Santas on the run

Rowan is running his first race on 15 December (well, actually I'll be pushing him along in his pram, but he insisted on entering) to raise money for Children's Hospice South West. It's the 2km 'Santas on the Run' race, so everyone will be dressed as Santa. If you would like to donate please click on the attached link (it's the IOPP team Just Giving page).

http://www.justgiving.com/IOPPsantas

Domestic God

Let's hope Rowan's fascination with household cleaning doesn't fade as he gets older...

 I spend half my life peeling

Rowan off the vacuum cleaner

 That must be what the delicate 

cycle is for

   Um. Bit sinister

Going viral

These last couple of months been hard. Really hard.  Since Rowan started nursery about 8 weeks go, he has had cold after cold, with the odd bout of teething interspersed.  He has had to come home from nursery a few times, which fortunately has mostly worked out with Gareth's shifts.  There's only been one day I've had to come home to collect him (oh yeah, I've returned to work too).
It is inevitable that with that amount of virus being coughed, sneezed and snotted about that the rest of the household will succumb at some point.  Unfortunately, Gareth and I caught Rowan's worst cold.  One of the ones that make your entire face feel like it's going to burst open, with your eyes being pushed out from sinus pressure. Ok, I know that's a tad melodramatic when really it is just a cold, but we discovered how difficult it is to look after a baby whilst you're feeling like you'd rather slither behind the cushions in the sofa, and only be missed when an unpleasant smell starts to emanate from said sofa.
Add to this a constant cramping from the coil I've had for 7 months (I don't have a good track record for coils, but this one (a Mirena) was different so I thought it was worth a go) and I've been pretty wiped.

Anyway, moan over, we're all starting to feel a lot better now, and normality is crawling back (i.e. Rowan is resuming destroying the house and we're struggling to keep up with him!)  I have a scan tomorrow to check the coil is in the right position.  Depending on the results, depends on what I decide to do after. 

The house became a bit of a state whilst I was unwell.

Here Rowan is happily about to play with a pile of his

vomit*.  My life is all about the glamor. 

Gareth discovered a great way to keep track of Rowan

when we were perhaps not at our most alert.

Tether-Baby. Patent pending.

*I didn't realise he'd been sick until I took the photo, other wise I would have prioritized cleaning it up.  I'm not that much of a slob.

Discovery boxes

One of the best ideas I've come across for baby toys online is discovery boxes (I think it was from The Imagination Tree).  It's such a basic concept, but the entertainment potential seems endless. Essentially, a discovery box is a box or basket that is filled with a selection of items from around the home.  The only stipulation is that no grotesque plastic toys are allowed (and nothing that will actually kill or hurt your baby, but if you need to be told that then you should probably stick with air plants instead of children).

Rowan's current box has an array of items such as CDs, a piece of felt, a leather keychain, an egg box, a tennis ball etc. I tried to pick a selection of things that would be a varied sensory experience for him (the light reflecting from the CD; the fuzzy felt etc.) and he loves it!

Rowan exploring his discovery box

Tangent also loves discovery boxes, and tries to 

claim certain items that takes his fancy 

Discovery boxes do not appear to help refine

elegance.

Hallowe'en 2013

I have been looking forward to this Hallowe'en since Rowan was born.  I love Hallowe'en, with all the costumes, games, and fun baking.  Whilst I know Rowan is too little to understand all the hype, I still wanted to make his first Hallowe'en awesome.
I spent the night before carving a pumpkin, making pumpkin pies and baking a batch of monstrous mouldy muffins.  Gareth had the idea of using some hand and foot prints from Rowan as the basis of the carving pattern, and I hacked away at the pumpkin with a scalpel (no fingers lost this year. Result!). I have to say the overall effect was really good!

Too little to carve his own pumpkin, but

we still involved Rowan for his first

Hallowe'en 

I was pleased how the hands/feet looked

like a happy face

Rowan went to nursery sporting his 'my first halloween' shirt from his nanny.  When he got home, he stole a piece of pumpkin pie I turned my back on briefly.  

Mmmm... pie...

We haven't had a lot of trick or treaters over the years, but luckily Rowan was awake to see the first visitors. Can't say he was overly moved by the experience, but he stared at them for an uncomfortable amount of time.  

We are now stuck with a ridiculous amount of Haribo. Erg.

Rowan went to bed in his new Hallowe'en baby grow (it glows in the dark!  In. The. Dark! How cool is that? I may or may not have been a child of the 90's...) and I read a scary(ish) story, The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson because Stephen King's the Shining was a bit long.

Sleepy bones!

