Here’s a video of Samuel when he was a little happier. He’s a bit snuffly and grumpy at the moment as his teeth are coming through, hopefully he’ll be back to his old self soon.

Boo!

Samuel is growing fast and I just wanted to boast about a few of the latest developments. He is now much better at sitting unaided, but we still have to keep a careful eye on him as he occasionally topples over. Sitting periods can now be measured in minutes instead of the ten seconds he used to manage.

Vocally he is now able to string together ga, goo, and da to make some convincing sentences. Occasionally I hear da-da but we are still waiting for the magic day when he actually means to say it. When he gets really excited we still have to suffer ear-splitting high pitched squeals and I sometimes worry that the neighbours will mistake this for something else and call social services.

Finally we have the teeth… we’ve waited a long time but we had noticed that the amount of chewing had increased dramatically over the weekend, and today we found his teeth are like busses – you wait for ages and then two come along at once. The teeth are only just poking through the lower gum but Samuel demonstrated how effective they were by biting Jessica on the nose. I’ve got load of videos and photos that I need to upload – hopefully I’ll get some time soon.

Hi,

It’s been a while since I’ve posted because me and Jessica have been suffering from a cowardly stomach bug. First it got Jessica and then a week later it got me too. Anyway, I’m finally eating proper meals again and am well on my way to almost full (we do have a young child) capacity.

What are you looking at?

Speaking of Sam, we tried to start the weaning process today by giving him a bit of baby rice. He has been taking a great interest in the eating habits of his parents and will sit there in shocked silence whilst we consume a meal. Lately he has taken to ‘chewing’ whilst out in the buggy or lay in his cot and we can only assume he is imititating us.

So, we decided to try the baby rice, but did he chew when we gave it to him… of course he didn’t. He accepted the rice into his mouth and then waited for it to fall out again which can clearly be seen in the picture. We’ll keep trying and I’m sure he’ll get the hang of it soon. I had expected a little bit more from this milestone but hopefully he’ll start to play with the food more and will be doing better next weekend.

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.