On the move

Christopher is now on the move. He has discovered how to crawl and nothing is safe anymore, combine that with his fascination with wire and you have the recipe for a shocking experience. I'm thinking of giving him a cable to chew that's connected to a 9 volt batter, that will discourage him to chew on wires. Maybe those "medical practitioners" of the '30s had something with their electro-shock therapy.

He is now fully mobile and never lets us forget it, he has discovered the cats food, although so far he hasn't managed to eat any but he never passes up an opportunity to try. I think we should let him give it a go, if he likes it that's fine, it's cheaper than baby food!


This weekend we decided to go away for a night and take Christopher with us. We wanted to see what it is like to go away with a baby. Instead of taking the easy option and going to a nice B&B we decided camping was a really good idea. No half measures for us! So we joined Sean and Josie at Theewaters for a night, on Saturday. Sean, took me sailing on his hobbie, quite exciting and just a little scary. I never realised how twitchy they are and how quickly they power-up.

Christopher enjoyed spending time with his god father, or at least his god father's beer! After stealing far too much beer, he felt the effects the next morning and so resorted to the age old black coffee cure.

Sunday we joined the other members of our ante-natal class for a braai in Tokai forest. Christopher surprised everyone when he started crawling across the blankets, Christopher is the youngest and the first to start crawling, so it caught everyone by surprise. After talking to the other parents we realised once again how lucky we are with Christopher and how easy he is in comparison to some of the other children.

So with Christopher firmly on the move I have started to rethink the bungee cord option, Jenny seems firmly against the idea, not sure why? Anyhow, he now has to learn the concept on "No" and "Don't Touch". I think it is going to be an interesting (and probably tiring) time until he does learn.

Half way to the first birthday!

Christopher has pasted the 6 month mark and is showing every sign of increasing the number of grey hairs I have. He has now progressed to the big bath, great fun for him, however, back breaking and rib bruising for me. Sitting crouched over the bath for half an hour while he splashes and plays is hell on the back, and the periodic lunches across the bath to catch him when he decides that leaving a face impression in the side of the bath is a REALLY good idea; are playing hell with the ribs. We tried him in the sitting ring, but as he is sitting up pretty well by himself he found it more frustrating than helpful.

He is also having great time playing with his tug boats, I'm a little worried that there may be some form of illicit drug in the glue they used for the stickers, he seems to get far too much pleasure out of licking his tug boats, and as you can see from the picture he gets a very laid back attitude after licking his tug-boats. Our son the tug-boat addict!

He also got his first front tooth a little after his 6 month birthday, and today his second bottom front tooth has come out. So the bath routine has now been supplemented by a gum wipe with special little towels, well I suppose that is a lot easier than using a tiny little tooth brush!

We bought him a swing and he loves being pushed in the swing, with the weather warming up he is starting to experience the great wildness that is Africa, or at least the profusion of weeds we call a lawn.

The only problem is that I think our son is a rastafarian, it is not so much the way he talks as the fascination he has with grass. So far the smoking part has not dawned on him, but the eating is definitely high on his priority.

He is also getting FAR too mobile, between rolling around and starting to crawl he is getting to places we don't want him to be. Ok, the crawling is maybe a bit generous, he is able to get up onto all fours and then to fall down again. The resultant net gain of forward movement is only a couple of centimeters. However, with persistence this is enough to make sure that we are never confident of finding him where we left him. I strongly think that I need to start looking at the practicalities of the bungee-babysitter.