Impersonations at bath time

Christopher is now sitting up, well at least for longer periods of time. This is now become great fun at bath time as he now has disdainfully tossed the bath support out and is now sitting and splashing in the bath. He has also taken the opportunity to start doing impressions.

Grand Wizard of the Klu Klux Klan, or maybe it is more a papal impression.

Kilroy Was Here

Mr Bean

Never a dull (or dry!) moment with him in the bath. As his repertoire of impressions expands we'll keep you all updated.

The true mass of a baby

Most people talk about how much their baby weighs, and while Christopher now weighs about 8.1kg, that is not his true mass. To understand this I need to explaining inertia.

"Newton'’s first law of inertia states that objects tend to resist changes in their state of motion. An object in motion will tend to stay in motion and an object at rest will tend to stay at rest unless acted upon by a force."

In other words inertia is an indication of the amount of effort required to bring about change, as velocity (change) is a product of force (effort) and mass we can calculate the mass by working out the effort required to bring about change. Therefore to measure the true mass of the baby we need to look at the effort required to bring about a change.

In order to do this compare two couples, one without a baby (couple A) and one with (couple B), the only difference being the little bouncing bundle of joy. Therefore any additional effort required would be as a direct result of the baby, from this we can the determine the mass of the baby.

Picture this scenario, both couples are going to a braai at a friend's place.

Twenty minutes before they have to be there Couple A grab their wallets and jackets, hop into the car and head off. On the way they stop at a supermarket to get meat and salads and pop into a bottle store to get a couple of drinks.

Now Couple B; the night before they work out what time they need to start the first feed in order to ensure the lunch time feeds can slot in with the braai. A feed just before they have to leave and they'll be late, a feed too early and junior will be niggly at the braai and may require extra feeds while they are out.

Next they need to plan the how many bottles they are going to need, what toys need to be taken, will a camp-cot be necessary, do they need to take sleeping blankets, etc. Once all packed it is then getting parents dressed (because clothes are covered in drool/butternut/etc) and then get junior dressed. Once everyone is dressed then junior is put into the car seat and all paraphernalia is put in the car. Stage 1 complete.

Now drinks and food. First find a supermarket with sufficient parking, pram out, baby in pram, everyone into the shops, buy food and then back to the car. Baby into car seat, pram into boot. Next find a bottle store, repeat the same procedure again.

So far Couple B had to start preparations a couple of hours before Couple A.

Now tragedy strikes and the friend's house burns down.

What is Couple A's reaction? "Jeez, really sorry, is there anything we can do?", and the reaction of Couple B: "Sorry to hear about your house, but we're on our way already, at least the coals will be ready!"

It is not that Couple B doesn't care it is just a case that Couple B has too much inertia now to be able to stop, they have to go through with the braai.

I used to sail competitively on a 65 foot yacht called Merlin. The mainsail of Merlin weighs about 100kg, and I would compare effort of getting ready to go out with Christopher to raising the mainsail about 5 times. So if you ask me what Christopher weighs, it is 8.1kg. If you ask me what his mass is, it is about half a ton, and that is a LOT of inertia to get moving and to stop once set in motion!

Un-BEAR-able!

Christopher is teething and is now getting difficult, he was unBEARable, however, thanks to Kate he is now very BEARable. Perhaps one could even say he is overBEARing! Ok, enough of the bad puns.

We have entered the realms of solid foods, and while the rice cereal is a bit messy, the white makes it look relatively tame. Butternut, on the other hand, is clearly a messy affair. Add to that a father who has not mastered this whole feeding procedure and you have a recipe for mess!

He does seem to be enjoying the butternut and we have now put our blender (thanks Ed and Ann) to it original use. I thought the daiquiris were a perfectly legitimate use as well, but baby food was the original reason for the blender. Maybe we should try butternut daiquiris? Yum!
Christopher has now learnt to roll over, well at least halfway. He can roll from his back onto his stomach, but hasn't quite figured out how to roll back yet. So after getting onto his tummy, he gets tired of holding his head up and then either cries until we help him onto his back, or he puts his head down and has a little rest. Just like some friends of ours who specialise in 'little rests'!
Shirley has also now joined the realms of parenthood with baby Keira (2.45kg) born on 16 September at 00:12. She is doing well but we have not managed to go and see her yet, we will hopefully be seeing her in the next day or two.

A solid start

Christopher has been introduced to the joys of solid food. As he is starting to get quite big, we have decided to start introducing solids so when he starts to need them he will be used to them.

The first meal was a tasty meal of rice cereal and breast milk. Yum! Well, Christopher didn't quite share our enthusiasm. While getting the food into his mouth was easy, getting him to keep it in his mouth was slightly more difficult. It was not so much a case of him spitting it out as just not quite understanding what we were doing.

In retrospect it would have been quicker to simply take the cereal and pour it onto his bib and leave Christopher out of the whole equation. It could have saved a lot of time! We will persevere and get him onto solids. Today I'm pretty sure I got him to swallow one spoonful. One small gulp for Christopher one large gulp for the Paverd household!

Of course the down side of solids is that, from what we hear, once the solids go in the top, they tend to come out more regularly down below; and with a lot more potency! Thank goodness for Monica.

For those who don't know, we now have a full-time nanny, Monica. She is really attentive to Christopher and insists on giving the house a full clean every day. Our house has never been this clean! We are also trying to get some semblance of order in our garden, so we have Eugene coming in 2 or 3 days a week to work in the garden. I'm starting to feel quite colonial!

Christopher is also starting to out grow his bath, and with a little help (ok, quite a bit) is sitting up in his bath. Very soon we are going to have to start using the normal bath. Jenny is quite excited by this as the bath will then be filled with a host of bath toys. Let's just hope we'll be able to find Christopher between all the toys!

We are also fairly sure he is starting to teethe, he has been very niggly. Which is most unlike him, so we are in for some interesting times ahead if what all our friends say is true. Hopefully his teething phase is like all the others so far, fairly painless!