Professional Photo

Steve is very good with his posh pics of Joel and I love each one he does, but there's something special about having someone impartial take it!!

At our mums and toddlers group, they had a photographer along on a Tuesday and we were invited to go for a picture!  So I put Joel in his cute red and blue stripey top, and jeans with red lining and off we went.  He fell asleep at the wrong time and I had to wake him but he was cheerful for the five important minutes!

The photographer was a woman which I was glad about as he'd have cried had it been a man and she asked whether he could sit up or not.

I hesitated as he'd not sat on his own yet really, with cushions he lasted about 5 seconds!  So tentativley I sat him on the white background and had a hovering hand on standby but to my amazement, he sat there for about four minutes whilst she snapped a few pictures.   I had to explain he has his dad's problem of blinking at flashes so it's hard to get an open eyed picture but she managed it!!

And it's so cute.  He's sitting, he's smiling, he's got his eyes open and he has bare feet (an aesthetic thing!!) so I'm really chuffed with it.  It'll be a nice Christmas present for his grandparents this year!  From him of course!

Night Weaning

I decided to see how we went for a night without a 10pm feed as the past few nights he's not seemed to want much at that time.

And to my surprise he slept from 7pm to 6.15!  Then he had a feed from me, and went back to sleep till 9am!  Brilliant!

The next night he slept till 7am and it seems that 6ish means an early feed and back to sleep, and 7ish means feed and getting up to play!

Last night was a bit different as at 10.30pm Steve came to bed and let out a huge and noisy sneeze, and with baited breath we waited and sure enough 'waaah' came from Joel's nursery!  Cuddles and a sip of water didn't pacify him, it was nursing he wanted to get back to sleep but it took ages.

So I guess we'll see how things go this evening.  He's been having a better feed at 7pm which I think helps him to stock up so to speak through the night.

And with night weaning, if it continues to go well we may see a return of 'Aunt Flo' as it's called on the babycentre forum!!  I've gone 18 months now without a period and although it's saving money on the essentials it makes me laugh as I stocked up before VAT went up last year and I've not got to use any yet!!

Posting

I've got rather slow with the old blog of late.  I can never think of anything to say in the day and then later on, when I've gone to bed I think to myself, I should have mentioned us night weaning him, or my battle with Pacapdod about my nappy bag, or that he's getting bored now of his jumperoo or other things like that!

When i was a baby my Dad kept a diary of me for my first year, and it's really special to me that he did that and recorded all the important dates and events and his thoughts and feelings on it all.  To me, this blog will be a bit of a diary for Joel when he's older so I'm trying to get it all down to remember but it's getting harder!

So here's a checklist for me!  Posts will follow on the following subjects:

Night Weaning
His professional photo at playgroup!
Pacapod
An update on his eating and new foods
An update on my appeal with regards part time working as I now have a hearing date :(
Christmas overload as it's now December!!  :)

And I'll aim to get this down here  by the end of the week!  So Saturday.  Hmm.  Challenge accepted!!

Joel and Trudy

Now and then......

The two of them are growing up and look so much bigger then their previous picture!!

Taking A Stroll

A is for Attitude

I think we're beginning to get our first little bouts of baby tantrums!  He is starting to learn what he likes and wants!  And in his little baby world he doesn't know what 'no' means yet, and it's interesting to see what he's making of life now and how I respond to him to help him learn.

On Wednesday we were at our singing group and having played with a maraca for the duration of the musical instrument segment Joel dropped it on the floor and another kiddy snapped it up and ran off with it.  Normally Joel wouldn't react and would just look around for something else to do or look at, but this time he watched this other kid disappear with the toy he'd been playing with and he began to cry.  Then howl.  I've not seen anything like it!  He really wanted that maraca back!

Then later that afternoon!  He grabbed the tv remote control, and was having a good chew on the end of it, and dropped it.  I noticed that the tv box said '999' so was glad it wasn't the phone he'd got hold of!  Anyway, I hid it under a cushion as I'm trying to keep them out of his reach and again, he realised it'd been removed and got very grumpy indeed and began to properly cry again, with tears and everything! Time again for distractions....!

At mealtimes the challenge has begun to get food into his mouth!  He happily chews things up and is beginning to reject his purees for proper food so is having leftovers of our meals all cooked without salt!  He had chicken casserole for lunch, and sandwiches and cheese sticks for tea.  Distraction is a brilliant tool, but every trick I try, the next day, he remembers it and that one doesn't work any more.

He's a clever little boy!

Sleeping Like a Baby!