26/52

This week, it's Mr I Love Standing again. But now, with his first pair of shoes!



Before anyone says it - no, babies Jamie's age should not be having their feet moulded into shoes. They should be barefoot or at most in socks/tights and soft bootees when it's cold. Quite apart from allowing the feet to grow, having feet in contact with the ground makes balance easier and is a sensory experience and so on... I know that, and 99% of the time Jamie's feet enjoy glorious freedom.

However, Jamie is no longer content to just toddle about on the picnic blanket when we go to the park. And the first time he insisted on stepping *off* the blanket, I had a sudden visual shift, where the park changed from a lovely carpet of fresh green grass and flowers and dappled shade of trees, to a horrific vista of twigs, splinters, discarded peanut shells, urinating dogs, cigarette ends, broken plastic forks from deli lunches...

So. For walking around outdoors, shoes. We went to Clarks, and he was measured as a size 2 1/2 F. At first he was very confused by his shoes. I think maybe he felt like the floor was coming with him as he stepped. But he soon got the hang of it and now, as long as he has a willing minion to provide fingers for him to hold, he can walk metres and metres. It's brilliant and scary, all at once.

25/52

With Father's Day tomorrow it seems appropriate that this week's picture is Jamie and Daddy.




We had a sling consultation as a family when Jamie was just one week old. I ended up with the ring sling, and Steve... well, he was confident about *me* having tiny Jamie strapped to my front but never quite got there for himself, opting instead to use the pushchair.

At 8 months old though, Jamie is stronger and heavier and a lot more awake than he was at that first consultation, so we finally revisited the idea of a baby backpack. As you can see, it looks like it will work - he is comfortable enough to fall asleep in it and when awake, he likes the novelty of being tall. We don't plan on him spending hours in it, but hopefully an occasional walk around the block for some fresh air and father/son time will be achievable over the summer.

24/52

Almost half way, and this week's picture echoes the picture from Week One.



Same bed, same pillow, same baby. But! I love looking at the two pictures and seeing just so many similarities and so many differences.

23/52

This week's photo was taken at Batsford Arboretum, where we went on the basis that Jamie likes trees. It was a really idyllic family afternoon out.



Yep, Jamie is mobile. It's still not quite a full traditional crawl with the arms and legs alternating sides. Instead he gets up on all fours like this, and launches forwards, rinse and repeat, making about three inches progress each time. In this manner he is able to reach all of the toys in his play area, which is great because we finally get to see what he wants rather than making our best guess of which toys he might like within reach.

His "cruising", which is the term for walking along hanging on to furniture, is also coming on slowly but surely, causing some people to speculate that he may skip the traditional crawling phase in favour of being an early walker. We'll just have to wait and see!

22/52

Seven weeks ago I was all excited about the first glimpse of a tooth in Jamie's mouth. Then a day or two later the sharp white dot vanished, the teething symptoms subsided, and I felt a bit silly.

Which is why I've put off this post until I could get an unequivocal picture...



No ifs, no buts, no squinting in the right light. That's teeth, that is.

He's coping very well, and so far hasn't bitten anything he shouldn't. I admit though to a slight feeling of apprehension every time I feed him...

21/52

Slightly late again, this time for reasons of choosing and cropping the favourite photo from a shoot which only took place on Saturday. Because Saturday was our fifth wedding anniversary, and one of the things we do on our anniversary is take a picture of ourselves holding the previous year's picture, which shows the picture from the year before that, and so on, all the way back to our wedding photograph.



This is Jamie's second year in the photograph; last year of course he was present in bump form, and then Steve printed out one of our scan pictures to "actual size" on an iron-on t-shirt transfer.

We wondered whether to have Jamie in the anniversary pictures as we're quite sure that, over the years, we will have anniversaries where he isn't present - perhaps with a babysitter, perhaps being a grumpy teenager who refuses to participate because he thinks his soppy parents are sooooo embarrassing, perhaps at university, or away with friends on holiday, or any number of other possibilities. All that is fair enough, time passes and things change. Right now, though, Jamie is at the absolute centre of our lives and our relationship, so to create an image featuring both of us and not him... it wouldn't be real.

20/52

This week's picture is of Jamie relaxing in his tent.



The tent was supposed to be the next phase after he grew out of the downstairs moses basket. We wanted somewhere safe for him to nap during the day, that wouldn't depend on me having support available to bring him up and down stairs. We also wanted something I could get him in and out of unaided, and where I could leave him at least moderately safely on his own for very short periods, for instance while washing my hands after a nappy change. The floor of the tent is at floor level, so no rolling off it, and it has a soft but permanent rim about ten inches high, so it's not easy to roll out. The whole side can be zipped up from outside if necessary, with one white mosquito-net layer and one darker sun-blind layer.

Success has been mixed. He doesn't often sleep in the tent. Even if he's already snoozing in my arms or the car seat, lying him down in the tent is a pretty sure-fire way of waking him up! With the advent of his mobility, we've gated off a big section of the room where he's safe enough for those brief moments, so it's no longer used for containment either.

