The longest journey

Today we took him on his longest journey yet, to……Oxford Street! Yes, that’s right we took him to London’s premier shopping street (in case you’re spotting a trend, hey, we enjoy shopping!).

Mummy A works near there, so she wanted to show him off to her work colleagues. Bit of a difference with this trip as we took him all the way on the Tube….luckily he fell asleep on the way there! I’m always conscious about him crying on public transport, especially I have noticed it with other kids in the past (before I get villified, I have never made comments to anyone!).

Mummy A’s colleagues loved him. Lots of women working there so he was on full flirting mode! Although…..a trip wouldn’t be complete without a big poo. Thanks, Baby A.

We took him out to the shops for a bit as well. He’s got this same old grumpy expression that he has when taking a bath, but I reckon he enjoys it. He looks very inquisitive, with his eyes darting about all over the place.

The way home was more problematic…he decided to cry all the way on the Tube. Thank god the Central line is so noisy!

"I’m a size 2 now!"

We recently reached a landmark moment: Baby A is now wearing the next size up in nappies. Hooray…..

…..Hey c’mon, it’s an important milestone! Whilst we keep thinking he’s a right little pipsqueak, it definitely means he is getting bigger. And hey, he looks happier too.

It’s a good thing we got the bigger size as well – the extra capacity is required nowadays. And I’m not talking about pee either. The bigger he gets….the more he poos.

We got a bit carried away when buying nappies at the beginning (we obviously thought he was going to stay that big forever!) and still have far too many of the smaller size left.

We still use them every now and again to finish them off, but you do run the strong risk of ‘leakage’ type accidents.

……..And I’m not talking about pee either.

A new buddy

We went to visit a friend yesterday evening, giving Baby A a chance to meet Baby F. Having seen how my nephews were (and still are!) with each other, I wasn’t sure whether to expect fireworks….but it was more a case of mutual ignorance.

Whenever I think of Baby A meeting other babies, I’m always reminded of the scene in the Simpsons cartoon where baby Maggie sees another baby in a pram and they give each other evil looks as they go past. Not quite like that in this instance….I think they were quite happy pretending the other didn’t exist.

Baby F is only a couple of months older so I hope they get on with each other in future. I wonder what age babies need to be before they start fighting playing with others?

A new routine

Following the visit to the hospital, we’ve been trying to change his feeding routine, just to see if it makes a difference. I think we came away from the hospital with the impression that perhaps we were trying to feed him too much.

Part of the problem is the “recommended” amounts on the side of the milk packet and trying to compare our kid to other babies. Always a bad idea. As everyone keeps saying “all babies are different”.

The new routine’s only been going for the last five days, so can’t comment yet on whether it’s working – I’ll give it a while longer before I say anything.

One thing that has generally improved is his sleeping  – he does tend to get through the night now. Let’s hope it lasts…..

It’s playtime

Baby A always seems to be in a good mood in the mornings (long may it continue). I wish his idea of morning was the same as mine though (i.e. NOT before 9am). I got woken up by him going through his exercise regime at 7am and thought it only fair that I grab my camera and share it with you:

First things first, a few stretches of the arms….

I’m excited – this is fun!

Let me just take a quick break and chew on something for a while…

Wait a minute…..who’s that pointing a camera at me?

Noooo! You can’t take pics of me on my workout! People pay good money for that sort of thing!

Phew, I’m tired now….

Mad dash to the hospital

I’ve explained before how Baby A just won’t feed comfortably, crying and screaming, pushing the bottle away, etc. It’s been a real struggle and we’ve got quite down about it. Things reached a head this weekend when he threw up a couple of times and slept through the night with an empty stomach.

We’d had enough, so thought we should take him to the hospital, get advice from a paediatrician. Since Baby A had been sick in the morning, we were up quite early at 7.30am (on a Sunday no less!)….but for some reason it wasn’t until 2 hours later that we finally left the house. Not quite a mad dash, admittedly – more a leisurely stroll.

One good thing about going in the morning is that there was no queue at the hospital – we got seen by a nurse pretty much straight away. We expected Baby A to act up…but he was as good as gold, despite a completely empty stomach. He was very curious and wide eyed and giggled with the nurse. I reckon he was flirting.

He had to give a urine sample, which was an….interesting experience. How do you tell a 3 month old that he has to pee in a pot? The little containers they give aren’t the best designed either – they are a bit wide – more scope for spillage. Can’t i just have used a bottle?

So there we were, Mummy A holding him her lap (fearing a fountain in her face at any moment) and me holding a plastic container, ready to catch the mess. The same thought always ends up going through my mind as well, whenever we take his nappy off – what if he decides now is the time to do a poo?

Luckily, it went surprisingly well with minimal mess and we got his nappy back on quick smart. The doctor came shortly afterwards and we expected him to be grumpy. Instead, he smiled and laughed with her. C’mon Baby A, you’re meant to follow the script!

We went through our complaints about his feeding problems and the was he cries all the time and thought we would demonstrate with a bottle. So, we waved the bottle in his face…..and he latched on and started drinking like crazy. He drank 2 ounces in the space of 5 minutes.

Typical isn’t it? You want to explain to the doctor what a problem he is – and he destroys your credibility by acting like the perfect baby.

The doctor was very nice though and prescribed an antacid, in case that helped. We really wanted to make the doctor understand how he can act up, so she got a bottle of pre-prepared milk to try. So again, we waved the bottle in his face….and he drank the whole thing in 15 minutes. Aaaaargh! The only time we want him to cry – and he refuses.

Going to the hospital was worth it though (even if the doctor was probably quite sceptical due to Baby A’s “model” behaviour). The doctor did give us a few things to think about – and hey, he drank 6 ounces in one go. Maybe we should take a trip to the hospital whenever we need to feed him.

Check out my wheels

We finally got Baby A’s buggy out to take him on a trip. I’ve been accused of mollycoddling him so it’s about time really. To be fair we haven’t taken him out enough, but it was a lovely day so we thought we’d let him check out his new wheels. He was ecstatic to get into the pushchair (as you can tell by the picture)…..

We didn’t go too far – went into the supermarket first, just to see what his reactions would be. He was as good as gold, eyes wide open and looking around at everything.

At one point I said to Mummy A “Shall I scare him a bit?”…..and took him into the baby milk section. What can be more terrifying for someone that dislikes milk, eh?

Afterwards we drove to a few other shops in the retail park. I don’t know whether it was because of the weather, but the whole place stank. Not “oooh, there’s a funny odour in the air” sort of stink, but “It smells so bad I’m going to be sick” type of smell. At first we thought it was Baby A’s nappy (few things are worse than that), but this smell got everywhere.*

As a result we didn’t stay out too much longer, but Baby A seemed to have a good time of it. He enjoys the motion in the buggy and only got a little bit ratty when he got hungry (still didn’t want milk though).

* Turns out the retail park is built near a sewage works. Clever planning there.