9 months and counting

So this week Harrison turned 9 months old. We celebrated this milestone and our own 4 year anniversary with a delicious Sunday roast at the Compasses in Pattiswick. It seems hard to believe that enough time has passed for me to grow another baby inside me - though that is the very last thing I want right now! 

As I write this, Harrison is desperately trying to crawl, lifting his shoulders and chest high off the floor and wriggling his bottom and legs. He makes all the right moves and then...gives up and rolls over. He finds it very frustrating and if he's in a bit of a precious mood, he will have a little paddy. It's so hard to watch, I try to encourage him and get him into the right position, as well as giving him lots of opportunity to practice, but it's something he has to figure out in his own. Most other babies we know around his age are crawling so by having lots of play dates with them, I'm hoping Harrison will be able to observe how they move and pick up some tips. 

But there are lots of things Harrison can do now and it seems like everyday he picks up a new skill. Amazingly, he understands basic instructions which makes me think he knows what we're saying a lot more than we realise. I will soon have to stop swearing in front of him! Not that I do it that much! 

He can clap his hands, and do it without being shown first if you say 'clap hands' and give him encouragement.

If you ask him where a favourite toy is, like Neep, Iggle Piggle or Dumdy Tiger, 9 times out of 10 he will look around for it, reach it and start playing with it. He does this with his dummy too.

You can play a lovely game with Harrison now. If you roll his light up drum or rainmaker to him, he will often roll it back to you and I've been known to spend 15 - 20 mins getting a good volley going with him.

He can't quite pull himself up to standing yet but he does try, especially in his cot. If you stand him up and give him the edge of the sofa to hold onto, he will stand there quite sturdily and happily for a long time. 

He babbles a lot. He knows what Dada means and sits quite happily saying 'Da-da-da-da', especially when J gets home. He also mimics 'oh dear' (when he drops something on the floor for example). If I'm singing loudly, he will sometimes 'join in' with his own loud 'ooohs' and 'aahs'.

He finds certain things hilarious. Like my sneezes, the word cheese - especially when you replace a word in a favourite song with the word cheese! There is a little green dinosaur called Tony in a programme on Cbeebies called Dinopaws and whenever he comes on screen Harrison giggles away. It's very sweet. He is generally a very happy boy and is always smiling and giggling at things. I love being his mummy so much!

Bump

Yesterday morning I was doing some chores in our bedroom. Because Harrison is now rolling all over the place, I thought it would he a good idea to pop him in a laundry basket on our bed so he could still watch Cbeebies whilst I hung up clothes and put things away. I padded the basket with a blanket and he seemed fine, happily watching his programmes. I went into the nursery to hang up some of his clothes. After a few minutes I heard a sickening thud. I stopped for a second, praying that maybe it was the remote control falling off the bed. But I knew. I rushed into the room, the laundry basket was overturned on the bed and there was no Harrison. No sound. I ran to J's side of the bed and there was my little baby, face down, flat on the floor, not crying. The next few seconds were a blur. I picked him up, his little face was contorted with pain and shock. He opened his mouth and let out the loudest, most distressing wail I've ever heard. He started crying, so did I. I checked him over to find the source of pain. Was anything broken? Did he land on something sharp? A smallish red bruise, speckled with darker, blood-red spots formed on his forehead. I called J in a panic. Oh god, what had I done? This was all my fault. J tried to calm me down, I FaceTimed him and sent him some photos of Harrison's head. Did I need to take him to hospital? In the mean time, Harrison had stopped crying, but still seemed upset (understandably). I called 111, they assured me he should be fine but gave me some advice. They asked me to speak to a doctor too, which I did. By this point, Harrison seemed fine, he had a little nap but had been smiling and laughing at me before whilst I was making these calls. 