On the other hand, he does like it in there and sometimes even asks (non-verbally) to go in. It's a little chill-out space of soft light and pastel colour. The only toys which live there are Teddy, and the Crinkly Lion that you can see in the picture - or to put it another way, one thing to cuddle and one thing to chew. It's a space where he can examine his hands or his feet without distraction, and calm down and collect his thoughts when the world has been a bit too stimulating for a bit too long. Steve and I have been known to feel rather envious.

19/52

Efforts to introduce Jamie to "solid foods" - a term which at this stage pretty much means anything more solid than milk - are continuing.

In this picture Jamie is wearing an Ella's Kitchen Spinach, Peas and Pears puree underneath his first taste of strawberry yoghurt. Strangely, or perhaps not, he seems to prefer the spinach.



There's not much to report, really. His spoon skills are doing nicely. My policy at present is that I will keep loading the spoon until he stops reaching for it and shoving it in his mouth, but he can only have bowls once they are emptied. He has been given finger foods - overcooked and cooled sticks of carrot, apple, broccoli, etc - but these are so far being treated with extreme suspicion.

To be honest there have been far more exciting things going on this week as Jamie has really nailed rolling and continues to experiment with his commando crawl. The trouble is that I don't get much opportunity to photograph that stuff. If he's not asleep or harnessed into something (sling, pushchair, high chair, car seat) then he's a bit of a blur. Maybe I need to ask the PAs to start doing photographs?

18/52

This week's photo is of Jamie having a good post-reading chew on The Very Hungry Caterpillar.



The reason it's been chosen as this week's photo is because this week, Jamie started to get that bit more mobile. He not only rolls confidently, but this picture is after the first time he managed to, well, not quite crawl, but wriggle and drag himself around.



And this was his goal. He started with his body entirely on the play mat - it might only be a few inches that he managed to move, but he managed it! I am incredibly proud that the first time he exercised his ability to move independently, he was going for a book.

17/52

This week's picture speaks for itself.



Jamie is generally speaking quite a happy child. We're getting a lot of these enormous gummy grins at the moment and we're loving each and every one.

On Practicalities

In the comments a couple of weeks ago was the following query:

"I wondered if sometime you might be able to write something about some of the practical issues around looking after a baby when you're disabled? My wife and I are considering having children soon, but I'm a bit concerned about how I will actually manage a baby with my level of fatigue (I have the same diagnosis as you), and with a wheelchair (how do you even push a pram with a wheelchair?!)."

I really want to answer this, but where to even begin...

Specific questions are easier and the query about pushing a pram with a wheelchair is simple enough to answer. I don't.

Every so often someone will send me a link to a product (which invariably turns out to not be a commercially available product, but a student's one-off engineering project or similar where they're trying to boost their grade on the Helping Those Less Fortunate ticket) that's a sort of pushchair that clamps onto a wheelchair. It's an interesting idea, but I've yet to see one that looks practical for any kind of day to day use.

If we're somewhere like my GP's surgery, where there's parking directly outside, seats inside, and not a lot of walking required, then I walk leaning on the pushchair, but most of the time when I'm out and about with Jamie he's in a sling on my front.



To find out about slings, I googled for my local sling library. The lady who ran it was very welcoming, and we had a very useful consultation session trying on different kinds of sling with a doll, and then with Jamie himself. We considered my ability to put the sling on myself, as well as what it was like once it was on. Then I was able to borrow my preferred type of sling for a fortnight to see how it worked for me "in the real world".

The answer is, it works very well. The time it takes me to sit in the back of the car, fish Jamie out of his car seat, shuffle him into the sling, and be ready to go, is about the same time as it takes Steve or my PA to pull out the ramps and get my powerchair out of the boot and round to the side of the car.

He likes being in the sling, especially while we're moving, and often falls asleep in it. Staff at my local Sainsburys have been known to dash over to say hello to Awake Jamie when we've only just entered the store, because he's almost always dozed off by the time we reach the checkouts.

It was also quite useful at home while Jamie was smaller and sleepier, because it meant he could snooze while upright (reflux issues meant he wasn't always a fan of lying down, especially straight after a feed) and I could use the computer, which among other things allowed me to keep on top of the admin of my Direct Payments.

Drawbacks: reduced upper body mobility is the biggie. I still have use of my arms but not as much reach, and twisting around in the chair to get at stuff in the backpack is right out.

Eating and drinking with a baby strapped to your front can be tricky at best and potentially dangerous at worst. My experience so far is that while the baby is pre-high-chair, you either need to have a pram/pushchair to put him in, or you need to be with someone who's happy to take turns for who gets to eat vs who holds the baby.

It can get a bit heavy after a while. It's very inconvenient if you've gone out intending to try clothes on. And personally, I haven't felt comfortable to try going to the loo while wearing him. So if I'm going to be out for a long time, or as above if I'm planning to try on clothes or stop for food, then I ask my PA to bring the pushchair (which is also useful for stashing shopping). It's really important to me, though, that as a rule we don't have a PA pushing Jamie while Mummy trundles off ahead or behind.

Hopefully this helps someone... more questions welcomed, although I can't guarantee they'll be answered!

