Month: July 2006

Babies are amazing. When I look at Will I see so much in him, hope, happiness, potential, the past, the future. He reminds me of his Great-Grandpa Hellings, it’s uncanny sometimes the way that they look alike. Alexander looks like Grandpa too, and I’m sure with Will’s blonde hair, he’ll look very similar to his Uncle in a few years time. I know that Eddie sees elements of his side of the family too, and has his own hopes and dreams for Will.

To me, Will represents all that is good and true in my family. His eyes are the most amazing azure blue, they’re his Father’s eyes. They hold infinite wisdom and a sureness that I’ve never seen before in anyone. I frequently get lost looking into them.

Another day, another instrument of torture…

Will can roll! He managed a full roll onto his front just a day before his 6 month birthday (my God, I can’t believe 6 months has passed so quickly). Admittedly, he probably needs to work a bit on his technique, at the moment he shrieks as soon as he’s landed on his front and waits for someone – muggins invariably – to turn him back over. I don’t get this, because rolling from front to back is something he mastered ages ago….

He’s getting stronger by the day, and VERY wriggly! We’re going to have great fun at mealtimes because now he’s 6 months he can try all sorts of different stuff (chicken later, his first taste of meat)! He’s having breakfast too; milk in bed and then porridge with Eddie and I. Hopefully his new highchair will come today and then tomorrow we’ll have breakfast at the table together as a family. Wonderful 🙂

(The lengths some people will go to just to make a baby laugh…..)

A surreal day, the morning of which was spent dunking my poor son under the water numerous times in the attempt to capture a decent shot of him swimming underwater a la Nirvana album cover. Hopefully we’ll get a good picture because as ever he was amazing and we got 3 photos successfully. We even managed to get one with the two of us together – me with a weight stuffed down my bikini bottoms and hanging onto Will for grim death. Funny coming up for air, Will surfaced long before I did with me pushing him up through the water!

Will’s high chair is ordered and should arrive with us shortly! He’s obviously at a minor disadvantage given that he can’t actually sit up yet, but today I’m feeling optimistic. He’s getting stronger by the day and soon he’ll be sitting in his own chair at the table with us – brilliant. In the meantime he is so close to cracking rolling onto his tum it’s all I can do to stop myself from helping him. He just needs to figure out how to really fling his leg across and he’ll be there. Maybe he’s just waiting for a day when Daddy’s at home so he can show off his new skills in front of both of us.

In the meantime it’s been a case of ‘another day, another homeopath’, but this one’s been recommended by my friend Lindsey so I’m feeling optimistic about this too. We had a long chat this morning and she’s going to drop off some remedies this afternoon. As for the issue of The Cat, I called the Dr on Monday to ask whether a patch test was worth doing. His view is that there is no point as babies grow out of allergies, so what he’s allergic to today, he may be fine about in a few months time. He advised me to rub the cat on the baby (or the baby on the cat) if we really wanted an answer. So I grabbed Mol and rubbed her tail on a pristine section of Will’s leg. Suffice to say the leg remains pristine and woe betide one more person who dares suggest he is allergic to my beloved mog.

Another sweltering day in East End and I feel as though I haven’t stopped. It’s been a really busy Tuesday with a brief lull in the morning while Will and I had another wonderful half hour at waterbabies. We’re now at the stage where I can go underwater wearing goggles and watch Will swimming towards me, it’s amazing, all I can see are these two huge, blue eyes and a frantically wriggling little body.

The pool was definitely the place to be in 31 degrees, poor Will is really suffering and his ezcema is driving him insane. He hasn’t slept properly for the past 3 nights, his room is a furnace and even with the window wide open and the fan on, it won’t cool down. Tonight I’ve put up the travel cot outside and he’s fast asleep in it! Hopefully he’ll be cooler on the terrace and we can move him inside when we go to bed and his nursery is a little more bearable.

What a wonderful day! Friends and family came together to belt out a few classics in the church, quaff champagne and generally celebrate a special occasion. William was an angel, clearly all the Waterbabies training stood him in good stead for being splashed at the font! He’s had a bit of a snuffle recently so we put him to bed once we got back and gave him some calpol which seemed to help. So although he missed most of the celebrations, at least he had a time-out to cool down and rest, missing the sweltering heat of midday, which he definitely needed.