Finally, the monstrous mouldy muffins I mentioned previously were made for Gareth and I to take to our work places.  They were just a basic muffin mix with copious amounts of green food colour. I then added some more drops of food colouring on the tops when they were nearly baked. I added white chocolate chunks, and dollops of jam in the middle.  I'm quite proud of how terrible they look:

The mould effect came out better than I though it would

Trips to the park

When we first took Rowan to the park, aged 8 months (to actually go on the swings instead of merely carrying around a floppy headed baby), he wasn't too thrilled.  Despite an obvious lack of enthusiasm, I was determined fun would be had so persisted with our family trip:

'I want to go home...

... Like, now.'

A good time was had by

all. Really.

Trip To The Park II was marginally more successful, with Rowan at least trying to look like he was enjoying himself.  I believe he cottoned on that if he made the right noises etc. the ordeal would be over quicker.  He cheered up considerably when we ventured away from the park equipment and let him go free-range on the grass.  

Aged 10 months

 A climbing wall that in years to come will give us

heart attacks watching Rowan climb it

'Let them eat grass'

Happiest in a field with his dog.  His mother's son

alright!

Homemade baby toys!

Baby toys.  Wow.  Now they're expensive!  I love to indulge Rowan when I can, but I truly begrudge paying for overpriced plastic that he'll only have a passing interest in.  Then I discovered The Imagination Tree and have been inspired to make my own toys for Rowan.  Making baby toys was something I'd shied away from as I was worried whatever I made would instantly disintegrate, and Rowan would end up choking on my thriftiness.  So, perusing through Anna's website has given me confidence to have a go. 

The first item I made was a ribbon pot since I have an abundance of ribbon (I'm a crafter; we throw nuthin' away):

Bit blurry, but here's my pot

looking very much handmade 

Rowan was fascinated with it, but mostly 

wanted to eat it

I then had a go as making some discovery bottles.   I had a load of Quality Street sweet wrappers that I kept for a few years (again, crafter) and added them to one of the bottles, and it's Rowan's favourite:

The video's a bit dark, but you can hear he's

enjoying the bottle!

  I filled this one with water and added some

glitter, beads and sequins.  I made sure the

lid was securely super-glued before handing

it over!

Bristol Zoo

My best friend from university had a meeting in the South West this week, and so she took the opportunity to visit Gareth, Rowan and myself.  As we both studied zoology, we decided to visit Bristol Zoo.  So Rowan ended up with a zoology graduate and a doctor of marine science as his guides.  It was perhaps a little extreme for him.
I was surprised that he coped with such a long, busy day.  We arrived at 10:30am, and left at 3pm during which time Rowan took a couple of naps in his pram, but apart from that he was enthralled with the zoo.  He particularly enjoyed the butterflies and the aquarium.  And the ducks.  He pretty much ignored the posturing gorillas to watch the ducks. Oh well.

Since I haven't asked my friend if she minds me adding photos of her here yet, I haven't uploaded any.  But she does exist.  I do have friends, really.

Zoo!

The first of many 'your face here' boards

that will appear over Rowan's childhood  

Rowan was mesmorised by the colours

of the fish, coral and anemones in the

aquarium 

The butterflies fluttered very close to Rowan's

face, which caught his attention! 

Busted!

From what I gather, Rowan is unusual in that he will go down for a nap with relative ease.  Last week I put him in his Gro Bag (I keep calling them 'body bags,' which is possibly not the best name for them) and set him down on his back for an afternoon nap.  I had the baby monitor with me whilst I got on with some housework, and heard the mobile lullabies through it.  Initially I didn't think anything of it, until I remembered I didn't turn it on.  Then I heard some happy little chatterings.  I went to check on Rowan and found him like this:

 

Guilty face

I'm not sure how he turned on the mobile, but I suspect some headbanging was probably involved.  Since he figured out this rolling lark a while ago it's all he wants to do! 

Development

Rowan has no interest in learning how to sit on his own.  That's far too sedentary for him.  He's much rather be busy bouncing...

 

...or working out how to stand on his own.  I fear we may be packing our breakables out of his reach in the next few weeks/months.  

Swimming

We took Rowan for his first swim when he was 4 months old.  He took it all in his stride, and nonchalantly floated about in his inflatable chair like a contemptuous king.  Gareth pushed him around making motor boat noises, which Rowan thoroughly approved of.
Unfortunately, due to Rowan having a tummy bug (another first!) and a few other bits, we hadn't taken him swimming for 2 months.  This time he spent the majority of his time out of his inflatable chair, and enjoyed splashing about whilst being supported by me.  I was surprised when half an hour had passed and he was still happy, but ended the session there as I didn't want to push it.  I still haven't dunked him under the water yet, but I will do soon to help boost his confidence in the water.

Unfortunately, I couldn't take photos of him in the pool, but here are a couple of him getting ready.

Unimpressed thus far

Super cool swim nappy!

