The AJ Salute

As seen here, Alex's new thing is sitting with his foot up. He does it all the time and if you sit across from him sometimes all you see is toes. He favours the right leg but isn't too proud or fussy to use the left if it's more convenient. As well as in the bath he also does it...

in his stroller, usually with the right foot but...

sometimes with both

On his activity mat

In his highchair

And in his bed

I'm not sure how long this phase will last but for now I'm getting a decent amount of entertainment value from it!

The sum of his parts

People often ask who Alex looks most like. And the general conclusion, as Alex himself proudly displays in this picture, is this:

I'll let you judge for yourself but that is generally what people say. When we were at the hospital with him one time the doctor said, you usually look at a child and it looks like whichever parent it happens to be with at the time, but looking at Alex next to both of us he looks like the perfect combination of us both. At various times he has looked a little more like one or the other of us but on the whole he is a pretty good Poon-Jones mix. Except for his height which he obviously gets from me!! :p

Holy sh...

This is going to be a TMI post and anyone who is particularly squeamish about nappy matters or doesn't have experience of nappies should probably stop reading here.

Alex had to be CUT OUT OF HIS CLOTHES yesterday. Yes, you heard me right. We had a toxic leak so toxic and so leaky that I saw no way of dealing with it other than screaming at Dad (who was thankfully home at the time) to get me the scissors and I cut up a brand new vest which was covered in hazardous sludge literally from top to bottom. Oh yes, it went all the way up and across his back up to his neck. Oh. My. God!!!

Splish splash

Since taking the plunge in the swimming pool Alex has loved bathtimes. Unfortunately for him Mummy is usually all business with baths and it's a quick splash and a wash and then he's yanked out and toweled and dressed before he can say rubber ducky. Now before you think I'm cruel and neglectful, I'll explain it's mostly because until very recently he's been unable to sit very well in a slippery baby bath so any play is limited to anything I can do intermittently with one hand whilst bending over a bathtub and also trying to wash him, and I can tell you it does not extend far beyond "Ooh! Look at the ducky swimming. Splash splash!" before it's time to get out. And the bath seat we've got is one where he has to lie back so all I can do is show him the toys from above, he can't sit up safely to see them in the water or play with them and let's face it, that's just teasing the poor kid.

Now that he's 6 months old and sitting up better (and has a nice collection of bath toys we never make enough use of) we now have a very cool new big boy bath seat that has changed his life. Check this out.

This is his new favourite position, you will probably see it often - I call it the AJ right foot salute

I think he thought it very thoughtful of me to get him a bath seat that had something to chew on built into it
Not that it matters, after all any toy at all does the job and he's got plenty to choose from as you can see

At last, lots of bathtime fun. Yea!

Mummy's little water baby

I've been taking Alex to baby swimming lessons for a couple of months and loving it. Such is the relief that he took to the water well, as I would have wondered whose child he was if he didn't!

It's dead cute and we had some professional underwater shots done through the company who provide the classes but I haven't got round to ordering any prints yet. I'll scan and post when I do. However, we took quite a few videos while we were in California, we really enjoyed having use of an outdoor pool and made good use of it. We had also bought a waterproof video camera while I was pregnant in anticipation of quality water time with baby and again the relief I feel that we have use for it. If not I would not only have suspected foul play at the maternity ward but would also have had a waterproof camcorder to ebay!

This is my favourite water baby video