Happy (half) birthday Baby A

Today marks exactly 26 weeks since Baby A was born. Yep, that’s right, he is half a year old. Amazing how time flies. He’s gone from that tiny little thing with a squeaky little scream to a big little thing with a fine set of lungs. Six months sounds like a long time, but it has fairly whizzed by. In that time, Baby A has changed so much – not just in terms of size, but also in his whole personality and behaviour. I thought it would be a good idea to document exactly what has changed in that time:

Ayaan at one week

Appearance

Obviously he has put on weight and grown taller, but most people have said – annoyingly – that he looks more like Mummy A and less like me. Only his hair seems like mine. Grrr.

Sleeping

From us waking up every hour at night to every few hours, Baby A now sleeps throughout the evening. He does, however, have this unerring ability to wake up at 6am on the dot, no matter what time he goes to bed – which is annoying as I like to get up an hour later!

He does seem to sleep less than other babies (I’m told 12 hours at night is fairly typical – Baby A does about 9 hours). I reckon he’s just a bit hyperactive, although…..who knows where he got that from. Can’t be me – I’m too lazy….

Eating

He’s moved on to solids now and is having a better time of it. One thing that hasn’t changed is his dislike of milk. We tend to give him the ready made milk since he finds it easier to take. It works out more expensive – but don’t worry, we’re deducting it from his toy budget.

He’s tried all sort of solid food now, and his current favourite appears to be Mediterranean Vegetables. They all taste a bit bland to me – we need to get him going on the spicy foods, otherwise he’ll never be able to handle Mummy A’s cooking!

Ayaan at 6 months

Playing

He was much more content playing by himself before. Now he always demands attention. Annoying, especially for Mummy A during the day. It doesn’t seem to make a difference what he is doing either – for example, even when he is on his bouncer, he still wants someone around to watch him. D’oh!

Bathing

I remember his first couple of baths when he absolutely screamed. He obviously grew to like it and enjoyed his “serious splashing sessions”. Recently, Mummy A mentioned to me that he keeps wanting to roll over in the bath. Getting bored of the bath already, perhaps? Maybe it’s time to let him experience a cold shower – see how he likes that…

Talking

Nope, not happened yet. Although, he seems to have stopped murmuring the little sounds he was making before. Obviously realised how ridiculous he sounded.

Walking

Nope, not happened either. He can roll over on to his stomach, but then looks like a turtle on its back as he can’t really roll back over. Considering how hyperactive he is now, it’s probably not a bad thing that he’s taking his time walking.

I’m sure I’ve missed a few things out, but don’t worry, I’ll write about them soon!

Bounce, baby, bounce!

Baby A is a curious chap. Translation: he can’t sit still. Ever. If you sit him on your lap, he’ll twist and turn and moan, until you let him stand up. Once he’s standing, he’ll look around the room….first this way, then that….rather like a meerkat (hey, that rhymes!). Too bad he can’t stand up by himself yet – it would be less tiring.  

Which then brings him on to his favourite activity – bouncing. Once he’s standing on your lap, he starts jumping up and down, up and down, up and down….you get the picture. It can be a bit dangerous when you’re a guy, though. Who knows where those feet will land – and babies have a surprisingly hard kick….

So, it was only appropriate that we bought him one of those baby bouncers you fix to the door. He absolutely loves it! Bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce…he looks like a little frog the way he jumps about! And it’s still only the first day – I wonder how high he will get in a few weeks?

Update: I’ve just posted a my first YouTube video of Baby A bouncing. Click on the “Video” tab at the top right or click here.

Update 2: I’ve decided to include the video in this post instead and will do a little rearranging of the “Video” tab.

Handshakes and high fives

We’ve been trying to teach Baby A to behave himself around people. We can’t have him scaring everyone off, just because they’re trying to pick him up. It’s just not on. It’s amazing how responsive he is – we’ve been trying to get him to greet people formally and informally. That is, a handshake or a high five.

He actually tries his best when we wave our hand to him and say “handshake!”. He definitely prefers the “high five” though – he’s that kind of kid! I find it amazing that he will actually reach out to your hand when you say it to him. He’s picking up our lingo one step at a time.

Then again….maybe he just sees the hand in front of him and thinks “If I can reach it, I can stick it in my mouth to chew on…….”

Sunbathing…sort of

We’ve been having our mini heatwave here in the UK. Here, a heatwave is anything above 27 degrees, so arguably it’s not actually that warm….hey, we take what we can get. With the sunny weather, we thought we should let Baby A enjoy one of the great relaxing pastimes for the summer…..sunbathing.

Well, sort of. What we actually thought we would do is combine two of his favourite activities: we know he likes being outside in the sun, and we know he enjoys his baths….so why not a sun-bath….?

Yep, we took his bath outside and dunked him in! The weather meant it was very mild and he was relaxed. Actually…too relaxed, come to think of it. We had an ulterior motive for taking him outside – these days he splashes about so much he makes a mess of everything around him – including drenching our clothes. But….being outside he was very calm, and hardly splashed at all. Sod’s law.

Then again, if we had been indoors, my clothes would probably have been soaked through…..

Left-right-left-right

Left foot....

Baby A is getting pretty active nowadays. nope, hasn’t started crawling yet (he can’t quite seem to get his feet and hands to work in coordination), but he loves kicking his feet about. Put him on the floor, in the pushchair, or in his car seat, and he goes crazy. 

Right foot....

Left kick, right kick, left kick, right kick – he moves pretty fast! Where are you trying to run to, boy?

And....

I’m trying to work out whether he wants to be a footballer or an athlete. The speed of those legs, he would put ol’ twinkle toes Cristiano Ronaldo or Jamaica’s Usain Bolt to shame….

 

Both feet!!

The name is "Ayaan"…NOT "Aoyun"

Baby A has asked me to let people know that his name is Ayaan, and does NOT mean “Olympic Games“. If people want to name their son “Aoyun” in celebration of the Beijing Olympics coming up, that’s all well and good; but he wishes to make it clear that HIS name means “Gift of God“, thank you very much….

Best behaviour

Well, what a relief! We took Baby A with us to a wedding….and he was really well behaved. Phew!

Yes, I know, he was on pretty good form when our friends came to visit, but that was on home turf. This wedding was on the other side of London. In fact, it was the longest drive he had ever been on.

Mummy A had been stressing the night before…..actually if I’m honest I was probably doing the same. We don’t want an unsociable brat! Turns out we didn’t need to worry.

He fell asleep pretty quickly in the car…which obviously made us worry that he would be ratty when he woke up.

Nothing to be concerned about – he was happy to mingle with everyone! He really worked the room, flirting with the girls and being blokey with the guys. He was obviously fascinated by the bright and colourful clothes people were wearing. Maybe we need people to dress up whenever they meet Baby A!

The few times he got agitated I just took him outside in his good ol’ Racing Red buggy to calm him down.

Even when it came to feeding, he was amazing….and I don’t say that lightly. The music was really booming, but he completely ignored it. He just stared at me and opened his mouth before the spoon even came near!

He’s been fooling us all this time. He’s a good boy really….