Then the anxiety kicked in. My mind kept reliving those moments, the basket on the bed, his fragile little body on the floor. And worse, my over active imagination insisted on playing over and over again every possibility of what may have happened. Did he fall this way or that? Did he roll out if the basket first and then fall of the bed? I saw his little body tumbling over the side backwards. Saw his little hands flail in the air as he tried to reach out for mummy to catch him, though I wasn't there. I wasn't with him and that just kills me. I imagine his little mind, confused and feeling pain, wondering how he ended up on the floor practically under the bed with the dust bunnies. Even now, nearly 24 hours after this occured, I am still rendered speechless and tears roll down my cheeks at my stupidity, of the terrible fear he must have felt and the realisation that it could have been so, so much worse.

He's lying next to me now, asleep and breathing gently on my face. His bruise is already fading, who knows what memories his mind holds, perhaps it's already forgotten. But for me, I will never forget. I will learn from that mistake and try to never, ever let that happen again. 

Holidays and High Jinks

Last week we went on our first family holiday to Dorset. We stayed in a lovely little cottage, about 6 miles from Lyme Regis, and celebrated 3 milestones - J's birthday, Harrison reaching 7 months old and J leaving his job in London. 

We had a really wonderful time and it was so good to spend quality time together, surrounded by glorious countryside, rolling hills and the breathtaking Jurassic Coast. We spent days eating fish and chips and fudge on the beach at Lyme Regis, climbing up Jacob's Ladder and exploring deep underground caves in Cheddar Gorge and trekking miles of perfect powder-white cliffs at Lulworth Cove and Durdle Door. 

Harrison, always such a chirpy ray of sunshine, took the change in scenery in his stride and slept well in his travel cot, quite possibly exhausted from the exciting adventures of the day. As for me and J, we got to spend evenings cuddled up drinking in this view and some delicious moscato rosé. 

It's no lie that that we face some real changes as a family now as J embarks on a new path for his career, but perhaps it was the long car journeys filled with good conversation, the moments of peace surrounded by nature, the fun of the seaside or the joy of standing on a cliff top marvelling at our beautiful world with the two people I love best in all the world, but I feel renewed. I feel whole. I feel like we have made amazing memories for us and our boy. And I feel excited for these new changes and for how they will shape our family's future.

As for the latest on our little bundle of joy, he is learning new skills at an alarming rate! Sitting up on his own is now a doddle. He now does a funny little wiggly dance when he's excited. He reaches out for me, J, his favourite toys. He grins and giggles with glee when he hears his Iggle Piggle sing it's song. He laughs at my silliness and revels in the dodgy dances, songs and tricks I perform. I'm his personal entertainer and have an embarrassingly large repertoire of daft things I will do to see his gorgeous, gummy grin. Of course, when J does something silly or joins in, it's even better and we will lapse into our comedy duo routine, much to Harrison's delight. 

J's career change means that currently we are blessed with lots of family time whilst things get up and running. I'm so overjoyed that J gets to see more of his son now, at this most precious and exciting time of his life. Now I have someone to share those magical moments with when Harrison performs tricks of his own, whether it's finishing a bowl of porridge in the morning without a fuss or doing his little jig when In the Night Garden comes on the TV. 

Sometime I do feel like it's the little things that matter the most in life. And Harrison is the littlest of us all. 

Half Birthday

This weekend saw our baby boy turn 6 months old! I know I wrote this on every post but seriously - where has the time gone?! It feels like only yesterday we brought him home from the hospital and I laid in bed listening to every snuffly breath he made, exhausted but barely able to sleep because of the adrenaline pumping round my body - our baby was here at last! I remember sneaking out the room and sitting in the nursery with him, the weak early morning light streaming in through the curtains as I breastfed him properly alone for the first time. How proud I felt, how I radiated love for this new tiny person from ever fibre of my being. 

Six months on and I'm still breastfeeding, though I have obviously introduced a few solids to his diet now. Harrison is now a fan of porridge, banana, sweet potato, butternut squash and apple. Today I'll try him with some peach purée I made and hopefully he'll like it. 

