appreciation by throwing up all over him - last time Daddy does that again, at least with his mouth open!
• Alex HATES being on his front. Tummy time is like torture, no mistake.
  
• He can roll over now, mostly from his back to his front, although I have seen him do both. He just doesn't seem that interested or motivated so I keep trying to egg him on and he just stares at me and then wails until I pick him up. But then on occasion I've left him somewhere and come back to see him flipped over so I know he can do it, he just won't perform on demand.
• He is making some crawling actions when on his tummy but isn't anywhere near being able to actually crawl yet. It's more of a swimming motion or possibly just scrabbling in frustration because he hates being in that position!
• He doesn't like rustling sounds, or velcro or the hairdryer. The worst is blenders and hand dryers though, they freak him out.
  
• Lately he has been keeping us up at night a bit more. He was sleeping through the night early on but since he got into the heavy duty teething has been waking up during the night more often. At the time of writing, he still has the remnants of jet lag but we hope he settles back into a more manageable pattern soon and we can revisit our old friend sleep once more.
  

Here he is with Daddy on Friday

Happy half birthday little one!!

Time zone haze

Alex is still on California time. We are all still suffering from a particularly persistent jet lag and getting unnecessarily well-acquainted with the wee hours of the day. Check out the timestamp on this post. It's 2am and I'm wide awake and hungry! Alex just wants to play, until about 4am which is his California bedtime.

I still have to tell you about the trip. And I will once I manage to get enough sleep to see straight! I hope that's soon.


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