Sam and his mum

It’s been a little quiet on here the last few weeks as me and Jessica have been suffering with an upset stomach. We’re feeling 90% better now and hope that we’ll continue to improve whilst I’m off work this week.

Sunday was Jessica’s first Mother’s Day as a mother and me and Sam did our best to help her enjoy it. Sam managed to get three different presents for Jessica which she greatly enjoyed, and I made her a special chicken dish. We had a walk in the nice afternoon weather and I took the picture on the right. Samuel finally fits the hat that Daniel bought him and he looks very cute. Having seen how much fun Jessica had I am now looking forward to Father’s day!

As I mentioned, I have a week off work so I’ll be getting on with all the things I meant to do in the last few months – garden, dripping tap etc. Obviously I’ll get a lot more time with Sam and I’m hoping that he’ll do something new as he usually progresses well when we’re both around.

Below is a new video of Sam in his baby bouncer thing. He has been a bit cautious around it but (for one night only) he suddenly got the hang of it.

Last night me and Jessica took the big step of letting Samuel sleep in his own room. He’s threatening to burst out of his Moses basket and so it’s time to promote him to his cot bed. There is no way his cot will fit in our room so we had to put him in his own room. We’ve done our best to make it interesting… transferring his trusty mobile onto the new cot and creating a constellation of glow-in-the-dark sheep on the wall and ceiling.

I was surprised at how nervous me and Jessica were last night. Lay in bed with Samuel in the room next door, straining our ears to hear anything from the baby monitor. It’s hard to describe and you can probably only empaphise if you’re a parent too. If Samuel is sleeping then all is well but that doesn’t provide much in the way of evidence via the baby monitor. In the end I went to check he was OK and found him happily sleeping in his basket in his cot. The next step will be to remove the basket from the equation….

Our friend Daniel braved a Sunday train system (plagued with engineering works) to come down and visit us, meeting Samuel for the first time. Jessica cooked us a lovely roast dinner whilst we caught up with Daniel’s adventures in the midlands.

As usual… Samuel doesn’t look too impressed to be meeting another new person but he was actually very comfortable with Daniel. Me and Jessica were very impressed with Daniel’s holding skills – much better than mine when Sam was born.

Thanks for making the long trip Daniel, hopefully we’ll at least be able to meet you half-way next time.

Last weekend Samuel finally got to travel up the country to meet my side of the family. This was a big event as it was Samuel’s first long trip and we planned to make it on the train so couldn’t take everything we might need. Thankfully we were able to arrange to have a travel cot, car seat and some other essentials waiting for us at my family home.

Samuel did very well and seemed to take the change of location in his stride, smiling for all the relatives he met. The list was long with 2 grandparents, 2 great grandparents, 3 great auntys, 3 great uncles, an aunty and two of my cousins. Samuel managed to charm everyone and he received plenty of new home offers but is unable to talk yet and was stuck with us. It was great to see everyone and I am sorry we can’t make the trip more often – thanks for all the presents and help we needed to make the visit possible.

Yet again Samuel chose a family event to debut a new skill – he now chuckles at the correct times when we play a game with him. The chuckle is currently either a huh-huh like noise or a full on squeal.

I musn’t forget Steve who helped us a great deal by taking care of Fidget whilst we were away. Unfortunately Fidget is still very frail but I did enjoy the story of her licking condensation off the window to try and avoid drinking her water with (presumably foul-tasting) antibiotics in.

He is a casual Sam!

Samuel meets his Great Grandma

Samuel is making quite a range of vocal sounds now. He was making a lot of noise until we pointed the camera at him and he calmed down a bit. Apologies for the low quality… a quick reminder that there is a higher quality version available but you’ll need to e-mail me for details.

Hopefully all the issues with the site will have been sorted by now – I have moved the hosting over to a new provider. I want to share this video of Samuel and his bizarre habit of straightening his legs whenever we hold his hands. Is this something all babies do or just something Samuel has developed on his own?

Just wait until he gets teeth!

Hi everyone, I want to wish you a Happy Christmas and say thanks to everyone who has sent the family a present or card this year.

We spent our Christmas at Jessica’s parents along with her brother and sisters. Thank you to Jessica’s parents for feeding and housing us for a couple of nights – it was good to be spared the trouble of making the big meal. Me and Jessica were pretty pleased with ourselves as we think we managed Samuel’s first nights outside of the house well and didn’t panic too much 🙂

Samuel chose Christmas day to try out some new things, like rolling over and sucking his hand. He has yet to get the hang of the rolling over business (it is a bit early in his life) but he managed to get half-way and spill the water that I was using to clean him. You can see a video of Sam by clicking the link below.

Samuel’s first Christmas

I wish everyone a happy new year and hope to catch up with those I’ve missed as soon as possible.

Click on image to see large version

For those of you that are sick of mince pie reviews and want to see more of Samuel I’ve included a collage of pictures.

The bottom left is the most recent with top middle being the oldest.