Unfortunately, I couldn't be with my baby boy for his half-birthday morning as I had to go into hospital to finally remove that pesky wisdom tooth! They do say that you lose a tooth for every child you have! I got sent this photo of my two best boys though, which really cheered me up.

And this weekend we welcomed a new addition to the household, a shiny new car... This one actually fits the pushchair and a weeks worth of shopping in the boot!

Harrison has reached such a lovely age, he learns something new everyday and is now into everything - grabbing everything he can reach, trying to kiss my face, pulling my hair...he is such a good natured boy and always has a big smile for his mummy and daddy. 

Weaning

Since I last wrote we've had some big things happen with Harrison. Firstly, he got quite a serious ear infection and had to go to hospital. At first, we were told he'd be hooked up to an IV over the weekend but we were actually discharged from hospital later in the afternoon with just some ear drops, thank goodness. The ear infection was called Psuedomonas and is resistant to most antibiotics and can be very dangerous in babies or immune-compromised people if it spreads round the body. After many hospital appointments involving his ear being vacuumed out (or de-gunked as I like to put it) it seems to have gone away and he is back to his cheery little self.

Secondly, we have moved Harrison into his cot in the nursery. It was a very hard decision to make, and there were lots of tears on my part on being separated from my baby boy. But it was ultimately my decision and the right one I think. He was just getting too big for his Moses basket and thrashing around in it a lot, which woke me and him up. The transition has been difficult. We've had good nights and some truly terrible ones, but things seem to be levelling out now. The last few nights he's only woken once or twice and I've actually been able to get some sleep! A week or so ago we had 3 bad nights in a row where he woke every hour. I cannot begin to describe how awful I felt in the daytime - like a zombie. Sleep deprivation really is the worst! A few nights ago he went down at 9pm and woke up at 4:30am. Amazing you might think - apart from the fact I woke up every hour from 1am expecting him to start calling out for a feed. So he got a good nights sleep but I didn't - even though I could have. I've honestly forgotten what a good nights sleep feels like, where I don't need to wake up and see to my baby. The last two nights he's woken once, around 2:30am, had some milk and gone straight back to sleep (like the old days in his Moses basket). A couple of times he's stirred or woken himself up but has managed to self-soothe, which I hope he continues to do. 

Thirdly, we've started weaning! A little earlier than planned, due to the fact I have an operation to remove my wisdom tooth on his 6 month birthday. We started with some baby rice on Easter Monday...

... but no matter how much I added, it just wouldn't make a paste with my milk. So after a couple of days of offering just that once a day, I graduated him onto baby porridge...

... which he loves! So he has a few teaspoons of that for breakfast now after a milk feed. Then, on Saturday just gone, I made my first baby purée in my Beaba Babycook and Harrison had his first taste of organic sweet potato!

This went down very well. So I then gave him porridge for breakfast and a purée for dinner, with all of his usual milk feeds in between. Yesterday, I offered him see steamed carrot sticks, whilst I ate some raw ones in front of him. I thought I'd dabble in a bit of baby led weaning, see how he got on. Well, it wasn't much of a success. I know baby led weaning is very popular, but I was concerned about him choking, plus, no matter how many books I read, I still feel it's my responsibility as a parent to dictate what foods he eats, how much and when. 

I think Harrison agrees...

I ended up puréeing the carrots for his dinner so they didn't go to waste. Today I've introduced a bit of purée at lunchtime (he ate about a third of the pot) just to see how he would get on with it. I'm also offering some water in a sippy cup with his meals and encouraging him to take sips alongside spoonfuls of his food. He likes his sippy cup, but he finds the action of drinking from it funny and most of the water ends up down his front.

Weaning is really fun so far, I'm enjoying giving him new things to try (he's got butternut squash for dinner tonight - I wonder how he'll get on!) but at the same time, I'm a little sad by how quickly time is going. My baby boy is growing up so fast- in his own room, now experimenting with food... every milestone leaves a bittersweet taste in my mouth. Next week he will be 6 months old! How time flies...