Unfortunately this one came out

blurry - babies don't keep still

(who knew?), but I still think it's a 

nice shot.

The bouncing game

Rowan is a very active baby, and especially enjoys physical games.  His particular favourite is being bounced and he will try to encourage you to continue the game by continuously bending his knees.  The bouncing game was perfectly fine when he was smaller.  Now he's nearly one stone in weight it's not quite so easy but it's a brilliant workout!

I apologise for the orientation of the video below.  I need to download some software so I can edit it, but that sounded suspiciously like work so you'll have to content yourself with either tilting your head or laptop.

If you turn on your speakers, you can hear Rowan's squeal of delight!

Weaning

We've started to wean Rowan as he was giving several cues that he was ready for 'real food.'  He was getting angry after finishing a milk feed, suggesting he wasn't getting enough; he went back to demanding feeds every 2 hours and watched us with intense fascination whenever we ate in front of him (he nearly swiped a chicken goujon from Gareth's hand, such was his determination to eat. Although babies grab anything and everything at this age, so not really a testament to his readiness for weaning).

So far he has tried carrot; parsnip; banana; peas; pear; porridge and baby rice and he hasn't refused anything so far.  We seem to have the opposite problem and run out before he's had his fill.  We're not sure if we should stick to the recommended portion size, or just give him more.  He does get topped up with milk, so he's not exactly starving.

It's great fun watching him explore new tastes and textures.  We've learnt to have a damp cloth on standby to mop him down, and to use two spoons so he can hold one to avoid situations like this:

A downside to weaning is that the contents of his nappy are no longer the inoffensive deposits of a breastfed baby.  Hopefully this will calm down once his digestive system has got used to these new foods.  I'm not sure I can cope with 3 years of handling toxic waste that smells like it could be used to strip paint.  Actually, that would be useful considering the amount of decorating we still have to do.

First family meal

Happiness is a pureed carrot

Making sure the spoon doesn't go anywhere but

his face 

Food coma

Mother's Day

A belated post on the Mother's Day gifts I made for my Mum and Mother-in-law this year. I wanted to make a 'gift in a jar' and finally settled on making a cookie mix.  This consists of layering the dry ingredients of a cookie mix in a decorated jar, and including a recipe card for the recipient to complete them. I took inspiration from www.bakerella.com and used her Cowgirl Cookie recipe (which can be found here).  As the recipe was in American cups, I had to convert the butter amount on the recipe card to metric (250 grams, if you were wondering).

Considering I was attempting to make them in the brief times when Rowan was napping, or whilst trying to simultaneously entertain him, I was quite happy with the outcome. Although I would have liked to spend a tad more time on them to make them look professional instead of something I brought home from school (i.e. printing out the recipe/'how to' label instead of handwriting it, and co-ordinating the themes better - I was stashbusting and nothing in my stash quite worked together).  Anyway, for your viewing pleasure, here are the results:

If I did them again I would use chocolate chips as the original recipe suggested, rather than chop up a bar of chocolate. Small bits of chocolate fell through to the layer beneath, so it lost the crisp contrast of layers.
The cookies are delicious, and you can freeze up the cookie balls to bake when you fancy some warm cookie goodness!

Sleep regression

Another long gap between posts!  Rowan has been going through a sleep regression, so I've not really been inclined to blog.  My normally super sleeper (we're talking up to 10 hours here) suddenly started waking up every three hours four weeks ago.  This is normal, apparently, as babies start having more adult sleep cycles when they hit 4 months, so they cycle from deep to light sleep every 50mins or so.  It can take them awhile before they learn to settle themselves after waking from the light sleep.  This is the time when adults would turn over, or adjust their pillow etc. and then go back to sleep.
It's either that or Rowan is gearing himself up for weaning, since he always seems to be hungry too.  He'll have to wait a bit though, as the earliest I've read they can be weaned is 17 weeks.  I think we'll start dipping our fingers in certain foods though and letting him have a taste as a palate preparation!

In other developmental news, Rowan spent two days rolling from front to back, and hasn't done it since! I guess he figures he has nothing to prove now he knows he can do it.

Anyway, since it's been so long between posts, here are some photos from the last few weeks:

Make sure you put the right one in the right bed...

Bizarre frog impression

I believe he was watching the thoroughly

age-appropriate 'Oz' in this one. 

Tummy time Daddy style!

Meeting Aunty Pod 

All the cousins. From left to right:

Emma, Tom, Lily and Rowan 

Meeting Uncle Mark. Rowan was a tad overtired

by this point. 

Looking rather grown-up

Coolness in a babygrow

Hugs with Nanny

Hugs with Grand-dad

 Rowan recliningon my breastfeeding pillow. His

favourite place!

Rockin' the pink Bumbo

Run Tangent, run! Before he becomes

independently mobile 

First drawing