16/52

Last week's tooth seems to have subsided - apparently this is a Thing and normal. So, Jamie had to cast about for a new milestone:



It might not look like much, but if you will observe the space devoid of toys just next to the boy... because this was the week he got the hang of rolling from his back to his front!

He'd had rolling from his front to his back sorted out for quite some time, but from his back, all he could reliably do was get onto his side and then become frustrated about his own arms getting in the way. But now, he's rolling about quite contentedly. Which means we've got that play mat opened up just in time!

15/52

On time this week!

Here's the picture...



It's remarkable that he's smiling so much, because this is the week that we saw a little white dot emerging.



Forgive the funny angle, it's more difficult than you might think to take a picture of a very tiny white dot inside the mouth of a baby who's very interested in holding all and any tech that gets near him! We're pretty certain that it'll develop into a full-blown tooth. At the moment it's just a hard, sharp little corner. I hope it stops hurting him quite so much soon.

14/52

Well, from sitting in the high chair, we've moved along to our first tastes of food.

This is sweet potato.



Food is apparently a hit for Jamie, although more as an art material than as nourishment at this stage. He can and does propel his own spoon to his mouth, but while most of the puree makes it to his mouth it doesn't all stay there. Scooping food onto a spoon is also currently beyond his powers but we don't mind helping with that. Finger food, such as slightly overcooked broccoli, is regarded with suspicion even when Mummy is eating it too, and has thus far been rejected.

13/52

Late again - I thought, oh, Steve will be here for the four day bank holiday weekend, and then Steve was here for the four day bank holiday weekend and we were Doing Things and I didn't get as far as posting.

But, I did decide when I took it what this weekend's photo would be.



One of the Things we Did was move Jamie up to his proper high chair. Up until now, he's had a reclined bouncy seat that clips onto the top and that allowed him to be up at table with us for mealtimes even though he couldn't yet sit up or eat. Which has been nice, it's got him into the rhythm of mealtimes as social occasions and also allowed me and Steve to eat with two hands. But now, he gets to sit up properly, and he gets his own spoon too. Occasionally it even has a smear of something on it. We couldn't call it eating, not yet, but as you can see he seems to like his high chair and that has to be a good thing.

12/52

This week's picture makes me smile every time I see it.



It's the wide eyes, the happy surprised mouth, the blur of hands, and above all else, the confidence with which Jamie now enjoys tummy time, pushing himself right up, total head control, using his hands and kicking his legs. I'm putting together a scrapbook of photos (currently only just past Steve's paternity leave, although in my defence there's pregnancy photos and scans in there too, and each picture has a handwritten caption) and among the 0-3 months photos yet to be placed is one of my tiny little scrap of a baby, flopped over a banana-shaped tummy time pillow, looking (a) unimpressed, and (b) unlike a being capable of independent movement. It still bewilders me to think that only a few months and my milk has turned that baby into this increasingly strong little boy.

11/52

Or, Mother's Day 2016.

Steve has no great tradition of Mother's Day observance. A phone call or text message, perhaps. In my family, I usually send my mum a card and gift in the "box of chocolates" ballpark. Following our pregnancy losses, it became one of those things that repelled me and I would just try and order the chocolates while mentally holding my breath.

For my first Mother's Day as a mother, I'd be lying if I said it didn't mean anything to me but I didn't want to make a Big (and aggressively pink) Thing out of it.



So here's Mother's Day. Bed. Pyjamas. Packet of biscuits. Card "to the loveliest mum in the wide world". And my baby, rapidly morphing into my little boy, comfortable and happy in my lap and looking at me as if I am indeed the loveliest mum in the whole wide world.

I'll take it. :)

10/52

If there were ever any doubts about Jamie's paternity...



... I am declaring them quashed.

9/52

A silly one this week.



Our little family is feeling much better than we were, but still not 100%.

7/52 and 8/52

A late update for week 7 on account of illness. After a couple of weeks of soldiering along with what seemed like every cold going, I developed a full-on chest infection with a few less-than-pleasant extras, and spent last weekend - and most of the last week - in a battle to keep hydrated enough to continue breastfeeding. Steve and Jamie have also been struggling, although thankfully with not quite the same spectacular symptoms, and we're indebted to friends, my PAs, and our lovely neighbours, for keeping us going.

Yesterday seemed to turn a corner though, so I'm going to put last weekend's picture into this weekend's post.

7/52 Bath Time!



Full-on baths are currently a weekly occurrence for Jamie and it's amazing how it's different every time. The first time, Steve was terrified to drown him (we'd agreed in pregnancy that baths were domain of Daddy) and afterwards he seemed to all but disappear into the hood of this towel. At four months though, Jamie is more robust and Steve is more confident. He still doesn't quite have the hang of playing in the water but he does seem to enjoy it.

8/52 Not Well



This is what happens when Jamie is ill. I mean, if he's running a temperature or he can't cope with his snot or something then obviously there's crying and distress and vomit (and Jamie's a bit upset too). But once those things are settled down, it's cuddles all the way, which is cute until your arms give out.